Mojo Monday 225: Black & White

I'm so excited to share my card for Mojo Monday this week! I am in love with my new Pemberly stamp set, and when I saw the CAS-ual Friday Clean and Simple Penguin Awareness Challenge, I knew that my favorite new stamp set would look amazing in Black and White (even if I found them too late to play this time)!

I used the Mojo Monday 225 Sketch, which is a blocking sketch - love those! I filled each block on the background with one impressions of the largest paisley-ish flower image. That's it - one stamp per block! Each flower got a few bitty sparkles on the swirls in the flower centers.

I used my CTMH Piercing Ruler to pierce a line of holes 1/4" from the edge of of each block. Then I used my .05 tip My Legacy Writer to draw a dash from each hole to make a line of faux stitching around my blocks. I love faux stitching - whyen you do it with the actual holes pierced it looks so real, without the time consumption of actual hand stitching. I made my whole card in a half hour while my boys played at Munchkin Playland...with coffee. Woo!

Then I cut a frame on my cricut at 2 1/4" to use for the center bar of the sketch, which I rotated to be a tall card. I made a faux stitched box in the center of my Cricut Frame. The grid on the ruler makes it so easy - I just lined it up with the corners of my frame and poked away! Then I masked off the center of my box with a handy post-it and stamped the solid mum image repeatedly to fill in the outer edges of my cricut frame. I added one of the sentiments from the stamp set (Don't you just LOVE the mixed fonts?) and topped it off in the bottom corner with a couple of Rhinestone Designer Brads, an old retired black button, and a smidgen of Black Ribbon Rounds (on clearance on my site for just $4 for 6 awesome patterned ribbons!).

Finally, I finished it off with a couple of hand cut dragon flies that I stamped and cut out with my microtip scissors. I love it when you finish a project and you get the glowy, I-made-something-I-adore feeling!

Moxie Fab Embossing Challenge Team Card

Just got done with a fun meeting with my awesome Stamping Rules team where we made this card, a little sneak peek into the new catalog. We used a bit of Stella B&T and the February Stamp of the Month, along with two kind of out of the box Embossing techniques! I was inspired to try some new embossing/debossing fun by the Moxie Fab Cool Tool Embossing/Debossing Challenge. Check out their site for lots more fabulous embossing ideas!

The base of this card is deceptively simple. I random stamped the star image from the February SOTM. Then I used my Embossing Stylus and paper trimmer to very lightly run a line down the card front every 1/2 inch, skipping over where the stars were stamped. That leaves a debossed (inverted) lines all over my card base. Then I flipped the base over and carefully  re-embossed it on the back side, which changed the lines on the from to embossed or raised, so that when I sanded the card base the embossed lines pop up white because of our awesome white core cardstock. Sweet!

The second fun embossing technique I called customer embossing die, and one of the gals tells me it's called letter press. Either way, I cut multiple heart images out using my Art Philosophy cartridge at 1 3/4". Then I layered them together to make one thick heart (I used 8 hearts to make my "die"). Into my old timey reliable red Sizzix machine went the sandwich: spongy soft layer on the bottom, then Cricut cut White CS panel, then the heart die with just a smidgen of adhesive so it wouldn't shift during our embossing application. You could use other snazzy new systems too, I just like my old red Sizzix workhorse. I pumped the handle a few times, and embossed that heart diecut into the stamped Cricut diecut! Then I swirled my sponge with some cocoa ink lightly over the heart impression to bring it out further, and layered only the Thanks part of the sentiment over top stamped in Red and cut out. A corrugated star and some Antique Copper Bitty Brads finished off my team card for this month.

Be sure to go check out the rest of the embossing fun at Moxie Fab! And don't forget this is the last week to order Rock The Block and secure your spot for my Free Magic Cube workshop!

Moxie Fab Map to Your Heart Challenge

So I've been looking at the fun artwork on the Moxie Fab Map To Your Heart Challenge, but I kept thinking I don't have anything with a map on it. Then I got some acupuncture yesterday, and today the stamp room has been bustling with a burst of creativity! I have Map paper - in my new Cruisin' paper packet (which makes this post a sneak peek too!).

I inked all my edges with Grey wool, and even the individual letter tiles were trimmed out of the Cruisin' papers. I covered a chipboard heat with the same Grey B&T that I used on the band for the center of the card, but then I inked over it in Tulip ink so that the B&T pattern could shine through the inking. I added a chipboard arrow as well, topped with one of the new glitter buttons, and one of the medium Sparkles fits just perfectly in the center of the glitter buttons! Finally, I ran a line of faux stitching around the outside of the card using my awesome CTMH piercing ruler you can see peeking in the corner of the pic and a fine tipped My Legacy Writer. Just pierce the holes, then connect the dots!

