Hello Folks! Scott here with my ten cards featuring the Hero Arts My Monthly Hero September 2018 Kit. This is my fifth month with MMH, and for the first time since I started my subscription, I was a little underwhelmed with this kit at first sight.

The stamp set felt a little schizophrenic to me with the clash of the Chinese lantern plants and the maple branches and leaves… It is a full 6″ x 8″ stamp set with 18 matching frame cuts and yet another Window Fancy die and Frame. The translucent sticky tag leaf notes were very interesting – and there’s 30 of them here. To finish out this kit we got a Daniel Smith Watercolor Dot Card and 5 mini brushes. Okay… so I guess we’re water-coloring…!

I figured you can never go wrong if you start a kit with a large window fancy die… so I die cut a piece of my Strathmore 400 Series cold press watercolor paper with the die and went to town on it with those mini brushes and the DS dot watercolors… hmmmmm…..

I have to say I was not impressed at all with those mini brushes… I think they just don’t hold enough water for me, so I ended up putting some really strong pigments on this die cut. But, that’s one of the great things about watercolors… you can keep working them until your paper falls apart!! LOL!!

I was, however, very pleased with the background watercolor using my own brushes and LOTS of water..!! LOL!! I’ve got to remember those DS watercolors are very heavily pigmented (especially the reds!).  We did need some distinction between the die cut and the background, so I die cut three pieces of black card stock with the fancy window die (and a Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle die!) and glued them all together to back the watercolor die cut. I stamped the sentiment on the background using VersaFine Onyx black ink and embossed that with some clear embossing powder. That deepens the black and adds a touch of shine!

I glued the background watercolor piece directly to a black card base and glued the stack of die cuts on top of that. I thought some very thin white highlights using my 05 white gel pen would bring a little life to this card and I ended up really liking this! I think it’s very interesting that this window fancy die can be used in virtually any orientation, and this sentiment fits perfectly in the open area. Okay… I’m feeling it a little more…!

I reached for those leaf notes next and my first thought was to take that small maple leaf die and start cutting these great big leaves down to a more manageable card size…!

I was able to line the leaf note veins up with the die very nicely but realized I’d only get one small leaf from every large leaf if I did that, and it seemed kind of wasteful – especially since I knew I wanted a ‘pile’ of leaves on the bottom of this card. So… I die-cut more leaves with no regard to the veins! I cut a piece of my standard Staples Ivory card stock with a LF stitched rectangle die and stamped the sentiment with Acorn Archival Ink and clear embossed it before I arranged the leaves around the sentiment. I used Multi Medium Matte to glue all the leaves down, and was pleased that you can’t see the glue at all! I reached for a piece of dark red Tim Holtz Kraft-Core card stock from the Nostalgic Collection and was going to trim off the leaves at the edge of the ivory card stock and make a thin mat with the red, but I liked the look of the leaves going over the ivory onto the red and just left the red mat full-sized. All is glued down to an Ivory card base and I feel like I could almost jump into this pile of leaves! Happy Autumn indeed!

You should know by now that I love me some puns, and there was one sentiment in this stamp set that I thought I could pun-i-fy up a little bit and that inspired this card.

I knew I wanted to use the bare branch stamp on some Kraft card stock so I stamped three of those with my Acorn ink and used a die template to help me place the die for the most accurate die cut. I just cut the die out of a scrap of card stock and taped that over the stamped image to help line up the die. Worked very well for these branches! I decided to go monochromatic and stamped the vase and saucer the same. I did go in with a white colored pencil to add some highlights to these images and that brought a little life to this still-life arrangement! On an Ivory card base, I used the Mummy Bauxite watercolor dot to brush a light swatch of color across the bottom to anchor my arrangement, and stamped and embossed the sentiment again in the Acorn ink on the card front. I cut a little slit in the edge of the vase and the saucer to slip the ends of the branches into and glued the saucer flat to the card front and used foam tape to mount the vase and branches. Ok… so we’re kind of pushing the pun here, but there is a branch out… yeah? Get it??  LOL!  Okay…  I’m an easy target! LOL!

So… we have that ‘You are vibrant’ stamp and I thought maybe I could color those Chinese lantern plant stamps in some real vibrant colors if I used my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush markers. I didn’t think the dot card colors were particularly ‘vibrant’.

I did do some research on these plants and colored them all according to pictures I was able to access. I stamped everything with my Onyx Black ink on some Bristol smooth card stock and colored everything with my Zigg markers. I again created a die template to assist in die-cutting these branches and that bulb on the bottom. The vase was simple enough to line up the die without a template. I arranged all three of the branches together and intertwined their leave to make a pleasant arrangement and tucked them all into a slit in the top of the vase. Well! That vase and arrangement filled up the entire card!! So I just stamped the sentiment on a white card front and mounted everything with foam tape. I did add a touch of a shadow under the items with a light gray alcohol marker to help ground the arrangement. I think this is quite vibrant!! LOL!

So that was pretty successful with the lantern plant branches… let’s see what I can do with those skeleton pod stamps and that other bare branch. And that dot stamp…!?

From the plant research that I did, I knew that the dot stamp was the ‘berry’ inside these skeleton pods on the lantern plants. I experimented around a bit … I even tried embossing these on black… but I lost the berry behind the embossing… Finally I arrived at this. I stamped the dot (three times) in SSS Watermelon Hybrid ink on Ivory card stock, and then stamped a darker red (Hero Arts Red Reactive ink from the July ’18 kit) on the bottom left side of the berry. Those small stamp cubes make it pretty easy to ink up only a portion of the stamp for a great shadow and unbeatable dimension. A touch of white gel pen to highlight the top right side of the berries and I think  we’re ready to stamp the pod over the top. Creating some dimension on those berries makes all the difference!

I stamped the two flowers, the bud and the branch with Acorn ink on Ivory card stock, colored those with my Zigg markers, and die cut those along with the three pods. I used a die template for the branch but not the other pieces. I married up the flowers with the top branches and the 3 pods with the bottom branches and mounted them all with foam tape to a Kraft card base. I stamped the sentiment using the Red Reactive ink and embossed it with clear powder. I needed something else to help ‘frame’ this card and reached for some dark red card stock and a couple of circle punches from my stash to create this dotted border on the top and bottom of the card front. I think those dots echo the berries very nicely and finish out this design perfectly. And those berries look like they are actually inside those pods! Very cool!

That covers the lantern plant stamps… let’s move along to the maple branches next!

I stamped two branches on Bristol smooth card stock in Acorn Archival ink and went back to the DS watercolors to color the branches and leaves. Had to use my smallest brush since these images are fairly petite..! I did make another die template to assist in die-cutting the branches out. It really helps!

I cut a plain piece of white card stock with a stitched rectangle die and stamped the ‘thankful’ stamp (in Acorn) just above the center of the card and went to my Silhouette software to add the ‘I am so … for you’ (Lucida Grande font) around the stamp. I love how this came out. Once I ran the front panel through my printer, I went back and embossed the ‘thankful’ with VersaMark ink and clear embossing powder over the Acorn Archival ink. I matted the card front on a thicker orange and thinner kraft card stock and then down to a white card base. I used foam tape to mount the branches and Voila! a really lovely autumnal thank you card! I felt like had better control of the DS watercolors, and was a little more familiar with the colors by now, and am very pleased with the result!

A few months ago, Gina K. came out with a Stencil Builder Template which is a very simple yet effective concept. Naturally, I had to make a homemade template for myself and have played around with it a little bit. You really need smallish stamps to make an effective wreath (of course Gina K. has lots of ‘wreath builder’ stamp sets available!) I haven’t used the single maple leaf stamp yet, and wreaths are certainly appropriate for the season, so I thought that perhaps the maple leaf stamp might make a good autumnal wreath!

There you go! My first wreath card! I stamped the maple leaf on Bristol smooth card stock with Acorn Archival ink four times with the stamp in one direction, and then four times with the stamp in the other direction. I thought this was much better than having the stamps all facing the same direction around the wreath. I dug out this three little dots stamp from the Simon Says Stamp ‘Kind Flowers’ stamp set to add a little detail in the larger gaps and colored everything with the DS watercolor dot card. I stamped the sentiment in Acorn ink again in the center of the wreath, and I added some Morning Dew Nuvo Crystal Drops to the dots for a touch of shine and a little dimension. After coloring everything, I die cut the front panel with a stitched rectangle die. And what does every nice wreath call for? A bow!!  Instead of adding a bow to the wreath itself, I used both pieces of ribbon from the kit to ‘wrap’ a nice double-bow around the bottom of the card front and matted that on some core-dination Auburn Pearl card stock and then to a white card base. Perfect touch! As I add additional small stamps to my stash, I will play with that wreath template some more! I really like this sentiment paired up with a maple leaf wreath!

Now I’ve used the maple leaf stamp and the maple leaf die but I haven’t used them together! The bare branch stamp (card #3) seemed out of scale with the maple leaf so I reached for the other bare branch stamp (card #5) to use with the maple leaf stamp.

I stamped six of the maple leaves and one branch on Bristol smooth card stock with Acorn ink and colored them all with the DS watercolors and die cut them with the included dies (using a template for the branch but not the leaves). I die cut a plain piece of white card stock with a stitched rectangle die and went to my Silhouette software to create this sentiment using the Black Jack font and the Lucida Grande font. I printed that sentiment in brown and added a wide yellow mat and a thin core-dination Auburn Pearl mat before gluing the whole piece to a white card base. I glued the leaves to the branches (except one!) and mounted all to the card front with foam tape. Now here we have another simple seasonal mild pun to add to our batch this month. I really like how that branch stamp looks totally different on this card than it does on card #5.

I think I have just about exhausted the maple leaves in this kit now, and have two more stamps to use before I can claim to have ‘used every stamp’ in this stamp set.

This card tickles me more that it probably should…! I grabbed the simple branch with leaves stamp for this card, and stamped it directly on a plain white card base 3.5 times…! Using my stamp platform, I stamped the first three branches in Acorn ink and then masked off the leaf portion and just stamped the ‘stem’ of the branch for the fourth branch (just to get placement correct). I stamped the whole stamp on a piece of scrap card stock and, using my light table, traced the rest of the branch onto the card front with my Brown Pigma Micron pen. This might be considered a little bit of an inside joke to the stampers out there, but I love that the leaves ‘disappear’ on that last stamp! This sentiment is from Ecclesiastes 3:1 (very familiar to most!) which I created on my Silhouette software using the Black Jack  and the Modern #20 fonts and printed that up in brown. Very simple coloring on the leaves using the DS watercolors (those are some TINY leaves!) and a touch of white gel pen on the naked branch for the suggestion of snow, and that’s all the coloring we need! A couple of strips cut from a dark brown piece of that Tim Holtz Kraft-Core card stock anchors the image and finishes off this card very nicely. This still makes me giggle… so simple but very effective!

I still have to use that last branch stamp with ‘berries’ on it, and while I was playing with the Chinese lantern plants, I decided I wanted to try and stamp out a bonsai tree.

LOL! Oh, YES! I am quoting Yoda on the front of this card! LOL! If this groovy bonsai tree wasn’t enough, this sentiment is!! LOL!

On a stitched rectangle die-cut panel of Bristol smooth card stock, I began by masking the left half of the saucer stamp (stamping the right side with Acorn ink) and then masking the right side of the saucer stamp (stamping the left side with Acorn ink) to make this saucer appreciably smaller for this tree. Then I stamped the berry branch 3 times for the main branches and then masked off the bottom portion of the stamp for the shorter fourth branch. This stamp was flexible enough to allow me to bend it around into different shapes using my stamp platform.

I colored in a ‘dirt’ mound in the saucer (and thickened up the bottom of the trunk) with my Brown Micron Pen, and used the watercolor dot card to color in the berries and the saucer. I realized most bonsai seem to be planted in a mossy substrate so I took my #10 white gel pen and added lots of white dots to the mound. I let the gel pen dry and then went over that with some of my green Zig markers. Very ‘mossy’! For the final touch on this tree, I added tiny leaves to the end of every empty branch (and a couple extra spots) with the tip of the green Zig marker. I drew a light shadow under the saucer with an alcohol marker, and along with the touches of green, this bonsai tree is complete!

I used my Silhouette software to print this sentiment in browns using the Lucid Grande font again, and matted the card on more of that Tim Holtz Kraft-Core dark brown card stock and glued both down to a Kraft-Core dark red card base. Of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to add a real honest-to-goodness pun on the inside of this card. ‘You are treemendous’ is the perfect compliment to the ‘Size matters not’ Yoda quote on the front, and I am still laughing…! Something about the juxtaposition of the quite formal bonsai tree contrasting with the Yoda quote, feels delightfully silly to me. This is a card I can actually see myself giving to someone! If you can’t tell, I love this card!! LOL!!

A couple of times, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to come up with 10 unique cards using this kit, but I persevered, and ultimately, I quite enjoy every one!

That’s my 10 cards from the MMH September 2018 Kit, and I am so pleased to say that I was able to use every single stamp in this stamp set!! WOO-HOO!  LOL!!! I find it very interesting that these kits seem to inspire different styles of cards from me each month. These cards feel almost nothing like my August coffee cards… very interesting! The basic simplicity of a lot of these cards really highlights the coloring and the compositions. I think this a great variety of truly lovely cards, and I am thrilled that I was even able to work in few puns this month (minor though some be)! LOL!!

Thank you so much for sharing your time with me here. I hope I was able to provide you with some smiles and maybe a useful tip or two. Please share this post with anyone who might be interested, feel free to toss me around to your friends and crafting buds on social media, remember, don’t run with scissors, and HAPPY AUTUMNAL CRAFTING!!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my unboxing of the Love From Lizi October Card Kit. Lizi refers to this as the “Hello Autumn” kit and it is full of fall colors, images and sentiments.

As usual, this kit is over-loaded with supplies and a couple surprises for us to play with!

Our card stock is 8.5″ x 11″ letter-size card stock in Burgundy Red, Peach, Sky Blue, Chocolate Brown and Vanilla, and we get four half-sheets (8.5″ x 5.5″) of specialty card stock in Gold Mirror, Burnt Orange, Chocolate Brown and an Antique Gold Pearl.

This month sees the return of Lizi’s 12″ x 12″ cut apart sheets. Four big sheets of fun!

Our first cut-apart sheet has six 4″ x 6″ portrait panels with a few large sentiments and a great stripe pattern on it’s back side… wait a minute… there’s a pink stripe in there too!!

Our second sheet has six 4″ x 6″ landscape panels. Here we see a little ‘pumpkin spice’ sneaking into our sentiments and the back features a lovely multicolored flower pattern.

The third cut-apart sheet has twelve 3″ x 4″ portrait panels with lots of sentiments and images just ripe for fussy-cutting! And that burgundy and black houndstooth pattern on the back of this sheet is quite appealing and very Autumnal!

And the last cut-apart sheet has nine 4″ x 4″ panels with more sentiments and images and that nice “Hello Autumn” sentiment on faded newsprint. The reverse side of that sheet sports a very pale pink pattern of interlocking circles… I’ll concentrate on the front!

Also included with the card stock in this kit is eight 6″ x 6″ double-sided pattern papers.

There are some great plaids and stripes and acorns, flowers and leaves. I love that black pattern paper with the flowers and am thrilled that Lizi gave us TWO of those in this set.

The reverse side of our pattern papers continues the fall theme with more leaves and stripes, a random triangle pattern, a black and white gingham, some polka dots and a Navajo blanket pattern. I love the red, and black-and-white patterns go with everything!

That covers all the card stock in the kit! Moving right along…

Our peel-offs this month are Copper Mirror! REALLY LOVELY! And we are treated to another 5′ x 7″ embossing folder this month! This folder features a knitted pattern in blocks and stripes and is large enough to cover the entire front of most any card!

That brings us to Lizzi’s Hello Autumn stamp set.

This is obviously a sentiment laden stamp set with 10 Autumnal sentiments in a lovely script font. There are a number of images too (some attached to the sentiments) like the tea cup, an umbrella, a pumpkin and 5 tiny leaves that would be great for wreaths!

And finally that bring us to our embellishments bag! Or, the Goody Bag as I like to say!

