Showing posts with label Embossing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Embossing. Show all posts

Saturday, 10 January 2026

Simply Beautiful for Freshly Made Sketches 718

When a mid-summer heat wave strikes, what's to be done but to disappear into my craft room? I used the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches for inspiration.  

The sketch offered another chance to experiment with the new Simply Beautiful bundle. This can be found in the January-April Mini Catalogue. The embossed angled piece used the new Stone & Vine folder

The flower and leaves were heat embossed in gold. The centre of the flower was coloured with Darling Duckling using a sponge dauber. The Petal Pink and Old Olive were added with a mini Blending Brush

The very beautiful embellishments are technically called Pearlised Faceted Gems - but really they should just be called 'Gorgeous Bling'!

If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page. 

You can stamp with me, and shop with me, from anywhere in New Zealand. Click here.



Wednesday, 8 February 2023

Waves of Inspiration for Around the World on Wednesday



Thank you for joining in with the latest hop from the crew at Around the World on Wednesday. If you haven't hopped with us before, we're a group of Stampin' Up! Demonstrators from every time zone in the world where Stampin' Up! operates. We share with you on the first Wednesday of each month. You're here with me, in New Zealand.

Each month we present a different theme to inspire you to create.

This month, our theme is Embossing. We could choose to use any form of embossing, and I've gone for resist embossing.

I have enjoyed the Waves of Inspiration set and for this challenge, have revisited a card I made using ink layers and substituted resist embossing to see what happened. You can see the original card here.

I started with a piece of Basic White card and white embossed the big wave image onto it. Using blending brushes, I added Balmy Blue, Tahitian Tide and Starry Sky into the wave and some Tahitian Tide and Starry Sky to the skyline. Then, I added in some Daffodil Delight, taking card not to mix too much and create a green sky by mistake! I stamped in a single seabird.


After wiping over with a tissue to remove any excess ink from the embossed area, I cut the panel into strips: 3 x 3cm, 1 x 2cm and 1 x 1.5 and adhered them to a piece of Basic White.

That was mounted on a matte of Tahitian Tide. The ribbon and sentiment were added before adhering to the Starry Sky card base. I added a trio of Basic Rhinestones for a touch of bling.

Next up on our Technique: Embossing Inspiration Hop is the ever-creative Leonie Stuart.




If you get lost along the hop, or encounter a broken link, you can get back on track by using the links below.

Jan Clothier - NZ (You are here)  

Leonie Stuart - AU

Rochelle Laird-Smith - AU

Cheryll Miller - AU

Melissa Gifford - AU

Danielle Kassing - NL

Ximena Morales - DE

Aurélie Fabre - FR

Mikaela Titheridge - UK

Tina Zinck-MacDonald - CA

Annette Ball - CA

Angie McKenzie - US

Wendy Lee - US

Shel Anderson - CA

Chris Smith - US

Tricia Butts - US


If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page. You can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking on the SHOP NOW button in the sidebar or on any of the products below.

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Thursday, 3 December 2020

Very Versailles for Creating Kindness Guest Design

 


I'm so pleased to be joining the talented crew at Creating Kindness as Guest Designer this month. If you've not come across this inspiration blog before, add it to your must-look list. Each month, they come out with amazing projects, based around a theme, just to inspire your creativity. Often, there are videos of projects as well.

This month, the theme is 'Designer's Choice'. Well, plenty to work from there! As I've been pretty busy with prepping classes, events and other Design Team commitments, it's been a while since I've had a chance to sit and my desk and play. So the option of my own choice was a welcome one.

I got out a favourite stamp set, Very Versailles, and thought about some of my favourite techniques then waited to see what the result was.

The result was, perhaps, a little more over-the-top than my usual style but I like it - and I really enjoyed making it!


I like embossing, so after stamping the foliage in two generations, I added in another gold-embossed layer with the same stamp. I really like the sense of depth the three layers together create. I also gold-embossed the mirror frame stamp over the top of the Pool Party script, as a grounding for the popped-up sentiment.

Sponging is another favourite technique, so after the stamping was complete, I lightly sponged some Pool Party behind the foliage to create the illusion of sky.

To create even more depth, without adding extra physical layers, I sponged a partial frame in opposite corners. If you've not come across this technique before, I explain how to do it in this post. It's a very easy way to add some extra zip to your layouts.


I also have a soft spot for texture embossing. To create the mat layer that looks like rolled gold, I embossed a piece of gold foil with the Tasteful Textile embossing folder. The Subtle folder also makes a nice job of foil.

As you hop around you'll probably notice that the fabulous Cheryll Miller and I have had a moment of trans-Tasman communion. She's cased another card from my blog as her inspiration. We had a good laugh when I told her that this card was half a case of the same thing, so if you think you're seeing double - well, kind of. You can certainly see that we were both channelling the same inspiration but it's also interesting to see the differences too. 

I hope you found something to try out for yourselves out of my Designer's Choice project. If you did, I'd love to see what you did with it. 

A big thanks to the Creating Kindness team for inviting me along for the hop. Click on the next button to see what inspiration the wonderful Lou Kitzelman has for you... she's giving us a sneak peek at something exciting from the January-June 2021 Mini-Catalogue.


If you get lost along the way, here's a list of all the participant links.
  1. Jan Clothier - Guest Designer – NZ
  2. Lou Kitzelman – Australia
  3. Cheryll Miller – Australia
  4. Jay Soriano – UK
  5. Jenny Hall – USA
  6. Liz Yuille - UK
  7. Charlet Mallett – USA
If you live in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, I'd love to be yours. I can help you with ideas, get you catalogues and provide you with Stampin' Up products. You can leave a message in the comments or contact me using any of the methods listed in the Contact Me tab at the top of the page. You can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking on the SHOP NOW button in the sidebar or clicking on any of products below.

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Tuesday, 19 March 2019

The Paper Players 433

The challenge at The Paper Players is my nemesis and, I think, not just mine! The dreaded ONE LAYER CARD. Yep, nowhere to hide with these. No covering up a botched sentiment with a banner popped up on dimensionals, no die cuts or snippets of embossed card stock.  Not even a lovely coloured border to frame things - unless you sponge it on. Just you, the ink and ONE LAYER of card!


After starting, and abandoning, a number of ideas I decided to use this challenge to try out a technique I've seen in a number of places around the internet. I don't think it has a name but it's using Stampin' Blends to colour white embossing. Here's how that turned out...


 

In real life, the colours are a bit brighter than they look here but still pleasingly subtle. The centres are in Light Daffodil Yellow, the stems in Dark Granny Apple Green and the floofy bits are in Dark Calypso Coral. I left parts of them white so that it would look more nuanced than heavily colouring all of them.



What I particularly like about this card is that although the stamped panel are dandelion flowers, with the stems truncated into a line like this they're not unlike exploding fireworks. I think that ties in with the 'Happy Birthday' rather well.

Update: Delighted to be A Cut Above at The Paper Players!

If you live anywhere in New Zealand and don't have a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I'd love to help you with ideas and Stampin' Up products. Please message me through my Facebook page, linked in the sidebar of this blog or leave a comment below. 


And, of course, you can shop with me from anywhere in New Zealand by clicking any of the products pictured below or the SHOP NOW button in the sidebar of this blog or you can message me.
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