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Make & Tell Tuesdays

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Make & Tell Tuesday – Black Magic Stamping

by Betsy
written by Betsy

Happy Tuesday evening! I spent the afternoon working on a project idea that’s been floating around my head and I thought I’d put together a Make & Tell Tuesday video for you…

In today’s video I’ll show you a technique I nicknamed black magic. I’ll show you a little trick for getting more vibrant images on black or dark-colored cardstock.

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Start off by stamping your images with a white pigment ink. Use a stamping platform so that you can stamp multiple times to get images that are really nice and opaque. The more opaque the bottom white layer, the more vibrant your colors on the second step will be. Once you’ve stamped everything in white, stamp again with colored ink. I used Distress Oxide inks, which are a pigment hybrid. It also works to use regular die inks, although I don’t think the colors stay as vibrant. The ink colors will of course never be as vibrant or true as stamping on white cardstock, but it really helps to make them pop a little more against the black! The cardstock color you choose as your base will also influence the final result of the ink colors as well, so keep that in mind.

I used several of the leaf and branch images from the All Blessings Flow set – they’re perfect for this technique since they are simple one-step images.

It’s also fun to play around with other dark cardstock colors – here I used a very dark green. Once I was finished stamping I added a few more details using some metallic gold watercolor and a white pen. I used sentiments from the Opposites Attract set heat embossed with gold powder to keep it simple and let the background really shine.

Here’s the video – I hope you enjoy!

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Make & Tell Tuesday: Shiplap Builder Wood Effects

by Betsy
written by Betsy

Hi all! It’s been such a long time since I’ve had a chance to do a Make & Tell Tuesday. Sometime early this summer things got super crazy and there was just no squeezing it in. We are slowly getting caught up, and I’m excited at the possibility of having a little more time for things like this again!

So today I have a Make & Tell video showing how to create a couple of different wood effects to go along with our Shiplap Builder die. These are easy to do, and so realistic!

I’ll show you two different looks – one a more rustic, mixed wood look, and the other a pretty whitewash effect.

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I used the whitewash planks to create a pretty chevron background. I finished this panel into a card by clustering lots of Mimosa Musings and BotaniCuts Pine branches around the outer edges, and added a Written in Ribbons Holiday sentiment. I added some sparkle to the branches with the glass glitter from our Hug in a Mug Embellishment kit.

I also finished off the rustic panel into a holiday card. I used the Fresh Air Window Frame die to add the window frame. I also added a window box by double-cutting a Shiplap Builder plank to create a shorter plank. I backed the window frame cuts with vellum and added some faux snow to the sills. Some snowflakes and greenery cut with the Frosty Corners and BotaniCuts Pine Bough dies finish off the scene.

Here is the video where I show how to create the backgrounds on both of these cards…

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for stopping by!

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15% Off Fast Favorites + a Special Make & Tell Tuesday Guest

by Betsy
written by Betsy

Happy Tuesday! Lots of fun news today. First of all, we just did a major restock in the shop! Nearly all products are now available. I mentioned a few weeks ago that we would have a fun surprise to go along with the restock…

Fast Favorites! Some of our hottest products are 15% off! These products include several of our most popular dies that many of you have been trying to get your hands on, but have been selling out quickly once they’re restocked. Several of the new products from our anniversary release that sold out within the first few hours are also included in the sale, giving you a second chance to snag those at the sale price. We stocked up on these fast-moving favorites, and we’re offering them at 15%. (Ends July 2 at 11:59pm EDT – while supplies last, no rainchecks)

Click the image above or HERE to shop the sale!

A note about product bundles…all of the items from the Pinwheel Party bundle are included in the sale, so that bundle is of course 15% off. The Complete Confetti Collection bundle includes some regular and some sale items, so the pricing of that bundle has been adjusted to reflect those items in the bundle that are included in the 15% off sale.

And now for some fun news! We have a special Make & Tell Tuesday guest! Jennifer McGuire will be spoiling you today with tons of projects and a video! Due to some technical difficulties she’ll be sharing her video a bit later today. I’ll come back here and add the link once it’s up, but in the meantime, here’s a little peek! **Edited to add: Jennifer’s video is up and ready for your viewing pleasure! Her projects are amazing! 😍

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Make & Tell: Stamp a blooming forest with Budding Beauties Spring

by Betsy
written by Betsy

It’s Make & Tell Tuesday time! Today I’ll be pulling out the baby’s breath image from the Budding Beauties Spring set to use in a unique way. I always love those photos or paintings where it looks like you’re looking up at the sky surrounded by a beautiful forest. We’ll be doing a fun take on that today by stamping a blooming forest using that baby’s breath image.

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We’ll start out by watercoloring a panel of watercolor paper, then add stamping and heat embossing over the top. You could use this same concept along with either Fir & Foliage No. 1 or 2 for a more traditional forest. You could change up the colors of the watercoloring to look like a sunset, or maybe even a snowy scene for the holidays.