Once again, Lizi has some surprises for us this month! Our ribbon bundle includes a meter length of 1.5″ wide crushed silk burgundy ribbon, 5/8″ wide ‘tea towel’ ribbon, a 1/4″ metallic copper ribbon, and a 1/5″ wide burlap and copper ribbon in a chevron pattern. SPARKLY! we also get some lengths of twine in blue and natural. I have to admit I miss the lovely cardboard spool our ribbons came on last month!! LOL! Then, from the left, we have our sample pack of “Hello Autumn” sequins in oranges and dark blues, brushed gold, white, and YES! There are a few soft pink sequins in there too! We get a pack of five skeleton leaves in colors! I’ve only seen these skeleton leaves in natural color so these are very interesting! We get a silver leaf, two copper leaves and two gold ones!

And here is the item I’ve NEVER seen before… Bark leaf die-cuts! Six real bark ‘leaves’ in natural colors. VERY INTERESTING!! Those are complimented with our two dies this month. A Chestnut Oak leaf die and a Maple leaf die – both of these are fairly large dies! For another bit of nature, we also get six wood slices. Cut on a bias, they show off the interior wood as well as the outer bark. I don’t know whether to start a fire or make some cards! LOL!  We do get a strip of small iridescent crystals – more than 50 here I believe! And not to forget our bottle of Nuvo Crystal Drops in Ripened Pumpkin. Looks just like a can of Libby’s Pumpkin! And, if that weren’t enough…!

We ALSO get this ginormous package of ephemera pieces! There are more than 60 pieces in this pack and I felt like I needed to lay them all out for you (and for my reference too!) There are flowers and pumpkins and mushrooms and leaves. Tags and labels and feathers and wreaths and even a pumpkin pie! YUM! I would like to know when the Starbucks ubiquitous seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte became an acronym!! (PSL) !! Personally, I like my coffee to taste like coffee – not a pumpkin pie! A touch of mass hysteria there as far as I’m concerned!!  LOL!!

I didn’t opt in for any add-ons this month – I thought there was more than enough supplies to satisfy my creative mojo. This kit is still available as of posting. If you want to join in on the annual rush of Autumnal madness, please use my link when you shop at Love From Lizi: http://bit.ly/LFLlink

SPECIAL NOTICE!     SPECIAL NOTICE!     SPECIAL NOTICE!     SPECIAL NOTICE!

If you were a fan of the LFL Beary Christmas Special Edition kit last year, Lizi released a new decoupage kit from the same artist this month. The Festive Friends Special Edition Card Kit has sold out once already and has just been re-stocked. Grab ’em while you can and please use my link when shopping at Love From Lizi: http://bit.ly/LFLlink

Thank you so much for sharing your time with me here. I hope I was able to show you this plethora of supplies in a little more detail. Please share this post with anyone you feel might be interested, keep an eye out for my 10 Cards 1 Kit video for this month, and, as always, Happy Crafting!

Hello folks! Scott here with the new Love From Lizi September 2018 Super Card Kit! This month, Love From Lizi turns TWO! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZI! To honor this momentous occasion, Lizi has come out with this “Happy Haunting” Super Card Kit that features products manufactured especially for Love From Lizi !! This kit has already sold out but Lizi has some of the add-ons for this month still available, and will probably release this stamp set for sale in the coming months. Remember… if you go shopping at Love From Lizi, please use my link: http://bit.ly/LFLlink

I do use the included card stock as card bases (A2 cards as usual) Sometimes the color of a card base will inspire the design of a card. This month, it’s all about Halloween here!!

One of my favorite things about the Love From Lizi Card Kits is that we usually get some unique and/or new-to-me supplies. This month was no different with the inclusion of a full-size tub of Brusho Crystal Colors in Black. I’ve never played with powdered watercolors before, so I grabbed some of my Strathmore 140# watercolor paper and started experimenting! I taped my paper to a board and added some clean water and started adding the Bruso to the wet paper… WOW! Lots of colored powders make up the black color here. I’d add more powder, and spritz more water, and after a few rounds of powder and water came up with this:

After creating this, I am going to have to re-think my ‘galaxy’ coloring methods! This background inspired my first card this month.

On a white card base (I do save the LFL Copic-friendly white card stock for alcohol marker coloring, and substitute a sheet of 110# white card stock from my stash). I did spatter some permanant white water color over that Brusho background for stars and that completed the ‘galaxy’ look. I die cut that background with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die (surprise!) and matted that onto a piece of the Dusty Pink specialty card stock and glued those to the card front. I used one of my Darice circle dies to cut  out a little ‘moon’ from the Blush specialty card stock and glued that directly to the background. I took the Witch ephemera piece from the kit, and mounted that over the moon with some foam tape, and added the pun-y sentiment from the decoupage sheet in the same way. A few drops of the Wisteria Purple Nuvo drops and some Glossy Accents on her eyes adds a little more shine to our witch, and of course, I couldn’t resist adding another pun to the inside of this card! “Spell, yeah!” (Black Jack font) works perfectly and provides a little more of laugh when the card is opened. I really love that ‘galaxy’ background, and the clear drops on her eyes add a lot of life to this image!

Now that I have done some free-for-all ‘painting’ with the Brusho powder, I thought I would try and see how much control I could exert with this medium. I am a control freak! I figured a moon would be useful with this Halloween kit so I  came up with this.

I did add some of my permanent white watercolor to this (note the Tycho Crater on the lower right) but all the colors and speckling came directly from the Brusho Powder! Now that’s my idea of using those watercolor powders to do my bidding! LOL!

If you saw my un-boxing, you know I got a big kick out of that Owl ephemera piece and decided to pair that up with this watercolor moon.

On a black card base, I again spattered some of my permanent white watercolor for a light background of stars directly on the card base. I glued the moon directly to the card front with my Ranger Multi Medium Matte glue, and cut out the thinnest stripe from the striped pattern paper that came with the kit. With the aid of a couple of folds, I fashioned a branch from that stripe for my Owl to stand upon and attached that along with my owl to the card front using foam tape. Halloween cards kind of lend themselves to puns so I am off and running already with this “Happy Owl-oween!” sentiment I printed up using my Silhouette software and the Black Jack font again. I trimmed that into a banner shape and foam taped that to the card front as well. I did think this was the perfect opportunity to use the “trick or treat” stamp from the stamp set and added that to the inside of this card using VersaFine Onyx Black ink (I do ALL my stamping this month with this ink). I also added Glossy Accents on the owls eyes (BIG eyes here!) and again that brought so much life to this card! BEWARE!!!  I am just getting started with the Halloween puns this month!!!

We got a terrific new curly-cue cobweb stencil in the kit this month and I though it would be fun to try some ‘reverse stenciling’ with this highly detailed cobweb. Basically, I’m just using the stencil as a stamp – inking up the surface and applying that to card stock. Now, the manufactured cut edges of the stencil are minutely higher (thicker?) than the body of the stencil, so if you ink your stencil and apply that directly to card stock, chances are pretty good that you will only transfer the edges of the stencil. Here are my experiments:

Clockwise from top left: 1. Hero Arts Unicorn White ink and white gel pen 2. HA Unicorn White ink and silver stardust gel pen 3. Golden Crown embossing powder (LFL) 4. Silver Dollar embossing powder (LFL) 5. Pumpkin Pie embossing powder (LFL) 6. HA Unicorn White ink with a good spray of water. For the embossed pieces, I coated the stencil with some VersaMark ink, laid that on the card stock and ran it through my die-cutting machine using an embossing mat. That really pressed the ink into the card stock and gave me really good results with all the embossing powders. And you can get a good impression from most of your water-based inks if you spritz the stencil with a good amount of water. I was just experimenting here, but I really like the subtle  variations in color on cobweb #6!

I also took a little time to go ahead and assemble all four of the decoupage pieces included in the kit. YOWZA! there are some incredibly small pieces to these decoupage cut-outs – I don’t think I’ve ever trimmed foam tape this small! I like to use EK tools 3D-Dots with this layering decoupage. At 1/16″ thick, these are the thinnest, highest quality foam squares I have ever seen.

Those arms on these “Ghoul-ettes” are super thin! I think my foam squares are thicker than some of the widths I was trimming it down to!! I did persevere and  got all four of our “Ghoul-ettes” assembled using all the decoupage pieces. Really fun dimension!

I thought that cobweb and the decoupage  “Ghoul-ette” with a book would work well together for my next card.  And maybe that book she’s reading is a cook book (or a spell book if you like). That ephemera cauldron would work nicely here too!

I trimmed down my white cobweb to fit (the stencil is a 6″ x 6″ stencil with a frame, so it won’t completely fill the 5.5″ length of a card front) and glued that to the Posy card base and added a couple of the thinnest Lilac peel-offs to the top and bottom edges. I did make a little mini-shaker out of the inside of the cauldron using only the smaller sequins from the Happy Haunting Sequin Mix (doesn’t shake much, but looks cool!) and glued the cauldron and the Ghoul-ette together before mounting them to the card front with foam tape. I stamped the skulls from the stamp set with VersaFine ink and used the included die to cut out the two larger skulls and just fussy-cut the smaller one. I colored the skull on the hair bow with my Stardust gel pen and used my Spectrum Noir Sparkle Glitter Brush Pen to add some shine to the skulls. I attached the skulls with some foam tape and added a few sequins as if they were all ‘bubbles’ rising from the cauldron! And, here it comes… my second pun-y sentiment for this month: “If you got it, Haunt it!” printed using my Silhouette software and the Black Jack font. I thought white text on a black background was very appropriate for a lot of these cards this month, and I love how it kind of feels like it’s white embossing! I do complete this card with the “happy halloween” stamp from the kit on the inside of the card – I think every card this month sports a sentiment on the inside! I really like pairing this Ghoul-ette up with the cauldron – it gives some context to the book she’s reading and the skull ‘bubbles’ reinforce that as well!

Okay, lets dig into some of that Love From Lizi Happy Haunting pattern paper pad now. I really liked that ‘striped’ pattern paper and thought those stripes looked a lot like birch trees. I considered cutting all the stripes away from the pattern paper and gluing them to black card stock to get a ‘night sky background’, but then thought it would be very interesting to play with a ‘reverse’ night sky with a moon poking through the  trees…!

I traced a circle on the pattern paper (another circle die to the rescue!) and used my craft knife to cut the circle out while leaving the ‘trees’ intact. I then die-cut the pattern paper with a stitched rectangle die and matted it to a piece of the Black specialty card stock (with the center cut out!) and foam taped it to the Lilac card base for some added dimension behind the ‘trees’. I also took a small piece of the chevron pattern paper and fussy-cut one edge, die-cut it to size and added it to the bottom of my card front for a little suggestion of ground. I paired up the decoupage Bat Ghoul-ette with the ephemera bat and attached their ‘hands’ together as if they were dancing in the forest… I attached those to the card front with more foam tape (you can never have TOO MUCH dimension!) and printed out the “I’m batty for you” sentiment using the Ballerina Script font. I sized that sentiment to fit my smallest stitched rectangle die and glued three layers together before foam mounting them to the card front. Another “happy halloween” stamped on the inside, some more Glossy Accents on her eyes for a little shine, and there you have it!  I loved pairing these two ‘bats’ together and with the Ghoul-ette’s leg kicked up in the air, it really feels like they’re dancing through the forest!

We got some terrific wood-veneer die cuts in the kit this month – nicely sized, well detailed and darker than most veneer pieces we see, and I was eager to use the large wood-veneer skull for my next card.

I took the white and black skull pattern paper, and noticed that it was the exact same pattern on both pieces so I stacked them on top of each other and started cutting strips. Then it was a simple process to match the patterns and create a black and white striped paper with the pattern running uninterrupted across all pieces. I LOVE that! I die cut my finished stripes with a stitched rectangle die and matted that to a piece of the Blush specialty glimmer paper before gluing them to the Dark Gray card base. I did cut a mat for the skull from more of the same glimmer card stock and added that to the card front with foam tape. And I LOVE this sentiment…!!  Makes Me Laugh every time I sing it. YES… you got to sing this one! LOL!! I printed this sentiment using my favorite Brady Bunch Remastered font, die cut it with a stitched rectangle die, and foam taped it to the card front. Another stamp of “happy halloween” on the inside of the card and I thought that was it. But something was missing… I experimented coloring the eye sockets with a black gel pen on the smaller wooden skull but did not care for that effect. The sockets are very textured on their bottoms (probably a result of their lase-cutting) and that kind of flattened out the shine from the gel pen. AHA! Black Nuvo Drops in the eye sockets give this fellow some GREAT personality and shine and makes me laugh even harder! He looks kind of irritated! LOL!

Last year, with the LFL Thanksgiving Special Edition kit, I made a sketch file on my Silhouette Portrait for a background of ‘swirling wind’ to use for a “Sweater Weather” card. I love the fact that my Silhouette will not only cut out shapes, but that it will also draw shapes with any pen or marker that will fit in the holder. I had another great ‘witch’ sentiment that I wanted to use and I thought this would work well for a witch on her broomstick.

I ‘sketched’ the swirly lines using my white gel pen on a piece of the Graphite specialty card stock and used my largest stitched rectangle die to cut that to size and glued it to the Dark Gray card base for my card front. I mounted the decoupage witch to the card front with foam tape and printed this double-pun sentiment using the Black Jack font on some plain white card stock. I did size the sentiment so I could die cut it with a Spellbinders Deckle Rectangle die, and I went ahead cut two more layers and glued them all together for some added thickness. I distressed the edges of that sentiment with a little Pumice Stone Distress Ink and mounted that to the card front with foam tape. A few pink sequins from the sequin mix add a little bling for a nice finishing touch. Of course, I have to continue using the “happy halloween” stamp on the inside of this card as well… I guess you could say that stamp is on a roll!! I’m SO GLAD this stamp is in this stamp set! I only have one teeny tiny “Happy Halloween to You” stamp in my stash! And I have to admit, I really enjoy this double-pun sentiment!

Okay, one more card using my Silhouette Portrait – this time using it for cutting!

I cut the “333” (Impact font) from a piece of the pattern paper and also from a piece of black card stock, and glued those together to create an offset shadow, and glued those directly to a white card base. I mounted the ephemera Devil Ghoul-ette with some foam tape on top of the numbers and added a few Nuvo Drops for some shine. I was still looking for a pop of color so I stamped the bow from the stamp set, colored that with my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers and used the included die to cut it out. The white outline around the bow wasn’t working on this image so I went ahead and fussy-cut the bow right to the stamped edges and added that to her hair with a spot of foam tape. Some Stardust glitter pen on the skull and now we’ve got a nice pop of color on the front of this card. Ok… so… what in world is a “333” sentiment mean? Well, all you have to do is open the card to reveal the joke. That’s right… this Ghoul-ette is only “half-evil” LOL!  This is printed in the Ballerina Script font on the writing surface inside the card. This makes me laugh so hard. I love the nondescript numbers on the front and the final reveal when the card is opened. I think most of us would agree that we are all only half-evil..!!! Still makes me giggle just writing about it!!

I haven’t used that large “Spooky” sentiment from the stamp set yet, and I thought that since it was so large, it might make a nice background stamp.

Oh, yes!! I stamped that “Spooky” sentiment multiple times on the black card base with VersaMark ink and embossed it with Ranger Clear embossing powder for a really nice, shiny, tone-on tone look for the background on this card. I added double rows of the Lilac mirror peel-offs to opposite corners of the card front for a sort of ‘partial frame’ effect (you’ve seen me do that before) and that adds a lot of shine to this card. I stamped the bottles from the stamp set and colored them with my Zigg markers before die-cutting them out with the included die. I glued those bottles to the hands of the ephemera ghost and used foam tape to mount this image to the card front. Of course the “I’m just here for the BOOS” sentiment (Brady Bunch Remastered font) is so completely apropos, that I couldn’t resist! And when I saw the bottle stamp included with the stamp set I knew this card was in my future!! LOL! I did take the time to finish out this card with the “happy halloween” stamp on the inside writing surface, and once again, I love the pop of color that the green bottles add to the front of this card! I guess I’m getting a little tired of all the soft pinks, lilacs and grays that comprise most of the color palette in this kit.

Okay then… let’s do some COLOR! I stamped the Ghoul-ette stamps from the kit on my Bristol smooth card stock and went at them with my Zigg watercolor markers.

I was really itching to color the devil Ghoul-ette in reds, and red, violet and yellow-green are split complimentary colors, so that’s the route I took coloring these stamps. Of course I was planning on using them all together on one card so I thought I could get away with such a radical color intervention here! LOL!

