creative team

Imagine That: Simple Shapes Christmas Cards

In The Studio

Fact: There’s only so much room in the craft storage area of your choice–be it a shelf, a closet, or a dedicated room–for supplies. And way too many awesome, cute supplies on the market for one crafter to hoard, right?

Today’s project for the Imagine blog is an answer to that, of sorts: a way to utilize the more all-purpose items in your craft stash to create holiday cards without spending anything extra on special supplies.

The only holiday-specific items were the sentiment stamps, (which I already had from previous years’ projects). So take a look through your pattern stamps, pull out the basic dies or punches, and put them together in some new ways.

Incidentally, this is also a great way to involved kids in holiday crafting as the techniques used here are very simple and straight-forward. They might need a hand with the heat part of the embossing, but otherwise the little ones can have a field day creating the patterned cardstock and decorating the completed cards.

Make sure to hop on over to the Imagine blog to see how each of the three cards came together!

Imagine That: Who Can Resist VersaFine Clair? Delicata Can!

In The Studio

When I was first playing with the new VersaFine Clair inks I made the accidental discovery that they interacted with Delicata inks in a very interesting way!

When the Delicata is stamped first and the VersaFine Clair is stamped on top, the Delicata acts as a natural resist! Yes, I’m using exclamation points because this was really cool to see happen and it was something I had a blast showing off at Creativation last month!

What can you do with this technique? I think it’s a great way to add an all-over pattern to your project without having to resort to complex stamping. When you use a faint shade of Delicata (Champagne is my favorite) the patterns showing through the overlaid image are little surprises which I think are really cool.

You can see exactly how this works over on the Imagine Blog!

Imagine That: More Than Meets the Eye

In The Studio

One of the many things I love about the new VersaFine Clair is how resilient the color is. I can get multiple impressions from a single inking–with a variety of color of course.

I took full advantage of the great second and third generation stamping abilities to make today’s simple and sweet card.

The great thing about multiple-generation stamping is how it extends your range of stamp pads. With judicious use, you can expand your color palette even if you only have a few stamp pads to work with to start (trust me when I say you’re going to want to get all the colors after you’ve tried a few!).

You can see exactly how this card came together over on the Imagine Blog!

Imagine That: Tangerine Mums Card

In The Studio

I can’t tell you how often I’ve set out to make a single-layer card only to end up trimming it down to make it into a panel and matting it onto something else before being happy with it. It’s been a lot, of that I’m sure, and it’s pretty dog-gone frustrating!

I am happy to report, however, that I have broken this unlucky streak and, really, once I realized how I managed it, I’m kinda kicking myself for not trying this before.

What it all boiled down to were three basic rules of design and composition:

  1. Repetition (the same stamped shapes repeated throughout the image)
  2. Limited color palette (dark, medium, and light of the same color family–in this case tangerine/orange)
  3. Balance of positive and negative space (leaving one area blank to offset the busyness of another)

The diagonal line I created with the flowers helped too, and by playing with the mix of color and texture within the repetitive shape I kept the card interesting.

You can see exactly how this card came about–including video!–over on the Imagine blog today!

Holiday 3-In-1

In The Studio

Today over on the Imagine blog, my latest project is up: Go check it out!

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It includes instructions on making a shaker card, ornament, and gift tag all from a single set-up with the die cutting machine and a single pass with the embossing paste.

Earlier this month I continued my love affair with faux finishes and created my take on mercury glass and made them into a quartet of napkin rings fit for the holiday table.

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I believe it’s been a little while since I shared my Imagine projects (shame on me, I know!), so let’s keep rewinding with some October projects:

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I may not be on the Helmar team anymore, but I do still love their products and have a bit of a stash left. This mask charm project put Imagine’s sprays and embellishers to work with linen and Helmar’s stiffening and draping liquid.

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And does this Halloween garland really need explaining? Really?

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Is it bad form to have favorite projects? I don’t care if it is, because this book I made for a September project just makes me squee with delight. The book itself is cool enough, but the cover just makes me swoon–instant age courtesy of some careful application of Creative Medium and metallic inks.

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I haven’t forgotten my mixed media friends, either. My other September project was art journal meets wall art and was a rather satisfying monochromatic project.

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Going back a little farther, in August we went to the dogs and I make this puppy love card that I still hanging around my work table because I find myself terribly clever some days.

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And to complete this project rewind, we have something rather topical (I think). I still want to go into the planner journey I went on this year in greater detail, but for now it’s important to know that I spent my summer in a bullet journal and had a merry time exploring different ways to customize my weekly spreads. For the back-to-school time frame I played around with this particular layout in my journal with stamps and inks and some choice embellishments.