Here’s this week’s video…

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Make & Tell: Stamping a Terrarium Garden

by Betsy
written by Betsy

Happy Tuesday! Are you ready for a fun Make & Tell? I’ve been digging around in the dirt a little around the yard, potting up some flowers and enjoying the sunshine. But yesterday was rainy, and it made me want to pull out my Pot-Pourri set and Terrarium die to “plant” some inky versions in my craft room!

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Pot-Pourri is such a fun set, and I haven’t given it a lot of love lately, so it was fun to pull it out again. I love stamping these plants in all shades of green for lots of interest. For the plaid background, I pulled out my Painterly Stripes Background and stamped that fun plaid using several shades of green.

The sentiment is from the Fresh Air set, and everything is layered over a Crimped Frame diecut. I used an easy masking technique to create the layers of plants. Very fun to do – you could definitely mass produce this card too…just set up your MISTI and stamp multiple panels assembly-line style.

Here’s today’s video – enjoy! 🙂

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Make & Tell: Faux watercolor with solid stamps + oxide inks

by Betsy
written by Betsy

Good morning and happy Tuesday! Last week I promised a video on the watercolored lemons from the card set I posted on our More Fresh Air Inspiration post.

This is a fun technique that uses solid image stamps, stamped with Distress Oxide inks, to create faux watercolor. It’s fun and easy – easier than starting with outline images, in my opinion, because much of the work is already done for you with the stamping. You’re just adding in some blends with a sort of wet-on-wet technique often used in traditional watercoloring. The entire process is done with Oxide inks – no special watercolors are needed. Just a paintbrush, your oxide inks, and water. Oh, and your favorite solid-image stamps of course! I used Lemon Blossom.

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Here’s the video for you!

To finish off my card with the full lemon pattern background, I added a sentiment from the Written in Ribbons set, and a black and white striped strip stamped with the Painterly Stripes Background stamp. For the Hello card, I created a collage sentiment by combining a few different elements – the Slim Alphabet die, a sentiment from Signed & Sealed, and another from Written in Ribbons. The different pattern strips were cut from another lemon panel, along with some stripes and plaids done with the Painterly Stripes Background.

This was a fun technique – I’m already wondering what other images from my collection might work really well for this! What would you use?

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Make & Tell: Fresh Floral Background + No-Line Watercolor + a Giveaway!

by Betsy
written by Betsy

Good morning and happy Tuesday! I’m so excited to finally get back into the groove of putting together some Make & Tell Tuesday videos for you! Watch for these more regularly over the next several weeks. 🙂 Also, there’s an opportunity to win something fun today…read on to the end of the post for more about that!

Today’s Make & Tell project involves no-line watercoloring with a bit of a twist. Typically this technique is done with outline images, but I wanted to try something similar with solid images. So for today’s project I pulled out our Fresh Floral Background stamp, some watercolor paper, a light-color waterproof ink, and my favorite Mission Gold watercolors.

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Here’s the video for you!

To finish off the watercolor panel I created in the video, I trimmed it down just a bit to 4″ wide, and added a striped accent strip, which was stamped with the Painterly Stripes Background. I stamped it once, then shifted it so that the stripes on the second impression would fill in between the stripes from the first time stamping it. I also added a sentiment from the Sketchbook Roses set. I wanted to let the background shine!

This was a fun project. I love to sit and watercolor. I find it to be so very relaxing – do you? You might be able to try this same technique using colored pencils instead, if that’s a medium you’re more comfortable with!

SO! I’m in the mood for a giveaway, and I think it’s a fun one. Every time I post a project that shows that cute ceramic mason jar I use as a watercolor palette, I get tons of questions about where I found it. Well, I got mine at Hobby Lobby a year or so ago as part of one of their seasonal collections, but I also recently found them here on Amazon (affiliate link). I just happen to have an extra one that I’d love to send to someone! Leave a comment on this post before Thursday, April 16 at midnight EDT, and I’ll announce the winner on Friday’s TGIF post. Let’s chat while we’re at it! I’d love to hear about what you’re up to during this time of quarantine…are you doing ok? Is your family ok? Leave a comment for the chance to win!

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Make & Tell: Print Shop Fresh Floral with Dawn

by Betsy
written by Betsy

We’re doing something a little different for today’s Make & Tell Tuesday. We have a special guest that I think you’re going to love! Dawn shared these fabulous cards with me the other day and I asked her if I could share them with you here today! I’ll let her tell you all about them and her fun process for creating them…

So, during a release, there always seems to be a product or two that I fall especially in love with, and I end up with more ideas than time to create with it!  The Print Shop: Fresh Floral collection was one of those collections that I just didn’t want to stop creating with!  I had so much fun pulling it out again, to make this pile of cards! 

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I started out by just playing….I chose a color combo to work with that included five main colors, and then I set about stamping a pretty pile of die cuts and papers, all with those five colors. 

Once I had a pile of pretties to work with, I turned on my video camera to film a time lapse video for you and started making cards with no real plan in place.  I didn’t have any rules for myself or any expectations….I just wanted to see what sort of cards I could make out of the pretty embellishments and papers I’d stamped, whether it was three cards or ten.  Honestly, I think that because the video camera was running, it helped me to not think too much about things, and to commit quicker as I worked!  In the end, I’d made five cards…..in 70 seconds, according to the time lapse!  Ha!