On the Posy card base, I paired the pink ‘terrazzo tile’ pattern paper and the soft pink cobweb pattern paper to make my background. I used the Lilac mirror peel-offs to lay out a bit of a perspective tile pattern on the ‘floor’. I though that was really interesting!  I checked our hallways here in our building, and the terrazzo floors here have metal ‘grout lines’ between the pieces of tile so the mirror peel-offs were perfect! I think of this as my ‘disco’ floor! I trimmed the background to size (WHAT!? no stitched rectangle die???!!!) and added a thin black mat before gluing the background to the card base. Then it was a simple matter of arranging our three Ghoul-ettes on the card front. I decided to bring in the large ephemera skull to give the small Bat someplace to stand so she wouldn’t get lost in the background. Everything is mounted to the card front using foam tape and you have to open the card to see my favorite pun of the month!

Oh, heavens this one makes me laugh and laugh and laugh…! What a delightful pun!! And I think it’s ultra perfect this month since all of our images are girls!! This is printed in the Black jack font again – I went back and forth between this font and the Ballerina Script font in an effort to emulate the font of the stamp set – I think the Ballerina font is closest to matching, but I didn’t like the lower-case ‘w’ so I used the Black Jack font for my sentiments that had a ‘w’! Makes perfect logical sense, right??!!! LOL!!!

And that brings us to my last card of the month!

Color junkie that I am, I really liked the Pumpkin Pie embossed cobweb I created earlier. That embossing powder was included with the Love From Lizi October 2017 card kit and it worked so well on this spider web. Nice glitter in that embossing powder! I dug around in my leftovers from that month and found a piece of the Burnt Orange specialty card stock that matched the embossing powder perfectly! (natch!) That inspired a little interactive card for you all!

Needless to say, this cards thrills me to no end!! This is the very same technique I used for my “Swinging Girl Card” from a couple of months ago. I didn’t fuss with the thin card stock spacers on this card and instead opted for foam tape as the spacer between the card front and the Lilac card base. I die-cut the cobweb with a stitched rectangle die and matted that on a piece of that Burnt Orange specialty card stock and then drew a line with my Emboss It pen on a scrap of black card stock and embossed that with more Pumpkin Pie embossing powder and fussy cut it out to use as my swinging web strand.  I did spend a little time coloring up the wood-veneer spider from the kit using my Spectrum Noir Alcohol Markers on her bow and then topping the bow and eyes with my orange Sakura Glaze Pen for a touch of shine. Some white gel pen for the bottom of her eyes really makes them pop and I used my Stardust gel pen on the skull in the center of the bow and a spot of red glaze pen on her lips. I think those glaze / gel pens work really well on these wood-veneer pieces and adds a little touch of shine as well.

I really didn’t want to cover up any more of that cool orange cobweb with my sentiment and thought it would be a blast to hide the sentiment behind the spider so she reveals the complete phrase only when she swings back and forth. I got the biggest kick out of that!!

I created the “CREEPIN’ IT REAL” sentiment on my Silhouette using the Taco Modern font and sized it to work with my Darice Banner die. I chose to print that on some photo paper for the extra bright colors and some really nice shine, and was pleased to get a really good match with the orange! I outlined the banner die-cut sentiment with some thin Lilac mirror peel-offs and that was the perfect touch to really highlight the sentiment. I did of course complete this card with the “happy halloween” stamp on the inside writing surface. I love the classic orange and purple Halloween colors on this card, but I do have a little bit of a bone to pick here. Spiders have 8 legs. Bugs have 6 legs. I guess that’s being really picky…  LOL!! Ultimately, it doesn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of this card!   I’m just sayin’…!!  LOL!

That completes my 10 Cards 1 Kit collection featuring the Love From Lizi September Super Card Kit. I did manage to use every stamp in this stamp set, I used two of the wood veneer die cuts, 5 pieces of ephemera, and 8 Ghoul-ettes! I didn’t get to any of the ribbon this month… I think I must have been so enamored with the spool that the ribbons came on that I didn’t want to disturb it!! LOL!! Even though every card here has ‘eyelashes’ somewhere, and even though this is an extremely feminine kit, as a whole, I think this collection of cards feels more Halloween-y to me than girly! I really enjoyed all the puns this month and hope you get a kick out of them too!

Thank you so much for joining me here today! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments – you can email me directly from the ‘CONTACT’ page at the top if you like! I’d appreciate it if you shared this post with any Halloween Junkies you may know or anyone else you think might be interested! Please Like Me, List Me, Pin Me, Post Me, Don’t Run with Scissors, and, as always, Happy Halloween!

Hello folks! Scott here with the new Love From Lizi September 2018 Super Card Kit! This month, Love From Lizi turns TWO! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZI! To honor this momentous occasion, Lizi has come out with this “Happy Haunting” Super Card Kit that features products manufactured especially for Love From Lizi !! Fortunately, we are the lucky recipients of all this goodness! If you are a Halloween fan, this kit is right up your alley!!

To begin with, we get our regular five sheets of letter-size (8.5″ x 11″) card stocks in Lilac, Black, Copic-friendly White, Dark Gray, and Posy. Our specialty paper this month is all half-sheets (8.5″ x 5.5″) of glimmer / pearlescent card stocks in Dusty Pink, Blush, Black, and Graphite. Great Halloween colors here… and I even like that ‘Posy’ pink card stock!

Next we get an A4 sized sheet (8.27″ x 11.69″) of decoupage images featuring these four (I’m going to call them) “Ghoulettes”, and 11 printed sentiments. I have become quite a fan of Lizi’s decoupage sheets and these look like great fun! We also get a new LFL 6″ x 6″ stencil – a terrific swirly curly-cue spiderweb – VERY COOL! and our sheet of LFL peel-offs this month are in Lilac Mirror. I have touted my love of Lizi’s peel offs for over a year now and these are a terrific color that goes extremely well with all the items in this kit.

This is the “Happy Haunting Paper Pad” – Lizi’s very first pack of pattern papers made exclusively for Love From Lizi! We get 12 sheets of 6″ x 6″ patterned card stocks – yes card stock – these pattern papers are nice and thick and have a terrific kind-of semi-gloss finish on them! Skulls on a black background, skulls on a white background, the swirly spiderwebs on a pale blush background, two chevron patterns in cool and warm tones and a striped pattern with perpendicular lines in contrasting colors.

Then we have four sheets of what looks like a terrazzo tile pattern (the hallways of my building are terrazzo tile!) that are perfect for backgrounds! White, Black, Pink and Gray. Then we have one more of a skull pattern (notice that some of those eye sockets are in the shape of hearts) very cute!! And one more sheet featuring the swirly spiderweb on a golden terrazzo tile background. Really looking forward to using this Paper Pad!

And here is the “Happy Haunting” stamp AND DIE sets! I’m slowly falling in love with frame dies for my stamps, and here we have a terrific combination of three “ghoulettes” with a bottle of poison, skulls, a bow and three perfectly appropriate sentiments! The “ghoulettes’ are just begging for some fun coloring. And THANK YOU LIZI for the “happy halloween” sentiment – the first one I have in my stash!!

That brings us to the embellishments bag – this month Lizi packed all our embellishments in a paper ‘treat’ bag instead of a plastic zip-lock bag – terrifically cute and I applaud anyone (especially any BUSINESS) for trying to cut down on their use of plastic bags!

As usual, we do get a large bottle of Nuvo Crystal Drops in Wisteria Purple – a very soft, light, almost metallic purple! And for a new treat, we get a full size tub of Brusho Crystal Colours in Black. Brushos are highly pigmented water-colour crystals – I’m sure most of you have seen these before and now we have a chance to play with them and see what the ‘water-colour crystals’ craze is all about! Every month we get a good assortment of ribbon with Lizi’s kits and this month they are all wound on a cardboard spool!! I LOVE THAT! (sorry the package is upside-down!! DOH!) We get 5 ribbons in Silver Sparkle, Gold Sparkle, Blush Sateen, Black Grosgrain, and a thin White Satin. Not only does this spool keep your ribbons neat and untangled, but it provides the perfect storage option for your leftovers!!! We are treated to a FULL “Happy Haunting” sequin mix this month – lots of voilets, pinks, golds, whites and blacks in many different sizes – this pack seems like it’s almost bursting at the seams!  AND…! We get these 9 wood-veneer die cuts – 2 skulls, 2 pumpkins, a ghost, a spider, a broom, a bat, and a cauldron! I really like the size and the detail on these pieces and I love the darker color of the wood veneer!

And if all that wasn’t enough, we also get this huge pack of ephemera pieces to finish out our kit this month. More than 35 pieces of colorful die-cut images from large to small and this pack even includes some flower images so you don’t HAVE to make Halloween cards if you don’t want to! The owl and the cat are new images in this pack, and I have to admit, they are very cute. Yes… this whole kit is very cute and very feminine… lots of long eyelashes on everything and little heart accents, etc. HOWEVER, I do think all these images are pretty darn adorable! Should be no problem coming up with my 10 cards!

As of this posting, there are still a VERY few kits available at lovefromlizi.com – please use my link anytime you go shopping with LFL:  http://bit.ly/LFLlink. A BIG CONGRATS goes out to Lizi and her whole team – not only for celebrating LFL’s second birthday but also for putting together and manufacturing the first ALL LOVE FROM LIZI Card Kit!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my ten cards featuring the Hero Arts My Monthly Hero August 2018 Kit. This is my fourth month with MMH, and I was excited about this kit because, believe it or not, I don’t have any coffee stamps in my stash whatsoever!

This month’s 6″ x 8″ stamp set features coffee cups and mugs in a variety of styles and 19 different sentiments (nineteen!) along with some flourishes,  accessories, a wisp of steam, whipped creams, foamy latte art, and 11 coordinating frame cut dies. Looks like these are just begging for some coloring! This month we are treated to another 3.5″ x 4.5″ Fancy Window Die featuring some cafe tables in front of a coffee shop. Very intricate…! Our extras this  month include a .5 oz. Lacquer Pen and White Puff Embossing Powder, and two 8.5″ x 5.5″ sheets of Coffee & Tea Dyed Decorative Paper. Those papers look like Granny’s old lace tablecloth that’s just begging for a nice long dip in some Oxy Clean!

For the first time in my MMH membership, I ordered some extras to be included with my kit. (I didn’t order any of the extras offered with this kit, but I did break down and get the Ornate Carousel stamps and dies from last month! LOL!) My first three kits from Hero Arts (with NO extras) shipped on Friday and I received them on Monday. This month’s kit, (WITH extras) didn’t ship till Tuesday and I received it on Thursday. Just something to think about if you are really eager to get your monthly kit! To bide my time while waiting for my kit to arrive, I fiddled around with some backgrounds that I thought might work well with a coffee themed kit.

I have one actual, real bona-fide, rubber background stamp in my stash – those rows of circles in different diameters – (heaven only knows where I got that!) so I stamped some assorted papers with that stamp in a few different colors. I recently purchased the Plaid Background Stamp Set from Concord and 9th and stamped a simple red and white tablecloth using the Hero Arts Red Reactive ink that we received with the July kit. I have been fascinated with the Concord and 9th ‘Turnabout’ stamps since they came out,  so I splurged on the Sunshine Turnabout Stamp Set a few months ago. I experimented with that stamp and managed to get some good results for my first time using a ‘turnabout’ stamp. I used all my brown inks on the white card stock, some muted Distress Oxide Inks on the black card stock, and brighter Distress Oxide inks on the kraft card stock. I have to admit that ‘turnabout’ stamp is great fun and works like a charm! I will have to resist the urge to buy every ‘turnabout’ stamp that they make! LOL!  Okay! Lets make some cards!

I grabbed my kraft cardstock Sunshine Turnabout background that I stamped in Broken China, Cracked Pistachio, Fired Brick, and Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxide inks for the background on this first card. I did do a light spray of water after stamping to activate the inks, and then cut that background with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die and mounted it to a thin mat of Kraft-Core brown textured card stock and glued those both to a white card base. I stamped the small espresso cup with VersaFine Onyx Black ink on some Bristol Smooth Card Stock, and colored that with my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers before die-cutting it out. My local coffee shop (NOT Starbucks!) has these lovely espresso cups with a deep brown exterior glaze and a white interior and rim – that’s what I modeled my cup after! I love using my Zigg markers on Bristol card stock – nothing better as far as I’m concerned! I used my white gel pen for some highlights on the cup and added some of the lacquer on the coffee in the cup for a little shine. I stamped this pun-y sentiment and the matching flourish directly on the kraft card stock with VersaMark ink and embossed both with Ranger ultra fine White embossing powder. The cup is mounted to the card front with foam tape, and I couldn’t resist adding a little ‘bonus’ sentiment on the inside of the card. It took me a few minutes to figure out that some of the flourishes in the stamp set were perfect for underlining some of the shorter sentiments! I stamped those stamps with Ranger Acorn Archival Ink and I think that adds just the right touch to this colorful card featuring a great pun! It always thrills me to see puns included with any stamp set, and this kit delivers with a number of puns for our enjoyment!

I decided to tackle the big window die for my next card, and cut that from some 110# white card stock and saved the awning cut-outs to use on my card. This die made me think of the coffee shop on FRIENDS (Central Perk) which inspired this card from me.

I placed the die cut on another sheet of the brown Kraft-Core card stock and traced the window opening so I could use my craft knife to cut the ‘window’ out of the brown card. I used some Elmer’s Spray Adhesive on the back of the die-cut to attach it to the brown card stock – love using a spray adhesive for these intricate window dies! I colored the awning cut-outs with my Spectrum Noir alcohol markers (CR8 & CR11) and inlaid those back into their spaces with some Multi medium matte liquid glue. I cut a piece of my Heat Resistant Acetate to fit the window opening, and stamped the cup and sentiment with VersaMark ink, embossed them in white, and attached the acetate to the back of the window opening with some scor tape. It appears my little coffee shop here is called “A Cup of Joy” LOL!! I dug around on Google for an appropriate ‘coffee shop interior’ and hit the jackpot with this image which I was able to shrink to just the right size. I printed that at 75% transparency on plain paper so it would recede into the background a little bit, and glued it on the front of a white card base. I used some foam tape to attach the die-cut assembly to the card front and that gave a little bit more depth to complete the illusion. For some final touches, I wrote ‘Cafe’ on the little sign with a brown Micron pen, added a couple of pieces of star glitter, and stamped this great sentiment on the inside of the card with Walnut Stain Distress Oxide ink. I am very happy with this card! At first, I was at a loss as to what to do with this die , but once ‘Central Perk’ came to mind, I knew I could use this die to create an interesting hybrid of stylized and realistic images together on one card! The brown card stock behind the die-cut has a great brick-like texture and the bright red on  the awning really pops! I’d go to this coffee shop anytime!! LOL!

Lawn fawn recently came out with their Double Slider Surprise Craft die, and reminded me of all the Double Slider cards I’ve made over the years, and that inspired this card featuring the Coffee and Tea Dyed Decorative Paper!

I stamped the cup on Bristol smooth card stock with Onyx Black ink and colored that with my Zigg markers. I stamped the ‘latte art’ with VersaMark ink and used the White Puffy Embossing powder on that stamp – very ‘foamy’! LOL! I die-cut three pieces of the dyed paper with my stitched rectangle dies, and, since that paper was thin and a bit wrinkly from the dying process, I ran them all through my Zyron Sticker maker. I mounted one of the papers to a kraft mat and then a thin grey mat for the card front, and attached the other two pieces to the inside (grey) slider pieces. I stamped the Thank You sentiment on the card front with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed that with some Clear Embossing Powder for a little shine.

I stamped the to-go cup, lid and sentiment on some plain card stock with Onyx Black ink, did a tiny bit of shading with a grey colored pencil, die cut the pieces and glued them flat to the bottom slider panel and stamped the ‘pull’ at the center bottom using my MFT Interactive Labels stamp. The gift card holder on the top slider is a little proprietary something I created a number of years ago using my Silhouette Portrait. I really love all the Lawn Fawn Interactive Craft Dies they have come out with over the last couple of years, but they are all a little bit under-sized when compared with full-size hand-made versions. But regardless of size, these Double Slider Surprise cards are always a big hit – especially when sporting a gift card! I really like the effect of the decorative paper when this card is opened all the way. Very interesting paper and perfect for this card!

Last month I created a birthday card inspired by the Sunny Studios Sliding Window die, so I thought I would do another one this month continuing my Thank You gift card kick.

