10 Cards 1 Kit / Love From Lizi November 2017 Card Kit

Hello Folks! Scott here with my 10 Cards post featuring the Love From Lizi November Card Kit. This kit is sold-out (setting another speed record) but some of the items may become available individually in the coming months. This kit features actual letter-sized card stock (instead of European A4 sized card stock) something new Lizi is trying out, so making your A2 card bases couldn’t be any easier… I personally love this format better! I generally use the colors of my card bases to compliment my card designs, so you will rarely see me covering up a card base completely with pattern paper or card stock.This kit is holiday oriented with kind of a ‘wood-grain’ theme reflected in the stamp set featuring a star, tree, heart and stag head rendered in wood-grain. The usual over-abundance of pattern papers, card stocks, embellishments and specialty items round out the supplies in this kit – everything from wood-grain paper to puffy reindeer trimmings, matchsticks to mirrors – this kit has a little bit of everything!  I usually start with the stamp set in a new card kit, but I wasn’t particularly in the ‘holiday spirit’ yet – so I ignored the sentiments and went for a simple pun to start. I was a little obsessed with the notion of stamping on the match sticks and loved the stag head stamp so here we go…I had to split the matchsticks in half (lengthwise) in order to create enough surface area for the stamp – I simply attached them in a slightly off-set pattern onto a piece of 1″ scor-tape and stamped the stag head with a Distress Oxide Walnut Stain ink pad right on top of the ‘raft’ of matchsticks. Truly amazing! The combination of the wood-grained stamp and the actual wood texture of the matchsticks gave me a truly unique focal point for this first card! I attached the ‘raft’ with foam tape to a piece of the stag head pattern paper, and matted that on some of the glossy wood-grain specialty paper and added some of the peel off stickers to the sides. I pulled out my old stand-by card stock (Staples 110# Ivory card stock) and printed the sentiment using my Silhouette software and the Smoothie Shoppe font. (I actually filled the text with a little wood-grain pattern). I cut the sentiment out with a Lawn Fawn Stitched rectangle die and distressed the edges with the Walnut Stain ink using a mini ink blending tool, and also added the smallest peel off stickers around the sentiment for a little added sparkle. The sentiment is foam-tape mounted to that great embossed Kraft card stock from the kit, and a few Nuvo Glitter drops in Chocolate Fondue add just the right touch of shine to the front of this card. No Holiday here, just matchsticks…! I was having a bit of a problem figuring out how to incorporate a heart stamp into a batch of holiday cards, and figured this was the perfect opportunity. I (of course) created a writing surface on the inside of the card (cut with another Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Die) with my Ivory card stock and stamped the wood-grain heart at the top again using the Walnut Stain Oxide ink. Perfect use of that heart for this out-of-season Valentine or friendship card with a simple pun that actually highlights the theme of this month’s kit! I really like how this card came out, and I will keep my eyes open for more opportunities to stamp on something other than card stock…!    Now BRING ON THE HOLIDAYS…!I was fascinated with the puffy reindeer fabric trimmings in the embellishment bag and knew I wanted to ‘hitch’ them all together to make an “eight tiny reindeer” card! I LOVE this card. I used a light blue card base and the dark blue shimmer specialty card stock for the background. I used the bronze cording included with the embellishments to ‘hitch’ two rows of the reindeer together – on the front for the front row and on the back for the back row (I did have to use Glossy Accents to get the cord to stick to the fabric) – and tried to keep a little slack between each deer (don’t want to strangle them)! I used the smallest soft gold gems from the kit to disguise the glue spot on the front row of reindeer and, after attaching the back row directly to the card stock, I used thin foam tape to add some dimension to the front row. I used my White Sharpie ultra fine point marker to add stars to the background, and the sentiment is a sticker from the kit mounted on the gorgeous blue shimmer card stock with foam tape. Other than the foam tape, some glossy accents and the white sharpie, this card is created completely with items from the kit…! I did take the time to add a little something to the insides of all my cards this month, so I used another fabric reindeer and one of the sentiment stamps from the stamp set that completes the “BELIEVE” sentiment on the front of the card. Stamped in the Distress Oxide Walnut