Stippled Blossoms Revisited

I've had a fascination with Stampin' Up!'s now-retired Stippled Blossoms stamp set since I first laid eyes on it years ago. I made a 60th anniversary card using the set awhile back, but have always wanted to redo it with some changes. Below are the new, improved cards.

The recent arrival of some new Catherine Pooler Designs inks was the catalyst for these cards. It's easy enough to use Stampin' Up colors with Stampin' Up stamps, but I wanted to see if I could use Catherine's inks to create a different look.

Card 1 - I used It's a Boy and Something Borrowed to create the flowers for this first one. The background is SU's I Love Lace with Hello Doily overstamped in the bottom left corner, both in Sahara Sand, on which are layered the flowers. The leaves are CPD's Grass Skirt and SU's Garden Green. Being the lunatic I am, I fussy-cut all the flowers and leaves for all four cards in one sitting. (I'm not sure whether that counts as therapy or indicates that I need more therapy!) The sentiment is taken from the Geraniums Take Two set by Power Poppy and was stamped on a circle created by SU's Stitched Shapes dies. All elements of the card were stamped on Very Vanilla cardstock.

This first card was made for a friend who intends to give the card to her mother, so her mom's favorite Bible verse (Phil. 1:21) is on the left side; I printed it on my computer printer. On the right is a sentiment from CPD's Wild Bloom set. All rectangles were cut with a stitched die set from Simon Says Stamp, and the oval is from the Stitched Shapes dies again.

Card 2 - The flowers here are stamped in Pixie Dust and Flirty Fuchsia. The background is an old SU stamp called Script, overstamped with Gorgeous Grunge. The butterflies were created with the Beautiful Wings embosslit from SU which retired some time ago, and have a clear gemstone accent.

Card 3 - I used It's a Girl and Party dress for these flowers, and the background is called Victorian Lace.

Card 4 - Here I used the I Love Lace background stamp again and the same colors as in Card 2. Why did I make a vertical card? Because I inadvertently stamped the doily in the wrong corner for it to be horizontal (giggle!).

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As of this post, I am up-to-date with blogging finished cards. I have about 20 Christmas cards in progress and a handful of non-holiday cards as well. I also need to finish up an Artist Trading Card (ATC) project -- so hopefully all of this will be coming soon!

As always, thanks for stopping by to see what I've been up to!

Smiles,
Joyce Spear a.k.a. StamperJoyce
         

Beautiful You

This quick catch-up post is a card I made for a Splitcoaststampers challenge a week or two ago. Here's the sketch:

and here's my card:

Inside:

This super easy card was created with Catherine Pooler Designs' recently released Beautiful You set and her inks. The center panel on the card front was designed to be the size of an Artist Trading Card (ATC), or 3.5" x 2.5".

I simply stamped and watercolored the flowers, added some Wink of Stella, then fussy cut them and arranged them on the panel with glue dots and foam tape. The puffy background was done with a We R Memory Keepers Next Level embossing folder.

Quick and Easy Smiles,
Joyce Spear a.k.a. StamperJoyce
         

A Colorful Birthday Card

One of my favorite friends had a birthday mid-month, and I used it as an excuse to finally break into a virgin stamp set -- Fill-in-the-Blank, which was part of Catherine Pooler Designs' Lovely Notes Stamp of Approval collection last year. (The set is now available for individual purchase in Catherine's store.)

I began the card by creating the banner using my handy-dandy MISTI tool. It took me a bit of time to ink-stamp-clean for each color (probably because I'm a putzy stamper), but I really like how it turned out. I used the banner from Lovely Flowers and Banners dies to create the scalloped banner bases, and the flowers and leaves layered onto the banner are from the Enchanted Garden stamps and dies. 

I embossed the Bundles of Blossoms background stamp from My Favorite Things, then daubed on color from inks I used on the banner itself. I got a little carried away and used my daubers on the whole panel, so it was kinda painful to place the huge banner over the colorful gorgeousness. (This is why I should plan my projects instead of creating on the fly, lol!) The card base is Stampin' Up!'s Pacific Point, which seems to nicely coordinate with Catherine's Something Borrowed ink. A few sequins and voila' -- a birthday card!

Bright Smiles,
Joyce Spear a.k.a. StamperJoyce
        

It's a Sara Thing

April's My Paper Pumpkin kit from Stampin' Up! was the best yet! It was designed by Sara, who is CEO and co-founder Shelli Gardner's daughter, and even contained stamps in Sara's distinctive handwriting. The twelve cards consisted of black bases, watercolored pieces, washi tape, and some other unique embellishments. Sara included a gift of a small watercolor pencil set for us to work with as well as a paintbrush. I had a blast putting the cards together!

As I usually do with Paper Pumpkin kits, I took liberties and strayed slightly from the given instructions. The kit included three card designs with enough supplies for four of each. No two of my cards is exactly alike, adding to the fun. Below are pictures of the most distinctive ones.

Card 1:

Card 2:

Card 3:

The watercolored pieces were pre-embossed for us, making the painting a cinch. The glitter on the thick translucent resin (I think) pieces was on only one side, so we could decide whether we wanted to apply them to the cards glitter side up or glitter side down. The leaves punched right out, making them quick and easy. I opted to add a clear gemstone to the center of my flowers. I couldn't resist the urge to add sequins to some of the cards.