I went to the pedestal cup for this card, stamping it on Bristol smooth card stock with Black onyx ink and coloring it with my Zigg markers. I added the whipped cream and straw (or peppermint stick?), to the image and again stamped the Thank You sentiment with VersaMark ink and clear embossed that on the cup. I die cut another of my Sunshine Turnabout stamp backgrounds with a stitched rectangle die (stamped on kraft card with Stampin’ Up Tip Top Taupe, Early Espresso, Chocolate Chip, and Simon Says Stamp Barely Beige inks) and split that in half so it would fold easily when the ‘window’ opened. I went back to my Silhouette Portrait to cut another Sliding Window card front out of kraft card stock, but this time I removed the original circle ‘tracer lights’ around the window opening in favor of this nice wooden frame – made from – get this – coffee stirrers!!  I have kept a batch of stirrers in my stash since November of last year when I did some stamping of wood-grained images on some wooden matchsticks…!

I did a little pattern stamping on the pull tab portion with the cup and saucer stamp using Ranger Acorn Archival Ink and added a little piece of the included ribbon to a hole punched in the top of that piece. The sliding window piece is attached to a kraft card base and outlined that with some thin Love From Lizi peel-off strips in brown. Inside the window reveal, we have a bonus sentiment and a gift card which leaves the whole inside of the card available for your personal message. I really like this bright blue mug on the kraft card, and the dimension of the image (with straw!) when the card is opened.

For my next card, I chose to use my red and white checked tablecloth for the background and paired that up with some grey card stock stamped with my graduated circles rubber background stamp using the SSS Barely Beige ink pad for a subtle diagonal pattern.

I cut the background pieces with a stitched rectangle die and glued those to a thin black mat before mounting them on a plain white card base. I stamped the two mugs, the whipped cream and the straw (I like that little curve!) with Onyx Black ink on Bristol smooth card stock and used my Spectrum Noir alcohol markers to color them using some softer shades this time.  I stamped the sentiments and heart on the mugs after coloring, and stamped the main sentiment on some scrap grey card stock before die-cutting everything. (I used my Spellbinders Deckle Rectangle dies for the main sentiment) On the previous card, I glued the whipped cream on top of the mug, but when the light caught it just right, it didn’t look like the cream was inside the cup, so I cut away the ‘inside’ top of the mug on the right and glued the whipped cream behind the cup. Much better!! now that cream really looks like it’s inside the mug. I added another coffee stirrer between the two background pieces and used foam tape to mount the cups and the sentiment. I stamped the ‘steam’ stamp with Barely Beige ink on a scrap of white card stock and die cut that to mount over the left mug. A few SSS Colorful Confetti sequins adds a a little touch of bling and I really enjoy how it feels like the mugs are talking to each other… That’s right…!  We ARE sweet and hot!!

The more I perused this stamp set, the more I realized that a lot of the sentiments could be taken as romantic or at the very least extremely friendly, so I thought I’d try and use them all on one card which prompted this 4″ x 9″ card. It fits in a business envelope!

I’ve never done a card this size before and I think I really like the format! At least for this card! LOL! This took a little planning to decide which sentiment would fit on which cup, and then to distribute them evenly across the card. I had to do some stamp surgery on the ‘You’re the cream in my coffee’ sentiment to make it fit on a cup but that’s the only real adaptation I had to make here. I stamped all the images with Onyx Black ink on Bristol smooth card stock and colored everything with my Zigg real brush markers. After coloring, I stamped all the sentiments and die cut all the shapes. My card base is 110# white card stock cut to 8″ x 9″ and folded to make a 4″ x 9″ card. I sponged the heart background with the Simon Says Stamp Falling Hearts stencil using Wilted Violet Distress Oxide ink, Deep Purple Archival ink, Hero Arts Summer Sky ink, and SSS Key Lime, Lemon Zest, Orange Slush and Watermelon Hybrid inks. I tried to use inks that came closest to matching the Zigg watercolor markers. And, YES! The coffee stirrers make another appearance here..! I colored a bunch with a couple of Tan Spectrum Noir alcohol markers and glued them all together to make a nice wooden ‘counter’ for our cups. I found that scor-tape was the best adhesive for the coffee stirrers – this ‘counter’ is a half inch wide strip of scor-tape on some scrap card stock and then I laid the stirrers on the tape staggering the joints and trimming them with my 7″ Tim Holtz snips. Once I had filled the half inch of tape, I glued the ‘counter’ to my card front. I assembled all the pieces of the die-cut stamps (making sure the creams were inside the cups!), added some of the lacquer pen to the exposed coffees and mounted them to the card front with multi medium glue and foam tape. I embossed the final unifying sentiment in white on a scrap of black card stock, cut it into a banner shape and foam taped that to the card front. Three tiny bronze crystals adds some bling and highlights that sentiment very nicely! I really enjoy this card quite a lot… if this ain’t a ‘latte love’ then I don’t know what is!!  LOL!!!

I have now used 15 of the 19 sentiments included with this set, so I think I’m allowed to start playing around with some pun-worthy sentiments of my own!

This background uses the Sunshine Turnabout stamp with Walnut Stain, Vintage Photo, Iced Spruce, and Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide inks on black card stock. and VERY lightly misted with water to get a little oxidization going. I cut that background with a stitched rectangle die (naturally!) mounted that on some white card stock and glued those to a black card base. The cup is stamped in Onyx Black ink on Bristol smooth card stock and colored with my Zigg markers (can you tell I like my Ziggs?) and the ‘chocolate swirl’ is stamped in Acorn Archival ink and embossed with some clear embossing powder. I created and printed this fun sentiment using my Silhouette software and the Smoothie Shoppe font, and matted that on white card stock and used foam tape to attach the cup and sentiment to the card front. I did white emboss a couple of the heart stamps on the sentiment strip for a little finishing touch. This sentiment makes me laugh! I like the black/white high contrast of this card, and that coffee looks good enough to drink!

I decided I needed to stamp some pattern paper for a card this month, so I took the cappuccino cup stamp and, using Acorn Archival ink, created an interesting pattern on some of my kraft card stock, and then added some light coloring with my colored pencils.

I cut the stamped background with a stitched rectangle die, and double matted that with my standard Staples Ivory card stock, and some blue core’dinations Brights card stock and glued those to a top-folding kraft card base. I stamped the mug on kraft card stock with Onyx Black ink and colored this one with my colored pencils! Surprise! LOL!! I did stamp the ‘java junkie’ sentiment after I finished coloring the mug. The mug is die-cut and foam taped to more Ivory card stock cut with a stitched circle die and matted on more blue card stock cut with my Orbis circle cutter and then foam taped to the card front. Now here’s a sentiment for our times..!!!  ROTFL!! I actually sketched this sentiment on Ivory card stock using my Silhouette Portrait, the Noteworthy font, and my brown Micron pen. I cut the sentiment with a small stitched rectangle die, matted that on some more blue card stock, and foam taped it to the card front. This sentiment makes me laugh right out loud! I did take the opportunity to add a secondary sentiment on the inside of the card that goes along with the whole over-caffeinated theme of this card! I stamped that in Acorn ink again and added another one of those underline flourishes that really does emphasize these short sentiments! Again I think the blue mug works really well with the kraft / ivory card stocks and I always like the effect of coloring on darker card stocks with colored pencils. You see… I don’t ALWAYS have to use my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush Markers!  LOL!!

But, of course, I do return to my Zigg markers for this next card! I just can’t help myself!

Here I was mostly interested in seeing if I could adapt that to-go cup lid into a dome-topped lid for a couple of frappes! When stamping the lids, I wiped away the ink from the back (top) of the lid before stamping. If there was any ghosting of that line, it was easy to use my sand eraser to clean it up. I then cut out a 1.5″ circle from some scrap card stock and used that as a template to draw the domes. I did make a little mask for the bottom portion of the lid for stamping the whipped cream, and simply filled in the lines below the dome. I searched for some frappe images on line for some coloring inspiration, and am thrilled with my mocha and strawberry frappes! I printed this fun sentiment on one of my graduated circles backgrounds (SSS Barely Beige ink on kraft) using my Silhouette software and the Smoothie Shoppe font (naturally!). Then I die-cut that background with a stitched rectangle die and matted that on a thin white mat and a thicker red core’dinations Brights card stock mat before gluing all down to a white card base. I used more coffee stirrers on an angle as an anchor for the cups, and foam taped both of the cups to the card front. I did stamp and color a couple of the straws, and, using my craft knife, cut two small slits at the top of the whipped cream and just under the top of the dome to slide the straws through. A tiny  highlight of blue colored pencil on the domes adds to the ‘see-through’ lid illusion. I did go ahead an make this an actual Birthday Card with the addition of the sentiment on the inside of the card (Smoothie Shoppe font again) and a little slot to hold a gift card. With the prevalence of ‘blended drinks’ at coffee shops these days, I thought it only fitting to do this frappe card and I had a great time figuring out how to make those iconic dome top lids.

For my last card this month, I wanted to try and make that pedestal cup appear as clear glass… I did some YouTube research on ‘coloring glass’ and found out that one way to achieve the effect is leaving a little bit of white between the stamp line and whatever color liquid is on the inside. I also thought that stamping these mugs in Manganese Blue Archival ink would help add to the ‘glass mug’ effect I was going for.

I did use my Zigg markers to color these coffees, die-cut them out, and added the lacquer  over the whole mug. Due to the fact that these images are water-colored and the liquid (water) nature of the lacquer pen, the edges of the coffee softened up a bit, but it still gives the impression of a glass mug. I did a ‘second-generation’ stamp of the whipped creams with the same blue ink to get a bit of a lighter color. I tried the lacquer plus puffy embossing powder technique but wasn’t real pleased with the lack of control I had with that technique, so I tried only doing partial lacquer and puffy powder on the creams, but, once again, the lacquer bubbled up all over the place and I’m just a little too anal-retentive to be happy with that. Finally, I did the partial lacquer and puffy embossing powder but I let that dry completely before heat-setting the powder. That’s the effect I was going for! Nice, fluffy, tightly controlled texture on the whipped creams!  And you can still see the stamp lines! I did fussy cut the top rim of the mug so I could attach the creams behind the mugs. I grabbed my white Sunshine Turnabout stamp background (stamped in the same colors as card #4) and paired that up with a background I created with a Carabella Studio “Bulles” (bubbles) stencil and the Hero Arts Unicorn White pigment ink on black card stock. I die-cut both background layers with my stitched rectangle dies, and added a thin mat of brown core’dinations Glitter Silk paper and mounted everything to a top-folding white card base. I die-cut more of that brown glitter paper with a stitched circle die to back the mugs, and foam taped the circle and the mugs to the card front. Of course I dipped into my (seemingly) never ending stash of of song lyric puns for this fun sentiment. I printed and cut this sentiment using my Silhouette Portrait (Impact font) on some photo paper for a shiny, almost ’embossed’ effect. I also cut four ‘shadow’ shapes  from plain white card stock and layered them all together for a nice chunky ‘chipboard’ sentiment mounted to the card front with a bit of foam tape. I thought this “good idea” sentiment from the stamp set worked well with this card and added it to the inside with another gift card slot. I really like the ‘glass’ effect achieved here and will definitely have to keep practicing that technique! I think this card is kind of the ‘Cadillac’ of this set. LOL! I LOVE this shiny sentiment, and all the glitter and ‘glass’! And that coffee looks good enough to drink!

So that completes my ten cards with the My Monthly Hero August 2018 Kit. I had a great time coloring all these images and think we have a nice variety of coffee themed cards!

Now I finally have some real coffee stamps and dies in my stash, and I will have to spend some more time with this Fancy Window die. I thought this kit was a bit of a challenge this month seeing that there are really only six images in this stamp set vs. an over-abundance of sentiments. We’ve got a couple of interactive cards, a birthday card, some thank you cards and quite a few puns this month! I actually used 18 of the 19 sentiments on this set of cards – ‘but first, coffee’ didn’t make the cut, and I didn’t use two of the ‘latte art’ stamps and one of the flourishes – that means I used 35 stamps from this set on these 10 cards! LOL! That seems pretty amazing! I think the only thing I really missed in this kit was a nice coffee bean stamp(s)! Nevertheless, any one of these cards could be used for coffee gift cards and there is some room for improvisation with these stamps (to-go dome lid, anyone?!). All in all a great stamp and die set!

I had a fun time with the kit this month and really enjoyed working with some new background stamps and coloring all these images in a variety of palettes and medias. Please be sure to share this post with anyone you think might be interested, don’t forget to like me, list me, pin me, post me, let me know if you have any questions about what I did this month, don’t run with scissors(!), and as always… Happy Crafting!!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my 10 cards from the Love from Lizi August 2018 Card kit. This month’s kit was a bonanza of foiled pattern papers and die-cuts in gold and silver.

Lizi also offered a “Super Shine Bumper Pack” as an add-on which doubles all your foiled pattern papers and includes a bunch of different die-cut sheets to supplement your goodies.

I know that there are some of us that don’t necessarily order the offered add-ons and try to find all our inspiration in the monthly kits on their own. Now, that doesn’t mean I didn’t bring in other materials from my stash – a lot of the extras I used this month came from prior LFL kits! I did try to stick with the Super Shine theme and kept everything in gold, silver, black and white. I love all these pattern papers, but I do think this kit is a little short on images – unless you’re extremely into tags, banners and bows, there aren’t a lot of shapes to work with here. However, I was excited to have a new opportunity to play with my iCraft deco-foil and create some sentiments on my laser printer at work…!!

I did create my card bases from the card stock provided in the kit – that gave me 4 black  and 6 white card bases. To begin with, I noticed that one of our stamps matched one of the journal card die cuts – the stamp is just a little smaller. Since the printed card was in silver, I decided to emboss the stamp right on top of the journal card in gold. I used the LFL Golden Crown embossing powder that we received in the LFL May 2018 Card Kit. Then I fussy cut the outer and inner edges and decided to add the “You’re a Star!” sentiment on the inside panel, so I needed to cut a window through the front of my white card base. I took the pentagram pattern paper, trimmed it down to 4.125″ x 5.375″ and added a thin black mat around that before attaching that to my card front – THEN I die-cut a circle through the card front and embossed the sentiment in the LFL Silver Dollar embossing powder included in the kit.

I did get a very poor stamp of that sentiment on my first attempt, so I stamped it again on some scrap white card and die cut that with a circle die to go on the inside and cover my mistake! I matted the large geometric star with a little black card stock and mounted that to the card front with some LFL foam squares that were in last month’s LFL kit. Really interesting dimension on this card. Gold, Silver, Black and White! Perfectly on theme!

I am not one for generic sentiments on my cards; “Love”, “For You”. Made With Love”, etc.. I ran across this lovely bible verse when I was researching ‘silver and gold’, and I thought that it was so interesting that it deserved to have a card of it’s own.

On a black card base, I cut a piece of the silver line-art vellum with a LF Stitched Rectangle die, ran that through my Xyron Sticker maker and matted it to a piece of silver pearl card stock from the LFL January 2018 Card Kit and glued them both to my card base. I cut the three apples from gold mirror card stock from the LFL July 2017 kit using my Silhouette Portrait and a file from my library. I printed the sentiment on a piece of vellum from my stash using the Freehand 591 BT font, die-cut it with a stitched rectangle die, ran that through the sticker maker and glued it to a scrap of gray card stock. I outlined that piece with the LFL Gold Mirror peel-off stickers from the May 2018 kit, and mounted the sentiment and the apples to the card front with the LFL foam squares. I did want to give proper attribution to this sentiment so, on the bottom of the inside gray writing surface, I noted the reference to “Proverbs 25: 11” using the same font. I really love this sentiment and thought it was kind of perfect to contemplate ‘fitly spoken’ – especially these days..!

Now, let’s tackle the other main stamp in this kit – the  large hexagonal “Let’s Celebrate”.

I embossed that stamp with LFL the Silver Dollar embossing powder on some white card stock, fussy cut that out with a little white border and matted that to some black card stock. That’s a BIG stamp with lots of surface area – we should be able to use the back of that for some ‘reverse stamping’..!  Now, I’ve been on the Love from Lizi Design Team for a year, and I could not find any silver glitter card stock from the last 13 months in any of my leftovers, so I broke down and grabbed a piece of my core’dinations Silver Glitter card stock to use as the background on this white card base. I attached the hexagon to the card front with LFL foam squares, and attached the mirror tiles from the kit to the top and bottom points of the sentiment. Two strips of the Black Diamond peel-off stickers down the sides and we have a VERY Art Deco card all in silver. Talk about Super Shine!!