Stain ink down in the bottom left corner of the ivory card stock writing surface, this is a nice completion of the card. I did find the small sentiment stamps in the stamp set a bit fussy to stamp – they are very tiny, and I had to practice a bit to figure out how much ink the stamp would take before it all smushed out into a big blob… Most of my stamp pads are pretty juicy, so that probably didn’t help me when trying to get a good impression with these small stamps. The dark blue shimmer card stock has great depth to it and actually feels like a night sky. No sleigh with this card, but here’s eight tiny reindeer to take us straight into the holiday season!We were treated to a full 12″ x 12″ sheet of coordinating stickers with this kit and I was immediately drawn to this large “Merry and Bright” sticker. I mounted the sticker to a mat of the gold linen specialty paper and then to a mat of the gold glitter card stock from the LFL July 2017 Card Kit. I wanted as much sparkle for this card as possible (merry and BRIGHT!) I did hand letter the ‘may your days be’ above the ‘Merry and Bright’ with my Pigma Micron pen to help complete the sentiment, and used Glossy Accents to add a little shine to the Christmas lights and actually colored the “Merry and Bright” text with my Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust pen – to make the whole sentiment very sparkly. I foam taped the matted sticker on top of a strip of that very dark wood/snowflake pattern paper and added more gold glitter card stock strips to the top and bottom on that dark chocolate card base. I did use the ‘Merry Christmas’ sentiment stamp on the inside of the card to finish things up, and here we have a toasty warm, rather masculine holiday card. Lets do a shaker card now! I created a shaker using another great sticker from the kit. I did have to die cut the center “Merry Christmas” circle from the square shaped sticker, and I die cut a frame from the warm gold specialty card stock using my Darice Nesting Circles dies. I thought it would be fun to make a kind of merry-go-round shaker where the sequins go around the center circle instead of just shaking around behind it. It was simple enough to create a foam circle behind the center and with that simple step, we have a circular path for the shaker bits to follow. I used the blue satin ribbon with gold trim to embellish the bottom of this card front and added a small bow to give it a finishing touch. The light blue snowflake pattern paper provides a background for the shaker, and I packed it quite full of sequins from the ‘Merry and Bright’ sequin mix from the kit. Everything is mounted to the dark blue card base, and despite being quite full, there is really some good shaker action with this card. Now I want to experiment with other ways of creating paths for shaker cards… the possibilities seem endless!In addition to the sticker sheet we also got two 12″ x 12″ pattern papers. We did have a sheet of bright white (letter-size!) card stock in this kit, so I was on the lookout for something that would work with a white card base. This ‘NOEL’ piece on the white wood worked perfectly. Since I was trying to keep to the ‘wood’ theme with this kit, I found some real wood sheets in my stash that I had purchased on sale somewhere and never got around to using… Now’s my chance! The mat right behind the cut-out image is a piece of Sticky BARC Wood in Cherry that I ‘white-washed’ with the Ranger Distress Crayon in Picket Fence. I simply colored the wood with the crayon, and then, using a baby-wipe, rubbed the crayon into the wood to smooth it out and soften the ‘white-wash’. I love these wood sheets – Great texture and a great look – you can almost tell that this is real wood just from the picture, and that just can’t compare to how it feels in your hand. The ‘NOEL’ cut-out piece is foam taped up on the wood mat, and (believe-it-or-not!) the mat behind the wood is that dusty pink shimmer card stock from the kit – matches perfectly! One of the gold crystal star gems from the kit fit on top of the printed star on the ‘Noel’ arrangement, and a beautiful, soft, wintry, wooden Holiday card comes to light. I really love the simple beauty of this card and am thrilled to be able to experiment with those Sticky BARC wood sheets – You can cut them, you can die-cut them, you can even PRINT on them! WOW! For the inside of this card I die-cut the BARC wood sheet with the ‘Merry Christmas’ die from the kit. I was actually worried that this die was so small that it would be very difficult to use and too small to make any kind of an impact, but I was pleasantly proven wrong – a GREAT die that is readable and just large enough to make an impression – and the great thing about the Sticky BARK is that it is sticky-backed – and with good adhesive too!!  Instant wood stickers!! I will use this more!

