Vera Stamps

I’ve been wanting to use the Postage Stamps Nestabilities die with the large collage image from the Postage Due stamp set for a long time, and this week’s SCS sketch (SC399) was just perfect. It couldn’t have been more timely, because my husband’s birthday was coming up and I hadn’t made his (bicycle) birthday card yet!

I stamped the image with VersaMark ink while the Very Vanilla card stock was still inside the die, then heat embossed with Early Espresso EP. Afterwards I placed the paper back inside the die and sponged Crumb Cake and More Mustard ink over the entire surface. I also spritzed on some red and blue ink to tie in with the Fan Fair DSP background. The birthday sentiment was embossed on a Lots of Tags die cut that was embellished with linen thread.

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I couldn’t resist the Birthday theme of this month’s WMS Blog Party. Birthday cards are my favorite to make and send out. This week’s SCS sketch, SC398, gave me the (desperately needed) inspiration and here is the result.

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I drove my little electric car to Fort Meade today for a day of stamping fun! There were 21 stampers present at the SCS shoebox swap, which had been given a Christmas theme by our hostesses Amanda and Cindy. We were to wear Christmas sweaters and/or a hand-made Christmas-inspired name tag, but our cards didn’t have to be Christmas cards.

I found this Stacked Nesties technique in the October/November 2011 edition of the Technique Junkie Newsletter and thought it would be fun to find a nice combination of Labels Nestabilities for my swap card today. The card was really very simple and fast to put together – perfect for a shoebox swap! To create the background, I placed the inked Musical Score stamp rubber side up and rubbed my hand over the center of the card stock without going all the way to the edge of the paper for a more collagey look. The focal image was stamped with black ink and colored with various colors of ink and a blender pen.

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I spent a wonderful day stamping with 11 fellow Splitcoaststampers in Laurel, MD today. Kathy sure hosts a fabulous shoebox swap every time, and it was very nice to not feel rushed because of the smaller group of stampers. Since I knew we had more time to work on each card, I decided to add a bit of intricacy to my design by means of the Layered Masking Technique (featured in the February 2012 issue of the Technique Junkie Newsletter).

The card measures 5-1/4″ x 5-1/4″ and is made from Pear Pizzazz card stock. All stamping was done on one 4-1/2″ x 5″ piece of glossy white card stock. I enjoyed pulling my old elegant sentiment stamp set off the shelf to complement the tea cup image and (retired) Teahouse background.

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StampTV asked me (!) to host today’s Mix It Up Monday challenge. How about that! My “Get It Inky (Finally)!” challenge is for you to find a stamp in your collection that you have never gotten inky, and then ink it up with your favorite color. As some of you may know, that would be orange for me. I ended up making a monochromatic orange card in the process, but you don’t have to. The various designs from the free Sunlit Summer digital paper pack (get it here on StampTV’s freebies page) were perfect for creating the sunray background. Thanks to Shannan Teubner for a great tutorial!

It is hard to admit, but there were several never-before-used Lovely Labels for me to choose from. I really liked the shape of the Labels Twenty die for this card. Both ends of the stamped die-cut looked like they were missing something, so I colored self-adhesive half pearls with a Copic marker and created a little pattern with them.

If you’re a StampTV member, I hope you give this challenge a try!