Those hexagonal mirror tiles reminded me of the golden triangular mirror tiles from the LFL November 2017 card kit that are about the same size as the triangular ‘hello’ stamp in this kit. This is as generic as I get with these sentiments this month!

I embossed the stamp with the LFL Golden Crown embossing powder on a scrap of white card stock, trimmed that out with a bit of a white border, and mounted that with a foam square to some black card stock. I added those triangle mirror ties and trimmed the whole piece down leaving a little border of black. I cut out a piece of the gold line-art pattern paper (those are mostly triangles!) with a stitched rectangle die, and fussy cut an interesting edge from the bottom left to mid-right before matting that on a scrap of black card stock. The matted pattern paper and the mirror triangle(s) are both mounted with LFL foam squares to a white card base. We’ve gone from Art Deco to Modern Art in no time at all! I really like the unexpected shapes and the triangle motif on this card!

I haven’t done any deco foiling yet, and I want to see if I can foil on black card stock. And I’m dying to try some foiling with that stencil in the kit as well. Let’s do both on one card!

It’s a little hard to get a good picture of this but WOW! All Black and Gold!! I reached for the stencil and used deco foil Transfer Gel through the stencil on some black card stock. Once that was dry, you add the deco foil over the dry transfer gel and run it through a laminator. That’s a big difference from all the foiled white pattern papers in this kit! I picked out a portion of the foiled stencil and die-cut that with my largest stitched rectangle die to cover the whole front of my black card base. I designed this circular sentiment piece using my Silhouette Software, and used the Elephant font for this old scouting sentiment. I printed this design on some black card stock using my laser (toner) printer at work and then foiled it in gold and die-cut it with one of my circle dies. I matted that black circle on some more gold glitter card stock from the LFL February 2018 card kit and used the foam squares to mount that to my card front. STRIKING! I love all the gold and black foiling – Super Shine!

I wanted to see what I could do with that die-cut black ribbon that said CELEBRATE!, so I pressed that ribbon nicely with a hot iron and then applied a layer of Multi Medium Matte to the back of the ribbon to try and stiffen it up a little bit. That did the trick!

On a white card base, I took the gold star vellum and the gold stripe pattern paper and glued those both together with my Zyron sticker maker. That mutes the stripes into an almost new color while letting the stars shine and giving us a ‘new’ pattern paper. I glued those directly to the card base and trimmed the top and bottom edges with the Black Diamond peel-off stickers. I took the gift die from the kit and die-cut two silver mirror (LFL Jan. 2018) packages and two gold mirror (LFL July 2017) packages and inlaid the stars on the packages in alternating colors – gold stars in the silver packages and visa versa. I die-cut the package bows in gold glitter (LFL Feb. 2018) and silver glitter (core’dinations) and added those to the package fronts with my thin foam 3D-dots. I added some thin foam strips to the top and bottom of the CELEBRATE! ribbon and added  that to a strip of my silver glitter card stock for a little recessed dimension behind the letters and glued those together down to the card front. I mounted the presents with the LFL foam squares and finished up this card with an inside sentiment cut from the silver mirror card stock using the Happy Birthday die from the LFL Feb. 2018 card kit. This card is certainly reason to celebrate and I am thrilled that I was able to make that die-cut ribbon work extremely well here!

I was determined to use at least some of the die cut pieces included in this month’s kit, so I started fiddling around with the square banners and figured out a nice kind-of pinwheel pattern by gluing the ‘tabs’ of four banners behind each other.

I glued that banner assembly to the gold glitter (LFL Feb. 2018) card stock and cut that into a thin mat for the banners. I used the LFL foam squares to mount that piece to a black card base, added the black peel-offs shooting out from the four corners, a few sequins from the Super Shine sequin mix and some of the Ebony Black Nuvo drops for some subtle shine and dimension. I printed this classic sentiment on some vellum from my stash using the Franklin Gothic Demi Cond font and foiled that in gold with my deco foil – the word ‘silver’ is actually foiled in silver! I fussy cut that sentiment out and, with some carefully placed foam dots, mounted that to the center of the banners. I thought this sentiment was a perfect companion to the “Best and Loveliest Friend” stamp from the kit, so I stamped that on the inside writing surface with VersaFine Onyx Black ink. Again, this feels very Art Deco to me, and I love being able to use these banner die cuts to create something very unique for this card.

I thought there must be a fun way to use the metal charm pieces included in our kit, so I started playing around with different ways to arrange them, and finally arrived at this.

Feels like a big spangly bracelet or maybe a fancy metal belt…! On my last black card base, I glued down a line of the gray velvet ribbon and two lines of the thin gray satin ribbon for a ‘base’ and arranged the metal charms on top of that using my thin foam dots. I did add the little bronze gems from the LFL March 2018 kit to all the holes on the edges of the charms – I thought that camouflaged those holes perfectly! This sentiment is from the Richard Garay stamp and die set ‘Be Amazing’ embossed on white card stock with the LFL Silver Dollar embossing powder, die-cut and mounted to the card front with the LFL foam squares. A few dots of the Nuvo Drops (note the drops on the ends of the velvet ribbon) and the two big star charms add the final touch to a card that is all about the BLING, and is pretty amazing all on it’s own! Talk about Super Shine!!

Here we are at card number nine already, and I feel like I have hardly made a dent in all these pattern papers… Is there something I can do to really highlight these papers?

How about a nice set of thank you cards to be used as gifts? A small collection of thank you cards with envelopes makes a GREAT gift for co-workers, friends, postal workers, paper carriers, doctors, lawyers, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, even a lovely hostess gift! And this set of cards lets the foiled pattern paper take center stage.

I did look through all my LFL stamp sets from the last year, and was actually surprised to realize that we haven’t received a single “thanks” or “thank you” stamp in our kits. “Thank you” seems like such a standard sentiment – right up there with “Happy Birthday” – so Lizzi, if you’re listening, how about a nice Thank You stamp for our stash!??  LOL!! I turned to my Lawn Fawn Big Scripty Words stamps and dies for the ‘thanks’ sentiment on these cards. I embossed these in the LFL Golden Crown and Silver Dollar embossing powders on white card stock and die-cut them out with the matching die. I did glue two layers of die-cut black card stock behind each sentiment for some contrast and added dimension. I chose five pattern papers from the kit and cut them to size with a stitched rectangle die, matted those on black card stock and glued them directly to my white card bases. I glued the chunky sentiments to the card fronts and contemplated adding some embellishments or a little something extra, but decided that the simplicity of these cards was all that was really needed.

BUT… here’s the perfect opportunity to use one of the paper bows from our kit! Personally, I’m not much of a ‘bows’ person, and would be hard pressed to use one of these on a card, but here, those paper bows work perfectly! I did dig in to the Super Shine Bumper Pack for the belly band that wraps up this set so nicely, but that’s the ONLY piece I used from the extras. I really like this idea and the simple fact there are so many pattern papers in this kit means that you could make a whole bunch of card sets to use as gifts all year round. I think a variety of foiled patterns all included in one set makes an attractive and interesting gift that most anyone would be pleased to receive. And don’t forget to include some envelopes too!  LOL!!

Ever since I first heard the words Super Shine, they reminded me of the Saturday Night Live spin off movie with Molly Shannon and Will Ferrell called “Superstar” where Molly Shannon over-emphasizes “superstar” ever time she says it. I couldn’t help but imitate that when saying Super Shine… and, taking a cue from the ‘You’re a Star’ sentiment in the kit, decided that I had to do a Super Star card with this Super Shine card kit!

I actually used up all my LFL gold glitter card stock so I had to reach into my stash of core’dinations gold glitter card stock to make this card. On a white card stock panel, I dry embossed 3 of my Stitched Nesting Star dies and, using the two smaller stars, cut a gold glitter star and glued that to the card front. I really like that effect a lot – actually kind of looks like it’s quilted! I matted that panel on glitter card stock and glued it directly to my card base. I printed the sentiment with toner on my work printer using the Smoothie Shoppe font and the Arial Unicode MS font and foiled that in gold. I die-cut the sentiment with a stitched rectangle die, mounted that to the card with my thin foam tape, and added the gold star gem from the LFL November 2017 kit.

I remembered seeing Jennifer McGuire’s ‘Inside Shadow Box Cards‘ video from a couple of months ago and wanted to give that technique a try. However, I was interested in making the shadow box thinner than the 1/2″ deep box that Jennifer made. A little trial and error and I came up with this very sharp, 1/4″ shadow box card that has a very interesting 3D effect when you open it up.

My ‘Inside Shadow Box Card’ is made with two pieces of white card stock both cut to 8.5″ x 5.5″. Score the first piece in half (4.25″) and trim 1/4″ off of the back of that card base. Score your second piece of card stock at 1/4″, 4.25″, and 4.5″. Trim a sliver off the first 1/4″ edge of this piece to help it fit together nicely, and the rest of the card assembles exactly the same as illustrated by Jennifer in her video.

Again, using my stitched star dies, I cut a window in the second piece of card stock and a thin glitter frame for the opening. I printed this sentiment on vellum (Smoothie Shoppe font) with my work printer and foiled that in gold. I put some thin foam tape behind the cut out to attached the vellum, and added a piece of the gold star pattern paper to the back. As you open the card, you can see the gold stars in the background moving across the sentiment. Very interesting effect! Okay… so there’s not a lot from the card kit on this card but I figured I was allowed since I just made five thank you cards..! Whether I was a little ‘patterned out’ after 13 cards, or just happy to have all of my cards done, I really, really love this card. The simple gold and white is very smart and the glitter and foiling add all the Super Shine that this card needs. Super Shine Super Star!!

That covers my 10 Cards for the Love From Lizi August 2018 Super Shine Card Kit. No real puns this month, but these cards have a certain sophistication to them that kind of belies the use of puns! I did make a pretty good dent in these supplies, but I still have tons of leftovers from the kit. I only have 3 complete sheets of pattern paper left, two full vellum sheets, the mini alphabet stickers and the complete tag die-cut sheet. I did use pieces from the other three die-cut sheets and a little bit of everything from the embellishments bag. And we’re not even talking about the Bumper Pack that I (almost) didn’t even touch.

I liked the challenge of making these cards with only the kit contents, and I am very pleased at the wide variety I was able to achieve with these rather elaborate looking cards. They definitely live up to the Super Shine theme!

I do know that there are still a few kits (and bumper packs!) left at lovefromlizi.com so if you’d like to bulk out your stash with some beautiful Super Shiny pattern papers please use my link when shopping: http://bit.ly/LFLlink  Thank you so much for sharing some time with me here. I hope you like my examples this month! Let me know if you have any questions or comments, please share this post with anyone who might be interested, don’t run with scissors, and by all means, Happy Crafting!!

Hello folks! Scott here with the Love From Lizi August 2018 Card Kit unboxing for you!I think Lizi is calling this the Super Shine Card Kit and it certainly lives up to it’s name! This is another unique collection of supplies that only Love From Lizi could put together!To begin with this month we get 3 sheets of smooth White ‘Copic-friendly’ card stock and two sheets of black in 8.5″ x 11″ letter size. That Black card is super hefty and very thick!Then we have this huge parade of A4 (8.27″ × 11.69″) sized pattern paper that has silver and gold foil in a variety of patterns… lots and lots of pattern papers here! We get the six sheets above and the five sheets below for a grand total of 11 full size sheets! WOW!Now this isn’t real thick card stock but it’s not paper either – seems just the right weight to use as background and highlights on cards. And LOTS to work with! We also get four

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sheets of foiled vellum in the A4 size. Nice sturdy vellum with flawless foiling. And if that weren’t enough we also get a full sheet of mini alphabet stickers in silver, gold and white.And for just a little more icing on the cake, Lizi included 4 sheets of die cut elements too!There is a sheet of banners in both square shapes and triangles (I like that they have ‘flaps’ to go over some string (or ribbon!)), and this sheet of what looks like ‘journal-ing cards’ – these would work perfectly as a writing surface inside our cards!The third sheet of die-cuts feature tags and labels – some with sentiments and some without, and our fourth sheet has 8 die-cut paper bows in various patterns. These have small holes at the end and the centers of the ‘bow’ die-cuts and no ‘center wrapping strip’ so it appears that we are to assemble these using brads or other poke-through fasteners. That is a hefty bunch of papers in this kit! Enough to make dozens and dozens of cards!Our stencil this month is this large 8″ x 8″ sticky-back stencil of different circular patterns. This is just like the stencil we got in the LFL November 2017 kit that had the tree shapes. Our LFL peel-off stickers are in Black Glitter… LOVE THAT! and we also get 24 sticky-backed hexagon mirror pieces. Talk about SUPER SHINE!  WOW!We receive these two small stamp sets with this kit – The large ‘Let’s Celebrate’ hexagon and the smaller set that features a detailed line-art star and five tiny sentiments that fit the opening in the center of that stamp – there’s ‘Best & Loveliest Friend”, “Made with Love”, “You’re a Star”, “Hey Lovely” and “hello”. Pretty standard greetings but some very unique shapes. Finally that brings us to our coveted Embellishments bag!Lizi always includes an assortment of ribbon in her kits and this month is no exception. First, there’s that 1″ wide black die-cut ribbon that says ‘CELEBRATE’ (mine needs a light pressing to straighten everything out), a 3/8″ wide grey velvet ribbon, and a 1/4″ white satin ribbon printed with ‘happy birthday’ in silver. Ther is also another batch of that terrific 1/8″ wide satin ribbon in Grey, Caramel, Black and White. My ribbon stash has grown by leaps and bounds since I began with Lizi!! We always get a bottle of Nuvo drops in Lizi’s kits – this month they are the Ebony Black Crystal Drops – and we are treated to a NEW Love From Lizi embossing powder in Silver Dollar! WOO-HOO! Our die this month is a ‘present’ die in three parts: the package, the ribbon and bow, and the tag. Totally adorable! We get our sample package of the Super Shine sequin mix in silver, gold, and black (naturally) and a big assortment of these gold and silver metal charms in an assortment of shapes and sizes!

I also got the Sparkle and Shine Bumper Pack add-on this month for a bunch more of these lovely foiled papers and die-cuts. VERY INEXPENSIVE add-on for this month’s kit! The Bumper Pack includes another batch of eleven pattern papers and four vellum sheets in the same colors and patterns as the papers included in the kit (double-down!!) The Bumper Pack also includes these great foiled alpha stickers in silver and gold – LOTS of letters here – and a collection of die-cut sheets with new and different elements.The only repeat here is the sheet of die-cut banners in triangles and squares and that’s where the similarities end! We get a sheet of die-cut strips in different patterns and this sheet of labels and tags on the right… These remind me of luggage tags – with a front and a back and a place for your address! There’s a few smaller flags and simple labels too.Here are two sheets of die-cut gift card pockets – looks like there are four of them with some assorted tags and labels to fill out the sheets.We get these two envelope / note card die-cut sheets that would make 4 cards instantly!Then we get two copies of two different Gift Box die-cut sheets that will make matching boxes for small presents! Looks like the left sheets make more rectangular shaped boxes and the right sheets make thinner, broader boxes. Again, these 28 additional sheets included in the Bumper Pack come in at about $9.25 for the entire pack. Great bargain!

I have to say, one of my favorite things about the Love From Lizi kits is not only the huge amount of supplies you get every month, but the simple fact that Lizi isn’t afraid to change things up and surprise us sometimes with a kit that is completely original. This card kit is available at lovefromlizi.com as well as that great bumper pack and a huge assortment of other add-ons that coordinate perfectly with this kit. Remember, subscribers can add as much product as they like to their kits for no extra shipping as long as you place your ‘extras’ order before 7:00pm (EST) on July 25th. If you go shopping with Lizi, please use my link: http://bit.ly/LFLlink. Keep an eye out for my 10 Cards 1 Kit video featuring this card kit – I will post it as soon as I possibly can! Thanks for taking some time with me here today! Your presence makes all the difference! Happy Crafting!!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my 10 cards featuring the My Monthly Hero July 2018 “County Fair” Kit. This is my third month as a MMH subscriber and, once again, I am eager to play with these unique stamps and dies that come in this kit.This month our 6″ x 8″ stamp set includes a finely detailed County Fair silhouette stamp and assorted rides, signage, a plane trailing an aerial banner, and an assortment of scene builder stamps and sentiments. These are accompanied with 10 coordinating frame dies and a 4.25″ x 5.5″ fancy background die that compliments this summery theme. We also get three Hero Arts ink cubes in Red Reactive, Blue Reactive and Unicorn (white). As someone who doesn’t have a lot of ink pads in my stash, I LOVE getting ink cubes in our kits. Lastly, we get 3 postcard backers in a kraft color to complete our goodies. All of this is wrapped up with some lovely 1/4″ red and blue satin ribbon. Now, it seems pretty obvious how one is intended to use these stamps and dies, but I was interested in seeing what kind of variety we might be able to achieve with these goodies. Let’s go to the FAIR!