Now, ever since I saw Lizi’s unboxing, and saw that full-sized sheet of acetate with the snow print, I knew I wanted to make an actual acetate card using that sheet!So I cut the acetate to 5.5″ x 8.5″ and scored it down the middle to make an A2 card base. I used a Darice Cityscape background die that I bought on sale a couple of years ago and haven’t ever used, to create the city background out of some black card stock from my stash. The die is very interesting in that it doesn’t cut out all the windows, but it embosses them, and then you can use the die as a stencil to color in the windows – so you can see some of the windows have a little bit of ‘light’ showing. I used a stitched hillside die to cut the shimmer white specialty paper into a snow bank for the front of the card and used my Silhouette and a gold extra fine tip Sharpie to sketch the sentiment (Ballerina Script font) on the snow bank. I added a small strip of ‘snow’ to the bottom of the Cityscape die cut and used a Darice Nesting circle die to create the crescent moon from the same glimmer white card stock. All of the pieces are adhered to the acetate with dry (ATG) adhesive, and all the shapes have matching pieces attached to the back so you can’t see the adhesive through the acetate. I did stamp the Merry Christmas sentiment from the stamp set on the strip of snow inside the card, and added a golden snowflake sequin from my stash to the front with a little soft gold gem in the center. I DO live in NYC and this card feels very much like home to me! There is plenty of room on the back of the card to add whatever writing you may like – though you will need a gel pen of some kind to write on the black…! This card has a great sense of movement as you open it and, even though it’s a black-and-white card, It does feel like the holidays in NYC to me.When I created the windy swirl sketch on my Silhouette for the LFL Thanks Giving kit, I knew I wanted to use that sketch on a card with this kit. No leaves this time, just lots of snow! I drew my swirls on that frosty pine branch pattern paper with a Copper Rose extra fine tip Sharpie and mounted that with some foam tape to a piece of the dark wood-grain paper on top of the light blue card base. LOVE the snowflake die in this kit! Cut the snowflakes from the white-washed BARC wood sheet, and added the soft gold gems to the centers and points. I used two of the wood veneer die-cut snowflakes from the kit, and if you look closely, you can see that those are on top of two of the gold mirror triangles – major light reflection from those!! I added three snowflake sequins from my stash and a scatter of sequins from the Merry and Bright sequin mix. The sentiment is from the sticker sheet, mounted on a thin mat of the dark wood-grain paper, and foam taped to the card. I love the mix of snowflake styles on this decidedly chilly holiday card.Now I need to use the star stamp for a card. Here, I stamped the star with Delicata Golden Glitz ink on my Ivory card stock and cut three of them out. This is also the Stag die from the kit cut from my BARC wood sheet and attached to die-cut black fun-foam for a little added thickness. The Stags are mounted to the stars and then to a piece of the shimmer gray specialty card stock from the kit. That is all mounted to the dark chocolate card base framed with the golden woven ribbon on each side and some peel off stickers at the edges. The Delicata ink gives a very nice shine to the wood-grain stamps, and helps set off the wooden stag die-cuts. And… if you haven’t gone there yet… this is on the inside:LOL!! Printed on the BARC sheet with the ‘Futura’ font in bold, and mounted to a scrap of black card stock for pop. I was amazed that the BARC wood sheet would print so well!It only seemed appropriate to make this a gift card holder! I have found the easiest way to include a gift card is to cut a slit the width of the gift card, add angled slits at the end about 3/8″ long and then punch the tiniest hole at the end of the cuts to relieve the stress. Careful placement of adhesive on the back about a half inch below your slit will hold everything together nicely. This card cracks me up! With the seeming ubiquity of Starbucks gift cards during the holidays, this card will certainly get some use