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Coming up next: a colorful birthday card, a quick floral card, and four fancy floral cards that took most of my Memorial Day weekend to complete. I think you'll be impressed!

Spring-y Smiles,

Joyce Spear a.k.a. StamperJoyce

            

Just Clowning Around

I purchased My Favorite Things' Clowning Around stamp set, part of the Pure Innocence line, at the same time I got the Crafty Friends set I used in the last post. It had been sitting on my desk for weeks when I decided to use it, along with some Catherine Pooler Designs inks, for the April 19th challenge over at Splitcoaststampers. I used to be a professional entertainer known as LolliPop the Clown in my younger days, so clowns hold a special place in my heart. I *had* to make a great card with the set!

The challenge SC641 sketch challenge looks like this:

I grabbed Fiesta Blue, Tiara, and Party Dress from the CPD's Party Collection to begin with, and went direct-to-paper with the ink pads to create the vibrant background. It seemed a bit flat so I decided to add some patterns from background stamps to jazz things up a bit. I used Something Borrowed with the Fiesta Blue, Tiki Torch with the Tiara, and Stampin' Up!'s Melon Mambo with the Party Dress. (Don't you just love the names of Catherine's inks? They make me smile.)

Next I stamped the clown in Memento Tuxedo Black and colored it with markers and blender pens. In the process I learned that the Catherine Pooler inks watercolor brilliantly, much to my delight. Here's the card:

(Click to enlarge photo.)

After using a coordinating die to cut out the clown, I popped him/her up on foam dots and colored over it's outfit with Wink of Stella, added black and white baker's twine to the balloons which were created with a SU! punch, and stamped the sentiments. Here is the inside of the card:

I carried the stitching theme from the front to inside by using one of my favorite rectangle die sets, and then added a balloon with a twine string. If I had to do it over again, I would make the balloon either Fiesta Blue or Party Dress to add more color. (I think a brain fart caused me to grab the Tiara!)

I'm pleased with how this card came together, and I credit much of it to the sketch. It gave me a good reason to pull out my until-now unused curved dies, too, so that's a bonus!

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At the moment I have a slew of cards that need to be finished up (mostly the insides and envelopes) and photographed, so I hope you'll swing by for the next post.

Silly Smiles,

Joyce Spear a.k.a. StamperJoyce a.k.a. LolliPop the Clown  🤡

           

Crafty Friends with Distress Oxide Inks

I've seen some amazing stuff done with Ranger's new Distress Oxide inks, so I decided to take the plunge myself and see how I like them.

My first order of business was to do my best Tim Holtz impersonation (although some things, like Tim, just can't be reproduced!) by smooshing some ink on my craft mat, spritzing it with water, and dipping a piece of distress watercolor paper into the puddles. I dipped and dried with my heat tool, dipped to layer on some more ink, and dried again. Since the Distress Oxide inks do not muddy, I was able to keep adding layers of color until I was happy with the results.

I did six rounds of experimenting, then decided I wanted to make some cards using the results. I recently gave in to my longing for the Crafty Friends stamp set from My Favorite Things, and it seemed like the perfect set to work with for this project.

Card 1 - This background is a combination of Worn Lipstick and Faded Jeans. I expected some purples to appear, but as promised the colors layered rather than blended. Pretty cool, eh?

Card 2 - features Faded Jeans and Fired Brick. There *might* be some Orange Marmalade near the top, but I really can't remember. I made some waterspots on this background.

Card 3 - I "never" use Stampin' Up!'s Cajun Craze because I don't usually care for the color, but the Distress Oxide background of Fossilized Amber, Worn Lipstick, Spiced Marmalade, and Fired Brick screamed for me to use it as a card base. The picture doesn't show it well, but I embossed the distressed panel with SU's 3-D Hexagon embossing folder.

Card 4 - Wilted Violet, Fossilized Amber, and Worn Lipstick went into this background. Oh, I forgot to mention that the Distress Oxide inks stamp beautifully, more so than their non-Distress Oxide counterparts. I used different 3-D embossing folders on this and the remaining cards. While you can't see the texture very well in the pictures, it adds a lot when you see the cards in real life.

Card 5 - Fired Brick and Faded Jeans layered nicely onto SU's Dapper Denim cardstock. I think you can see some of the textured background in this photo.

Card 6 - This is my favorite of the six experimental panels and includes Cracked Pistachio, Wilted Violet, Fossilized Amber, and Worn Lipstick. Do you recognize the color of the card base? If you guessed SU's retired Lavender Lace, you would be right.

To be honest, I wasn't too thrilled right after I made the six Distress Oxide panels, but they've really grown on me and I'm thinking of making some more -- especially now that I have Broken China and Peeled Paint added to my arsenal. (I've purchased nine of the twelve colors, opting away from the two browns and Iced Spruce.) 

So, what think you? Have you seen others' Distress Oxide projects, and if so, are you digging them? I was waffling until I remembered that the technique of dipping and drying to create layers is just one of several techniques that can be done with these inks. Even though today's technique turned out well, I think I'm going to enjoy blending the Distress Oxides even more, and especially on dark cardstock.

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Coming up next: a birthday card with another My Favorite Things set. Be there or be square!

Crafty Smiles,
Joyce Spear a.k.a. StamperJoyce