This is only the second “fancy background die” that I own, so naturally, I started die-cutting this on a bunch of different papers. I had some mirror gold paper at hand, so I cut that with the background die and that’s what gave me the idea for this first card.I stamped the ‘Ticket to FUN’ ticket stamp on the gold paper with some StazOn Jet Black ink and die cut the ticket out to add to the center of the background die. This IS a “golden ticket” so I couldn’t resist adding a “You’ve got a Golden Ticket” sentiment to the inside. I created that on my Silhouette Software and printed it in dark yellow and black using the Marker Felt font and the Circus font (that Circus font is so appropriate and will get quite a work-out this month!!)  It also seemed appropriate to add a space for a gift card on the inside, so I grabbed some gold photo corners that I happened to have in my stash, and used two of those to add a gift card holder under that sentiment. I liked the idea of this card so much, that I took the negative die-cuts from the background die, and created a second (almost) identical card. I did change the sentiment on the inside to read “I’ve got a Golden Ticket” which is a more faithful quote to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory… I almost like the second card more than the first – not sure if it’s the white framing versus the gold framing or the change in sentiment, but both cards are perfect for any gift-giving occasion and a definite TICKET TO FUN!!

The hot-air balloon stamp caught my eye next, so I stamped that seven times on some Bristol Smooth card stock with my VersaFine Onyx Black ink. I though I was just going to color the balloons in solid rainbow colors, but quickly realized that you could add some patterns to this basic striped balloon stamp with a fine tipped permanent marker. I used my 005 Pigma Micron pen to add patterns to the last four balloons, and colored them all with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. WHAT A BLAST! Seems the possibilities are almost endless for these balloons – though possibly constrained by the small size of this stamp. NOW… do I want to use all these balloons on ONE card? YES! I grabbed the long county fair silhouette stamp and traced the edge of that on some masking paper to create a mask for my mountains and sky on this card. I used my mini ink blender and Distress inks in Antique Linen, and Vintage Photo to color the ‘mountain’ and my ink blending brushes with Distress Oxide ink in Broken China, along with my MFT Mini Cloud Edges stencil to create the sky. I stamped the “Enjoy the Ride” sentiment in VersaFine Onyx Black ink and embossed that with some clear embossing powder. That sentiment fit well in a die I had from the Sizzix Tim Holtz Compass Blueprint set, so I added that die-cut to the center of my card with some foam tape, and arranged the hot-air balloons (on more foam tape) at different heights across the front of the card – it kind of looks like they have all just taken off. One balloon is on top of the sentiment and one is behind the sentiment so everything is sharing space on the card front. A tiny  bronze crystal from my stash balances out the right side of the sentiment banner and VOILA! We have a really fun card with no reference to the ‘county fair’ theme.  This is a versatile stamp set!

I really liked the “Happy Birthday” sentiment stamp, and though I didn’t think it had a lot to do with the County Fair theme, I did like the ‘retro signage’ theme that it implied. I had recently watched Jennifer McGuire’s Sliding Pop-Up Cards video that featured the Sunny Studios Sliding Window die, and thought I could come up with a similar mechanism using my Silhouette Portrait – it is pretty straight forward and has mostly straight lines, so I set about creating my own Sliding Window card front – the added bonus being that I can change out the decorative edges surrounding the window at my pleasure. Taking a cue from the ‘lights’ on the arrow part of the stamp, I decided to add ‘lights’ around my sliding window for this card. I cut the card front mechanism from a piece of blue card stock from my stash, and also cut a yellow ‘frame’ to color the ‘lights’ while still leaving the window white. I stamped a portion of the long fair stamp on the bottom of the window flap in the Unicorn ink and stamped a few fireworks above the fair in the same ink. LOVE that Unicorn ink on a darker card stock and that long County Fair stamp is highly detailed. I stamped the sentiment sign on some scrap white card stock and yellow card stock with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and fussy cut the arrow portion away from the yellow card stock and paper pieced that to the white stamping. I wanted to highlight the ‘signage’ aspect of this stamp (and wanted it to stand up above the fold of the sliding window), so I created a sign-post to mount the birthday stamp on. I did create this ‘post’ on my Silhouette Portrait and repeated the ‘light’ motif on the front grey card stock – my yellow card stock again colors the ‘lights’ and I added a bit of a black shadow to the left side of my post. I colored the white portion of the stamp with some colored pencils in blues and grays, and I die-cut that stamp and added that to the ‘post’ with some foam tape and then glued the whole assembly to the bottom half of the sliding easel piece. A couple of thin strips of the same yellow card stock on the top and bottom of the folding piece frames our image nicely, and all is foam taped to a white card base. A piece of white card stock (cut wider than the window) provides the ‘pull-tab’ and a touch of the blue satin ribbon indicates where the recipient is to pull. Now, you could easily create a sentiment that is revealed behind the easel when pulled, but I opted for a ‘hidden’ gift card – plenty of room for a greeting or added sentiment on the inside.  I love the Unicorn ink stamping on this card, I love this Sliding Window mechanism, and I love the ‘retro signage’ feeling of this Birthday stamp. I am looking forward to utilizing this sliding window pop-up on more cards, and experimenting with different edge designs around the window. I am very pleased with this new interactive card!

I was eager to work with the roller coaster stamp from the stamp set, but I wanted to ‘see through’ the ‘structural supports’, and since the die only cut the outline of this stamp I decided to break out my Heat Resistant Acetate sheets to stamp and emboss the roller coaster. I stamped the coaster with VersaMark ink and embossed that with my Simon Says Stamp Steel Navy embossing powder, and die cut that with the matching frame die. Worked beautifully! This is the first time I’ve tried this acetate and I thought it lived up to it’s promise exceptionally well. I grabbed some of my old Yellow Jewel tone Recollections card stock and cut that down with my LF stitched Rectangle Die before stamping the corner ‘track’ stamp on the bottom left and top right of that panel using the Blue Reactive ink and clear embossing powder. I thought the ‘track motif’ worked especially well with the coaster stamp! I added a portion of the long County Fair stamp towards the bottom of the panel with the Hero Arts Soft Granite ink (masking off the left side of the Ferris wheel) and stamped the “I’m here for you” sentiment with the Red Reactive ink and embossed that with some clear embossing powder before using my colored pencils to add a little shading to the open letters. I added the short ‘lights’ border stamp below the sentiment simply embossing that in clear for a subtle definition under the sentiment. I glued the stamped panel to a thin mat of Red Jewel tone Recollections card stock and glued those to a white card base. I cut some thin strips of foam tape to back my coaster die-cut and added that towards the bottom of the card front. I am really thrilled with that emboss-able acetate and I love being able to see through the coaster structure to the fair ground behind! Lots of embossing here, but this stamp set really seemed to beg for it!

I recently purchased (on CLEARANCE) some dies from LDRS Creative and I thought this Fancy Rectangle die felt very carnival-like  to me. So I used those to die-cut some yellow and orange and Red Jewel card stock for my main element on this card. I stamped the ‘concession’ stamp with VersaFine Onyx black ink on a scrap of Bristol Smooth card stock and colored that with my Zig Brush Markers. I was thinking of a sentiment that wasn’t in the stamp set, so, with a little trial and error (and my ever-useful Silhouette Software), I replaced the ‘SNACKS’ sign from the center of the stamp with a ‘GAMES’ sign to go along with my sentiment (that is using the Arial Rounded MT font). I used the Circus font and the Goudy Heavyface BT font for my sentiment and printed those up in orange and black to match the card. I took a light blue card base and using my ink blending brushes, cloud edge stencil and the Unicorn ink, lightly added some soft clouds to the background. I did stamp that short ‘light’ border stamp on the top and bottom of my card front and embossed those with white embossing powder. I glued the die cut pieces together, offsetting the dark red for a little bit of a shadow, and foam taped that shaped panel to the card base, then added the ‘concession’ stand (with foam tape) to the front panel. Now, why is “Life like a Carnival Game” you may ask? Inside, I am offering both an optimistic and a pessimistic response to that question. In the same font(s) I printed “You can’t WIN if you don’t PLAY” on the writing surface, and also  created an optional cynical response as well with an inside that simply reads “RIGGED”. LOL! Oh, boy, that one really makes me laugh. My older brother is actually works with a carnival and has been a ‘carny’ for his entire adult life. I spent a summer on tour with him after college (lots of State Fairs and Canadian Stampedes) and learned that most of the rumors, superstitions and legends about carny folk are true!! LOL! And having that Circus font in my stash gave me free reign to create almost any sentiment I can imagine!

Lets move on to the merry-go-round stamp now, and the obvious ‘You Make The WORLD Go Round’ sentiment stamp. I just happened to have the negative die-cuts left over from the previous card and thought the dark red and yellow went especially well together.After gluing those two die-cuts together, I used my stitched rectangle die to cut them out into a frame for my card. On a piece of white card stock, I stamped a portion of the fair border stamp in the bottom of the frame in the Red Reactive ink and embossed that with clear embossing powder, stamped the sentiment in VersaFine Black Onyx ink, embossed that with clear embossing powder as well, and filled in the ‘WORLD’ with my colored pencils in two shades of red. I stamped the merry-go-round on Bristol Smooth card stock and colored that with my Zig Brush Markers, and die-cut that out before mounting it to my card front on foam tape. I dug out my Darice Border die zig-zag and die-cut some scraps of the dark red card stock and added some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Morning Dew (clear) for some shine and dimension. I glued the frame to the white card stock, adding the zig-zags to the sides, and mounted the whole panel to a light blue card base with foam tape. A little red heart brad underneath the sentiment adds a touch more bling to this card. I really LOVE the frames that the LDRS die created and the way the merry-go-round nestles so nicely in the top of the frame. VERY CARNIVAL!

I was at a little bit of a loss on how to use the “HERE” arrow stamp from the stamp set, and came up with this idea that turned out better than I thought it would. Thanks to a perfect piece of pattern paper from the  Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Mini Stash Etcetera paper pad, and my Gentleman Crafter’s Handy Guides for Pattern Stamping templates, I decided to feature that stamp all on it’s own for this next card!I used my LF stitched rectangle die to cut down the pattern paper (SO perfect with this kit!), matted that on a thin white mat, and after stamping the ‘fence’ border stamp on the top and bottom in the Blue Reactive ink, glued all down to a plain blue card base. I stamped and die cut 10 of the arrow stamps and colored those with my Spectrum Noir Alcohol markers in red, blue, yellow and a pale gray. I die cut a scrap of that gold card stock with an Alpha die from my stash (I believe that die came from the Love From Lizi ‘Oh Baby’ Card kit) and cut 4 more out of some scrap black card stock and glued them all together with the golden ‘U’ on top. With the help of the ‘Oval guide with 10 Sections’ from the Gentleman Crafter, I foam taped all the elements to the center of the card front. You can’t quite tell what this card is about until you open it and see the sentiment on the inside. “Wish you were here!” is a terrific sentiment and is almost pun-y when used in this way. I printed this on the writing surface using the Black Jack font. I was actually surprised at how well this card came out and how it feels very carnival-like even without using any of the rides or county fair stamps. 

I wanted to see what options we might have with that fancy background die, and I was intrigued by Jennifer McGuire’s technique of using that die on a larger piece of card stock and wanted to see if I could accomplish something similar using just a 4.25″ x 5.5″ piece of card stock. I did a partial die-cut with the frame die and came up with this card.With a little diligence, I was able to maintain the thin frame on the top and sides of that die-cut, while moving the center oval down to the bottom of the card. I ink blended a plain white card base with my Simon Says Stamp Hybrid inks in Lemon Zest, Orange Slush and Watermelon and used the Lemon Zest alone on the top die-cut. I stamped the “HELLO” stamp with Acorn Archival Ink and colored that with my Zig Brush Markers and printed the ‘sunshine’ portion in brown w/ a black outline using the Potama font. I added some sparkle to the top die cut with my Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen and here we have a very simple but effective HELLO card that practically glows all on it’s own!

That ‘come one, come all’ stamp just screamed INVITATION  to me, so that’s where I went.There was also that ‘WELCOME’ sentiment that fit in the plane’s aerial banner so that seemed appropriate for this card as well. First, I ink blended a background on some Bristol smooth card stock with my SSS Hybrid inks and cut that to size with a LF Stitched Rectangle die. I wanted to try and do another acetate embossing with the Ferris wheel stamp but I was not very successful at getting the embossing powder to stick with this stamp… tried four times to emboss this stamp on that acetate, but every time I die-cut it I would lose some of the embossing…. SO… I stamped the Ferris wheel on some Bristol smooth card and colored it with my Zig Brush markers, die cut it, and satisfied my need to ‘see through’ this stamp by fussy cutting out the center spokes. I think that helped this piece feel more like a part of this card! I stamped the plane and the pointing hand with VersaFine black onyx ink and the ‘WELCOME with the Red reactive ink, colored the hand with my Zig markers and die-cut them both. I stamped the ‘come one..’ sentiment in the Blue Reactive ink directly on the card front and clear embossed that. I embossed the star border stamp in white just below the main sentiment and turned to my computer to print out the “to the greatest BIRTHDAY PARTY on Earth!” in red and black using that Circus font and the Lucida Grande font. The long fair stamp is actually stamped end to end (half of the Ferris wheel is on both ends) with the Red Reactive ink and clear embossed. I did use my emboss-it pen to add some ‘ground’ to the bottom of that stamp so it wasn’t at the very bottom of that panel. All the die-cuts are attached with foam tape, and then the card front is matted on dark blue card stock before gluing down directly on a plain white card base. Naturally, an invitation isn’t worth much unless it contains the information you need. On the inside of the card I created the necessary “For:” When:” and “Where:” labels (there’s that Circus font AGAIN!), and took this opportunity to stamp all of the balloons along the bottom of the inside. I colored the balloons with my Zig markers and added a touch of highlight to each of them with a Gelly Roll white gel pen. I like the allusion to The Greatest Show on Earth here.. but I have to admit, a little over-ambitious to do an invitation like this for more than just a few people.!!  Party of one, please! LOL!!

Now we haven’t had any bone-fide puns with this batch of cards, so I thought this little combination of sentiments fit the bill perfectly. I had so much fun with my ink blended galaxy sky behind my mermaid with last month’s kit that I decided to have another go at the galaxy technique. A little more subtle on this card but I still think it came out great! I did use some Bristol smooth card stock and my finger daubers sponges with my distress inks for this galaxy sky. I also used a different brush with my permanent white Gouache water color paint for the stars this time and got a little bit of a finer spatter. I die-cut the galaxy panel with a stitched rectangle die, and stamped the Fair border stamp with VersaMark ink, embossed that with white embossing powder, and then added three fireworks in the sky in the same manner. I added a thin white mat behind the galaxy panel, and a thin mat of some striped paper I stamped with the Red and Blue reactive inks before gluing all down to a plain white card base. Of course, “Love A Fair” is the pun we’ve been waiting for, and I created that using the Circus font (yes, AGAIN!) and the Palatino font (in italics) and sized it to fit the ticket die from the kit. And YES, that IS pink… I thought it went well with the pinks in the galaxy..!!  I layered four of those die-cut tickets together to make a nice chunky sentiment and attached that to the card front with some foam tape. Three little clear sequins in the center of the fireworks and a light spritz of my Sheer Shimmer Spray adds just the right touch of sparkle to this card. But wait… there’s more!! I really like the “Love A Fair” pun but though we could goose it up a notch with another pun on the inside of the card. This one really tickles my funny-bone! I though “Carnival Knowledge” was the perfect compliment to the “Love A Fair” sentiment on the front and is one of the most interesting puns I’ve come up with in a while! This is printed using the same fonts as the front sentiment with the addition of those cool parentheses in the Chopin Script font. This card makes me ooh and aah and snicker behind my hands..!!! LOL! This would be a great valentine card for someone looking to take their relationship to the next level… if you know what I mean!

