Last Sunday the 22nd (and I can't believe its nearly a week ago) I had a wonderful time a Katie Kaup's place making cards.
I haven't done this for so long I can't even remember how long and while Split Coast Stampers (SCS) is a wonderful enabling community that has helped me grow creatively it is nice to share the passion with other crafters face to face.
It was also a great mix of women, one my age, retired with grandchildren, one 20 years younger then three younger with very young families including Katie who just amazes me as she works 4 days a week as well.
​I have posted each of the cards separately so you can see the detail. 

Card #1 was very simple but I think you will agree very effective using Brusho Crystal Colour spritzing it with water then letting it dry. Once dry just stamping over it using the lily out of the retiring "Remarkable You" stamp set and the quote from the retiring "Feather Together" stamp set gluing the strips of gold glimmer paper that Katie had already cut out for us onto the top and bottom of the top piece and then mounting it onto the card base.

Card #2 which technically is card #5 was colouring an embossed image directly with Brusho's. This s a brilliant technique however you do have to be careful and I wasn't careful enough and ruined the topper by ending up with a swipe from my aqua brush so I saved the image because I really liked it and when I got home I fussy cut it, mounted it on some craft foam then stamped a greeting from SU "Butterfly Basics" another retiring stamp set but one I have had for quite some time. I didn't have any of the Shimmery white card stock that Katie had used so sprayed a thin film of home made glimmer mist over some X-Press It blending card. added the sequins, used Tangerine Tango to frame it and mounted it on Smoky Slate.   

Card #3 or card #2 to be more correct and you can see the likeness. After mucking up the first attempt and putting it aside to deal with at home Katie very kindly gave me a second chance.
This time I did a lot better but when stamping the Versa Mark - Watermark for the silver embossing powder and despite wiping the edges of the stamp I got a slight mark that I didn't like however decided to carry on.
The technique is quite simple but you do need to take care. 
First you stamp a line image (we used the magnolia stamp out of "Remarkable You" as well as the greeting from the same set) using Versa Mark - Watermark and then emboss it, any embossing powder colour will do but silver did look classy.
Once embossed you lay quite a bit of water inside the embossed areas making sure it doesn't run outside the embossed lines.
You then gently shake some Brusho watercolour powder over the image. I used red, orange and yellow. You then set it aside to dry. 
Once the image is dry you can blow off all the excess powder which will just leave the coloured image but it is very important that the image is completely dry before you do this. I put the card together with the card stock Katie had supplied and decided to put a pale wash around the image when I got home.
On arriving home I was going to do a pale wash of So Saffron but discovered that even though you couldn't see it there was some very fine powder left on the card and so I was able to do the wash just using water and my aqua brush and I'm really pleased with the effect.  

Card#4 or 3 was very simple and straight forward with no mistakes or stuff ups lol
First we did a wash on the topper then while this was drying we stamped and gold embossed two leaves from the retiring stamp set "Vintage Leaves" then stamped another leaf just with the Versa Mark Watermark and cut all three out with the retiring "Leaflets Framelits" dies.
Using the Stampasourus (see below for an explanation) we stamped the greeting from the retiring stamp set "One Big Meaning", then put it all together using dimensionals, first adding some gold metallic thread and that's it.

Our last card for the day Card#5 or 4 lol. 
We used the Stampasourus for this little classy gem and it was so easy to do. the Stampasourus in case you don't know is a stamp positioner like no other, it has two detachable top plates allowing you to use any number of multables of stamps and also can be repositioned down the edge of the base allowing you to stamp in gradients without having to move your card.
We used the stamp set "beautiful You" one that has been on my wish list for some time and thank goodness isn't retiring this year. 
Once the images were stamped we just put it all together.
We used a celebrate die to cutout the greeting and I used Jennifer McGuire's technique of layering where you cut out several of the same image then glue them all together. This gives the image / greeting depth and also stability.

​I can't thank Katie enough for a lovely few hour and am really looking forward to the next demo.