I did use the sketch from Mojo Monday on this card too, but I didn't finish it in time to post it there. Had to get my team work done too...more posts scheduled this week and TWO blog hops coming at the end of the month!

New Catalog Sneak Peek Pemberly Card

I got in some bonus stamping time on my birthday today, as the snow was coming down so thick that my dear hubby couldn't get out of the driveway. I used it to goo advantage, working on another card swap for the new catalog, inspired by the Moxie Fab Cool Tools Diecut Challenge!

I stamped the card background using my new Pemberly WOTG stamp set - I am dying over that beautiful swirly stylized flower! I slightly modified an awesome ghost stamping technique I saw in a Betsy Veldman video. I wanted the effect of the flowers flowing onto my diecut, but I also wanted the dimension of the actual diecut.

I cut my focus embellishment Banner diecut using my Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge. I also cut that adorable scalloped border using the same cartridge. The border is actually a double width ribbon border Cricut cut that I love to trim in half and use for edging - double the edging with less waiting!

After I stamped the background images using Outdoor Denim, Indian Corn Blue, and Desert Sand inks I covered my card with vellum. I laid the Banner diecut on top of the vellum and used the vellum as a mask to protect my card while I stamped coordinating images onto the diecut so it looks like the flowers are flowing onto the banner diecut. I stamped off the inked images two or three times to get the muted tones I needed on the diecut to let me sentiment really pop at full strength. It was easy to make the images wrap onto the diecut using the vellum as a mask, since you can
(almost) see right through it.
After wrapping the diecut with B&T and some of the new Baker's Twine in Grey Wool, I felt it needed a bit more shine. So I painted a few of my new Bitty Pearls with a dab of pearl paint mixed with Outdoor Denim Reinker to get blue pearl opaques.

Cricut Mat Tip: There's been lots of chatter about the new Cricut mats not being sticky enough. One of the Cruisers got an email from Cricut today that says when you get the new style mats for Cricut expressions (with the dark outline around the edge) you will need to activate the adhesive by running the mat under warm water and letting it air dry or burnish the mat with the plastic cover on top. I just ran my new mats under the water, and they already seem stickier. I wasn't having too big a problem, and I like that they aren't as sticky as the old style mats...but I'm glad there's a trick to amp up the stickiness! 

Card Patterns & H2H New Catalog Sneak Peek!

OK. I admit I'm a hardcore CTMH fanatic. I scared my father-in-law by leaping and bounding over a small child and various train tracks and toys to get to the door when FedEx delivered my new catalog shipment after Christmas. I literally giggle and bounce in my seat when I'm sitting down with a pile of new CTMH goodness to design a new project. Those who've scrapped with me know that I TALK to my projects...complimenting them on how cute they will be when the "grow up." I love what I do...

So you can see how out of commission I must have been last week. All of my new stuff came in - not catalogs this time, but actual scrumptious new product...and there it sat. I had the boxes here for a few hours before I busted them open. Then I left them on the table until John came home and he moved them upstairs for me...where they sat untouched until today. Thanks goodness for acupuncture - pain be gone, and let the wild stamping begin!

I used sketch #148 from the Card Patterns blog to kick off the stamping tonight. Don't you just love the broken background? I stamped the largest flower from my new Card Word Puzzle set in Colonial White pigment ink all over a sheet of Bamboo Cardstock, then cut it into 1 x 3 inch strips to use for my background. I inked each panel with Outdoor denim ink, then mounted those onto heavily sanded Desert sand CS. I stamped and embossed the same flower image on my card base using a pearlescent embossing powder.

I accented on the left side with a bit of Cricut cut scalloped border, which I also (carefully) sanded. I love that border on the Art Philosophy cartridge particularly because, as a busy mama who loves a good shortcut, that border is actually a double sided border. I like to trim it in half and get two for the wait of cutting once intricate border. Impatience, thy name might be Wendy...or in this case, as I got 4 cards out of each border, perhaps I'm a clever clogs!

The little scalloped edge square (at 1 1/2") was also cut on my trusty Cricut. I topped it off with a bit of the new Pemberly Paper packet, and a stamped butterfly. I stamped the butterfly onto the B&T square and onto some scrap Desert Sand paper. Then I got out my fabulous Pearl Paint, tinted a couple shades of blue using a Outdoor Denim reinker and detailed my butterfly with a fine tipped brush.

I added a strip of the new Color Ready Seam Binding, which I kept in the original creamy color for this card. It's super light and flexible, easy to tie and work with, and almost sheer, but with more heft than an organdy ribbon. I love it! An adorably dotted new Just Blooms flower and a few Pearl Opaques finish off my embellishments. Now my card is all grown up (with 11 siblings) and ready to fly off to Tina Lovell's swap group. Bon voyage!

I linked this blog post to the H2H Ready For A New Year challenge, which asks everyone to use a brand new stamp set you haven't briken out of your stash before.  Check it out, then play along, too!