Paper Meets Ink: May 2017

Sunday, 28 May 2017

ESAD 2017/18 Annual Catty Sneak Peek Blog Hop

Hello lovelies! Today I am participating in another ESAD blog hop with the theme being Sneak Peek of the brand new Annual Catalogue for 2017/18 or aka "catty " in Stampin' Up speak. You might be starting with me or maybe you have just seen some gorgeous projects from Josie Dean, for some amazing inspiration make sure you hop right around to all of us.

One of the many perks for being a demonstrator is you have the opportunity to go to Stampin' Up's twice yearly OnStage event (conference) and other than catching up with friends and making new ones you also get to see and play with new product a lot earlier than the general public, you even go home with a copy of the new catalogue, get to put in an order of selected items and wait for it, go home with freebies of the new stamp sets and products! This enables us to have a good play with it before we get to unleash it on our fabulous customers! So, we have had a bit of a play by now and thought we would get together and show off some of the projects we have come up with. Warning! It is probably going to grow your wishlist somewhat when you see all the awesome projects everyone has made to share today.

For my card today I have used the stamp set Happy Birthday Gorgeous, I love, love, love the font on this one.

To make this card I used a second generation stamping technique. I saw the technique demonstrated by Jennifer McGuire. It involves stamping exactly the same design twice. Firstly, fully inked up and then on the second piece without re-inking the stamp, hence you get a lighter image. The square that the sentiment is on is cut from the middle of the second piece of paper (with the lighter image). Ideally it would have been great if I had time to make something with the leftover pieces but I have been so busy planning for the Stampin' Day Retreat that myself and two of my stamping buddies are holding in a couple of weeks that alas, I ran out of time. But! stay tuned I will create with them in the near future and I will be sure to show you the results.

Of course, while I have the stamps and inks out I might as well make the inside pretty too and the envelope usually gets a bit of attention as well.

Well, I hope you have a pen and paper out beside you while you hop around from one demonstrator to another as I really feel that you will want to put some things down on your list for once the new catalogue goes on sale on the 1st June.

Thank you for stopping by today and thank you to all those lovely people who have subscribed to my blog and leave comments! (Note - to do this you need to actually click on the title of my post and go to my actual blog page.) To keep on hopping, just click the arrow below and you will be taken to some amazing delights from Cheryl Algie.

Product List

Happy Birthday Gorgeous Photopolymer Stamp Set

[143662]

Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies

[145372]

Layering Squares Framelits Dies

[141708]

Classic Label Punch

[141491]

Blog Hop Participants:

1. Nicole Wilson

2. Lou Kitzelman

3. Kelly Kent

4. Libby Dyson

5. Rachael Lewsley

6. Josie Dean

7. Megan Lenske

8. Cheryl Algie

9. Leonie Schroder

10. Kristel Rimmer

11. Jenny Hayward

12. Carly Middleton

13. Rosalie Desmond

14. Tanya Bell

15. Renee Lynch

16. Violette De La Croix

17. Sharon Dalton

18. Kim Oliver

19. Peta Stephen

20. Sandra Mastello

21. Courtenay Heuston

22. Monique Fielder

23. Cathy Pinchbeck

24. Richelle Fletcher

25. Maree McIntosh

26. Rebecca Jacovou

Wednesday, 24 May 2017

Guest Designer - Colour INKspiration #10 Blog Hop

Thank you very much for stopping by today. I am very honoured to be a Guest Designer for the Colour INKspiration crew! Colour INKspiration is a Facebook challenge site that on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month post a challenge colour palette. It is accompanied by a very inspirational blog hop put together by the crew members. People then go forth and create amazingness and post it to the facebook page. You can get the details here. This month I get to hop along with the crew!! Excitement plus!

If you have been hopping along you would have just seen the amazingness ( I have typed it twice now, so it must be a word, right?) of my dear friend Lou Kitzelman. I can thank Lou for getting me onto the blogging bandwagon and entering challenges, she not only inspired me to do it but also coached me along the way, for which I am very thankful for.

For the challenge this fortnight we were given this colour palette.....

The colours just scream Autumn by themselves but then add the autumny images and I couldn't not use the new Colourful Season Stamp Set and matching dies.

