online card classes

Beautifully Baroque Eastern Elegance

Don’t you just love light and fun designs? Cool colors prevail in today’s Mojo Monday sketch; which is a simple go to sketch that you will definitely want to try. You can see the Eastern Elegance paper plays well with the Beautifully Baroque Embossing Folder. Here’s the sketch and my interpretation. Don’t forget about my special that’s running till Wednesday! It’s at the end. Smile

Personal Note – I’m in the process of moving. Yup, today I’m actually packing up the Stampin’ Studio – and that’s quite a task! So over the next few weeks, you’ll see a few current and some fun projects from the past. Don’t worry – I’m finding projects that I just loved – but never blogged…so I hope that’s exciting for you too! And the only good thing about moving – purging! So thanks for stopping by!

Creative Tips –

You will want to choose two complimentary but completely different pieces of Designer Paper if you go that route. This way they won’t compete with each other.
For the designs you see in this project – it was necessary to flip the larger rectangle with the smaller one due to the patterns. It worked better this way.
If you don’t like the size of your matte with your circles – try off-setting them like shown here. Add some piercing to really accentuate it.
To help make the baroque medallion stand out, emboss it with the Beautifully Baroque Textured Embossing Folder, then add Dazzling Diamonds glitter to 2-way glue on the raised image portions.
Pop the medallion up further than the banner to really give it a little depth.
The card front, banner and medallion are all popped up on Stamping Dimensionals.

The Creative Grove Envelope Special

Everyone who orders and Envelope Punch Board (133774) using this hostess code – VWCWVJ34 through me by Wednesday September 4th will get a special packet of 20 sheets of – 6”x6” Designer Series Paper (that’s a value of $5.50!) mailed to them to use for liners or even your own 3” x 4” card sized envelopes!! And don’t forget about The Creative Grove Rewards Program for free stamps too!

To Shop 24/7 in the Creative Store – Click here!

Stamp Sets – Regarding Dahlias (130327c, 130324w) Ink – Coastal Cabana Paper – Whisper White, Eastern Elegance Designer Series Paper, Crushed Curry, Coastal Cabana Cool Tools – Beautifully Baroque TIEF, Circles Collection Framelits, Two Way Glue, Dazzling Diamonds, Hexagon Punch, 1 3/4” Circle Punch, Paper Piercing Tool, Essentials Mat Pack, Stampin’ Pierce Mat Finishing Touch – Rhinestone Basic Jewels, Stamping Dimensionals

Filed Under: 10 Minutes or Less, Cards, Clean and Simple, Mojo Monday Tagged: bright cards, CAS, diy cards, envelope punch board, MOJO309, online card classes, online stamping classes

Label Thinlit Flip Flop Card

Written by Ingrid Blackburn 2 Comments

Have you ever just needed an really quick wow card? Well then the new Card Thinlits are for you. For one, they have an interactive rotating feature. Second – talk about super quick! You can literally make this awesome project in a matter of minutes! Here’s how.

Creative Tips –

First cut your cardstock to 6” x 5 1/2”. Lay your Thinlit over. Add a piece of Whisper White cardstock cut 5 1/4 x 2 3/4” to the left side with some adhesive lining up the outside three edges.
Run through your Big Shot to cut the card and flip flop cuts.
Cut the matching label framelits from this set and stamp with Raspberry Ripple using the Regarding Dahlia’s Stamp.
Cut a mask using the label portion of the Card Thinlit out of scrap paper – Keep your mask for future use with your Thinlit set!
Stamp the Regarding Dahlia’s in Raspberry Ripple on the left portion of the card.
Tie some linen thread and add Rhinestone Basic Jewels.
Stamp your greeting and send to someone you love!

Wasn’t that fast! Be sure to tune in later this week for a video tutorial – I’m so excited to use my new microphone – yes, you read that right…finally better sound! Have a fabulous day.

New Creative Grove Classroom

Did you know that we have a new classroom for you to take all your online classes? Check it out by clicking the Classroom tab up top or here. Our latest class – Class of the Month : Festive Flurry has gotten some rave reviews! It just launched and is packed with amazing projects that you’ll be able to use no matter what stamps or framelits you own. Check that class out here.

To Shop 24/7 in the Creative Store – Click here!

Stamp Sets – Regarding Dahlias (130327c, 130324w) Ink – Raspberry Ripple Paper – Whisper White (100730), Raspberry Ripple Cool Tools – Label Thinlits (133479) Finishing Touch – Linen Thread, Rhinestone Basic Jewels

Filed Under: 10 Minutes or Less, Big Shot, Cards, Clean and Simple, Flowers, Tools Tagged: diy cards, flip flop cards, moving cards, online card classes, Stampin' Up!, stampinup, thinlit cards

How to use your Background Stamps

Written by Ingrid Blackburn 8 Comments

It’s Mojo Monday again and today I wanted to show you how to use all those Background stamps and papers that you have. I love background stamps – they are super hard for me to part with when I have a sale, and I use them over and over – you should take a look at your stash too!

Today’s card is perfect for backgrounds. With this design, I show you how I used four different sets plus some of my Christmas Paper from Season of Style in a birthday card. Here is this week’s sketch and my result.

Creative Tips –

Rather than use the Season of Style Designer Paper Stack paper as the accent triangles, you can go for a much bolder statement with it as the background.
You do not want to compete with the bold stripes, so when you choose your background patterns, you will want to stay away from bold lined patterns or Chevrons. I chose some completely different designs plus one lightly lined (striped) pattern.
The stripes from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp work because it has a varying amount of white space in-between the lines and they are thin lines, not bold like the Designer Paper.
The backgrounds you see here are Dictionary, Gorgeous Grunge, World Map and Swallowtail – yes, that’s part of the butterfly wing! I love patterned images like that – other good ones are the flowers from Regarding Dahlias and Blooming with Kindness.
The greeting is from the must have greeting set of this year – Really Good Greetings. To help it to stand out from all the patterns and busy goings on of the card, you will want to emboss it and leave it alone on that big circle (Circle #7, counting from smallest to largest in the Circles Collection Framelits) with the large amount of white space. The contrast the extra white space brings to the card lets it shine. After all – the greeting says it all – and it wouldn’t work if it got hidden by all the competing elements.
To help the circle stand out a bit more, you can edge it with your versamark ink pad and embossed it in black as well.
The flower is from the BigZ die – Blossom Party Originals. You can add a center by itself – like the black center here, which was punched with the circle punch from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, or top it off like I did with the Large Rhinestone Jewel.
To give the flower a little depth, pop it up with a Stampin’ Dimensional.
To make the banner ends, you can use the new Hexagon Punch or make your own with paper snips or a Square Punch. View my Banner video here

The sketch this week is a classic that you can use over and over again.

New Class Release – Final 36 hours for the Pre-release Discount!

Each month, we are going to highlight a stamp set with four four creative cards that will wow your friends and family. This month we are highlighting the Festive Flurry Bundle. Pre-register today and save 10% through midnight, Tuesday August 20th! Get all the Details Here