Lockdown week 2 Star Stamper Challenge

Wow now that's a mouthful. When you join up Stampin' Up! you get a wee virtual family. Now is a perfect example when it's really nice to have a virtual family that are crafty related. My bubble partner is slowly demolishing the garden and he loves seeing what I create and will be my colour consultant but that's as far as he goes so it's really good to have a Stampin' family who are spread throughout NZ The "Star Stampers". Last week Bev Poultney challenged us to try the scrappy strip technique & I loved it. Week 2 & it's Rhonda Fawcett's turn she has challenged us to do a challenge from her blog in January, you can see what she created HERE back then.

I have to be honest I had so many ideas for this one. Rhonda is right using a sketch really helps with the card design. I settled on using one of my favourite SU! colours (the retired Lemon Lime Twist) as we all need a bit of cheer with the new absolutely stunning Ornate Borders dies which are coming in the new annual catalogue which kicks off in June but we can pre-order NOW. I'm not a fussy card maker but wow these dies, in fact the whole bundle made my heart go boom in a good way. Being a demonstrator I was able to pre-purchase my bundle last month when Sale-a-bration was active & earn free products on top so it seemed appropriate to use the free product (the Thoughtful Blooms stamp set and matching punch, both of which I earned for free in SAB and is no longer available).

Supply List (all SU!):
Stamps:Thoughtful Blooms
Ink: Flirty Flamingo, Mango Melody, Lemon-Lime Twist (retired), Gorgeous Grape, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper: Whisper White, Highland Heather, Lemon Lime Twist, Gingham Gala DSP
Other: Small Bloom Punch, Ornate Borders dies, Layering Circles framelits, dimensionals

If you'd like to play along with the Star Stampers & don't have a blog you are welcome to e-mail your KReation & I can blog it for you. If you have blogged it just comment below.

If you'd like to know more about the fabulous Ornate Garden Suite pre-order check out my Specials tab above.

Thanks for stopping by, the weather forecast in NZ is shocking for Easter so it maybe a very good time to be lock-downed and playing with our craft supplies. Hopefully you were clever like me & stocked up on Easter eggs too.

✿ Karen ✿

Basic cutting metric card stock 101

Hi all we're heading into week 2 of the 4 week lock-down in New Zealand & one of the things I should have done before lock-down was get some crafting supplies to my niece who is stuck at home with 5 children but whilst I've been tidying my craft room up lately I have made up 2 huge boxes of supplies for them which includes a trimmer. Now I know from when I used to run home classes many don't actually know how to cut out the card stock so here's my 101 & hopefully easy to follow guide. I apologise in advance for the photo quality as it's a rather gloomy day in NZ today.

The first thing to note is that many paper trimmers have a locking mechanism on the top beside the cutting grove. The latest model from SU! doesn't but the older model does and many Fiskars trimmers do as well. Move to the left to unlock if you can't lift up the clear plastic guide to insert your paper under.

The other cool thing about the SU! trimmers they have a cutting blade (dark grey) and a scoring blade (light grey).

Also most trimmers have an extendable arm so you can cut out 12 x 12" card stock (the newest trimmer from SU! actually extends out 17"). You don't need to pull this out if you're working with our standard A4 cardstock.

So the first thing you need to decide is the orientation of your card before you cut a piece of A4 card stock in half.

The card on the left I always call a mountain card, the card on the right is the traditional way we buy cards. As you can see they are actually identical cards its just the way they open that is different. I normally make "mountain cards" when I want to wrap ribbon around the card.

So to make the mountain card you insert the card stock into the trimmer and cut down the middle at 10.5 cm and then score at 14.85 cm.

To cut the traditional card turn the card stock and cut in half at 14.85cm (or you can cut both pieces at 14.8cm) & score at 10.5cm.

Now the fun bit starts in essence BOTH cards are the same with a card face of 14.8 (or 14.85) cm x 10.5 cm.

I have this piece of card on all my cutters just sellotaped down showing me the mat sizes. We decrease incrementally 0.5 cm on both sides.

I have cut out multiple mats & just layered them for the purpose of this 101 guide, I haven't glued them down but you should get the idea of the possibilities.

Below we have pink mat 14.3 x 10 cm, white mat is 13.8 x 9.5 cm.

Below I have made the pink mat 1 cm smaller to start ie 13.8 x 9.5 cm and white mat 13.3 x 9 cm.

This has the green mat the same as the first option 14.3 x 10 cm, pink 13.8 x 9.5 cm, white 13.3 x 9 cm.

This is the same as above but no pink mat.

The colours used are So Saffron, Blushing Bride, Granny Apple Green and Whisper White.

I hope this makes sense, any questions just leave me a comment below. So stay safe all & my dear nieces if you do read this stay safe & no cutting yourself with any of the tools I'm gifting to you!!
✿ Karen ✿

Scrappy Strip Technique

My Stampin' Up! team (the Star Stampers) are going to do a different technique every week whilst we're all in lockdown. The first challenge was to try Bruno Bertucci's scrappy strip technique, it really requires very little apart from lots of badly cut strips of card stock. You can check out the video here (the technique starts at 20 mins approximately).

This is what it looks like when adhering to the card mat (LHS is all trimmed, RHS all attached & waiting to chop down to a mat).

I'm really liking the Silicon Craft mat it's perfect to stop the glue getting all over your work surface.

Looking at Bruno's card he used much thinner strips than I did, the colours I used were Cherry Cobbler, Petal Pink, Pool Party, Sahara Sand, Very Vanilla and Basic Black.

 My team have all jazzed their cards up with embellishments so I used the lovely cherry blossom stamp from Forever Blossoms (#151457) &diecut it out with the matching die-set (Cherry Blossoms #151456) & I've colored up with my Copics (R11, E95, G20, YG11, Y35 and W1). A few Champagne Rhinestones for a bit of bling. I have stamped the image with Memento Desert Sand ink for a more no-line colouring look. The sentiment is from the Beautiful You stamp set (#143637) and everything is popped up with some dimensionals.

This was such a fun & easy technique so I challenge you all to have a go too, it certainly brightened up my day. Thanks Bruno for the great technique & Bev Pountney for challenging us all.

✿ Karen ✿