the Card Ladies

Sep24

NC Demos Blog Hop – Light Up Your Fall!

by Tamra Davis on September 24th, 2017 at 8:00 pm

Posted In: NC Demos Blog Hop, Stampin' Up! Projects

Hello and welcome to another NC Demos Blog Hop. This month the theme was ‘techie’, and I know most are sharing their favorite stamping techniques with you. But I was a career Computer Programmer before my job was off-shored, I took early retirement and joined Stampin’ Up!, so I admit I still have the random geek thought here and there.

I have found something new that works great with our beautiful stamps, a light kit that is low voltage enough to use with paper crafts. FUN!

We had a recent gathering of the NC Demos group I belong to and we always have lots of swaps and contests when we get together.

Hometown Greetings Edgelits Dies 144671 Price: $32.00

So I played around with these lights and learned to make the complete circuit and actually make the lights work!

They were perfect to use behind the cityscape of Hometown greetings edgelit dies.

I am happy to say that my light up card won the WOW contest at the event, and now I want to light more stuff up.

Obviously I am not the only one that thinks this is cool. lol

Seasonal Lantern Photopolymer Bundle #146073 Price: $54.00

Here is the info on the card I actually did specially for this blog hop.

It uses a nice new bundle in the Holiday Mini called Seasonal Lantern.

Anything called ‘lantern’ is just begging to be lit up, right?

Well, I thought it was. So I did.

This is really a cool set that might get overlooked in the catalog.

It has wonderful sentiments for fall and also a menorah for cards for our Jewish friends.

Yes, this need to be played with much more!

I decided to use the words in the set that said Autumn Greetings… perfect! And a great size.

This is a two-step stamping set, too, so I put a layer of leaves at the bottom going each way with a Garden Green outline and an Old Olive fill.

So easy to do the different colors and see where they are going with this set.

The lantern I cut several layers of, and built it up to have some height and 3D interest.

The gold foil accent on the lantern is included in the framelits! Great decorative piece for your lantern if you desire.

There is also a piece of the vellum cardstock between the top two layers of the lantern for covering my light components, and it is perfect for the job!

I added some of the fallish stamped and then cutout with the thinlits and put on the bottom of my lantern with dimensionals.

The saying is stamped on Very Vanilla cardstock with Cajun Craze ink and given an end banner treatment.

The size was great, and the gold trimmed Very Vanilla new ribbon is another fun an festive touch.

Here is the card lit up. I did another ‘squeeze’ switch in the corner, but rigged it to stay on for this pic.

Do you know how hard it is to get a good pic of a light up thing ?

Here it is with the lights off. LOL!

So, yeah, it is hard. I obviously have some more playing to do!!!

Good thing there are other great things I can light up for the holidays~ Light posts, sparkly trees, lots of fun stuff, so check back soon!

Now on to the other talented demos from our talented state in this blog hop. See you next month!

Tamra Davis You are here!

4 Comments

Sep24

RemARKable Ink Big Blog Hop – Halloween Spirits!

by Tamra Davis on September 24th, 2017 at 4:00 pm

Posted In: Stampin' Up! Projects

Welcome to this Halloween themed hop by members of some online training groups that are looking to grow in their Stampin’ Up! business.

One of the best things about Stampin’ Up! for me is the friends and even more crafting with friends.

Since you can’t always do that in person when your friends are all around the globe, a blog hop is a great way to come together and share our love for creating.

This month, it is all about Halloween, one of my faves!

I am using a combo of new and old Halloween stamps for my card, and here they are.

Sweet Home Photopolymer Stamp Set #140936 Price: $21.00

Graveyard Gate Clear-Mount Stamp #144765 Price: $22.00

(click to see larger)

This is actually a motion card, but having trouble uploading the little video for it. ARGH!

In the meantime, here is the card closed, and then here is the card open.

(click to see larger)

I added a ‘stop’ in the works to keep it from coming out too far, which is a interesting option.

It keeps the illusion alive if they don’t see the ‘guts’ of you animated image.

It also allowed me to hide the ‘Happy Halloween’ sentiment at the top of the pull up piece.

