Card Fun with Sin City Stamps and Ecstasy Crafts

Hello there SCS stampers. This month, we are being sponsored by Ecstasy Crafts, a fabulous company with some of the most gorgeous products.  The best part is we get to combine their products with Sin City Stamps products.

For my first project, I made this beautiful birthday easel card.  Easel cards are so simple to make, yet really make a statement when the recipient can sit it out for display without it falling over.

Supplies used:

Sin City Stamps:  Steampunk Circus; Metal Madness; Pam Bray's Fall Collection
Ecstasy Crafts:  Reddy Flowers & Cross 3D Die Cuts No. 83703; Starform 1290 Gold Floral Rectangular Frame Stickers
Cardstock:  Vineyard Weave (Bazzill), Ivory, Lavender (Paper Studio)
Ink pads: Versamark, Gold Encore, Old Paper Distress Ink,
Silhouette and cutting file:  Easel card, Egg shaped card
Spellbinders Die:  Lacy Labels Two
Detail clear and gold embossing powders
3/16" square adhesive foam (Darice)

For my next card, I used the same papers and my Silhouette to cut out an egg shaped card.  If you google egg shaped cards, you should be able to find templates online.

I hope you enjoyed my cards today and will give these products a try.  You can get all you need from both Sin City Stamps and Ecstasy Crafts to complete them and many more.  I have a complete tutorial on how I made these over on the SCS blog. 

Have a wonderful, creative weekend!  

Barbara

Art Anthology Sorbet Acrylics Card

Hey there everyone.  I have an extra Altered Pages project for you this month.  For this post, I wanted to share some tips and techniques using a new product at Altered Pages called Art Anthology Sorbet dimensional acrylics.   I started out with a blank manila tag, but I could not stop at just showing you the techniques on the tag.  I had to finish it, and here is the result.

Supplies:

AP 467 Mystic Asian collage sheet
Vintage Text Pages
Art Anthology Sorbet Dimensional Paint:  Kenyan Copper, Blue Eyes, Mint Julep, Kona,
Red Velvet, Orchid

Dylusions Diamond Border stencil

Manila Tags
The Robin' Nest Chocolate dew drops

Blue/green cardstock (8" x 9-/4")

Distress ink:  Vintage Photo

Punches:  Hydrangeas, Mini Butterflies, Sakura (Martha Stewart)

These paints are awesome to use. They are so creamy and thick, yet they go on translucent.  They have a beautiful shimmer, and some have a bit of glitter included.  I just had to share a pic of the paint in the jar.

I have posted a complete tutorial on the Altered Pages blog for you, complete with some tips and techniques I discovered along the way.  I hope you will pop on over there to see what I learned.

Be sure to visit Altered Pages for all of your art supplies, and The Robin's Nest (our cross promoter this month) for their papers and, of course, those wonderful dew drops.  And many thank to them for the wonderful products they sent for us to work, I mean play, with!

Have a wonderful, creative weekend!

Barbara

Springtime Card with Altered Pages and The Robin's Nest

Hey there everyone.  So glad you stopped by.  Since we all have been really looking forward to Spring, I could not resist making a lovely Spring card for you today.  Altered Pages has everything you need to make your own Spring creations, and more.  I also used some of those fabulous papers and dew drops from The Robin's Nest  our cross-promoter this month.  Here is the card I made for Spring!

Supplies:

AP 467 Mystic Asian collage sheet;
Art Anthology Sorbet Dimensional Paint:  June Bud, Coral
White Gesso (Ranger)
The Robin's Nest papers: Cream Watercolor Glitter; Robin's Egg Glitter, Lavender Watercolor Glitter, Kiwi Sorbet
The Robin's Nest dew drops:
Silhouette machine and cut design:  lattice frame
Mini punches:  flowers and leaves (Carl)
Distress Ink: Ripe Persimmon
Viva Decor Pearl paint pen

First, cut lattice frame from Lavender Watercolor Glitter card stock using Silhouette machine.  Size frame opening to fit the image, in this case, 3" x 4".   Trim image from collage sheet and adhere frame.

 Trim Robin's Egg Blue card stock to 5-¼" x 6-½", adhere frame and image.

 Make card from Cream Watercolor Glitter card stock cut to 6-¾" x 11-¼", fold in half, adhere blue layer to front.