This card is for both the colour challenge over on SCS and the sketch challenge 
The card is for a seventeen year old's birthday and  the image dictated that it be a rectangle not a square but apart from that the sketch is true.
The colour's to be used were Berry Burst, Daffodil Delight, Old Olive & Pool Party.
I coloured the image with Copic markers as close to these colours as possible.
They are:
Daffodil Delight Y15, Y18 & Y17
Berry Burst RV63, RV66 & RV69
Pool Party BG10, BG32, BG34 & BG18
For the hair BV08, C-9,C-7, C-5, then over all of it V25
Skin tone was E00, E21 & E11
Cake was Y17 & E21
​Other shading was created with C-0, C-1 & C-3

To introduce the Old Olive into the card I didn't want solid colour as it made the card too heavy so I created the panel by slapping some Old Olive ink onto some baking paper spritzing it with some water then laying the card into it.
I then dried the card off and spritzed it again with some home made glitter mist made from Perfect Pearls Biscotti and water in a mini mister spray bottle and there you have it, turned out quite nicely.

Regarding the baking paper, I saw on YouTube or Facebook or Pinterest or somewhere a few days ago people presenting a million different ways to use freezer sheets and while I'm not familiar with freezer sheets I figured baking paper would work just as well and it does.
I don't know about you but I get into a frightful mess sometimes when using inks and dyes. this is perfect, you lay it over your work area, treat it just like your craft mat, it will even work with a hot glue gun and then once you have finished you just gather everything up and pop it in the bin, brilliant. 

So the stamp sets used are Stampingbella - tiny Townie Bree Loves Buttercream eb305 and Hero Art - It's Your Day CL661 and there you have it. Hope I have inspired you.
Cheers
​Marg

Below are some cards I created over the last half of the year that I hadn't uploaded anywhere because I lost my mojo. Just adding them here so that there is some kind of record, some of them were done for challenges and then not uploaded and some of them like the little unicorn cards and the Polar Bear card were commission cards that I was being paid for so had to do them. I have put comments at the bottom of each photo.

This card is a pure indulgence and very unlike most of what I do. I saw this colour challenge come up last month but simply didn't have the time to participate, however I needed a baby card for a nephew and his partner who have just had a baby girl with a head of dark hair. From the photo's she is the most gorgeous sweet little thing so I wanted to do a super sweet card to go with our gift.
The Stampin Up colours to be used were;
Smoky Slate
Pink Pirouette
​Sky Blue 

I started the card by looking for suitable fancy dies to build the card with.
I had seen a card with a die peeking over the top of the card base and I really liked that effect.
I folded the base of the card creating a card that measured 11 cm by 15 cm which fits the post office preferred A5 envelope size.
​The image is a Mo Manning digi called Hush. I had to print it out a couple of times on ordinary printer copy paper to get the right size to fit the die but once that was established I printed the image out on X-Press It blending paper.

I split the Sky Blue die cut out so that I could better position it then layered the others on top, I wanted the pink to dominate as it was for a little girl.
Before we go on I would like to talk to you about digital images. I find them really easy to work with and just copy them into a word document and resize from there. I love Mo Manning images but use a lot of other ones too. I'm not affiliated with any company and make no income from my hobby. The best thing about digi's is you can resize them and it takes about five minutes from you choosing your image paying for it and down loading it. Copic work perfectly with printer ink (well mine anyway) and with this image I also used a Stamp'in Up water based marker and an aqua brush. I was just careful not to get the paper too wet. I also mounted the image onto some craft foam with PVA glue just to pop it a little.

