Inky techniques with Simon

Simon Hurley that is. Simon was our instructor at the #SCTbigboxevent for Ranger and he was working with his inks pads, large stamping foam, domed blender foams and another jar of lunar paste (Game Over). He is also working with Spellbinders too, so his Sedona stamp set had matching dies and we also got a really cool scene builder stencil called Sedona Scene Maker.

I have just Googled Sedona and "Sedona is an Arizona desert town near Flagstaff that’s surrounded by red-rock buttes, steep canyon walls and pine forests." That is too funny I live in Flagstaff, Hamilton, New Zealand.

Simon is an awesome teacher and I achieved all 3 cards for the class PLUS a bonus card. I've snapped as 2 photos of 2 cards rather than as a group of 4. Starting off with let's go to Sedona...

This card makes me laugh, fancy sending someone a prickly cactus with HUGS but it is perfect sentiment! Colours used were Soft Suede, Wild Wasabi and Old Olive (all SU!) and we used the domed blender to add some Lunar Paste to the cactus flower.

The scene builder was fun to build with the scene maker stencil. Starting at the top of the scene: Licorice (PFS), Blue Jay (PFS), Slumber (PFS), Melon Mambo (SU!), Mango Melody (SU!), Soft Suede (SU!), Warm Sunshine (ALT),  Olive (PFS).

And of course the moon in Game Over, this lunar paste isn't as vibrant as the one we received last year but it is very dramatic.

I know this stencil is available to purchase and I really liked making a scene with the stencil so it is worth keeping your eyes out if more are released. I know a lot of colours were used but it was actually very easy to create the background.

Then it was stamping foam fun time. 

After last year's play I bought for $2 from K-Mart a flax-coir sort of mat so knew I wanted to have a play with that for my background, ink colour used Slumber (PFS). We stamped onto a die-cut with the photopolymer stamps for the flower, I used Wild Wasabi (SU!) for the leaves and Warm Sunshine (ALT) for the flower centres. Lunar paste added to flower petals.

This was the bonus card and wow I love it, it's actually my fav from the class, the thin stripes were made using the side of the warm stamping foam block, which were pushed into your scoring board to make the impression. We used Wild Wasabi for the leaves and Melon Mambo, Mango Melody and Warm Sunshine for the rest of the stamping. I have used some glitter drops from PFS on this card and the one above  just some random sequins in my stash (?Studio Katia Majestic Confetti).

Ranger were every generous AGAIN and we got a heap of stuff in our class kit.

I really like the domed blender brushes so decided I am going to start using them for doing my Distress Oxide backgrounds as they are much faster to lay on the colour and blend with the oxides. We used them to make the night sky on our "plus one card" from the first day.

✿ Karen ✿

First day of SCTCCD part 2

Well it's officially the 3rd day of the event today in NZ and the event is finished and I have a moment to catch my breath - wow - I managed to craft along for half the event and of the 7 classes I wanted to do I only have 2 cards left to finish off for one class and hopefully that will be finished later today. So my current tally of cards as I write this blog post is 18 cards (of a potential 50 I think so 40% completed).

Day one is the intense mini classes which are not really mini at all apart from the fact they cram the class of 2-3 cards into one hour.

So finishing of "my day one" which was only 3 of a potential 9 classes. My part one post was 2 days ago. 

Sharing my second Your Next Stamp card here now, at the live class I have never ever seen anyone blend a background so fast as the tutor Mari Clark so I just needed to do that afterwards and then construct the card on the day.

I loved the green/blue version but this one is cute being recessed plus a bit of pink, orange, yellow - it's quite cheerily cute. We only used 3 distress oxides but we got blends where the colours overlapped.

Colours used were Salvaged Patina, Squeezed Lemonade, Kitsch Flamingo. I've also added Nuvo Crystal Glaze to my balloon as I wasn't really happy with my Copic colouring.

The next class I did was with Simon Hurley representing Ranger but in essence he was representing his range with Ranger. Ranger were very generous they also donated to our "swag bag" a clear Emboss It ink pad and a jar of super fine detail white embossing powder.

I forgot to snap the Clear Skies Lunar Paste and a stamping foam that was also part of our kit for the class. This stencil is so cool for the first card we were supposed to stencil through it Clear Skies ink but I used my Tahitian Tide from SU! which was a good colour match I think and then turn over, line up and spread through a thin layer of the lunar paste, I'm not sure what I did down the bottom maybe I jiggled my stencil when lifting?? but the photos don't do justice for how shimmery this looks in real life. A few of my fingernails are still sparkly blue so I got a free manicure too.

This was the only card we made with lunar paste but I would definitely buy some other colours as it is really effective.