I almost forgot about the post card backers that were included with this kit! DOH!I have a bunch of pictures in my image files relating to carnivals and circuses, so I went digging though my stash and found some great print-ables that fit these postcards and the theme of this kit splendidly. I simply sized the images to fit the postcard, printed them out, cut them to size and sent them through my Zyron Sticker Maker to add a solid layer of glue to their backsides. I mounted them to the postcards and used my Distress Glaze to make the cards water-resistant. I REALLY love the Kissing Booth advertisement and the harlequin and ballerina are perfectly stunning. I’ve always thought postcards generally sport images that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the content of the note, so I was strictly going for the aesthetic here and not trying to make any more of a statement than simply trying to stay true to the theme of this kit.

Counting the postcards and the extra Golden Ticket card, that makes 14 cards this month!I really enjoyed playing around with this kit, and looking for (hopefully) unique ways to use these stamps and dies. We did manage to get a couple of puns, a few gift-card offerings, an invitation and one interactive birthday card! A pretty good variety of cards this month that aren’t all slavishly referencing the County Fair! I did manage to use all but three of the stamps in this set – I didn’t use the “Hello There” that fit the airplane banner, or the small cloud stamp, or the triangle banner border stamp, but I did use all of the sentiment stamps and probably more hot-air balloons than anyone! LOL!!!  Mission Accomplished!  I do hope you enjoy these cards as much as I do – my goal is to try and inspire you to think outside of the box a little bit and come up with your own take using these fun stamps and dies. If you appreciate the extra detail, pictures and product links I include here on my postings, please drop me a note to let me know. You can always go to the CONTACT page here and e-mail me directly if you have any questions or comments. Thank you for sharing your time with me here, I hope your summer is going well and you are enjoying some extra time with friends and family. Please share this post with anyone you think might be interested, and Happy Crafting!!

Hello Folks! Scott here with my 10 cards featuring the Love From Lizi July 2018 Card Kit. This kit celebrates summertime with a unique ‘infinity’ shell stamp, lots of colorful card stock and pattern papers and eight decoupage sheets. Now, UK decoupage is all about layering up with foam spacers to create dimension, versus American decoupage which is all about gluing layers down as flat as possible. I have been with Lizi for just over a year now and this is the first time we’ve gotten decoupage in the monthly kit! I was really intrigued with that infinity stamp, so the first thing I did was grab my VersaFine Onyx Black ink pad and some Bristol Smooth card stock and stamped that infinity stamp six times – trying to be very careful with my placement. Came out GREAT!  Now, if you look very closely you can see some seams that are slightly off, but due to the nature of this illustration, it is virtually unnoticeable! This stamp has starfish, conch shells, whelk shells, nautilus shells and some oyster shells. I was eager to do some coloring on these groovy seashells, and knew that I wanted to use my Zigg Clean Color Real Brush markers so I could color these shells with some really fine detailing. That’s why I chose to use the Bristol Smooth card stock. I put some music on and lost myself in this pattern for a couple hours. I realize that the Zigg markers will blend with each other, but I have always liked using water and a brush to move these markers around… and besides, I was shooting for more of a realistic look and didn’t want the shells to be too bright.  I was completely thrilled with how nicely this turned out! I should be able to get a number of cards from this (just under) 12″ x 8″ infinity pattern. As I was coloring, I was looking for a shell that would lend itself to being cut out from the pattern, and, if you look at the stamp itself, there is only the one whelk shell (next to the starfish) that is on top of all the other shells and ready to be cut out. However, if you stamp the repeating pattern, you do end up with one Starfish (down the center) and the conch shells (though rather small..) that are on top of the other shells too, and can be fussy cut away from the pattern.  Hmmmm…!

I did take the colored card stock from the kit and cut them all in half to make card bases, with the exception of one of the sheets of smooth copic-friendly white card stock (in case I was going to do some alcohol marker coloring). I replaced that with a sheet of my Recollections Kraft card stock thinking that would be a good color for this kit. I wasn’t quite prepared to start cutting apart my colored stamping yet, so I reached for the decoupage sheets to get myself rolling with these 10 cards.

I liked the Happy Birthday decoupage sheet (despite all the pink!) and grabbed the striped pattern paper that matched the fabric on the beach chairs for my background. On the Sky Blue card base, I cut the pattern paper to match the width of the image minus the frame and glued that down to the card base. I added three strips of the glitter peel-offs on the middle horizon of the card and then built the decoupage in the center. We did receive some foam squares to use with the decoupage this month, but I grabbed my own ek tools 3-D dots just because they were a little bit thinner than the squares provided. When you have three, four, or five layers the thickness adds up! I enjoy and appreciate the fun dimension that decoupage adds to the card front, and this card is very cute (a kitten, a puppy , a bear – how could this be anything BUT cute!!) LOL!! I tied a double bow from the 1/8″ Teal Zeal satin ribbon for the top of the frame, and added one of the large sequins from the sequin mix to the bottom. Very cute birthday card, oriented towards a younger crowd, but that’s okay… I have plenty of youngsters in my life!

Time to start cutting the seashells apart…!!! I wanted to feature one of the starfish on this card and found a way to fussy cut an edge on this stamped pattern in line with the starfish, and also fussy cut one starfish completely away from the pattern. I wanted to use the sand included in the embellishment bag to cover some of my ivory card stock to go under the cut edge of my pattern, but I realized the sand was a touch damp (I know retailers dampen play sand to cut down on the dust) so I was having a hard time getting it to stick to anything. I threw all my sand in a low oven to dry it out and reached for my new Sand embossing powder from the My Monthly Hero June kit and used that for this card instead. That works terrifically well with this stamp – very nicely in scale with the shells! I glued the embossed ivory card flat to the Kraft card base, before adding a thin black mat on the square side of the shells and foam taping that up on the card base. I added some sparkle to the fussy-cut starfish with my clear Spectrum Noir glitter pen and foam taped that up on top of the star in the center before adding a few Nuvo Drops on the center five dots. I do want that one starfish to be the ‘focal point’ on this card so I didn’t add any sparkle or Nuvo drops to any of the other shells. I go to my computer and the Silhouette software for my sentiment here which I ‘sketched’ on some scrap ivory card stock (Papyrus silhouette font) using a brown Pigma Micron pen, and die-cut with a small Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die. I added the sentiment with some foam dots (tucking a corner under the starfish) and this “Wish Upon A Star” sentiment is useful for birthdays and other important occasions. I really like the cut edge on this card – looks like a big pile of shells has just washed up on the shore.

Besides the stamps, most of the images in this kit are on the decoupage sheets, so I started looking for images that would pair with the sentiments in the stamp set. The only decoupage that had any ‘waves’ was the sailboat sheet that had a “By the Sea” sentiment printed on the background (layer 1) piece. I cut a piece of scrap white card stock to match the dimensions of the ‘layer 1’ piece and added some clouds to that with a My Favorite Things Mini Cloud Edges stencil, some Broken China Distress Oxide ink and my Inkylicious Ink Duster brushes. This is one of the easiest and most effective ways of adding some clouds to your background, and the Broken China ink is a very good match with the blue on the decoupage sheets. I then went ahead and built the decoupage image on the  cloud background (still using my thin foam 3-D dots) and matted that on some yellow and black card stock from my stash. I stamped the “Happiness…’ sentiment in SSS Watermelon Hybrid ink on a scrap of the same yellow card stock, embossed that with clear embossing powder, die-cut that with a stitched circle die, sponged a bit of the SSS Orange Slush hybrid ink around the edges, and mounted that to the card front with some foam squares. Kind of echoes the look of the sun high in the sky. Everything is mounted to the Red Berry card base and a few red sequins from the sequin mix add a touch more bling to the top and bottom of this card. “Happiness comes in Waves” makes much more sense to me than “By the Sea” ever could..!  LOL!

By now my sand is nice and dry from it’s slow bake in the oven so I wanted to try using that again. I cut a Kraft frame with two stitched rectangle dies and cut a piece of ivory card stock with a stitched hillside die to make a bit of a ‘beach’ that fit inside that frame. I covered that piece with double-sided adhesive from my ATG and the sand stuck beautifully. I added the Kraft frame to the Sky Blue card base with some foam tape and glued the sandy beach flat to the card front. The decoupage piece of the frog lounging in a beach chair under an umbrella, has a “Just to Say…” sentiment printed on the background (layers 1 AND 2) and I wanted to use the “Best Escape Anyone Could Have” sentiment from the stamp set, so I built the decoupage image on the ‘sand’ starting with layer 3. I stamped the sentiment directly on the card base using Hero Arts Summer Sky ink pad and, what with all the glitter on the decoupage pieces, I thought there was no need for added embellishments.  I really like the Kraft frame on this card and how the blue card base becomes the blue sky inside the frame – and that sand looks terrific!

I mentioned the whelk shell from the stamp that was a complete shell just waiting to be fussy cut, so that’s what I did for this next card. On a white card base, I stenciled some ‘bubbles’ using the stencil included in the kit from the bottom left to the top right using some SSS Barely Beige ink and my finger sponges. I did selectively mask off some of the ‘bubbles’ to get the pattern that I wanted, and I really liked the soft tones that ink gave the stencil. I fussy cut one of the whelk shells from my colored sheet and mounted that to some circles die-cut from the Blush and Pink specialty shimmer card stock. I glued the circles together and mounted them to the card front with foam squares from the kit, and mounted the shell on top of that with the same. I die-cut and embossed a banner from Kraft card stock with one of my Darice Banner dies, and die cut that sentiment from the Oyster White specialty paper with an old alphabet die “Little Lizzie” I don’t think I’ve ever used this alpha die before and I really like it!! The “Shell Yeah! fit on that banner perfectly, and I traced around the letters with one of my Pigma Micron Pens for some extra contrast. I attached the banner to the card front with more foam squares, added a few sequins from the Summer Sprinkles sequin mix, and to finish this card up, I stamped a ‘congratulations’ sentiment (from the Hero Arts Many Everyday Messages stamp set) on the inside. Love how the die cuts echo the stencil and everything highlights that shell! I love the bright simplicity of this card!

We received a great ice cream cone die (with a Flake die!) in our kit this month and I wanted to do some fiddly inlay work with it! The cones are die-cut from Kraft and Ivory card stock and the ice cream is cut from the Pink and Oyster White specialty card stock and I dug up this ‘chocolate’ shimmer paper from the August 2017 Love From Lizi Card Kit (I TOLD you I keep all my scraps!! LOL!!). I simply colored all the cut out detail pieces with my alcohol markers before gluing them back in place. On the white card base, I glued a 3″ wide panel of the Blush specialty card stock down the middle and added the three small satin ribbons from the kit on the sides. I do run my ribbon through a Zyron Sticker maker to add complete coverage of adhesive to their backs, and can trim them off right at the edge of the card. I die-cut the glittery ice cream pattern paper with a stitched circle die, and used my ek success Orbis Circle Scissor to cut a blue mat for that. Those are foam taped to the card front and the cones are foam mounted to the pattern paper circle. That Oyster White shimmer paper didn’t shimmer as much as the other two so I added some sparkle with my Spectrum Noir glitter brush. Once again, I turn to my Silhouette software for this sentiment using the Smoothie Shoppe font (naturally!) and printed on a scrap of the Oyster White specialty paper. I die-cut that sentiment with a stitched rectangle die and attached that to the card front with foam squares. And, no… I didn’t forget a couple of Flake chocolate bars (that chocolate shimmer paper again) stuck into the strawberry and vanilla cones! This card feel like a whole ice cream shop to me! And I think that is a really sweet sentiment perfect for a loved one or a valentine!

I was so enamored of that whelk shell, that I cut two more out of my colored stamps for this fun card. On the Golden Sunshine Yellow card base, I glued down a 2 and 5/8″ strip of the green wood plank pattern paper, outlined that with some LFL Mirror Green peel-offs (from the LFL January 2018 kit – perfect match!) then a small strip of the dotted pattern paper and another thin green peel-off. I die cut three circles from the same pattern paper with my stitched circle dies and cut mats for them from the Forest Green specialty card stock with my Orbis circle cutter (I’m starting to love that circle cutter)! The sentiment was printed on the larger circle in the Black Jack font before I die-cut it. The circles are mounted to the card front with foam tape, and the shells on top of their circles with the foam squares. I dug out some of that paper wrapped wire from the LFL March 2018 card kit and coiled that around a paintbrush to make my ‘phone cord’. LOL! I think that wire was the perfect choice here and once I flattened it down a little, it doesn’t add too much thickness to this card. A couple of sequins and one of those small shells adds the perfect finishing touch to this pun-y card! Love the image of the two shells connected together!

Okay, I’ve still got one more good card front I can use from my original colored stamping,and that great pun of a sentiment from the stamp set. I trimmed the stamped and colored shell sheet down to 5″ x 3.75″, and matted that on a thin black mat. On my Kraft card base, I ran some 1/4″ scor-tape around the edges of the card and added the sand all the way around. It added some great texture and color, but it reads much better on a lighter color like ivory. I foam taped the background to the card front, stamped all the rest of the shells from the stamp set and colored them with my Zigg markers and fussy cut them all out. The four scallop shells mount in the corners with foam squares, and the three tiny shell stamps get covered with Nuvo Crystal Drops in Morning Dew for a little clear shine and I stamped the sentiment with Vintage Photo Oxide ink on a scrap of my Ivory card stock and embossed that with some clear embossing powder as well. I curved the stamp to fit another one of my Darice Banner dies, and mounted that with foam squares on the card front. The mini shell stamps adorn the sentiment and do double duty as the shiny bits on this card. WOW! Talk a bout a SHELLabration!! This card sports all of the image stamps and now I have actually used all of the stamps in this stamp set! YES!  LOL!!

I was kind of itching to use this sentiment on a card this month, and I thought the little beach house decoupage was the perfect image to go along with my “Beach, Please!” LOL! Once again, the “Summer Fun” sentiment printed on the beach house background (layer 1) really didn’t appeal to me, so I assembled the decoupage starting with layer 2. I cut a piece of light blue card stock from my stash to 5.5″ x 3.75″ and distressed the edges with Peacock Feathers Distress ink and glued that to the Red Berry card base. I cut a piece of my ivory card stock with a stitched hillside die and ink blended the beach with Antique Linen and Vintage Photo Distress inks before printing the sentiment (Noteworthy font) on my computer. I glued the beach hill on the blue sky and built the decoupage with layers 2, 3 and 4. On layer three I fussy-cut the windows on the doors out for a little backwards dimension (the decoupage sheet actually has those windows as another part of layer 4 but I thought the windows should go in instead of out! Since this little beach house had some banner hanging from the roof, I added a swag of banners across the sky with the puffy stickers. The sticker swag was a touch wider than my background, so I added a couple of thin white strips down the edges of the background for a final pop of white and to match the white outlines on those stickers. I think this would be a great card to send to someone to finagle an invitation to their beach house this summer!! LOL!

Now we get to my favorite pun out of this whole batch of cards…!Of course, “A Midsummer Ice Cream” is a pun on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”! This makes me giggle uncontrollably! I used the ice cream sundae ephemera piece for this card after fussy-cutting it away from it’s pink background! I used my Gina K. / therm-o-web stitched oval dies to cut some yellow and green card stock from my stash and the black mat behind. I used my stencil I made last month again here, sponging with SSS Orange Slush Hybrid ink behind the green ‘hill’. On the Sunshine Yellow card base, I glued down a 5.5″ x 2.5″ strip of the dotted pattern paper, outlined that with thin strips of the green pattern paper and finished that off with some of the glitter peel-offs. I mounted the ovals to the card front with foam squares and the sundae on top of that with more foam squares. I printed the sentiment using my Silhouette software on a scrap of white card stock in the Smoothie Shoppe font (I couldn’t resist!), die-cut that with my Darice banner die, and mounted that with foam squares as well. A few drops of the Simply White Nuvo drops above the ice cream finishes off this card very nicely and echoes the dotted pattern paper. Of course, I can’t leave well enough alone, and came up with a double pun for this card. On the inside we get “Lord, what cool these morsels be!” (Lord, what fools these mortals be!) LOLOLOL!! Knowing what’s inside sends me into fits every time I look at this card. I may have a warped sense of humor but I love the look of this card (invitation to an Ice Cream Social??) and I think that pun-y sentiment is terrifically funny and figure that most people probably know what A Midsummer Night’s Dream is, even though they may not recognize one of the most famous quotes from that play. I hope it tickles you as much as it does me!!

