embossing – Stamped Smiles

Classes, Donation and Challenged

Hey friends! Hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend and will be enjoying the first ‘official’ day of Autumn tomorrow!🍂 Yay! I know that this is my most favorite time of the year and today it seems like it has finally cooled off a bit which is very welcoming to give the air condition a break! Decorating for Fall/Halloween is also a favorite thing I like to do along with being outside…so I’ll be doing that this week and weekend for sure!

Today I have some creations that I’ve been working on. The first one comes from a challenge that I wanted to enter along with breaking out a new stamp set, but excited about using an older embossing folder and some paper that has been in my stash for far too long:

He even looks like a wise old owl…and I thought he would be cute with a little bow around his neck too! This is not a ‘new’ stamp set from Inky Stamper, but it’s the first time I’ve broken out to use this Owl stamp set! Their challenge issued this month was “embossing” and so I pulled out a VERY old embossing folder (remember the Cuttlebug days?! LOL) I think it was one of my very first ones! Plus, I pulled out some Coordinations Sandable textured and colored cardstock. It is weathered looking, but when you sand over it, the color comes out underneath…really cool stuff that I haven’t used very much! You can get the coordinating dies for this ‘Owl’ set which also cuts out the owl and the leaf in the set. I’ve colored them up with Copic markers and used the die to cut them out with.

For the embossing folder card front, I took a piece of the Coordinations paper, die cut it out and then ran that piece through the selected embossing folder and then sanded over it with a sanding block. I also die cut a frame the same color as the card base and took a separate embossing folder from Stampin’ Up! to go over that with and sanded it a bit as well before popping it up on the card front.

Before placing all of the elements on the card front, I decided to add some white and black paint splatters over the background. I also copper heat embossed the sentiment underneath the owl, die cut the strip and popped it up with one of the leaves over top. (You can also see along the edges that I’ve heat embossed too!) I popped up the owl, but left him grounded to the frame and then finished it with copper sequins filled with glitter drops. The copper twine bow was a last element decision. LOL🦉

Speaking of sanding, it reminded me of this class I took with Inky Stamper making these cards. (couple weeks ago) I believe there are still a few kits available in the store if interested. The directions are recorded and saved on their You Tube channel.

Anyway, the sanding reminded me of this class because at the bottom of the card, the kit included sandpaper for the beach. Really love the look it gave to the design with the texture and tiny bit of sparkle in it!

And the same day I had the class above, I had this class from Craft Fancy during their OOAK event. These were made from their “Alcohol Pearls Butterfly card kit” (I think they have some left in store if interested). The kit came with one alcohol ink color in Celestial Pearls, which is beautiful, but I decided to also add some copper metallic from my stash for another bit of color. I also went on my own a bit with the white heat embossed sentiments at the bottom. I really had fun playing with the alcohol backgrounds and being able to cut them out in one pass for different looks.

I thought this set of four cards would be perfect to add to my donation box to The Butterfly Project in support of domestic violence. So I was able to send off a batch of cards for that this past week too.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my mixed collection of projects here and I’m sure I’ll have more fun things coming soon! Thank you for stopping in!

Challenges I’d like to enter for OWL CARD only:

Inky Stamper Inkspirations FB Sept Challenge – Embossing (heat or dry)
Let’s Squash It! – embossing folder (Cuttlebug & SU! used on mine) with letters or #s and sand it
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Allsorts – ‘real’ animal/creature
My Time to Craft – embossing (heat/dry)
Splitcoaststampers – SC871 Wednesday Sketch

September 21, 2021

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles26 Comments

{Cupcake Inspirations} Reminder!

Hello there friends! Hoping that you had a fabulous weekend! Alhtough it has been really hot over my way lately, I enjoyed spending a bit of time with hubby going out for a cold Starbucks frozen treat and time at the park. What is something that you enjoy as part of your Summers? In this crazy time right now, it seems we’re having to come up with different situations than we have in the past.

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Today I’m sharing with you another project and reminder for our current {Cupcake Inspirations} challenge…have you joined in the fun with us yet?! Check out the original post and where to add your creation by CLICKING HERE.

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For my card here, I’ve pulled out another Stampin’ Up! set that has been a favorite of mine and I think it’s from a previous year Sale-a-bration set along with the embossing folder in the background behind it. The stamp set is called “Blossoming Basket”.

I have used the 3D “basket weave” embossing folder to emboss the white background, but before putting it through the embossing machine, I’ve taken an ink pad and inked up the folder to add the color to the background design.