Once the die layers were on I started building the bling starting with the SU 5/8 flower trim then the paper flowers the bow and the little pearls.
The greeting is from a retired SU set called "A Word for You". I spent an hour hunting for this stamp set (I have way too many stamps) thinking it was wood mounted, eventually finding it in with the clear mounted sets. 
I stamped the greeting onto some vellum with Versa Mark - Watermark and then heat embossing with silver embossing powder. I attached this with two mini glue dots tucked under the ribbon. Everything else apart from the craft foam was attached with X-Press It high tack double sided tap including the paper flowers. I finished off the card by layering the Spellbinder Nestie enchanted Labels 28 (middle one) on top of some SU Pink Pirouette and Sky Blue, and there you have it. Hope you enjoyed the post, cheers Marg 

These two cards were done for my granddaughters baby shower back in April....and yes I'm going to be a great grandma again to another darling little girl.
The first card has been made using stamps from the SU Moon Baby set which I love, very cute.
The second card has some 3D owl stickers that my daughter ..the grandmother to be gave me ages ago, I've used them quite a lot and they are very effective.
The branch is from an old SU set and the greeting is made up of two greetings.
Neither of these cards are challenge cards so I just wanted to post them here so that I had some kind of record.
Cheers
​Marg

Good morning everyone, this card is for the CAS Colours & Sketches challenge found here;
http://cascoloursandsketches.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Challenges .... and also for the Technique Lovers Challenge on Split Coast Stampers found here;
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/try-new-technique-f44/tlc627-~-seashells-sea-shore-~-%7B02-27-2017%7D-t616434.html 
I was going to have a lot more bling and embellishments then realised that was not going to make it a CAS card so stopped at a few sequins 

​I have finished the card in my favourite way, by butting some X-Press It blending card stock which I have sponged with the colours used in the front of the card to depict the sea, against some plain X-Press It blending card stock and then mounting that on a piece of SU Pacific Point.
I really like finishing the inside of my cards like this, particularly if I have a lot on the front of the card as this gives the card stability. 

​This is the sketch for the CC&S challenge. As you can see it is quite simple but often when a sketch is this simple it is hard to comply or at least it is for me lol.

I have used the shells as my three elements. In hind sight I would have preferred the main shell to be a little smaller but I didn't realise this until I had put the card together ...so there it is.

I've added the sequins just to lift it a bit. Not really happy with this one but I do like how the sky and sea came together.

​This photo shows how the scallop shell was made. It was more difficult than I first thought and this is the second example.

​My first attempt I had the lines too close together so that when you cut out the shell shape it looked too busy and not like a scallop shell at all.

​Once the shell shape was cut out I sponged both sides, first with SU Crumb Cake all over lightly then around the edges with SU Blushing Bride. This brought out the embossed lines and made it look like a shell. 

​Because I was intending to use the under side of the shell I painted it with some Jo Sonja's Pearl White that I had mixed with some Clear Glazed Medium to thin it.
This gave the inside of the shell a mother of pearl look.
I also cut two other smaller shells from the Impressions Obsessions die set DIE077-W (shells 7 of them) sponged the same colours on them, dry embossed them a little to give them some dimension and painted them with the white pearl.  

While the shells were drying I built the greeting. This has become one of my favourite things at the moment.
I love using different fonts in a greeting and have sourced some free ones that I have links to in different posts.
For this greeting I have used Arial @ 22 font size and Magnolia Sky @ 33 font size.
I printed it off on some ordinary A4 printing paper first just to check the size then printed it again on some X-Press It blending paper, in the middle of the paper to give me plenty of room to play as this was going to be the front panel of the card. 

Once I had the greeting in situ I cut the panel to fit the base card.
​The base card is always approximately 1/2 cm smaller than the envelope I am going to use all the way around, in this case the card base measures 15 cm x 11 cm.
I left 1/2 cm of border around the top panel of the card.
As you can see I masked the top panel about 2/3 down so that there was slightly more sky than sea. I sponged from the top edge down, blending out towards the masked area, I didn't worry about getting the blending smooth as I wanted to have the feeling of cloud and movement. This was done with SU Pacific Point and a mini circular blending sponge.  