With the colour challenges you can add neutral/metallic colours, for my card I've used Very Vanilla and Copper. The leaf looks amazing in real life! I stamped the leaf stamp after daubing Cajun Craze & Island Indigo on with my sponge daubers and then spritzed it a little with water before stamping onto watercolour paper. Once it was dry I then stamped the leaf outline with Versamark and embossed with copper embossing powder.

This shows you the inside of the card and the card fold. I think it might be a lever card?? I saw a beautiful card by the talented Danielas Stempelwelt here and was inspired to nut out how to make it. I'm really happy with my results! I used the leaf die as a stencil and daubed over it with the sponge daubers to create the stenciled leaves and of course continued the copper embossing inside.

Here is another view of the card just slightly opened. Did you notice that I stitched copper thread through the holes in the stitched shape square. I love taking the time to add extra details like this and jobs like that can be done in front of the tv or anywhere you are just sitting around, like waiting to pick up the kids!

Thank you so much for taking the time to have a look see at my blog 😊 to continue hopping just click the next blog image below. It will take you to the talented Julia Quinn.

Cheers Megan xx

Product List

Thursday, 18 May 2017

Colour INKspiration #09 Happy Birthday

Howdy lovelies!

Just dropping by for a quick post (I'm fanging to get into my craft room, a order has arrived! need I say more!) to share my entry for the Colour INKspiration # 09.

Voila! Here it is a CAS (Clean and Simple) design, well I think it is, as simple as I can go anyway. I'm loving the new Happy Birthday thinlits (available 1st June to customers), its a bit hard to see but I cut it out three times and glued them all on top of each other to create a more dimensional element. Then, to give it more dimension again, I applied a layer of fine tip glue over it to give it a glossy enamel look.

This is the colour palette we were given for this challenge and of course you can add in neutrals, in this case Crumb Cake, one of my favourite "go-to" colours.

Now I did warn you it was going to be quick, I'm quite pleased with myself how speedy I have gotten this done, bet there will be spelling or grammar mistakes! You'll forgive me though, there is an awesome brown box that is screaming to be opened! Wonder if my love for Crumb Cake has some subconscious link to the colour of the boxes our orders are delivered in???

Catch ya!
Megan xx

Product List

Wednesday, 17 May 2017

Viewfinder Masculine Card for KB's International Blog Highlight

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! Today I have a masculine card for you. Often people say they struggle with coming up with cards for the men in our lives but Stampin' Up! make it easy with fabulous stamp sets like Guy Greetings. This is one of the first stamp sets I ever bought and I was so happy to see that it was going to continue to the new catalogue, so many great images!

This card is being entered into Kylie Bertucci's International Highlights competition. I entered last month and got into the top 10 because wonderful people voted for my entry. Getting into the top 10 then allows you to participate in an international blog hop, something I love to do. If I could please ask for a little bit of your precious time again to vote for me this month please click HERE. My entry is number 8 and to vote all you need to do is click the little heart in the top right hand corner of where my piccy is. Easy!

I made a fun interactive card, not sure if they have a name but I'm calling it my viewfinder card! I think boys should like this one as you don't just look at it, you also get to play with it and turn the dial and make the man have different hats!

The way I made this card was to firstly cut the little view finder hole above his head. The little rectangle framelit from the Up & Away thinlits was the perfect size for all the hats. Next was to make the dial, the 7.5cm circle framelit was the perfect size. I then evenly spaced the six hats around the circle by dividing into six. You could probably just eyeball this but me being a little OCD had to google "how to divide a circle into 6"! If you have a geometry set at home with a compass go right ahead, I'm certainly not judging!!

These are just my templates for figuring it all out, on the original I stamped the hats directly onto the dial. You then need to attach your dial behind your card front, I attached it with a brad from my stash, its hidden behind the banner. I then cut a notch at the top of the card front with a circle punch, be sure you don't cut it so deep that you can see your images as they whirl by or make sure the images are stamped in far enough to not be seen. I really recommend making up a template with scraps so that you don't waste valuable supplies. I could give more exact measurements but for every project it will be different depending on how many images will go on the dial and which stamp set you use. I would love to see other creations so make sure you let me know if you make or have made something similar!

I also decorated the inside too! From this view you can see the the card front is mounted on top of adhesive strips this helps the dial to go round easier.

And finally here is a little video to show the card in action!

I do hope you have enjoyed my post today and again if I could ask you to vote for me, I would be so appreciative. Just click HERE!

Cheers Megan xx