New Stuff

Here's a couple of cards I made with SU's new photopolymer stamp set - Designer Typeset (US/CAN only at this stage). 

I have stamped the banner image repeatedly and coloured in the triangles using my ProMarkers.  Whilst I really like who this has turned out, I've decided to cover the light grey and brown triangles with Ranger's Enamel Accents in White & Black respectively (when they arrive - like, hurry up and ship my order please).  With the sentiment being so black against the white cardstock, I think it will just pull the card together just that bit better.  The sentiment is actually a line image that I coloured in using the very FINE end of my black SU marker.  Doing that made me realise I need to bring my glasses home from work because my eyes were burning and running from squinting so hard to make sure I stayed in the lines.

Here's another one

Being made out of polymer means you can manipulate these stamps from their original form - see how I've curved the banner.  Again, the pennants were coloured with my ProMarkers and then I stamped the letters over the top.  I like the way the little, teeny-tiny letters were small enough to fit inside the hexagon.  I did rule a line to make sure I stamped them straight.

So what did I think about these photopolymer stamps???  Well, I liked them.  I'm an equal opportunity stamper and don't really care whether the stamps are clear, rubber, wood mounted, cling mounted etc etc.  I'm really only interesed in what the images look like and when I saw this set, I had to have it because it was so cute.  I've already got quite a few photopolymer stamps and I've never had any problems with them.  Safe to say, I can't imagine that SU would have gone down this road unless they were 100% sure of the quality of the product - too big of a risk for them to put out something out that was inferior.  Anything I didn't like??  Those little letters are small and will be easy to lose if you drop them.  They are NOT as small as a set I have from PTI and were actually quite easy to line up - I just eyeballed the placement of the letters in the pennants.  The other thing that I wasn't over fussed on was the thickness of the images.  They are quite thick compared to some sets I have and the thickness made me think that they looked a little coarse.  It suits the set but I hope some future ones are a little thinner and look a little more refined.

Anyway that's it from me tonight, Top Chef is about to start.

Adios and enjoy your week.

Online Card Classes - Pattern Play

A few weeks ago, I participated Pattern Play - an online class held by Online Card Classes to teach you how to actually use all of that Patterned Paper that is piled up in your crafting area (or overflowing onto the floor as the case may be).

I thought this was another awesome class, filled with great ideas - things that I would never have thought of doing and it all made to look oh-so-easy.  Day 3 of the class we were shown how to use Difficult to Use and Bold Patterned Papers.  I have quite a few of these.  A few years back (let's just say 6) I bought 4 or 5 Basic Grey 6x6 patterned paper pads.  I had all these great ideas of just taking the papers, adding them to a card front, adding a sentiment and calling them done.  Guess how many of these so called cards I have made using said paper pads?  I'll make it easy for you - nil, none, nada - until last week that is.

Kristina showed a great idea for using these papers and this is what I ended up making

I can't remember which pad this paper came from (and can't be bothered going downstairs to look, sorry).  The card base is Rose Red and I think from memory the strips were about 1.5" wide.  It was about 11 pm when I started on this card and I couldn't quite work out how to work out the spacing like Kristina did so I just cut mine, laid them out and then trimmed the card to fit!!!

The sentiment is from SU and punched out using a SU oval punch, which was a perfect fit for the frame, which is from PTI's Pretty Peonies set.  I recently purchased a Fiskars stamp press after seeing some nearly all the designers from OCC using it and I must say how much easier it was to line up the stamping onto the die cut.  I was very impressed.  The only thing I don't like about it is that I can't work out the best way to clean my stamps.  At the moment I'm pulling them off the press, and popping them onto another block and then cleaning using my Stamp Scrubber.  If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know cause I just know that one day the ink from that stamp I'm trying to clean is going to get on my fingers and I'm not going to notice and it's going to get onto that project that I've just finished after spending 12 hrs working on it!

And then last week (or maybe it was the week before) I received my SAB order from Felicity as well as an order from Simon Says Stamp (so I'm rolling in new stuff :)) and I put this one together

The DSP is from this year's SAB free stuff, as is the button.  I've used the Honeycomb embossing folder and die cut all those little hexagons using my Lifestyle Crafts Nesting Hexagons.  These are slippery little suckers and I'm sure there will be a post here lamenting the fact that one of them has gone walkabout and is nowhere to be found.  The sentiment is stamped in Saraha Sand and the twine in the button was SU White Baker's Twine that I coloured with a coordinating Promarker.

Anyway, I was kind of proud of my efforts to use use a touch of all of that patterned paper that I own.  I hope to put some of the other ideas I learnt in class to use some day soon.

Thanks for visiting and enjoy the rest of your weekend.