The sea was done in the same way by first using SU Tempting Turquoise starting at the masked end of the card and working out to the edge then going over this with SU Bermuda Bay working from the masked end and blending out about 1/2 way down.
These colours work really well as sea and I really like the way the sponging has turned out. I didn't over work it and was happy with any little anomalies lol.
​Once all this was done it was time to put it all together using X-Press it High Tack double sided tape (love, love, love this stuff)
I attached the smaller shells with a small strip of high tack red line wonder tape and a SU Dimensional in the centre to lift them a bit and just attached the large focal shell with a strip of the wonder tape down the centre so the edges could turn up. Before I did this I rolled the top of the shell to give it a more natural look and added the pearl to the centre, finally I added some sequins from the SU Watercolour Card Kit (just love the colour of these sequins and they were perfect for this project)...and there you have it.
Thanks for popping by, I would love you to check out my gallery over on Split Coast Stampers found here; 
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=198941

Cheers
​Marg

This card is for the "Fusion Card Challenge" found here; http://fusioncardchallenge.blogspot.com.au/

I have only just started doing these challenges having discovered them via another design team member on Split Coast Stampers (SCS)  "Linda Callahan", thanks Linda.

​Basically as the photo opposite indicates you can use either the photo or the sketch supplied for inspiration or you can use both, that's where the fusion comes in. I prefer to use both

For this card I have gone with the pinks and used Stampin' Up's  Blushing Bride as the main colour.

For some reason the pattern on the teapot in the background just jumped out at me and I straight away thought of the "Belleek" inspired technique.
I thought we had this technique on SCS but couldn't find it then remembered that another brilliant, talented SCS member "Kitty Caracciolo" had used this technique and sure enough there was a very good tutorial that can be found here;
 http://www.kittiekraft.com/belleek-inspired-technique.html 
​Kitty's gallery of Belleek inspired cards is amazing with the most gorgeous cards and well worth a look and is found here; 
http://kittiekraft.typepad.com/kittiekraft/belleek-inspired/ 

So back to the card. Finding the right stamp for any card is always a bit of a mission, I have over 7,000 stamps, wood mounted, unmounted, acrylic and some weirdo foamy things too.
This photo is the creative corner of my craft room while the search is on.
I finally settled on the cup out of an SU set "Like it a Latte", the greeting is from a Hero Arts Poly Clear set - CL493- Live Life.

I used watercolour paper 180 gms as I was intending to add stripes to the cups but changed my mind, I used the stamp positioner because I had to re stamp the image several times to get the coverage and knew that that would happen because of the watercolour paper.

I stamped the image onto a piece of "Post It" note paper as a mask, covered the image and re-stamped at a slight angle over the top to give the impression that the second cup was inside the first. I then masked the second cup and added little marshmallows to the top, this stamp is from the same SU stamp set.   

Once all the stamping was done I fussy cut the image leaving a little border (just like all these new fangled purpose made dies do) and mounted it onto some white craft foam then set it aside to dry. You can also see what I do with my wood mounted stamps, I simply pull them off the wood block and because they are quite tacky they mount onto the stamp positioner perfectly, once used I simply place them back on the block.

Next I did the Belleek inspired focal square. I wanted a really good impression without the paper cracking or tearing from the pressure so I used the 180 gm watercolour paper again, this time I sprayed the back of it with a light mist of water and let it soak in. While this was happening I inked up my brayer with SU Blushing Bride ink rolled this over my embossing folder making sure I had very good coverage (I did this about three times) then carefully placed my paper in the folder and ran it through the Sizzix. It came out perfectly I just had to dry it off a little. For this technique to work well you need embossing folders that have a reasonable amount of background space but not too much then follow Kitty's instructions and you can't go wrong. 

The rest of the card is just mounting all the pieces together. I did have one quandary and that was how to add a greeting without it impacting on the Belleek square. I finally settled on a panel of velum using SU Soft Suede then over stamping with Versa Mark and clear heat embossing for a little added internist. I attached thsi with acouple of brads that I have no idea where they came from they are that old. 

I finished the card off by using some of the SU design paper - Falling in Love, which I used on the front of the card.
​The card base = 11 cm x 15 cm and is SU Sahara Sand I also used some SU Blushing Bride card stock to mount the inside of the card.

