Video Tutorial: Multi-Color Stamping with Sponge Daubers

Hey there! A while back, I posted a video on YouTube and I never got around to sharing it here. It's a tutorial on one of my favorite techniques - inking up a stamp with sponge daubers to get a multi-color image. This technique also gives you a great blended look. It works best on solid stamps with a lot of area, not line-art images. I used one of the new Hostess stamp sets called Silhouettes & Script. If you place a Stampin' Up! order of at least $150, this is one of the exclusive items you can choose as a Stampin' Rewards benefit.

Here's the card I share in the video...

And here's the technique!

There are a few other cards that I show in the video that I made using the same technique and stamp set. Here they are...

Hope you enjoy the video and that you give this technique a try! As always, holler if you have any questions.

Happy Stampin'! :)

Vintage-Inspired Baby Headband

Baby headbands have been trendy for a while now, and I have always loved them. So I bet you can imagine how excited I am to finally have a beautiful baby girl - who is, of course, very beautiful even without accessories - to wear headbands! :) I recently decided that I'm going to try my hand at making and selling headbands and highbrows for babies and little girls. I was able to execute one of my first ideas last night - which just so happens to use almost exclusively Stampin' Up! materials. 

I had so much fun making this headband for Lyla and I think it turned out so cute! She's not a huge fan of headbands, but I'm trying to have her wear them more often and I hope she'll come around. ;)

The Stampin' Up! supplies I used are Crumb Cake 1-1/4" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, Tip Top Taupe 1" Dotted Lace Trim, Mint Macaron 1" Dotted Lace Trim, and a retired snowflake embellishment from last year's Holiday Catalog. But there are a lot of other buttons and things that would work, and there will be a new snowflake embellishment in this year's Holiday Catalog, starting on September 1st! :)

I also used champagne 5/8" fold over elastic from Elastic By The Yard, a marabou puff from Wholesale DeZigns on Etsy, and some felt from the fabric store. When I'm making my own flowers, I like to use Fabri-Tac from Beacon Adhesives, and I use hot glue to assemble the headband. 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a great day! :)

Stampin' 101 Tutorial - Stamp-A-Ma-Jig Tool

I've gotten so many requests for a tutorial on using the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig tool. I've been meaning to make this video for ages, and I finally got it done! :)

The Stamp-A-Ma-Jig is one of my all-time favorite tools - I really don't think I could make a card without it. It's a stamp positioning system that allows you to see exactly where your image is going to stamp. It's especially useful for sentiments, and sets that involve layering stamps on top of one another to create a detailed image. (Stampin' Up! refers to this as "two step stamping," and these sets now tend to be photopolymer for easy lining up. But the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig is indispensable for older clear-mount or wood-mount two-step stamps.)

Another thing I love about the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig? It allows me to "try out" different positions for a stamp before I commit to anything on my card. Say I can't decide where I want my sentiment to be. Or maybe I stamped one flower, and I can't decide if I want a second flower to its right or its left. Since the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig imaging sheet is clear, I can move it around on my card to see exactly what my stamped image will look like in all the places I'm considering stamping it. Awesome! :)

So are you intrigued? Or maybe you're one of the folks who's always kind of wondered about the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, but never really figured out what it's all about. Go ahead and check out my video demo below, or over on my YouTube channel. Let me know if you have any questions.

Oh, and by the way, here's the finished card that I'm working on in the video. It uses one of my favorite new sets, Garden in Bloom. The sentiments are from a super cute and clever set called Words of Truth. "I love you more than grilled cheese" is my favorite sentiment from this set! LOL.

Happy Stampin'! :)

Start-to-Finish Sunday #42 - Watercolor Wings

Wait a minute. I know what you're thinking. Start-to-Finish Sunday?? Doesn't that mean a video??? Yes! My first STFS video since September! Baby Lyla actually let me get a ton of crafting the other day - including THREE videos! So stay tuned. :)

Today's card features one of the new sets from the 2015 Stampin' Up! catalog. It's called Watercolor Wings. Now, I'm not a big butterfly person, even though they're always really popular. But you guys know how much I like watercoloring, and anything that creates a watercolor look. This set fits that bill. It's made up of multiple images that you layer together to create really stunning butterflies. I love it for a tone-on-tone look with layered shades of the same color, but I'm also really excited to play with this set and try all sorts of color combinations. Which is where this card comes in!

This card was inspired by one that Alison Barclay shared on her blog. I immediately fell in love with this very unique color combination. I never would have thought to put Blushing Bride and Watermelon Wonder with Night of Navy - let alone combining them in one image. But I love it! (I also added a little bit of Smoky Slate.) The sentiment is from a stamp set called Hello Life.

In the video, I show you how to assemble the different stamps in this set to create these beautiful layered watercolor-look butterflies. You can check it out below, or over on my YouTube channel. Enjoy!

Happy Stampin'! :)

a belated introduction...

Lyla Rose

May 14, 2015

8:58 AM

4 lb. 10 oz.

18 inches 

She was born at 37 weeks via planned c-section. Thankfully, she did not need any interventions whatsoever and has been completely healthy and growing beautifully. The surgery was amazing and my recovery was uneventful and easy. We are settling into a routine at home - although she keeps us on our toes still! - and I'm grateful that daddy hasn't had to go back to work full-time yet. We're looking forward to this summer as a family of three!

Baby Thank You Cards

Hey all! Long time no see, huh? :) Sorry I've been MIA, and in fact it's been so long since I updated the old blog-o that I haven't shared some very big news with you all... I'm having a baby!! :-D It's a girl, and she'll be here around the end of May - 2 months to go! Hubby and I are very excited, and starting to get real preparations underway. My work colleagues have already thrown me a small but extremely thoughtful shower, and my "regular" shower is in a couple weeks, so I'm starting to think about designing thank you notes. Want to see what I've got so far?

This is the first one I made, and I was kind of playing around for a sketch challenge at the time. I will definitely not be making 30+ of this card! :-P We don't have a dedicated nursery space in our house, but for cohesion we're going for a yellow and gray color scheme with as many baby things as possible. And we've chosen elephant as Baby's signature animal. (Hope she likes them!) So for my cards I'm using Smoky Slate, So Saffron, and pops of Crisp Cantaloupe, seen here in the Sweet Dreams DSP and In Color Sequin. The adorable elephant stamp is from the Zoo Babies stamp set, and the sentiment is from Something to Say.

This card is way more mass-produce-able! :) So I think this is the idea I'll end up going with, but I want to rotate it to a horizontal card rather than vertical. Unfortunately, the Happy Heart embossing folder - which I adore - is vertical, so I'll have to choose a different embossing folder to add texture. Otherwise, the elements are really similar to the first card, but simplified. The elephant is matted onto some Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper (love the redesign they did on the color of this stuff!) which is hard to see in the photo, but really pretty in real life. It adds some interest to what would otherwise be a lot of white space.

OK, well, that's it for me for today. Two cards, and some big news! :) I'll try to get some more posts up in the near future.

Happy Stampin'! :)