I mixed and matched all the elements and used only white card bases, to make it a little faster.  I cut patterned papers apart and piled embellishments on, not worrying about the next card, or stretching the elements to go farther.  I just started gluing things together, and I couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out!

You might notice that I took one of the patterned papers I’d stamped, and cut it into strips.  This allowed me to use that same sheet on a couple of different cards. 

I have to say that I can’t wait to do this same type of thing again, because I sure do love a pretty stack of coordinated embellishments and I love, love a pile of coordinating cards!!  Can’t wait to use these to send out some encouragement to loved ones!

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Make & Tell Tuesday + a Flash Easter Sale

by Betsy
written by Betsy

Hi all. I wanted to pop in with a few things today. First of all, I hope you are all staying well and safe. It’s a crazy world right now and everything feels topsy-turvy. My kids are home from school for the foreseeable future, as I’m sure many of yours are as well, if you still have children at home. We’ll be adjusting to a new normal, that will hopefully be over before we know it. But while we’re in it, I hope we can care for each other and lend support to our neighbors near and far. We’re in this together!

In the meantime, we’ll be making the best of it and hopefully even having a little fun here on the blog. Crafting and being creative can be a wonderful escape and always help to calm my mind and spirit. I know many of you feel the same. So, unless there’s a major change over the next week (things do feel very fluid at the moment) we’ll be carrying on with the countdown and release of our latest collection called Fresh Air.

When I was working on this collection and came up with the name and Fresh Air concept, I had no idea how fitting it might be, and how we might all be longing for some Fresh Air, in more ways than one! Hopefully it can provide a little bright spot in your day. We’ll begin later this week with some sneak peeks, and then three full days of projects and reveals next week before the products go up in the shop on Friday. If anything about this timeline changes, we’ll be sure to let you know.

While we’re at it, we’re not really having fun unless there’s a sale, right? For the next two days, we’ll be having a flash sale on a few of our Easter items. If you haven’t had the chance to start on your Easter cards and projects yet, now’s your chance to pick up a couple of new things. Our Easter Jubilee Creative Kit and Caring Cross stamp + stencil and die are 20% off now through Wednesday night at 11:59pm CDT. Use the code SPRING20 at checkout to receive the discount.

Here are a few galleries filled with projects from our Inspiration Team using these two products. First is Caring Cross…

And Easter Jubilee…

Before I go, I have a new project that I created last week using Caring Cross. I shared it on Instagram, but I thought I’d share it here, too. I’m afraid it’s only a partial Make & Tell Tuesday, with an emphasis on the Make, and not so much Tell. 🙂 Long story short, some loaned out video equipment did not get returned as expected when classes didn’t resume after spring break because of the shut-downs. I thought I’d go ahead and share this project anyway, sans video.

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So I started with a panel of heavy-weight Yupo paper, and created an alcohol ink background using Copic inks and Pinata Metallic Brass ink. Once it was completely dry, I diecut the cross that is just the two pieces, not the solid cross, from the panel. I stamped it with palm branch and heat embossed it with gold powder, and then heat embossed the berries with white powder. I added the Happy Easter embossed sentiment along the bottom to finish it off. Before adding it to a card base, I also diecut the cross pieces from the card base so that my card front would have a cross-shaped window in the front. I’ve had several of you ask what that little two-piece cross die is for, and this is one way you can use that die. I used the leftover pieces cut from the alcohol ink background to create a matching bookmark by layering those pieces over a solid cross diecut, which was also stamped with the palm and heat embossed with gold.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Stay well and stay safe! ❤️

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Make & Tell Tuesday: BotaniCuts Lily + Colored Pencils

by Betsy
written by Betsy

Hello evening crew! It’s Tuesday, and that means I got to spend some time creating! I put together a new Make & Tell video to share with you. There have been several requests to do some coloring videos for the BotaniCuts Lily, so today I pulled out my colored pencils and put one together for you.

In the video, I’ll show two variations of the same basic technique. First we’ll color a white lily, and then switch the colors for something a little bolder and create a Stargazer lily – one of my favorites.

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I’ve been wanting to pull out my Simple Things set again after Laurie shared her beautiful project a week or so ago for her TGIF post, so I did that to create a few cards using the lilies I colored in the video. I thought it would be the perfect filler for a few of the lilies.

For the card with the stargazers, I layered the Simple Things eucalyptus under the lilies, along with the medium rectangle from the Nordic Frames die. I sponged some Spun Sugar Distress Oxide ink underneath. The eucalyptus was stamped with Bundled Sage and Iced Spruce, along with Frayed Burlap for the stems. The sentiment is a combination of stamps from the Bountiful Wreath and Sentiment Suite: Thinking of You sets.

I wanted a softer, monochromatic look for the card with the white lilies, so I did a simple watercolor background and layered the white lilies and eucalyptus over the top. The sentiment is here is from the Simple Things set.

And good news! The BotaniCuts Lily dies were just restocked in the store!

I hope you enjoyed today’s Make & Tell, and you’re inspired to go create something!

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