Adhesives used were X-Press It High Tack Double Sided Tape 12mm (love this stuff and go through meters and meters) and PVA glue for attaching the craft foam.

That is it folks, thanks for dropping by to have a look I hope you found inspiration and that you will give this challenge a go.

You can find more of my cards over on my SCS gallery along with heaps of challenges and support, found here;
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=198941
Cheers Marg

Hi all, just a quick post as promised listing the Copic Markers used in this card. More details can be found in my SCS gallery http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2783580?&cat=500&ppuser=198941

Copics used are;
Snowman; 0, C00,B60
Pool Party / jacket; BG32, BG34, BG49
Perfect Plum colours: V22, V25, V28
Island Indigo colours; BG01, BG05, BG09
Nose and Hands; E95, E97
Shading around image; 0, B0000, B000
I have also added a photo of the inside of the card below.

This is a reasonably quick card and an even quicker post for another submission for the CAS Colour & Sketch Challenge #207 and also the SCS colour challenge for this week.
My inspiration for this card comes from the Stamp'in Up catalogue page 139.
I didn't have the stamp set used so used single stamps from six stamp sets to achieve the same effect  
Apart from that the card was straightforward.
To achieve the torn edges I moistened the card stock first so that it was easier to tear.
The supplies and equipment used is listed in my SCS gallery found here;
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2778707?&cat=500&ppuser=198941 

To finish the card I added some embossed card and matted tis with some white card for writing on and finally I signed the back of my card.
I hope the card has inspired you to create something, thanks for dropping by.
Cheers
Marg 

This card is for the SCS CAS challenge by Carla who said " Who doesn't love some bling? Whether it's rhinestones, glitter or foil, that little bit of bling just makes our cards shine! For this week's CAS Challenge, create a card using anything sparkly, shiny or even both in your design. Can't wait to see what you come up with!"

I've used heat embossing (a little hard to see in the photo) glitter, rhinestones, sequins and Stickles glitter glue on the snow, plenty of sparkle and shine lol.

​I have also come across another challenge site that I thought I wouldn't mind participating in called "CAS Colours & Sketches". To that end I have used this weeks sketch from that challenge for the card.

I decided that I would do a simple watercolour wash for the background and because this was to be a one layer or more correctly no layer single card base I was going to need to mask the area that I wanted to keep clean of any paint.
In the past I have used ordinary masking tape with varied results but often as not I would end up with some of the edges bleeding into the clean area. A couple of weeks ago while visiting one of our more expensive art suppliers I spotted some artists masking tape and even though it was three times more expensive I bought a roll and I'm thrilled with it's efficiency. I think it will last me quite a while but even so I will be purchasing more.  

To make the mask I tore three strips of the masking tape off and overlapped them slightly directly onto the base cutting plate of my Big Shot, placed the die at the top to create the top edge of the mask. I then ran this through the Big Shot using a piece of shim (card to give it a bit more pressure, see middle photo) Once this was done I moved the die down to create the bottom edge of the mask.

Next I place the card into my stamp positioner and stamped the snow flakes with Versa Mark - Watermark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

The card buckled slightly because I hadn't used watercolour paper however I weighted it down overnight before I continued and ever thing was fine.
Using my stamp positoner I stamped the greeting in SU Tempting Turquoise then over stamped with Versa Mark - Watermark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder - shiny.
Using an SU Fine-tip glue pen I put glue onto the snow flakes and then shook glitter onto them.  I placed clear rhinestones in the centre of the flakes and scattered some sequins around.
Last but not least I put some Snowtex onto the bottom of the card for snowy hills and once this was dry I pounced some Stickles - Star Dust glitter glue over the Snowtex.

To finish the card off I placed a piece of insert paper inside attaching it to the top inside of the card so that it would open out cleanly.
I stamped the bottom of the insert as well as the envelope just for some added interest and that is it.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope this has inspired you to create something.
Cheers
Marg
​

Supplies used are below and also included X-Press It Blending Card, Aqua watercolour brush and X-Press It double sided tape along with other items mentioned in the post.