this year!I did want to use that nice 2.5″ linen ribbon with the deer printing, so, here we have another fun pun featuring that ribbon on the embossed Kraft card base. I really enjoy the rhyme with this pun – printed on my Ivory card stock in the ‘Ballerina Script’ font, I cut that out with a Spellbinder Deckled Rectangle die, distressed the edges with Walnut Stain ink, and mounted that to a small mat of my Ivory card stock that has peel off stickers all around the edges – I think that really highlights that deckle edge. I did remove the wire from the sides of the ribbon, and ran the ribbon through my Zyron sticker maker to cover the back with adhesive and positioned that on the card base from corner to corner. I really like using the Zyron adhesive with ribbon, if you burnish the adhesive down nicely, you can trim your ribbon right at the edge of the card with no fear of fraying or having to wrap the ribbon around the back of your card. The golden woven ribbon on the ‘Star Bucks’ card is attached the same way. I used some peel off stickers on the edges of the ribbon, followed that up with two 3/8″ strips of the lovely blue stripe pattern paper and finished off with the small peel off stickers. I did mount the sentiment to the ribbon with foam tape at the same angle as everything else. Another lovely guy card..!!

Now I haven’t used the stencil included with the kit, and I haven’t used the tree stamp in the stamp set… though I have to say a tree stamp in wood-grain seems a little redundant to me… !  LOL! I decide to use my iCraft Deco Foil Transfer Gel and my Deco Foil sheets with the stencil on the dark blue card base. I used the great Thermoweb / Gina K Designs Fancy Foil gold sequin sheets for the foiling. WOW! Truly lots of bang for your buck here!Now the stamped trees kind of got lost on the stenciled foil background, so I ended up just cutting out two strips of the foiled triangles, and used the large ombre pattern paper to be the background for the tree stamps.  I stamped the trees in three different brown inks: Walnut Stain Oxide ink and Stampin’ Up ink in Early Espresso and Chocolate Chip. Subtle differences… After fussy cutting the trees (very easy) I did outfit them all with little crowns and presents. I used all the gold specialty paper included in the kit as well as some of that blue wire, sequins, gems, and another golden mirror triangle to make these fun little crowns and presents. I rarely make cards with no sentiment on the front, but for the second time with this kit, the ultimate pun is revealed inside the card. Again, this makes me laugh out loud! I don’t know if it’s the simplicity of the pun or the unconventionality that strikes me as funny, but I just can’t help myself!There’s that ‘Brady Bunch Remastered’ font again – works perfectly! I printed this with my Silhouette software directly on an Ivory card base (I cut up the dark blue card base to get the two strips of foiled trees), and added the die-cut Merry Christmas (from the dark brown wood-grain sheet) towards the bottom and next to the wood veneer die cut of a gift that I colored up with a Gold sharpie. “Bearing gifts we traverse afar..” LOL! Not only do I adore this pun, but I love how this card all came together and the triangle theme that developed and is even reinforced with the design of the tree stamp! SO MUCH FUN! There we have a very handsome set of cards – mostly holiday in unconventional colors with a unique wood theme running throughout. I realize I didn’t have pictures of every card’s inside, but if you check out the 10 Cards 1 Kit video on YouTube, I do show every one. As with almost every Love From Lizi card kit, I have bunches of leftovers to add to my stash – LOTS of pattern papers, stickers, embellishments and ribbons. I love all three of the wafer dies, and the Heart and Star stamp should be very useful all year round! I had much more fun with this kit than I originally thought I wood, (LOL!) and am perfectly thrilled with the results. If you have any questions or comments, please ask away, and if you want to contact me directly, just go to the CONTACT page and send me an email! Thanks for joining me here today! I hope you enjoyed, and I was able to share some laughter and a little inspiration with you. Happy Crafting!!!