That wraps up my 10 cards for this month, folks! I really enjoyed working with this kit a lot, and I think I did pretty good job of avoiding all the pink…!! LOL! I really loved coloring that stamp and think I managed to come up with quite a wide variety of cards that are fun and unique! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! As usual, I have gobs of leftovers including one sheet of smooth white card stock, four complete decoupage sheets, lots of pattern papers, some specialty card stock scraps, and loads of embellishments including one whole sheet of foam squares. I did manage to use a little bit of most everything in this kit but I didn’t get to any of the wood veneer die cuts, printed or not. I love that infinity stamp, and that, with all the extras (including the ‘Bubbles” stencil) will find loving homes in my stash! Unfortunately, this card kit has sold out already, but I do know that Lizi still has the decoupage sheets, pattern papers and add-ons available, and will very likely release the ‘infinity’ shell stamp set for sale in her mid-July release! If you want MORE decoupage… Lizi has an Oh, Baby mini kit available (my Oh Baby kit video here) at a very reasonable price. Remember, if you go shopping at LoveFromLizi.com please use my link:  http://bit.ly/LFLlink.  Thank you SO MUCH for sharing your valuable time with me – it means so much! Please share this post with anyone you think might be interested, don’t run with scissors, and HAPPY CRAFTING!!

Hello folks! Scott here with 10 cards featuring the My Monthly Hero June 2018 Kit. This month we are treated to some layering stamps in our 6″ x 8″ stamp set – a set of three ocean layering stamps and 3 clouds-each with 2 layers. These are the first layering stamps I own – It’ll be fun experimenting with them! We also get 7 sentiments in this stamp set and 12 beach-y silhouette stamps as well as their 12 coordinating frame cuts. To compliment the layering stamps we get a set of four Hero Arts ink cubes in Soft Granite, Soft Sky, Summer Sky and Deep Ocean. My first set of gradient ink pads too!! We also get .5 oz. of Sand Embossing Powder (very interesting!), 1 fl. oz. of Sea Foam shimmer spray, and a set of 16 Beach Enamel stickers with a very cool matte finish in fun colors. Looks like this kit is the perfect opportunity for me to practice my ink blending! For a little extra challenge, I’m going to ignore my Bristol smooth card stock and do all my ink blending on plain 110# white card stock. I think that will encourage me to blend with a light hand!Since I had never played with a layering stamp I thought I would try out the ocean stamps with a variety of colors and see what I could come up with. Very interesting results here. Looks like you might even be able to flip those stamps around and make a cloudy sky… but first, lets make a card using the ocean stamps as intended and using the gradient inks included in the kit.

I feel like this is the card that the kit was encouraging me to make. I stamped the ocean stamps with the three blue ink pads and used the BACK side of one of the cloud stamps to stamp the little island on the edge of the horizon – I think I saw Jennifer McGuire stamp with the back of a cloud stamp to make an island – great effect! I added the palm tree stamp to the island but made the trunk a little bit taller (I though it was a little stubby..!) I did fussy cut an ‘ocean’ mask to mask off the ocean when blending the beach and sky, and I used one of the cloud dies to cut out a mask for the cloud and used my 1/2 inch circle punch to cut the sun mask before ink blending the sky with SSS Hybrid Ink in Lemon Zest (a little lighter at the horizon..!). I ink blended the beach with Antique Linen Distress Ink and in Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink. I removed the masks from the sky and softly brushed the Lemon Zest over those to soften the contrast. I stamped the shadow part of the cloud and the footprints with the antique linen ink and stamped and embossed the sentiment with Walnut Stain Oxide ink and some clear embossing powder. I tried using the Sand Embossing powder on the footprint stamp but it blurred out all of the detail – those footprints are very small stamps! To add some texture to the ‘beach’ I used my Micro Applicator Brushes to dab spots of Vintage Photo, Antique Linen and Walnut Stain Oxide inks all around the edges. I loved using those applicator brushes with ink because they give a different value each time they touch the paper… darker to lighter as the ink gets used up. I added the white dots with my Sharpie Water Based Extra Fine Point marker and (though you can’t really see it in the photo) I used my Gelly Roll Clear Stardust Glitter pen to add some ‘sun reflecting on the water’ glitter on the ocean waves underneath the sun. Makes for a lovely surprise as that glitter catches the light. I trimmed the card front down a bit, and mounted that to a dark blue card base from my stash. I love the footprints walking around the sentiment and the bright summer beach scene. NOW, the big challenge will be to keep from making 10 cards just like this one! I realize that the ocean stamps are only 4.25″ wide but I wondered if it would be possible to use them in a landscape orientation?

Well… I guess something like this works if you must have a horizontal scene! I used the same inks for this card as I used on my first card except I used Broken China Oxide ink for the sky and cloud shadows. Everything else is colored (and masked) the same here, and I punched out the sun with my 1/2 inch circle punch… I think I got the sky a little bit dark here… remember to use a LIGHT touch, Scott… but I like the end result very much! I die cut the scene with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle die and mounted that to a Kraft card stock mat and a dark blue mat and then to a white card base. Here, I used my alcohol and water color markers to do the sand texture on the beach, but I don’t like that nearly as much as using the mini applicator brushes. I also need to remember that a new stamp pad is going to be JUICY! My sentiment is a touch chunky here from over-inking with the Deep Ocean ink pad, but every card is another chance to try something new and learn what works for you (and what doesn’t!). I did add the glitter pen to the waves underneath the sun (or is that the moon?) again… that is really a beautiful touch…! This is a pretty successful effort to use those ocean stamps in a horizontal format… The ocean stamps don’t match end to end, so you are kind of limited to a 4.25″ wide ocean vista…!Let’s try some different ocean colors! Again, very similar to the prior two cards but I only used two of the ocean stamps in Cracked Pistachio Oxide ink and Mowed Lawn Distress ink – leaving the ‘background’ of the water in white. I stamped the sailboat in the Soft Granite ink to suggest a bit more distance, and I used my cloud masks to make one long cloud formation in the Broken China sky. Soft Granite ink for the shadows on the clouds (getting better with my placement there…!), and I only used the Antique Linen ink for the beach. The card base here is my standard Staples Ivory card stock, the mat is Recollections Kraft card stock and the card front is again die-cut with a LF stitched rectangle die. I stamped the two starfish on the same Ivory card with Linen and Walnut stain inks and die cut those out for a little dimension. Now… for the sentiment… one of my co-workers celebrated a birthday on Saturday, and not only does he love going to the beach whenever he can, he also has a terrifically morbid sense of humor…! I had to make this one for him! I created this sentiment using my Silhouette Software (free!) and printed that directly on the card front in the ‘Freehand 575 BT’ and ‘Futura’ fonts. Of course the inside completes the pun-y sentiment and I LOVE the juxtaposition of the “Happy Birthday!” Makes me laugh every time! (and my colleague LOVED his card!)

Now I turn everything on it’s head and use those ocean stamps for a ‘cloudy sky’ horizon. No blues on this card at all! I stamped the layering stamps in the SSS Lemon Zest, Orange Slush and Watermelon Hybrid inks. I continued to ink blend the Lemon Zest into the sky and stamped the clouds with the same, and the cloud shadows in the Orange Slush. I did cut apart the birds stamp to give me two stamps with three birds each and stamped those in the orange ink as well. I used the Mowed Lawn Distress ink for the ground and the sentiment. I stamped the Adirondack chair in the Watermelon ink on my Ivory card stock and die cut that out before mounting it to the card front with some foam dots. The card front is die cut with that same stitched rectangle die and glued to a thin dark green mat and attached to an Ivory card base. I really like the effect the ocean stamps give us when used upside down… and when paired with the cloud stamps, I think they evoke a cloudy horizon very nicely! Everybody’s “happy place” isn’t necessarily a beach!! This here’s a card that evokes those endlessly vast Kansas plains…!  LOL!

Enough with the seascapes! Lets do something graphic! I covered a piece of white card stock with the Sea Foam glimmer spray from the kit – really nice color, great shimmer and a completely changing appearance as it moves through the light. I noticed that many of the beach-y icon stamps were very similar in size as well as the “Sea you soon” sentiment, so I arranged the stamps in a pleasant grid around the chair and stamped everything in Walnut Stain Oxide ink. I really like the sentiment off to the right side of the grouping, and I thought the chair was more important than the sentiment anyway! It is the largest of the 9 stamps! I cut the Sea Foam panel with a stitched rectangle die and glued that to a thin dark brown mat and mounted both to another Ivory card base. I really love the iconography and the color of this card!

There is a “With Sympathy” sentiment in this stamp set, and I thought it would be interesting to see if I could do a monochromatic card using the Soft Granite ink.I grabbed a piece of my standard Staples Gray card stock (110# available in stores) and stamped all of this with the Soft Granite ink. I did not stamp the solid ocean stamp – letting the gray card stock be the background color, and I used some clear embossing on the smallest (darkest) ocean stamp – love that shine! I had a great time overlapping the three cloud stamps to fill up the sky, and even got the cloud shadows to subtly show up too! The sentiment is embossed as well and again, the chair is stamped and die-cut and mounted with foam dots. I did do some ink blending around the sky and on the beach  with Iced Spruce Oxide ink (using my ocean mask again) and that gives this card a slight hint of green. I went back to my Stardust glitter pen for this card but instead of glittering up the waves (no moon here..!) I gave a the clouds a little silver lining on their bases. There’s the touch of grace that this card needed! Again, I die-cut the card front, used a thin white mat, and my standard grey card base. Actually, a very striking sympathy card!

I was looking to use that ‘drawn in the sand’ HELLO sentiment, and I noticed that it was the only stamp in this set that shows perspective – the top of the letters are smaller than the bottom of the letters because they are further away. That’s what gave me this idea.AHA!  I’m using the ocean stamps on a landscape card and they fill the whole card front!  VICTORY!!!  LOL!!! I’m calling this my ‘sandbar card..! On a white card front, the smaller wave stamps are stamped in Broken China and Faded Jeans Oxide ink to match the angle of the HELLO stamp, and the sandbar is blended with Antique Linen and Vintage Photo Oxide inks and here’s the perfect chance to use that Sand Embossing powder with the HELLO stamp! I think that powder is more effective in smaller doses than in large swaths. I mean… sand isn’t really that reflective, is it?  LOL! I thought it did work great on this sentiment, and I brought back the footprint stamp to indicate that someone trampled this message into the sand and then kept going…! LOL!! Lots of dots to soften the edges between the sand and water, die-cut the card front and another thin white mat and a dark blue card base. This is a very interesting card! The more you tilt the top of the card the more pronounced the perspective is – the illusion gets better and better! This card was great fun to create and I think the ‘sandbar’ illusion is unique and very cool..!

Back to some big bold graphics with the beach ball stamp! On a white card front, I used one of my Gentleman Crafter’s Handy Guides for Pattern Stamping to assist with hand stamping the beach balls in nine colors – all Distress Oxide inks – in a perfect circle around the sentiment which is stamped in Walnut Stain and clear embossed. Using my stitched and plain circle dies I die-cut the white stamped piece and the yellow and orange graduated circles as well but thought they needed a little more definition… and I remembered this circle cutting tool I got from friends many years ago and had hardly used – an EK Success Orbis Circle Scissor which will cut over 120 circle diameters from 25mm to 150mm. Aha! This will work! I managed to cut three thin black mats for my circles and layered them all together on my white card base. For a finishing touch, I stamped the smallest ocean stamp in Soft Granite on the top and bottom of the card front – a smart suggestion of water on this ‘balls within a ball within a ball’ card. If I had thought about it, I would have clear embossed all of the beach ball stamps, but I was so intent on getting my hand stamping correct, that it slipped my mind! LOL! Still, I like this very graphic and summery greeting card!

I still have to use that cute mermaid stamp and her rock stamp, but I was a little intimidated by the plethora of cards I saw that featured the mermaid. I reminded myself that this was supposed to be ink-blending practice, so I decided to do my first ever ink-blended galaxy background! This was definitely a well-earned learning experience!On a white card front, I started with my ‘galaxy’ – sponging in some Worn Lipstick, Broken China and Fossilized Amber Oxide inks in three sections. I used Seedless Preserves Distress ink to start bringing in some darkness around the edges and soon graduated to Black Soot Distress ink do go really, really dark! Not too bad for my first galaxy! Of course a light spray of Sheer Shimmer Spritz and some white paint spatters is what really sells the ‘galaxy’ illusion. For the ocean , I blended some Iced Spruce Oxide ink on the bottom and stamped the middle ocean stamp in Soft Granite and the small ocean, rock and mermaid in VersaFine Onyx Black ink and used clear embossing to shine up and intensify the black. I die cut the card front with a stitched rectangle die, mounted that on a black mat and glued all down to a white card base. I adore this mermaid stamp! I think she looks great against the pink ‘galaxy’. By now, I have used all seven sentiments in the stamp set, so I reached for my Hero Arts ‘Many Everyday Messages’ stamp set for the touching ‘miss you’ sentiment on the inside of the card. I just couldn’t bring myself to add any text to the front of the card! Of course, I will do many things differently the next time I do a ‘galaxy’ background – use smaller ink sponges, spatter with a smaller brush, add more color under the black, etc, but I’m very pleased with how this background turned out and I think this is a perfectly stunning card!

Which brings us to card #10. I know everyone likes interactive cards, and I thought I might have an idea on how to bring a little action to this card kit, so I reached for the dolphin stamp and some acetate and…

Yes! We’ve come across a small school of porpoises! OK… so that stamp is more likely a dolphin than a porpoise but I figured they were close enough that we could use this fun pun on this interactive ‘reveal wheel’ card. on a white card front I created another seascape using the Hero Arts inks for the ocean, Broken China for the sky, and Antique Linen and Vintage Photo for the sand. I did cover the ocean with clear embossing powder for a little watery shine, and I die-cut the clouds and did their shadow stamping in the Soft Granite ink. OOOOH!  I LIKE those die-cut clouds!! I also stamped those other three birds in the Soft Granite ink. I stamped the ‘porpoise’ stamp four times on an acetate circle with StazOn Jet Black ink, and fussy cut most of the porpoise stamps leaving a tab connecting them all together at the center. I showed the turning wheel I created on my Silhouette last month with the bicycling card and I used the same piece to power this animation. It sticks out beyond the edge of the card just enough for your finger to catch it and turn… SPLASH, SPLASH!! LOL! I LOVE this pun-y philosophical sentiment! I printed this directly on my card front using the Noteworthy font, and added the little starfish enamel sticker to highlight the sentiment. How much fun is this card! The ‘turning wheel’ is on top of the card base and behind the sky card stock (cut to 4.25″ x 5.5″), and the porpoise acetate is on top of the sky card stock and behind the  ocean and beach card front. So… the ‘turning wheel’ is turning the acetate wheel through a small hole in the sky card stock. This is a little thicker than my other spinning wheel cards because you are not just spinning the wheel by itself, but the wheel that you are moving is spinning a whole other wheel too. I think I have a completely unique method for making these spinning wheel cards, so, for the time being, I think I’ll keep this secret to myself! HOWEVER… a LOT of people asked for a How-To Video for my swinging card from the May MMH kit, and I have promised to do a video showing how I made that card. I will get that up as soon as I get caught up with my 10 card videos – so, if you’re interested, keep an eye out for that!

That’s my 10 cards for the My Monthly Hero June 2018 Kit. I managed 6 ‘seascapes’ that are pretty different from each another, a ‘sandbar’ card, a ‘great plains’ card and two strictly graphic interpretations of this stamp set. I did manage to work in a couple of puns, a ‘miss you’ card, a sympathy card, and a birthday card. I was worried that all my cards would look the same this month, but I think I got a pretty good variety of looks with this group! I really enjoyed playing with my first set of layering stamps, and am always thrilled to get new ink pads in a kit! And heaven knows I can use all the ink-blending practice that I can get! I did think this month’s kit didn’t have quite the same variety that the May kit offered, but I am very pleased with the assortment of cards I came up with this month, and can’t wait to see what Hero Arts has in store for us in July! Thank you so much for sharing your time with me today… please pass this along to anyone who might be interested and I wish you Happy Crafting!