Thank you to everyone who hopped along with the Paper Crafts Blog hop! Your comments were so sweet; totally brightened my day. I would love to give away a free issue to everyone, but I only have one, so here's today's winner!
Stamped Cards Introducing Austen Obsessed and Eye Love
Today's release day at Sweet Stamp Shop, and I am showcasing two of the fun new sets; Austen Obsessed and Weird Love, plus new cardstock that is now being offered. It's 120 lb and perfect to stamp on.
For my first card, I used the Austen Obsessed set which comes with a lace border and lace element stamp that you can create a lot of fun looks with, plus beautiful sentiments straight from Jane Austen literature. Imagine all the possibilities for this set!
Since, I am a fan of Mr. Darcy (and married my own Mr. Darcy), I wanted to use this most famous quote from the book.
I added a decorative lace trim with the border stamp and then created a lovely focal point with a floral sticker, resin frame, ribbon, pin and bird. The fun patterns are made soft and delicate with the lace trim stamp and script sentiment.
Materials: Austen Obsessed Set | Sweet Stamp Shop Cardstock | Aqua Mist Dye Ink | Tuxedo Black Dye Ink | Up and Away 6" x 6" Pad | Up and Away Stickers | Bird Wood Veneer | Resin Frame | Ribbon | Heart Stick Pin | Postal die cut
Eye Love is a fun and quirky set! It comes with a variety of images and sentiments geared towards vision, plus some other fun shapes. I like to stamp in out of the box ways, always trying to find new ways to stretch a stamp set. 
In this card I combined stamps to create a fun pattern design. I repeatedly stamped the oval and circle shape. Then, I flip stamped the circle stamp to fill in the inside of the circles with the back of the stamp.
After I stamped the design, I added strips of patterned paper, wood veneer shapes and sequins to add some dimension to the card.
Materials: Eye Love Set | Sweet Stamp Shop Cardstock | Aqua Mist Dye Ink | Clover Chalk Ink | Pale Tomato Dye Ink | Sequins | Triangle Wood Veneer | Yes Please 6" x 6" Pad
Thanks for stopping by. Make sure to visit the Sweet Stamp Stamp blog for a complete release of all the fabulous designers who are joining us this month. You'll find plenty more awesome crafty inspiration.
Also, don't forget to leave a comment on my Paper Crafts Blog Hop post for your chance to win a free special issue! Deadline is tonight, so don't delay!
Make Your Digital Stamps Transparent with Photoshop
Digital stamping. Have you heard of it? Have you tried it yourself? If you're not familiar with digital stamping, then today's project is for you. Digital stamps are so much fun to use. You simply download the file (either jpeg, png or something similar), and then you can customize in a photo-editing software program. The options are endless, and the best part? There's no mess to clean up! For today's project I used a feather and sentiment digital stamp from the Paper Smooches blog and made the jpg a transparent png in Photoshop Elements, so I could make it look like the feathers are falling.
After I made the feather stamp transparent png in photoshop, I filled it in with colors and layered the feathers simply by copying and pasting. You can even change the opacity of a stamp to make the actual image transparent, so that images beneath it show through. Finally, I placed the sentiment and added "for you" using the Champagne and Limousines font that you can download here. A few fun sequins finish it off with some cool stripes that move your eye around the card.
Not sure how to format your jpeg digital stamp so that you can color and layer it? Here's a fun tutorial that you can try. I used Photoshop Elements, but most editing programs are similar.
Paper Crafts Magazine Presents 350 Cards and Gifts
It's blog hop time, so you know what that means--another fabulous special issue from Paper Crafts Magazine has hit newsstands. 350 Cards and Gifts is full of all your favorite project ideas like card sets, gifts and tags. To celebrate this page-turner, I've created a gift wrap set with a matching card using Avery Elle's Ikat set; a super trendy pattern seen everywhere from kitchenware to home furnishings, and now paper crafting!
In a continued effort to not over-think my paper crafting, I am amazed at the sheer ease of this project, particularly the gift wrap. I took regular 'ol printer paper and stamped a fun ikat pattern on it (note: I went through five sheets of patterns until I settled on this one!). Then, I wrapped up some boxes with it, and added ribbon and twine!
I repeated the colors of the wrap in the card, and stamped the ikat pattern at a diagonal. I added a wood veneer and stamped a sentiment to create some visual interest.
This whole project was quick and easy--a perfect solution if you ran out of wrapping paper or need a coordinating card.
Please make sure to stop by the other lovely designers blogs to see what they've created for the hop. Leave some love at each blog for your chance to win a copy of this fantastic issue.
Emily Branch (that's me!)
I have a free issue to give away, so leave me a comment below telling me what's your favorite birthday craft to create by Tuesday, May 14th, and I will post the winner on Wednesday, May 15th! Please check back to see if you've won. I always pick a winner, but the winner forgets to check!
Mother's Day Spa Gift Box
Mom's are always busy, on the go, worrying about the family and tending the house. Rarely, do they get a break to relax with a glass of wine, some calming music and the lights turned down low. Since most mom's won't be getting any of that with the hectic pace of daily life, why not help your mom relax by wrapping up some spa essentials for Mother's Day featuring SEI's most recent collection, Diana.
Aromatherapy is a nice way to relax, so consider including bath salts to your spa box as well as a loofa for an invigorating feel. Choose products like mini shampoo's, conditioners and lotion that can easily be tucked in a box. They're easy to decorate with patterned paper and not too heavy.
You don't want to make a mess, so make sure to package your spa box just right, so it's easy to use
| PACK OF LOOFAHS | Wrap a few loofah sponges in a glassine bag, and secure with a mat of die cut labels from Morning Walk and Close of Day. Attach a tag with baker's twine
| PACK OF BATH SALTS | Don't forget to package bath salts in a glassine bag for a luxurious aromatherapy bath. Package in the same way as the loofahs.
| ESSENTIALS | Match the shampoo, conditioner and Lotion to the set by mounting Garden Party on Light of Dawn and adhering it to the bottle.
Place your spa essentials in a box, decorate and VOILA--you have a beautifully wrapped spa box filled with every thing she needs to relax.
Flowers
Tuck-Away Travel Notes
Have you ever asked your spouse what it was about you that made them fall in love with you? You may have expected to hear the typical responses, "your stylish hair," "that snort in your laugh," "the way you talk on the phone, apply make up and walk the dog all at once." Well, when I asked my husband this question while we were still dating, I was so wonderfully surprised with what he told me. He told me that he knew he was falling in love with me because I would hide little hand-written notes and crafted cards in his clothes when he traveled, and he loved finding them tucked away in his shirts.
So, with the celebration of our fourth wedding anniversary still fresh on my mind, and an awesome opportunity to play with Score Pal products, I created a mini travel notes matchbook set of tags that are perfect to hide in your children's lunch box or your husband's briefcase.
Because these cards are teeny and meant to fit in a small space, the Score Buddy is the perfect miniature scoring tool to use with your SEI paper. I chose patterned paper from the new Blooms and Blossoms collection and created some trendy geometric patterns on one side, while leaving the other blank to write a message.
Since SEI and Score-Pal partnered up this month, I was super excited when I opened up my box and found all these goodies, including Score-Tape which I had just run out of! You can score your own deal on the tools by purchasing their adorable value bundle (pictured above).
SCORE BUDDY | PERFECT FOR CARD MAKERS AND SMALL CRAFTS
SELF-HEALING MAT | FITS INTO THE SCORE BUDDY
TRAVEL CASE | STORE YOUR GOODIES IN ONE SPACE
Can you believe that this matchbook was made from a 6" x 6.5" piece of paper? Just score, trim and adhere with score-tape, and slide your tags inside! It's that simple!
Stamping with Erasers & Paper Smooches
I have always been a fan of Kim Hughes! Not only is she an amazing designer, she's super sweet. Her stamp company, Paper Smooches offers incredibly awesome quality clear stamps, with the cutest designs. She also just released great metal dies this past CHA. Paper Smooches hosts a challenge blog; Paper Smooches Sparks, and I decided to finally play along in the Anything Goes challenge that's open until May 5th. As you know, I have serious issues with towing the line, design-wise. I love stepping outside the box, and trying new things, so it'll come as no surprise that I squealed with delight (my husband even heard me upstairs, and wondered aloud what was going on) that the Anything Goes challenge is just that---open to any project, and design, anything you like, as long as you use at least one Paper Smooches stamp. So, with that in mind, I stepped out of the box---just a teeny bit!
I'm a font girl. I love fonts of any sort, whether they're a lovely script, cutesy hand-writing, or clean and simple sans serif, I'm a fan! One of the things I like best about Paper Smooches stamps is Kim's signature hand-writing. It's a mix of fun, whimsical and cute all in one. I wanted to make Kim's font take center stage in the card's design, so I created a set of miniature cards that used erasers as stamps, working perfectly with the stylized Paper Smooches fonts.
Stamping with pencil erasers is super fun and quick and easy to create. You can design your own stamps anyway you like, playing with shapes and lines to develop your own signature stamp! All you need is set of pencils (plain and simple--I got mine at the Dollar Tree) and a craft knife. I should mention that you should get a box of 12 or so, you may mess up and need an extra or three (like me).
Make sure to also grab your favorite Paper Smooches sentiment stamps. I used Sentiment Sampler and Chit Chat; older sets, but perfectly fabulous.
|1| Draw your design on the pencil eraser with a pencil. Color in the parts (positive space) that you're not cutting out.
|2| Grab your craft knife and stand the pencil vertically.
|3| Trim the eraser with your knife as you cut away the parts that are not colored in (negative space). NOTE: Do not trim the eraser down to the metal, or else the eraser will break apart because it's too weak.
materials: Sentiment Sampler | Chit Chat | Pencils | Aqua Mist Dye Ink | Lemon Tart Dye Ink | Lavender Moon Dye Ink | Rose Bud Dye Ink | Angel Pink Dye Ink | Cantaloupe Dye Ink | Lady Bug Dye Ink | Teal Zeal Dye Ink | New Sprout Dye Ink | Sweet Plum Dye Ink | Ink Blue Dye Ink
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