The video will show it much better… still working on it, please check back!

The motion cards are so cool and Halloween ghosts are just a perfect thing to have move! I am also envisioning twinkling Christmas lights, moving wise men, so many more options!

I did a tutorial in the summer on all the tricks and tips I learned from many hours of playing with the ‘you Move Me’ bundle and how to add motion to any stamp. If you missed it, here it is for purchase (and instant download) and some card videos that actually work . lol pdf tips for adding motion basics

Here are the rest of the hoppers and their projects, have a great week and make something that MOVES you!

2 Comments

Sep19

Thailand Achievers Blog Hop – My Favorite Holiday Catalog Set

by Tamra Davis on September 19th, 2017 at 5:00 pm

Posted In: GV Achievers Blog Hop, Stampin' Up! Projects

Welcome everyone to the last Thailand Achievers Blog Hop!

This month we are sharing our favorite (so far) stamp set from the Holiday Mini catalog that is now available to order from… YAY!

Painted Harvest Photopolymer Stamp Set #144783 Price: $21.00

The stamp set Painted Harvest was an early fave with me and my team.

In my previous post, I told of a recent Tuesday team gathering where we were playing with glossy paper and how the ink behaves differently on this type of cardstock.

And as we continued to play with the glossy cardstock and the Painted Harvest stamps, I did another couple of cards that really cemented it’s position as my favorite Stamp set!

Christmas with a ‘fall’ stamp set? Sure, just change up the ink colors.

(click to see bigger)

By stamping the fall flower in shades of green only, it is now a cute little wreath!

I used Berry Burst for the base card this time and also for the sentiment, so a non-traditional set of colors for a holiday card, but so pretty together.

The Sentiment from the Snowflake Senitiments stamp set had the big greeting I needed for this card.

And since I had used the Berry Burst, one of the new in-colors, there is a fun new in-color embellishment this year you may have messed.

These are the super cute little self adhesive bows available to match the new in-colors.

Perfect embellishment for this cute wreath!

I liked this wreath so much that I wanted to make one a bit bigger.

The longer leaves in Painted Harvest would work so I stamped those around a punched out circle of post-it note in the top center of the glossy paper.

(click to see bigger)

After going around the circle ones I was able to remove the post-it circle and go around a couple more times with other greens to finish off this wreath.

And now it is time to fess up. When we play on Tuesday nights, not everything goes perfectly the first time.

But sometimes you learn as much from your failures as you do from your successes.

I actually stamped the sentiment on this card in Cherry Cobbler… and smeared it after stamping because it was still wet for a bit.

That was a real bummer because the wreath was great!

I sprayed some Stampin’ Mist on a paper towel to see if I could wipe the whole sentiment off the glossy cardstock.

That didn’t work, but it ‘smeared’ some really nice color all around the sentiment! That was cool, so I smeared some Cherry Cobbler all over the white background and it turned out to be almost Berry Burst!

Putting it on a narrow mat of Lemon Lime Twist and a base card of Berry Burst worked great!

Back to the Itty Bitty Bows (which I now adore!), the Lemon Lime Twist one worked great on this wreath. Another favorite embellishment lately, the Metallic Enamel Shapes make great gold ‘berries’ on this card.

Yep, I thought this card was a goner, but it ended up teaching me a new trick on glossy paper. Never give up and don’t be afraid to ‘mess up’, even in front of friends and other crafters.

Creativity is a journey… I am glad you are on this journey with me. 😉

Next month starts the Alaska Trip Achievers Blog Hops and I get to play in that one, too! Yay,

Now on to the blogs of some other Trip Achievers to see what their faves are. See you next month!

Product List

8-1/2″ X 11″ Glossy White Cardstock [144240] $7.00	Painted Harvest Photopolymer Stamp Set [144783] $21.00	Many Marvelous Markers [131264] $110.00	2017-2019 In Color Bitty Bows [144217] $8.50
Stampin’ Spritzer [126185] $3.00	Berry Burst 8-1/2″ X 11″ Cardstock [144243] $8.00	Old Olive 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock [100702] $8.00	Lemon Lime Twist 8-1/2″ X 11″ Cardstock [144245] $8.00
Metallic Enamel Shapes [141678] $7.00	Berry Burst Classic Stampin’ Pad [144083] $6.50	Cherry Cobbler Classic Stampin’ Pad [126966] $6.50	SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332] $7.00

4 Comments

Sep17

RemARKably Created Blog Hop – Falling for Fall!

by Tamra Davis on September 17th, 2017 at 6:00 pm

Posted In: Stampin' Up! Projects

Welcome to the Blog Hop for the members of my extended team.

It is so fun to hop along and see what your friends are making and FALL is my favorite time of year for sure!

The stamp set Painted Harvest is just so much fun to play with and it does just seem like fall.

So many options of different color combo to give that little flower whatever personality or season you wanted it to have, really, but we are doing FALL now.

At a recent Tuesday team gathering, we were playing with glossy paper and different ways to get ink on the paper and how it layers on this different cardstock.

It just made sense that we reached for this Painted Harvest set yet again to add the focal pieces.

We were also playing with using a little different way to add some watercoloring to the card, using ink first applied to our clear blocks.

Yes, the stamp holder becomes the ‘stamp’… think of those possibilities!

For this first card I did, I took the ‘I’ block and inked it up with markers in ‘fall’ colors… Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, Pumpkin Pie.

(I have markers I use for classes, but I have a special set just for ME that I keep on a rolling cart by my side when I craft. I highly recommend all crafters just bite the bullet and get a full set of the Many Marvelous Markers even if you save them just for you… so convenient!)

We had a water bottle and were spraying the blocks for the water in the watercolor look. But it made HUGE droplets!

Turned out the best way to get tiny droplets of water in a more controlled way on your inked up block was a stampin’ Up! tool… the spritzer!

Another benefit of the spritzer, you don’t soak your whole table or floor… geez, didn’t realize what a mess I was making.

Definitely use the spritzer!

(click to see bigger)

Here are these cards in process, I was making them for a swap in one of my uplines groups, so I was doing several.

It was really fun to have them all laid out like this because no two were the same!

One thing I did after I had ‘stamped’ the I block on the glossy cardstock for the base color… I inked up the leaves in the set and stamped them carefully within the boundaries of the ‘block’.

I really like the Old Olive of the leaves in that space!

(click to see bigger)

An Early Expresso sentiment and then playing with the colors of the flowers until they were to my liking.

The glossy paper allows for some fun layering of the colors in a way regular cardstock will not.

For most of the flowers, I did a the ‘back’ flower stamp over top of several layers of a ‘completed’ flower in tangerine tango.

I just wanted it to be more orangey… is that a word? lol

So some linen twine across the card for texture, then mounting on an Old Olive narrow cut mat piece and then that on a Cajun Craze base card and the card is done.

I continued to play with this set that night and we made some other fun cards, and learned a few things we didn’t know before about working with the glossy paper, but that will be in another post.

If you made it through this whole post, I hope you play with this ‘inky block’ technique yourself. It really is a bunch of fun!

Come back soon and enjoy the rest of the hop!

Product List

8-1/2″ X 11″ Glossy White Cardstock [144240] $7.00	Painted Harvest Photopolymer Stamp Set [144783] $21.00	Clear Block I [118488] $12.00	Many Marvelous Markers [131264] $110.00
Stampin’ Spritzer [126185] $3.00	Cajun Craze 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock [119684] $8.00	Old Olive 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock [100702] $8.00	Linen Thread [104199] $4.50

4 Comments

Sep15

Gathering with other NC Demos – Shoebox Swap Time!

by Tamra Davis on September 15th, 2017 at 6:00 pm

Posted In: Stampin' Up! Projects

Hi everyone! Greetings from Raleigh, NC, as my friend and downline, Shavon, and I gather with approx. 40 other Stampin’ Up! demonstrator friends from around the state. We call these our Quarterly meetings and for the most part, they really do happen quarterly… hosted by teams around the state during the year.

These are a day and a half of wonderful creative escape for the attendees… this one hosted by the Durham/Raleigh area group. We started tonight with our ‘shoebox swap’ night and I wanted to share mine with you guys here.

Not sure what a ‘shoebox swap’ is? Well, it is a real shoebox of creative fun!

We all create a project, cut all the pieces and make project kits, put all the inks, stamps, ribbon, etc needed to complete the project along with the cut paper ‘kits’ into a literal shoebox. Then we take a shoebox, complete the project, put the stuff back in, return that one and grab another.

We craft, gab and visit with demo friends, craft, laugh, eat, gab some more, craft some more… you get the idea!

Merry Patterns – Additional Host Promotion thru Oct 31st

So I wanted to use the new stamp set I showed you guys the other day, the promotional additional host gift available for orders of $300 or more during Sept and Oct only.

When I say additional, it means you get this after you have already gotten your normal host gifts.

Sweet! Gotta love extra stuff for FREE!

The more I play with this two-step stamping set, the more I like it, too.

SOooooo easy to make cute and colorful holiday cards quickly, so that is the project I wanted to share in case some of the other demos here had not gotten their set yet.

(click to see bigger)

I also wanted to give them some options… here is card #1

The base card is a color I love, but don’t reach for often enough, Sahara Sand.

This is just a wonderful neutral color, and the Real Red and Emerald Envy just pops on it, too!

I did also use some Tranquil Tide ink to stamp the ‘Merry Christmas’ and the darker branches.

The shapes are from the ‘Lots of L

Lots Of Labels Framelits Dies 138281 Price: $27.00

abels’ Framelet Die set, and I skipped a size between the two I used so there would be room for the words on the bottom right of the label.

The ribbon I used is the shiny crinkled seam binding in Emerald Envy… gosh I love that ribbon!

Adds shine, vivid color and a touch of texture all at once. Just what all cards need.

A bit of Wink of Stella on the flames and 3 little rhinestones in the greenery add some more sparkle. Each layer is popped up on dimensionals.

One thing that is hard to see in the full card pic is the embossing on the Real Red piece, so here is a close up.

Can you see that embossing on the red piece? Click on the picture to see it a big bigger.

The subtle texture is a big plus, don’t forget about adding this element to your creations, and it really adds to the rich ‘feel’ of your cards!

I really liked the pattern in this embossing folder for this project, and it shows that embossing folder certainly does not have to be just for faux quilting projects!

Do you remember when I said I wanted to give the folks doing my shoebox some options?

(click to see bigger)

Well, here is card #2.

Obviously the same exact cardstock pieces and colors, just using another of the combos in this fun stamp set.

I really loved how these little cards turned out!

And the TaDa team members with me when I did these, were kinda surprised how fast this card came together. (So was I!)

From the ‘what should I do’ phase, to 2 options of cute cards and all the supplies and kits in one shoebox ready to go in record time!

Our main meeting is tomorrow, Saturday, and I will try to post some pics when I get home to Charlotte. Looking forward to seeing what projects and new ideas the hosting team has in store for us, and of course, the swaps, contests and fellowship will be great!

Here is the supply list for these projects, see what YOU can make and enjoy some creative time SOON!
Product List

Lots Of Labels Framelits Dies [138281] $27.00	Whisper White 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock [100730] $9.00	Real Red Classic Stampin’ Pad [126949] $6.50	Emerald Envy Classic Stampin’ Pad [141396] $6.50	Tranquil Tide Classic Stampin’ Pad [144085] $6.50
Crushed Curry Classic Stampin’ Pad [131173] $6.50	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad [132708] $6.00	Real Red 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock [102482] $8.00	Sahara Sand 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock [121043] $8.00	Quilt Top Textured Impressions Embossing Folder [144687] $8.50
Emerald Envy 5/8″ Crinkled Seam Binding Ribbon [144190] $8.00	Rhinestone Basic Jewels [144220] $5.00	Stampin’ Dimensionals [104430] $4.00	SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332] $7.00	SNAIL Permanent Adhesive Refill [104331] $4.50