Author: Jean Manis

Stretch Your Stamps: Hero Arts Paper Cottage

I finally had a chance to make another card m the Stretch Your Stamps course, which finished up last week. This card was inspired by one of Kristina Werner’s. She used a different background stamp, a reverse stamp, giving a dramatic look.

I have only used this Hero Arts Basic Grey Paper Cottage collection background once before. It’s quite whimsical. For this card, I colored the stamped images with Copic markers. I had a hard time choosing which colors to use for which objects and felt frustrated with my lack of some softer Copics colors. I’m not a huge fan of purple, yet it seems I used that color the most! Well, the card is super simple to make, so another day I’ll color the image differently or try colored pencils.

Paper Cottage

Supplies: Echo Park papers; Paper Smooches Simply Said; MFT banner die; Sizzix star die; Memento ink

Simple Scrapper: Shrinking a Double-Page Template

My article for the “Take Two” series at Simple Scrapper is up. In this installment I show the process of shrinking a double-page template into a single-page layout.

I wanted to create a layout using photos taken during one of my family’s road trips in the early 1960s.  Despite the fact that the quality of the photos isn’t great, I’m thrilled to have reconstructed a little bit of my early childhood history on a scrapbook page.

 Supplies: Sketch from Simple Scrapper Premium Membership; Basic Grey PB+J Collection Kit; Basic Grey PB+J chip alpha; My Mind’s Eye brad; Studio Calico paper sunburst

Another Lawnscaping Card

As I grow more confident in my cardmaking and stamping skills, I’ve loosened up a bit on my cardmaking style. In the beginning, I tended to make traditional cards, and I didn’t make any scene cards or cards that mixed stamp sets. After taking  a second look at the inspiration photo for Lawnscaping Challenge #38, I decided to make a party card, as well as draw out more of the colors in the photo.

BirthdayBreakfast

Supplies: Lawn Fawn hats off to you; Lawn Fawn love ‘n breakfast; Lawn Fawn grand greetings; Stampin’ Up cardstock; Echo Park Hello Summer patterened paper ; Divine Twine; MFT banner die

Banner Strips

Created a banner strip card for the CAS-ual Fridays challenge (CFC61) and Lawnscaping Challenge #38 using the Lawn Fawn “Cruising through Life” bike, sentiment and flowers. With papers from the Echo Park “Hello Summer” collection, I paper pieced the bike and created banner strips with MFT banner dies.

Cruising

 

Stretch Your Stamps Week Two

The instructor and guest artist examples in the Online Card Class Stretch Your Stamps have been stunning. Today marks the beginning of week two. For card classes, I typically make one of the cards presented in the lesson close to the example and then think of alternatives over the next several days. My favorite card from last week was one by Cristina Kowalczyk using an alpha set from My Favorite Things. I mixed up the color scheme from her example to make a more masculine card. I’ve never owned an alpha set before and had never considered the possibility of using elements such as the “o,” “x,” “v” or the dot from the “i” for creating geometric patterns. I think this pattern would be fun done in Christmas colors as well, such as red, green and silver.

Day Three

Supplies: My Favorite Things Monogram Alphabet; Hero Arts Studio Calico Please Note; Hero Arts cup o’ joe midtone ink; Stampin’ Up old olive ink; Distress wild honey ink