I’ve also taken the “Hardwood” background stamp from Stampin’ Up! and inked it up over a piece of kraft cardstock and then used some brown ink around the edges of it and a cut strip for the bottom portion of my card to create the table area for the basket to set on. The sentiment as well as the banner strip and the scallop kraft layer were from My Favorite Things products and then I layered everything over an A2 sized top folding yellow card base.

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Here’s a closer look at the image and how I’ve colored it in with my Copic markers.

I ended up fussy cutting out the images with my scissors and attaching them to the card design. I stamped the basket image a couple of different times and cut out extra flowers to place next to the basket and another set of flowers were popped up over the original image with foam tape. I only used glue in the center of the butterfly to lift up the wings.

I added a twine bow to the basket along with some pearls in the center of the flowers along with the top corner of the design.

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I hope you’ve been inspired by my creation today in some way and that you are inspired to pull out your flowers and pearls and/or sequins to play along with us too!

There have been some really amazing beauties entered so far and I look forward to seeing some more this week too! So check it out here – CIC497 (And don’t forget that we’re partnering with the team over at Double Trouble papercrafting challenge as well!)

Speaking of which…I have some challenges I’d like to enter my card for:

Double Trouble – I used the tic-tac-toe board in 2 ways: emboss, insect, sponging and also insect, flowers, woodgrain
Pearly Sparkles – 3 of a Kind (3 pearls and flowers)
Watercooler Wednesday – WWC279 All About Occasions
Allsorts – Beginning with a “B” (basket and butterfly)
Cute Card Thursday – Not Square (rectangle card)
Creative fingers – Anything Goes

July 13, 2020

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles37 Comments

Embossing for Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends! I hope you’re having a great week so far! Many thanks for the kind thoughts about my post yesterday and the video tutorial. I think I get a bit nervous thinking I’m going to mess up instructions, but perhaps I’ll get the hang of it! 🙂

Today starts a new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday! This week it’s all about “embossing“! Now there are a few different ways to emboss and I happen to love them all! So you could do heat embossing, “dry” embossing with an embossing folder or even maybe do some embossing paste! However you emboss it, we look forward to seeing what you come up with! Here’s the card I made for the challenge:

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TRICK OR TREATS?!! Oh my word now how stinkin’ cute are these penguins?! Don’t they look like they just rang your door bell for Halloween?! LOL! That penguin image that I’ve used here is from an August Digital Release (previously released in red rubber) from Whimsy Stamps called Penguin Trick or Treaters and oh were they fun to color!

I was inspired to create with them for this embossing challenge, so I took a piece of Bristol Smooth Watercolor Paper and stamped the stars from the Whimsy Stamps Basic Christmas Backgrounds clear stamp set with a pigment black ink. I covered it with clear embossing powder and heat set them. Then I went over the stars with some distress inks (Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin, Wilted Violet & Blueprint Sktech) and ink foam blending tool. I also spritzed some water over it for the water dropplet look.

All of the panels including the card base were cut from the Whimsy Stamps Notched Squares die set. So I took the finished colored panel and attached it over a black die cut panel and then I took a piece of orange cardstock that was die cut and ran an embossing folder over it. (We Are Memory Keepers-Next Level Gemstones) I rubbed a white ink pad over it to pop out the details in the embossing and then I mounted it over the die cut black card base.

After coloring the penguins, they were fussy cut out and popped up with foam tape over the colored panel. I had an older Halloween set of dies that I couldn’t part with from Whimsy Stamps and I cut out some bats from black cardstock and attached those to the starry background. I also added some drops with some Tonic Studios Silver Glitter Accents for a bit of sparkle.

Here’s a closer look at these cute little trick-or-treaters and how I’ve colored them up. I have used the following Copic markers to color them with. CLICK HERE to view/purchase Copics from Whimsy Stamps or click numbers below for specific colors:

Penguin bodies – C8, C3, C1, 0blender, R00, YR27, YR24, Y35, White gel pen
Pumpkin – YR27, YR18, YR14, YR21, R20, YG67, YG63, YG61
Candy Bag – E33, E31, E30, wrote letters with Copic liner
Sherrif Costume – E89, E87, E84, E81, W5, W3, W1, Silver gel pen
Pirate Costume – R39, R37, R35, R32
Witch Costume – V17, V15, V12, YR07, YR04, Silver gel pen

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I think these look like a fun group to go trick-or-treating with, don’t you?! 🙂

I hope you’ve enjoyed my fun Halloween card today and were inspired in some way! Please be sure to stop by the Cute Card Thursday blog and have a look at the inspiration and come play along with us this week! Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Here are the Whimsy Stamps products I’ve used on my card today with affliate links: