...Gina K Designs Stitched Leaves Mini Inspiration Blog Hop - Back in Stock TODAY!

 

The Cast and Crew for Gina K Designs welcomes you to another fabulous blog hop celebrating the new Gina K Designs Stitched Leaves mini kit which will be back in stock TODAY! We hope to inspire you with some beautiful card projects as you hop along to each of the designer’s blogs!
These stamp sets are so fun, versatile and you can make a variety of different cards and projects with or without dies! You will be creating with this stamp set and dies all fall long! Have fun and be creative!

 

I used that glorious maple leaf stamp for todays card - I inked up the solid shape in Sweet Mango and Cherry red (both Gina K Inks) using the rock and roll technique. Then I over-stamped the line image in brown. The leaves were then trimmed out with the matching dies! lastly I set them down on a piece of foam and rubbed over them with the rounded bottom end of a pen to make them curl before adhering them to my card base. I used a piece of patterned paper from my stash (it's from the Gina K Autumn wishes paper pack) The thankful die used to create the sentiment panel is also in this kit!

Enjoy the gorgeous inspiration samples from the team and then comment on each blog for your chance to win a $50 Gina K Designs gift certificate! To see who won, check the Big News Forum at StampTV a few days after the hop. Ready for some inspiration?

Ready for more awesome creations?! Just click on the links below for more from Gina and the Cast & Crew:

Gina K. https://ginakdesigns.blogspot.com
Beth Silaika https://silaika.blogspot.com
Cathy Tidwell https://catdidit.blogspot.com
Chris Dayton http://www.cattalesandpapertrails.com
Claire Brennan https://waltzingmouse.blogspot.com
Donna Idlet http://myblogidlet.blogspot.com/search/…/Gina%20K%20designs…
Juliana Michaels http://www.17turtles.com/search/label/Gina%20K%20Designs
Karen Hightower https://karenscreativemess.blogspot.com
Laurie Schmidlin http://justgivemestamps.typepad.com/
Melanie Muenchinger https://melaniemuenchinger.blogspot.com
Rema Deleeuw https://paperpanacherd.blogspot.com
Sean Fetterman http://fettermandesigns.blogspot.com/
Sheri Gilson http://papercraftyscreations.blogspot.com/…/Gina%20K.%20Des…
Silke Ledlow http://silkeledlow.blogspot.com/
Susie Moore http://www.thedieshaveit.com/
Theresa Momber http://craftingtheweb.blogspot.com/

Don’t forget to pop over to the Gina K Designs Store and check out the entire stamp and die set as well as all of the new stamp sets by the illustrators from this month in the “What’s New” section at http://www.ginakdesigns.com.

Thank you for stopping by!

Gina K Designs – February Inspiration Blog Hop – Day 1

Good afternoon! Welcome to another fabulous blog hop celebrating the new stamp release for February by the Gina K designs illustrator team! We hope to inspire you with some beautiful card projects as you hop along to each of the designer’s blogs! Today, we are featuring the stamp sets by Melanie Muenchinger and Theresa Momber.

For my card above I used Melanie's Fabulous Flowers. I stamped the lineart images first in a frame arrangement onto white card stock and then filled in with the solid images, using a rock and roll technique to get two shades of ink on each stamp. I added a little outlining with copics and matted it with Turquoise Sea cardstock, also from Gina K. I love how it turned out.

For my second card for Melanie's set, I tried the Black Magic technique - if you are new to that see Gina's excellent video here. Again I couldn't get away from the floral frame idea.

If you were at the release party the other night, you might have seen this card also using Fabulous Flowers - this time I used only the line images and clear embossed them onto white card stock, before letting loose with the sponges and Gina K Inks.

Now for some cards I made using Theresa's new set, Framescape - Simply Spring.

Theresa's new set features a frame stamp which is designed to fit on a 4.25 by 5.5 inch card, but I wanted to see if I could make it into a square - I like square cards sometimes and it gave me another option for using this set. I did it by inking up one side of the frame to a little under half way and stamping that, and then inking the other side and stamping it slightly over the first impression to complete the square. I found it actually quite easy and was able to eyeball the lining up, but I'll bet if you have a Misti tool or similar you could do this by simply sliding the card across. I then sponged my scene in springy colours - and added a few flowers and some foliage in copic marker. I decided to sponge the cardfront also to reflect the scene. The actual scene is popped up on a black mat.

You don't have to use the complete scene stamp every time either, you can use a snippet of it like I did here - I cut out a window aperture with a craft knife and popped in a slice of the scene behind it. I added a few tulips - also from the set right in front of the 'window' to help the perspective.

Theresa's set comes with a host of little add on stamps, which can be used on their own, I used the two hot air balloon images to make this masculine themed card and gift tag set. This is such a versatile set!

I really hope you have enjoyed the samples, if you have any questions, just pop me a comment here and I will answer you!

It's time to go now and enjoy the gorgeous inspiration samples from the rest of the team - don't forget to comment on each blog for your chance to win a $20 Gina K Designs gift certificate! To see who won, check the Big News Forum at StampTV a few days after the hop. Ready for some inspiration? Here are a few of the projects I have created for today’s hop:

Gina K
Melanie Muenchinger - Illustrator for Fabulous Flowers
Theresa Momber - Illustrator for Framescape – Simply Spring
Cathy Tidwell
Chris Dayton
Claire Brennan (you are here)
Donna Idlet
Karen Hightower
Laurie Schmidlin
Sean Fetterman
Sheri Gilson
Silke Ledlow
Susie Moore


Don’t forget to pop over to the Gina K Designs Store and check out all of the new products available this month in the “What’s New” section at http://www.ginakdesigns.com.
Thank you for stopping by!

...so did you see Karolyn's cards?

 I know, I know, you saw already...well maybe you didn't, but we had Karolyn Loncon of Paper Therapy blog guest designing with us recently. I 'met' Karolyn online back in 2010 when she captured my attention with her crisp, clean style. Everything she makes looks so fresh to me, it's a style I admire and would love to capture myself. Karolyn is one of my favourite blogland folks, I'm a great lurker on her blog, she has terrific style, the sort of lady whose arm I'd be twisting to help me decorate my home, if she lived a bit closer... I adore this navy and coral floral card - and if you click on the card image you can go to Karolyn's blog post and read about how she created this beauty.

These were some of the wms products used on Karolyn's cards:

This Christmas card made me swoon, LOVE how Karolyn floats the snowflakes in behind the vellum there... click the image to see Karolyn's blog posts for these cards. Aren't these beautiful!

...Springy thanks

Good afternoon - hope you are enjoying the May bank holiday! I'm footering with camera settings and lights, trying to get some decent pics of cards. Today's offering is a 5x5 inch card I made up using various bits and bobs.

I like to stamp. I've never had much of a budget for embellishments and so I don't have vast quantities of goodies that I can combine to create beautifully styled collections on the front of their cards - I admire folks who do this well, but I don't have a lot of time to browse - and it's not like Northern Ireland is brimming with craft stores... These days, even though I could probably get a load of stash from my wholesalers, I often find myself overwhelmed with choice and end up back where I started, making cards with little other than stamps.

The card began with me footering about with an odd little stamp from the Cameo Creations stamp set. I like creating patterns so that's usually where I start when I'm just playing around. This little stamp is a cross shape - made of leaves with a mini heart at the centre, it's just so pretty and can be used to make up lots of patterns. It's that wee stamp, 3rd down on the left hand side in the illo below.

I stamped a little lattice panel with is for the front of the card - I left a little empty space in the centre for my sentiment (from Fine Feathers stamp set), which I blind embossed with a pinked square die from Spellbinders. The pics below show how I stamped the panel again, this time for the inside of the card. I didn't fill the centre in as much for this interior panel - to leave room for writing.

The first time I did it, I eyeballed it, but a grid of dots placed at 3/4 inch apart will help you if you fancy having a go at this.

once I had a square, I stamped the little cross in each corner

Then I added a few flowers - I used a teeny tiny flower stamp from the now retired Earth Angel set, but I'll bet you have something similar lurking about. You can use any small stamp for this, a dot, a mini heart, whatever you have to hand.

This is the interior panel all finished.

The Mackintosh style flowers and leaves on the front of the card come from Simple Sprig. I die cut the shapes first and then stamped my flowers and berries in pinks (SU colours - Pretty in Pink and Melon Mambo) I inked up the leaves in pale green - Memento Pear Tart and then sort of smooched along the edges a bit with a darker green - Bamboo Leaves, I like how that turned out. I did a couple of sprigs in this way. Instead of using the simple sprigs as one piece I chopped off various sections of leaves and single leaves. then I added a little dimension to my leaves by rubbing them with an embossing tool until they went nice and curly - I've heard this called burnishing. It's best to do it on a foam pad, but if you don't have any foam a few layers of kitchen towel work also. I worked on the leaves from the revers to that they curved forwards, but I worked on the flowers from the front so they have a cupped appearance - I liked the contrast.

Hope it tickles and don't forget to scroll down for your invite to our PJ party - it's on the 14th!

Stuff I used (It looks like Pretty in Pink SU ink is no longer available, but any pale pink would do):

Simple Sprig

Memento DewDrop Dye Ink Pad - Pear Tart

Melon Mambo ink pad

Fine Feathers

Cameo Creations

Simple Sprig Die set

InLinkz.com

...Farewell 'Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking Magazine Special Thanks! Blog Hop

Welcome to the next stop on the Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking Magazine farewell blog hop - ideally you should have come to me from the inspirational Sabrina Alery - if you have not I can direct you to the list at the end of the post which shows everyone.

Folks, I bet most of us thought this day would never come, when I first began in stamping in 2008 or so, PC was the rock that the whole stamping world seemed to be built on and I'm still reeling at the thought that it will no longer be. I was lucky enough to have a few cards picked up and even made a cover once - ok so my little Christmas tree was more background colour than front feature, but I was elated to be on a cover at all, my engine was all fired up and I could not have been happier.

I had the mag shipped over all the way to Ireland from the USA and devoured every edition. Folks featured in the mag became familiar to me, I got to know who was who, and what was what. Right now it feels like nothing is going to fill that void, but we all know it's always a good idea to:

"...accentuate the positive
eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
But don't mess with mister inbetween..."

So I am raising a virtual glass to the team of PC&S and saying Thank You! Thank you for all of the wonderful inspiration. Thank you for the encouragement. Thank you for the happy mail. Thank you for bringing us all together. Thank you for giving everyone a chance to shine. Thank you for the smell of fresh ink on unopened pages. Thank you for the Facebook chat, and, thank you for the colour co-ordinated clothes hangers... with that level of organisation, gals like yourselves will go onwards and upwards to even better things, I can't wait to see. Good luck and God Bless ladies!

Next stop on your way through the hop is the wonderful Leigh Penner

and lastly, but not leastly, thank you to Taheerah for organising this hop so beautifully.

Card details: card front is a Cut file, available for free download here. I added some patterned paper behind the 'ta' and some stamped roses from Old Country Roses behind the hearts.

...just a quick thanks

 

Morning - a quick thanks for you here, literally - thank you to everyone who stopped by the release on Thursday last!! just catching my breath and had time to rustle this little goodie up.

We just released this die - the Picot Panel die - and what is special about this is that it is a self matting die. There's a tutorial here on how to use this die so I won't ramble on in this post, but it is extra neat for creating a little contrasting frame like the one above:

step 1. Cut an aperture in your card front using the die, set aside the panel and frame piece for future use, you don't need those for this project.
step 2. Take a piece of card slightly smaller than your card front, (we'll call this Card B) and cut an aperture in the centre, again set aside the panel and frame for future use.
step 3. Take a piece of contrasting card - in this example I used a green card - die cut with the picot panel. Take the slim green frame and line it up inside the aperture on Card B. adhere with tape - you will want to tape it on the backside so you don't see the tape on the finished card.
step 4. Adhere the completed Card B to the back side of the card front from step 1, lining up the apertures.
step 5. Stamp your sentiment onto another piece of card and mount this in behind Card B. You now have a delicately framed sentiment which is recessed from the main card front, it's a nice look.

For my sentiment today I used the new Hello, Happy, Thanks stamp set, also just released. I love the options to combine colours and sentiments using this set. Well I hope it tickles and gives all you folks who got the picot panel die something else to footer with!

...Folding Tags and Fine Feathers dies back in stock

Both the Folding Tags and Fine Feathers dies are now back in stock - along with oodles of other items, the store is being updated right now!

...June SOAP Day 3

 

 Morning!!!

How was your Thursday? Did you leave me a comment on yesterday's post - if you didn't you're missing out on a chance of free goodies!

We have more fabby samples to show you today, in case you are new here, we are reviewing the new May releases! Just before I get to the DT ladies, here's a little info on the card.

Yesterday I was asked about heat embossing on vellum - so I did it again for today - it's super easy, the only thing to remember is to keep the heat tool moving, but to be honest I have not found vellm any easier to burn than card - the stuff I use is PTI Vellum so it's top quality stuff, a thinner vellum might throw up a problem, but so far I've had no trouble.

I made a little wrap for a bunch of flowers - I stamped a half doily image from the smaller Doily set and heat embossed with clear powder - trimmed it out with a Spellbinders scallop circle (LG) die template and taped the edges together, with a decent overlap to get the size of wrap I wanted to suit the wee bunch of pre-made flowers that one of my DT ladies sent me - with the instructions to 'use more flowers'...lol!!

The rest of the card is easy - gingham background in a ginger colour to pick up the little ribbon bow - a little sponging, and a pale half doily image on the cream card immediately under the bunch of flowers.

The sentiment, made up from Say it Loud was just perfect. Easy. Peasy. Lemon. Squeezy. - you could do this in 10 mins flat.

Now let's see what else we can do today :

Anya Schrier

Bonnie Sharp

Carly Robertson

Claire Brennan

Jennifer Holmes

Julia Aston

Kate Whelan

Laurie Schmidlin

Lynn Mercurio

Mona Pendleton

Niki Estes

Sandie Dunne

Sarah Martina Parker

Tosha Leyendekker

...May new stamps at WMS, Join Us...

ED - the competition on this post is now closed. Thank you for playing along - the winner can be found here after 6:00PM my time today (May 1 2011)

Good morning (at last!! grrr, blogger is playing up and didn't publish my post on time!!) and welcome to the second day of previews for the May release. Our new stamps will be available on May 1st, and until then we are showing samples of our new goodies!!!

Previewing with me today are our fabulous DT ladies - did you see what they were up to yesterday? If you missed it be sure to scroll back on their posts:

• Anya Schrier
• Belinda Chang Langner
• Bonnie Sharp
• Carly Robertson
• Claire Brennan
• Jennifer Holmes
• Julia Aston
• Kate Whelan
• Laurie Schmidlin
• Lynn Mercurio
• Mona Pendleton
• Niki Estes 
• Sandie Dunne
• Sarah Martina Parker
• Tosha Leyendekker
•  
• Also - you might not have seen the announcement regarding our challenge - we're having a tea party to celebrate our 2nd Birthday - you have plenty of time to get ready - scroll down to my previous post to see the details!! And don't miss today's competition - details at the end of this post! 
• 
  

My first project today shows you another option on our cupcake template - which i am calling Cuppie Love...lol!! Today I made it up as a little tiny gift box - I'm using mine for a baby gift.

For the photos we put a little toy ducky in, because I liked how he peeped out the window!!! This little gift box would also be good for a pair of baby socks, a bib (not sure what you call them in USA...) a dodo (pacifier in US I believe) any of those tiny items that folks like to buy for new babies. the box will also make a nice little keepsake for a first curl or tooth.

It's the basic Cuppie Love template which will be available on May 1st. I altered it by cutting an aperture in the lid with a Spellbinders classic circle die template. I made a little frame for the aperture with a Lacey circles die template (also Spellbinders). I fixed a little acetate behind the aperture to make the window. There are some other little design tips that I will share in a later post - I am hoping to do a feature on putting the template together just after the release.

I used stamps from a new set - Join Us, on the little gift box - you can just make out the nappy pin used to make a pattern on the blue cuppie wrap, the mini flags are also from Join Us. The sentiment on the co-ordinating card is from Say it Loud - a set we will be featuring later on.

Join Us is a novel set - it is an invitation set with a difference. A quaint mixture of formal and casual. It lends itself perfectly to CAS cards like those above. A whopping 32 sentiment stamps and 8 motif stamps, this is one of those sets that I will get lots of mileage from.

I love the look of those formal invitations, the minimalist, classic lettering and plenty of white space, and yet somehow it felt right to add a touch of the casual - a little softening.

And so in this set, you will see that there are options for formal invitations, partnered with casual 'follow ups' - the example below shows what I mean - "Join Us for Christmas - you'd be most welcome."

I felt that this approach combined the significance of the occasion with a soft friendly encouragement to attend. It feels like something I would say when I especially wanted someone to accept an invitation.

I made up these little 4x4 note cards to illustrate some of the possibilities.

I used a classical font and paired it with a lovely handwritten style - the same font that was so popular in the Frame-It sets. It's a gorgeous font.

I paired my sentiments with clean sharp graphics. I absolutely ADORE that little snowflake. AND the flourish - which I have used top and bottom around the sentiment below.

As well as the Invitation sentiments the set also contains sentiments for after event thank yous and acknowledgements. I do think you will find it rather unique in approach. I cannot wait to show you the variety of sentiments, so may possibilities are covered!

Today's competition!
ED - the competition on this post is now closed. Thank you for playing along - the winner can be found here after 6:00PM my time today (May 1 2011)

So if you managed to make it to the bottom - here is your reward!!! leave a comment on this post - I know, blogger has been playing up - but this will be open until Sunday Night 5:00pm - two hours before the release.

I want to know what you think the future should hold for WMS - simple as that! LOL!! I'll be so interested to read your views (one comment each please!) that I will be picking one random commenter to win the complete May stamp release - 5 gorgeous sets!!!! The winner will be announced at 6:00pm my time on Sunday evening here on the blog!

Hope it tickles!!