 To make some little flowers to go with my Asian image, I first used this awesome new paint that Altered Pages is now carrying.  I am so in love with this paint.  It is called Art Anthology Sorbet Dimensional Paint and comes in many beautiful colors.   This paint is gorgeous, shimmery, translucent, and dimensional.  A few of the colors even contain glitter.  I wanted to add more color to my Cream Watercolor Glitter card stock to make my flowers and leaves pop.    So, I brushed on a light coat of the Coral, leaving some areas with more paint than others.  This gave me some color variations for my punched flowers and leaves.

Paint applied to right side of paper

 I colored Kiwi Sorbet Glitter card stock the same way using Art Anthology June Bug.

Paint applied to lower half of paper

 Do you remember these?  Before there were electronic cutting machines and Sizzix dies galore, there were hand held punches.  And yes, I still have my entire, vast collection of these little rarities.  And frankly, I'm glad I hoard some things.  I used these little flower and leaves punches to punch out a lot of these for my next step.

 After I punched out the two sizes of Sakura flowers, I added a tiny amount of gesso that I watered down to make a wash.  I brushed this lightly over the Coral paper scrap, which gave me a bit of a pinkish color, and then I punched out the tiny star shaped flowers.

Gesso wash applied over Coral scrap

 Here is my collection of flowers and leaves that I punched out.  Believe it or not, I needed more than this to finish.

 Next, I cupped the flowers with the use of my large ball stylus and a piece of fun foam. I have to tell you how sturdy the Anthology Arts paints made this paper.  It gave it super strength and the paper held its shape very well.  It honestly did not take very long to do this.

 I started laying out my flowers and leaves in a pleasing manner and glued them down as I went.  Then I added some mini dew drops in orange and pink to each of the Sakura flower centers.  I used a Viva Decor pearl paint pen to make centers for the tiny pinkish star flowers.

 

I hope you enjoyed my Asian Springtime card and painted flowers.  I love this technique for adding more dimension and beauty to my cards.  So be sure to visit Altered Pages and The Robin's Nest for all your card making and creative projects.  

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful and creative week!  Bring on Spring!

Barbara

Chinese New Year Banner

Hey everyone!  Glad you stopped by, because I want to share my Chinese New Year Banner with you today.  I have been having fun with my Silhouette and my Altered Pages collages sheets, and the AP Challenge this month is Chinese New Year.  So, here is one more inspiration piece for you.

I cut all of my base pieces from the card stock colors, as shown in the photo below.

Adhere layered pieces together.  This gives our base piece a lot of sturdiness.

Add two strips of gold card stock to the top for your chopstick.  Now you can hang your calendar.

Print out your AP-2251 Year of the Horse collage sheet, as well as a mini 2014 calendar from the internet, die cutting and trimming, as shown.

Each of my images were edge distressed with Mix'd Media Inx in Schoolhouse Red and Black.

Reverse side

Supplies Used:

Altered Pages AP-2251 Year of the Horse collage sheet 

(printed onto Astroparche paper and vellum)

Mix'd Media Inx:  Schoolhouse Red, Black

Silhouette machine and cut files

Red, Black, gold card stock

Spellbinders dies: Labels 25, Marvelous Squares

Dollar store chopstick

Various embellishments and trims

I hope you enjoyed my project today and will be inspired to make your own Chinese New Year Banner style calendar to hang near your desk.  So hop on over to the AP Store for some of their fun products, and be sure to check out the Altered Pages Challenge Page so you, too, can show off your work and participate in this fun project for a chance to win some fabulous products.  There will be much more inspiration on the Altered Pages blog for you to see.  

Have a wonderful, creative week!

Hugs,

Barbara

Altered Pages Monthly Challenge

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year!  And speaking of the new year, our theme for this month's challenge is Chinese New Year.  2014 is the Year of the Horse, and this year, Chinese New Year's Day will actually arrive on January 31st.  So, to celebrate this day, I decided to make a Chinese Lantern, but instead of using a candle, I prefer to use the battery-operated tea lights.

Side 1

Side 2

Side 1-Night View

Side 2 - Night View

Close-up - Night View

I used two pieces of 6" x 12" black card stock that I scored vertically along the long edge  at 3", 6", and 9".  This gave me four panels to work with.

Next, I resized my four central images from AP 2251 Year of the Horse collage sheet and printed them onto vellum.   After cutting four lattice frames in the center of each of the two center panels using my Silhouette die cut machine, I placed strips of Scor-tape along the lattice edges, applying gold leafing through the openings.  When I removed the release paper on the opposite side of the Scor-tape  I centered the frames over my vellum images.

