Celebrate

 

Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this card as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper!

LIST: Colours (blue, green, white, peach, silver) Techniques (die cutting, stamping) Elements (Patterned paper,  layered doily with stamped sentiment in the centre, silver ribbon)

INCLUDE: blue, green, white, silver, die cutting, 

MODIFY: bold pink instead of peach, stenciled rings instead of layered die cut doily, flowers instead of pine branches, silver die cut sentiment instead of ribbon

EXCLUDE: ribbon, sequins

SPIN: square card

I think my all-time favourite layout is a square card with a circle on it. Instead of die cutting a doily, I stenciled two rings - one in blues/aquas and one with pinks. The pink ring was cut with circles a little bigger and smaller than the blue ring, giving a subtle mat. 

I changed the season and added some tiny flowers instead of the more wintery pine branches, and I die cut a script sentiment from matte silver cardstock

Merry Snowman

 

Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this layout as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper!

LIST: Colours (white, aqua, pink, green), Techniques (digital scrapbook), Elements (dotted letter sentiment plus 'typed' sentiment, person, aqua background, dots around the edges, flowers, leaves

INCLUDE: white, aqua, pink green, aqua background, dotted letter and stamped sentiment

MODIFY: person is a snowman, dots around edges are pink on white.

EXCLUDE: flowers, leaves

I loved the whimsical feel of the colours on this layout and I changed my theme to Christmas and used a snowman die cut as my 'person'. I used several of my older supplies - the snowman die, the circular alphabet stamps and the starry stencil - it's so fun to dig out the old favourites!

Sunflowers

 

Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this card as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper!

LIST: Colours (blue, yellow, brown, black, white), Technique (fun-fold, stencil, stamping), Elements (sunflowers, get well theme)

INCLUDE: blue, yellow, brown, black, white, fun-fold, sunflower

MODIFY: one die cut sunflower, 

EXCLUDE: sentiment, stencilling

Is there anything happier than sunflowers on a bright blue background? I loved the colours and the fun-fold of my inspiration.

To mimic the artistic, watercoloured look of my inspiration, I created my own coloured paper in yellow, blue and brown, using Lindy's Magicals and my gel plate. While they dried, I made a z-fold card and die cut the Sweet Sunflower from A Jillian Vance Design. from black cardstock - I glued the black outline to the backer.

Then I inlaid the yellow petals and the brown centre . I trimmed the blue cardstock into two panels to create the background/inside of the card.

Then I made another one in white!

Dotty Daisy Thanks

Welcome to this week's LIMES inspiration post!

I chose this card as my inspiration from the gallery of this week's Splitcoaststampers' Featured Stamper!

LIST: Colours (white, yellow, red, black, beige, pale periwinkle), Techniques (die cutting) Elements (daisy, eyelet background, lady bug, twine, no sentiment, scalloped edges)

INCLUDE: white, yellow, periwinkle, die cutting, daisy, die cut background    

MODIFY: 2 die cut daisies, brown sentiment instead of twine, 

EXCLUDE: twine, ladybug, scalloped edge

These soft colours are not my go-to, but they're so pretty! I used my all-time favourite daisy dies, and a polka dot coverplate to get a similar look. Instead of twine, I used a brown script thanks sentiment.

Layered Snowflakes

 

I'm on the A Jillian Vance Design blog today with this layered snowflake Christmas card.

Stained Glass Bricks

 
I'm on the A Jillian Vance Design blog today showing how easy it is to get the look of stained glass!

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Bricks in the Wall (Getting More from a Coverplate Die)

Today I'm sharing 3 cards that show ways to STRETCH a cover plate die!

If you watch the video, you'll see these 2 'extra' cards  using the Brick Coverplate: 

If you want to learn more about how I made them, using the Bricks coverplate, click here to go to Jillian's Blog.

Feelin' Hexy!

You know I love to get more from my dies and today I made this autumn birthday card using just the stitched hexagons from a couple of quilt block dies from A Jillian Vance Design. 

I used Grandma's Garden to cut 6 sets of the larger hexes and I blended ink onto them and splattered gold watercolour as well before creating a full panel by gluing them down without the die cut frames.

Then I used the smaller version of Grandma's Garden from the Mini Quilt Block set to cut one set of 7 smaller hexes from Inca Gold cardstock (LOVE this stuff - it's iridescent!) and glued them on in select areas.

I cut my sentiment from the same Inca Gold cardstock, stacked it up and put it on two sentiment strips that I had blended ink onto.

Building Backgrounds - With Die Cuts!

Today's video is about using inlaid die cuts to build backgrounds!

Season's Greetings

 

Congratulations to this week's Featured Stamper, Wendy. 

I chose this card as my inspiration:

LIST: Colours (red, black, white, blue), Techniques (stamping, colouring with chalk), Elements (botanical focal image with two types of flowers, frame, ribbon bow, sentiment stamped directly on card base)

INCLUDE: red, black, white, basic layout, 

MODIFY: occasion to Christmas, red flowers to die cut trees, blue flowers to snowflakes, stamped sentiment to die cut sentiment

EXCLUDE: ribbon

SPIN: geometric stenciled background, square card

I really focused on the almost-'polaroid' layout of a smaller focal area with an uneven 'frame' of card base around it, and putting the sentiment directly on the card base.

My focal area was created using one stencil on two separate panels, one red, one green. I cut the trees from the green panel and popped them up on the red rectangle.

If you missed the announcement the other day, I'm going to be teaching a class at the next Card Maker Success Summit in July. You can sign up to be on the waitlist HERE, and that means you'll be notified as soon as registration is available!

Inspired by Quilts

 

Inspiration is found in so many places! I love patterns and geometry, so in today's video, I'm sharing how I used quilt inspirations and LIMES to create these 4 cards! Bonus: LIMES works with ANY inspiration!

Using 4 Basic Squares to make 7 Not-So-Basic Cards

 

Today's video shows how I used this one basic, 4 Square Window stencil from A Colorful Life Designs to create 7 not-so-basic cards!

Stencils are one of the most inexpensive tools we have in our craftrooms, and yet they're incredibly versatile. If you haven't heard of this company, I highly recommend checking it out - there are hundreds of designs and no matter what your style, you'll find some (or a LOT!) that you like!

Get More From Your Dies

As you can see, I had a lot of fun getting more from my dies this week. And it all started with one little bow die. Get tips for using dies you already have in new and surprising ways here:

Ornamental Joy

Congratulations to this week's Featured Stamper, Rose! 

I chose this card as my inspiration:

LIST: Colours (white, red, silver, grey) Techniques (die cutting) Elements (ornaments, glitter, Christmas card, sentiment banner, poinsettia, branches, wreath, holly, stitched rectangles, grid structure, red frame)

INCLUDE: white, silver, grey, die cutting, ornament, Christmas card, branches, red frame

MODIFY: only one red ornament, with stitching, die cut sentiment word

EXCLUDE: glitter, banner, poinsettia, wreath, holly, grid

SPIN: square card

I focused on that one ornament in the mid-right area of this box and made it into my whole card. I cut some branches from Budding Branches and coloured them with my Twilight ink. I cut the largest ornament from Vintage Ornaments, coloured it with Samba and then blended Cranberry and Glam onto the edges to give a dimensional look. I cut the Mini Bold Snowflake and coloured it with Samba and Cranberry in the centre. 

I used a Stitched Dot Inside Out circle and cut from the ornament and also from Silver Matte cardstock, so it could be inlaid. 

I used the Signature Dots coverplate and a scrap of silver cardstock to cut some dots to add around the snowflake.

No-fail Alcohol Ink Technique

 

When you're making cards in a hurry, and using supplies like alcohol inks and (not cheap!) Yupo paper, you really want beautiful results every single time. This technique is so easy and always looks fabulous!

Here's my video showing how:

Celebrate

Congratulations to this week's Featured Stamper, Natalie!

I chose this card as my inspiration:

LIST: Colours (silver, gold, copper, black), Techniques (die cut, heat embossing), Elements (gears, metallic frame, ).

INCLUDE: metallic colours, die cuts, frames

MODIFY: gears to daisies, die cut sentiment, orientation, 

EXCLUDE: heat embossing, 

I started by creating my black panel with gold frames. Then I die cut the daisies from different metallic cardstock scraps from my stash and arranged them with some overlap. My sentiment was cut 3 times and stacked up, and I added gold and silver pearls as accents.

Get MORE from Background Stamps

 

Background stamps are more versatile than I thought! This week's video explores this hardworking craftroom hero. Check it out here (and more cards below!):