The last 2 cards we made using stamping foam, now Simon had used a tablemat for his first card so I did the same, I think the weave on his card was nicer than my tablemats but I certainly will keep my eyes open when I am next shopping at K Mart to see what I can find to get a pattern off.

I added the embellishments I am not sure whether that is something Simon would do but I like them.

The last card we pressed the stamping foam into a background stamp to do reverse stamping, my first choice was too fussy (Something Lacy SU! - RHS) and I am glad I swapped to Altenew's Geometric Botany.

Then Simon shared a quick tip for easy colouring, flipping our stamps on the block and smooshing inkpads on them, misting lightly and stamping over a stamped image which had been stamped with a waterproof ink.

All the images are fussy cut out, he hinted something similar to our class kit is being released in a few months time with matching dies but they are different sizes. I actually did a lot of fussy cutting for the event as even though I received a lot of dies some of our smaller classes didn't have a matching die but surprisingly an awful lot also did have them included.

And look more embellishments! This class was a lot of fun and reminded me a bit of playing with a gelli plate you really know what you're going to get. 

I hope you can see and feel how excited I was on day one after only doing 3 of the 9 classes that were offered on the day from my 2 blog posts. 

#cropcreatedelivered #SCTbigboxevent

✿ Karen ✿

First day of SCT Crop & Create Delivered Cardmaking part one

Wow that is a mouthful it will now be known as SCTCCD (fall edition). Way back in April a few members of the Stamp Junkies Facebook group were getting REALLY excited about it. Being the snoop bomb I am I went off to investigate and thought that is a lot of money but when I started going the maths it is actually phenomenal value. 

There are approximately 20 classes, 50 cards being taught by 20 different tutors. These are not just tutors these are the rock gods of the stamping world for a lot of the classes on offer. So if I even just took the value of 20 classes at $20/class which is typically what I pay for when I go to a SU! class that is $400 alone. A class at SENZ would cost me $50/3 cards minimum and both those options are just the class and the cards I get to take home.

So here as well as the classes I get all the stamp sets, dies, stencils, lunar paste, flock and glitter and also 6 mini ink cubes etc. I would hate to guesstimate the value of what was sent to me but it weighed 10 pounds! 

If you want to check out what I signed up for this is the official page at Scrapbook Cards Today HERE.

There has been a lot of prep getting ready for the event but we have even been provided videos if the prep is complicated. Now if I was truly crazy I could have got out of bed at 3am in NZ and taken part in 10 mini classes to my 2.30pm plus today. But I had already decided I am going to create "live" with them from my 8am to approx. 1pm each day and do half a day's KRafting. So today I did 3 mini classes which were an hour long each and we made 2-3 cards at each class. The rest of the classes I can watch the replay and do later.

• Mari Clark from Your Next Stamp
• Laura Graff from scrapbook.com
• Simon Hurley from Ranger Ink

I was hoping to do Vicki Boutin's Happy Hour class but happy hour started off in Gina K's studio with Catherine from SCT and Gina chatting away to us and giving away prizes and I had another commitment at 2.30pm so when it looked like Vicki B was starting after 1.45pm and not 1pm as stated I decided I would watch her class video another time.

So if you have made it this far here's todays stamping fun.

Starting off with a postcard we received from SCT.

These were my 6 cards all lined up which I had created after the 3 one hour classes; I still needed to finish off 2 cards which I did finish after dinner tonight and will snap tomorrow.

First class for me was Mari Clark and Your Next Stamp: a company I have never heard of but this is so adorable. This is a small stamp set and we received the matching die and some gumdrops (which were enamel drops with glitter).

We were supposed to make 2 cards but I only managed one in the first hour, so you will have to wait for part 2 to see the second card.

Next up was Laura Graff from scrapbook.com and she made both the cards from scratch that I am about to show you in the hour, she was a machine as I had die cut out all my flowers for card one in my prep before class and I am sure it took me 2 hours to die cut and glue them together plus then add a drop of Snowflakes Pop of Colour in the middle of each flower.

scrapbook.com were so generous we also got the bottle of  Snowflakes Pop of Colour which is like Stickles but makes a really nice drop and seems to take on the colour it's on top of plus  they also gave us a magic mat for our die cutting in our swag bag. But what a phenomenal set and dies for our class called Hello Bloom we received. All our stamp sets etc are exclusive for the event and are not available to purchase but they maybe released later or not.

Again I finished of the third bonus card for this class after dinner and will reveal tomorrow in part 2 along with my first go using stamping foam with Simon Hurley and playing with lunar paste, even my left thumb nail is a bit sparkly with my Clear Skies Lunar Paste that we received in our box of goodies.

#cropcreatedelivered #SCTbigboxevent
✿ Karen ✿