Learning the 'ghost stamping' technique

Hi everyone and welcome back.

This week at coffee and card we made some cards using the 'ghost stamping' technique. It really is very simple and produces a great effect.

Here were my original samples:

You can see from the cards above, I got the ladies to make an initial card using the white notecards and envelopes and stamping with coloured inks straight onto the base layer of Whisper White card. We then used this as a template when doing the white ink stamping.

This is a good technique for beginners, so when it comes to stamping with the white ink you are not trying to design the card at the same time!

 

The stamp sets we used for the sessions were:

• Dragonfly Dreams
• Garden in Bloom (retiring - currently available)
• Blooms and Wishes (retiring -  currently available)
• One Big Meaning (sentiment seet - retiring - currently available)

To achieve the ghost stamping look, you stamp your image first in Whisper White Ink, allow that to dry and then stamp over again (and slightly off-set) with your ink colour of choice. 

You can see what a great result you can get, and all you need is a Whisper White inkpad and refill, which you can purchase directly from me. The refill is included, so you can re-ink the pad as much as needed.

Alternatively you can buy just the refill and use it to ink up the smaller Stampin' Spot ink pad - this will make your ink go ever further, as it takes a lot less ink in the first place! The refill is just £4.25 for the bottle.
 

We used crumb cake base layers, plus a Pear Pizzazz layer for the cards above. You could experiment with different colours for different effects.

If you give this easy technique a go, please let me know how it turns out - I would love to see any samples.

 

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Fun with Christmas Sweaters - do you own a Christmas themed jumper?

This new stamp set is just such fun, and if you love a little colouring in, 

twice as much fun can be had.

It'a called Christmas Sweaters, and features 6 different jumpers 

and a matching sentiment: "Deck the halls with Christmas Sweaters". 

Here are some of the fun cards I have designed, thanks to one of my downline Tara Fowler who gave me the inspiration at her new catalogue launch this week.

For more information on this stamp set, just click on any of the above images.

This will be features at out Coffee and Card on Monday 4th September. PLEASE NOTE there is no coffee and card session on Wednesday 6th September due to local shop's annual holidays.

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Coffee and Card - more butterflies

For some reason I seem to be focusing on butterflies at the moment - maybe it's the nicer warm weather that is making me think about them as summer approaches.

Here are the cards we made this morning at Coffee and Card in Towcester. We had great fun playing with an assortment of inks and stamp layers and created a wide range of both 'stylised' and natural looking butterflies on our cards.

My favourite is probably the blue and brown combination
- made using Crumb Cake and Soft Sky inks.

I am repeating this craft session on Wednesday this week at Coffee and Card in Brackley - if you are local we would love to see you at this informal session. It costs just £5 which includes your coffee (or tea!), plus tuition and supplies to make a card as shown.

Just email me at Jemini Crafts if you would like any further details.

 Here is the stamp set we used for this card, we only used a few of the wide range of stamps included in this set, so watch out for more ideas later on this month. You can also purchase this stamp set as a bundle which includes the matching Sizzix Framelits for die cutting the butterfly designs out.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

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Coffee with friends

Good Morning !

For those of you who have met me, you will know of my love (for love - read addiction to) for COFFEE (especially Skinny Latté). Therefore when the stamp set called 'Perfect Blend' arrived in the catalogue, it was a MUST HAVE on my shopping list!

I have had great fun making cards with this set, and have been really pleased with the results.  By stamping onto some background papers, especially the Gingham Garden set, you can make some really cute pink and blue Gingham coffee cups.

In the sample to the right, you can see the coffee stains I made - using the plastic top off an old De-Icer can from the garage. I went around the house, looking for something round and of the right sort of size.... you would not believe how long that took me! Anyway, I know have a designated 'coffee cup' stain top safely in my craft room.

In the sample below, from the talented Deanna, she has stamped onto some background paper and then added the white label with the sentiment on. The little banners are created with the stripe from Gorgeous Grunge, just cut out with scissors. Also in the photo is Deanna's card made using the Six Sided Sampler stamp set, which has a matching hexagon punch.

On the right I have made a corrugated cardboard  holder for my coffee cup and added 'best friend' onto the designer paper behind.

We also made some 'tea cups' by adding a little string and a punched out tab attached to it. Sadly I have no photographs but I will upload some to my Facebook page in due course. You can visit my page HERE.  I hope you enjoyed my Coffee themed posting today.

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Seaside and Sunshine - must be Summer!

Hi and welcome back to my regular Blog post.

It is amazing to think we are enjoying such a fantastic summer. I love this weather, although these days I never seem to have time to sit out and enjoy it like I used to.  However, summer makes me think of the seaside, and I have some cards to share with you today that may just remind you of the seaside.