Graphic 45's Birdsong paper lent itself beautifully to decorating my lantern, using a decorative corner punch on each corner before adhering to each outer panel.  On two outer panels, I die cut two horses using my Silhouette machine, and two more horse images from the AP 2251 Year of the Horse collage sheet.  I used images from AP 1842 Chinese Health Posters to place behind each horse image, and a few calligraphy symbols for the center panels.

Supplies used:

Altered Pages Collage Sheets:  AP 2251 Year of the Horse; 

AP 1842 Chinese Health Posters 

Scor-tape 

gold leafing

Black card stock

decorative corner punch

Chinese embellishments

Mini tassels (4) 

Maple leaf brads

Below are some close-ups of each panel.  

           Side 1 - Panel 1

Side 1 - Panel 2

           Side 1 - Panel 3

Side 1 - Panel 4

Side 2 - Panel 1

Side 2 - Panel 2

Side 2 - Panel 3

Side 2 - Panel 4

Now that you have a bit of inspiration from the design team for this month's challenge, I hope you will join us for this fun, festive holiday by making your very own Chinese New Year project, posting it to your own blog and linking it up to the Altered Pages Challenge page.  There is always a wonderful prize to be won, and we love to see your work!

Thanks for stopping by, and hope to see your creation this month.  

Hugs,

Barbara

Easter Greetings Center Stepper Card

Epiphany Crafts

Happy Easter TRN fans!  I hope you are enjoying your week and the prospect of Spring.  And with Spring comes new beginnings.  The colors of Spring are so vibrant, with new growth everywhere.  The Robin's Nest crackle glitter card stocks are just perfect for this time of year.  And best of all, along with the matching neon dew drops, they are a whopping 20% off this month.

If you have an electronic die cutting machine, you can easily cut out this center stepper card.  However, they are just as easy to make without the use of a machine.  Simply follow my template and you have your base.

Cut, score, and fold purple crackle card stock as shown. (See template below).

I cut my bunnies and baby duck images from white velour paper using my Silhouette machine.

I also cut the cracked eggs  and rectangle layers using my Silhouette.

After inking all of the paper edges with coordinating inks, I began assembling the pieces.   I added my blue glitter crackle cs pieces to each corresponding section of the base.

Next, I colored my ducks with distress stains.

Add some orange color to the duck's feet and around the edges for shading.  I used a water brush to spread the color a bit.

I used a distress marker to mark my bunnies noses and ears, as shown.

Before adhering the cracked egg, place the larger duck on the front of your card.

Use your fingers to gently mold the bottom and top of the cracked egg, attached a couple of foam dots in the center, and apply a line of white glue along the outer edge.

Attach the cracked egg pieces over the duck, as shown.  You want to make it appear that he is emerging from the egg.

Carry the theme to the inside of your card by attaching the remaining die cut pieces to the inside, as shown.  Stamp your sentiment to the right using Versamark ink and white embossing powder.

 I had a few bits and pieces left over, and I still wanted to show you how fun the Epiphany Crafts punches and bubbles are.  So, I decided to make an Easter tag.  It would really personalize your Easter basket gift for that someone special.

 Die cut two label shapes and one egg shape from blue and purple crackle glitter papers.  Reverse and layer the papers, as shown.

 Using the Epiphany star punch, insert your paper into the punch, aligning the part of the design you want to appear inside the bubble.

 Insert the star bubble inside the opening, close the lid, and punch out your beautiful new star embellishment.

Epiphany Crafts punches are wonderful tools to have, and as you can see in the picture below, they make your embellishments very professional looking.  

 Add some cute little mini neon dew drops, not only to the egg, but also to the tops of the star bubbles, for added dimension and fun.

side view of tag

 Robin's Nest Products Used:

Blue Glitter Crackle CS
Purple Glitter Crackle CS
Pink Glitter Crackle CS
Orange Glitter Crackle CS

Neon Dew Drops

Other Products Used:

Epiphany Crafts Shape Studio Star 25 punch and bubble shapes
Silhouette die cut machine and images
White velour paper
Distress ink (Chipped Sapphire, Picked Raspberry, Faded Jeans)
Distress Stain (Squeezed Lemonade, Ripe Persimmon)
Distress Marker (Spun Sugar)
Water brush
Versamark ink pad
Easter Greetings (Penney Black) rubber stamp
White embossing powder

I want to thank you for stopping by today, and I hope you will take a little time to visit the Robin's Nest 
online store to check out the fabulous sale going on this month.  And while you are browsing, check Epiphany Crafts web site to see all of their wonderful products, as well.

Have a wonderful and blessed Easter!

Barbara