The first set are my Thank you Cards for my customers in July. All customers placing orders with me always get a little hand stamped card by way of a thank you. This month I decided to use the Wetlands stamp set - it features 3 greetings and 3 images perfect for the English summer. It can be found on page 69 of the main catalogue. You can visit the catalogue  HERE

For my Thank you Cards, I simple stamped the image direct to Whisper White card, used the Gorgeous Grunge Stripes and Splodges to make the sand, and then used our AquaPainter to add some ink with a watercolour effect. The Thank You sentiment comes from 'Lots of Thanks'.

You can see below 2 samples of cards made at some of my recent card classes. The one on the right which uses a new colour called 'Crisp Cataloupe' was made by one of my downline team, Clara Locke - I simply love her colour choice.

My card classes have been going really well this month and next month is well booked too. If you live near Brackley, Buckingham, Towcester or Milton Keynes, please contact me for more details.

You can skip straight to my Card Class tab  HERE.

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Six Sided Cards

The title of this posting may be rather mis-leading, as the card itself is not six-sided, but it is the name of the Stamp Set I have used. Sorry if you thought you were going to see an amazing six sided card.

There is a fantastic new stamp set out in the new catalogue which features some very easy to use stamps, that work on a hexagon design. Hexagon shapes are so 'in' this year, we have been seeing them everywhere.

Here are the finished cards, they are for my customers who placed orders with me last week, and I enclose one with each order by way of a thank you. 

 What makes these cards SO easy to make, is that there is a co-ordinating hexagonal punch that will punch out the different stamped images, including the 3 sentiments.

Here is the stamp set in full... when you buy the set with the punch, you can get them both at a discount by buying the complete bundle, saving you 15% off the individual price. There are 11 stamps in the set, which you can mix and match as you like.

The complete bundle price in Clear Mount is £29.25, the punch on its own is £15.50.  I have used some Designer Series paper (Epic Day This and That) for the background of the card - and I chose the matching ink colours - all that information is provided in the catalogue so if you are not good at choosing colours, the information is all there for you.

Finally a close up of two of the cards. By using Dimensionals to lift the punched out hexagons, it gives a more detailed look to the finished card. Some white baker's twine or linen thread finishes the card off. I hope you like these quick and easy projects - let me know if you wish to order anything or you would like any more details on the above products/projects. I would be delighted to answer any queries you may have.


Watch out tomorrow as I am taking part in my FIRST EVER Blog Hop - I have joined up with other team members to showcase a range of products from the new Annual Catalogue - it's easy to join in... view my website tomorrow and there will be links there to take you forward and backward between each blog - as easy as that. Look out for this sign:

See you then :)

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Wildflower Meadow

One of my favourite new stamps from the new catalogue is Wildflower Meadow. It was the very first item I ordered when we had the opportunity to preorder in June. One of the benefits of being a Stampin' Up Demonstrator is that we get to see and pre-order items a month before any new catalogue is launched.  My only problem is deciding which set or sets to buy first !

Wildflower Meadow stamp and Matching Embossing Folder

Anyway, I opted for this lovely stamp which has a matching embossing folder to highlight the floral part of the stamp. It is a large stamp, but using the Stampin' Up! Write Markers, you can choose which parts of the stamp to ink up. In my three samples, I used different marker pens to pick out the flowers, stalks and the bird; but also stamped in single colours for a different effect. The brown card is destined for my nephew Richard - whose birthday it is this week.

I chose to use two of our new In-Colours for the two single colour cards - Pistachio Pudding and Baked Brown Sugar - what great names :)

Using Marker Pens to colour different parts of the stamp

Here is a close up of the stamp coloured using Marker Pens. At my recent open day we had great fun using a variety of colours for the bird, and the flowers, with some stunning effects.

If you do this at home, make sure you use the lightest colour first, and then highlight with the darker colour/s.
After I took this photograph, I added some extra sparkle with our gems in the centre of the flower heads.

The lovely new Pistachio Pudding In Colour

In the photo below you can clearly see how the embossing folder 'lifts' up the image; and makes the bird look like it is in the background somehow.

The Wildflower Meadow Stamp costs just £12.95 in clear mount and can be found on p83 of the main catalogue. If you purchase the stamp and the embossing folder (Sizzix Big Shot required) then you can get 15% discount by buying as a bundle at just £17.25.

Please contact me for further details, or visit the catalogue to view further samples. These can be found on p81 and p83 of the new catalogue.
Check it out online HERE

Thanks for reading, comments always welcome.

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