Tuesday, August 13, 2013

New Thinlits Dies

If you love making interactive cards, you'll LOVE these brand new Thinlits Card Dies from Stampin'Up!  They're so new they're not in any catalog yet!  Watch this video to see how quickly these thinlits can help you make a swing card.  Each set (Circle or Label) also comes with additional thinlit shapes for embellishing your card.


Stampin'Up! has also included a new die set in their Holiday Catalog called Thinlits Expressions.  It consists of three cursive words (Thankful, Love and Merry--featured on the cards below).  Tip--include a piece of waxed paper between your card stock and the thinlit to make it easier to remove.  All the thinlits (and framelits) work so well with the new Magetic Platform for the Big Shot.  The Magnetic Platform has been so popular that Stampin'Up! is not currently taking any more orders for this until they catch up with production.  It should be available for order again sometime in September.  I'll post an announcement here when they are available again.  (Purchase a new set of cutting plates for maximum performance, as it works better with a flat plate.)  I love mine!

The following cards feature the Thinlits Expressions Die (Merry).  In both examples "Merry" was cut using Whisper White card stock, embossed (1st example w/ Pewter ep; 2nd example w/ Gold ep), then attached using Tombow liquid glue (the pointy end makes it easy to apply).




In both cards Dasher (retired) was embossed with a combo of Early Espresso ep and Pewter or gold to match "Merry."









Happy Stamping!
Marge

Friday, August 9, 2013

Back to Stamping!

Our summer has been a little crazy so far, but now that we have a new driver in the family, I don't need to be the taxi driver as much.  So I'm using some of my newfound time to  plan some classes.   So I thought I would share some of the projects from some of my recent classes.

This sympathy card was inspired by a card I found on Pinterest.  I love the simplicity of the layout.  The window was cut with Stampin'Up!'s Window Frame Framelit.  The "aha" moment for me was the technique for the frame around the window.... before removing the framelit, use the writing tip of a Stampin'Write marker to make the dots, dashes, or whatever you like around the edge of the framelit.  When you remove it, you have a perfect frame around your window.  I then scraped a sponge loaded with Soft Suede ink across the edges of the window to add depth.  The bird and greeting are from the Simply Sketched set, which is a hostess set.  I love the greetings that come with this set!

This "Just for you" card  is embellished with vellum card stock flowers, stamped with the Secret Garden set and cut out using the matching framelits and the new Magnetic platform for the Big Shot.  What a fantastic tool.  It really holds your framelits in place so you get a clean cut!  It helps to have nice flat cutting pads though.  Before stamping the vellum, brayer or sponge color onto one side and allow to dry.   Then stamp and cut out your image (I stamped on the side that was colored), turn it over and use an old fashioned embossing stylus and foam pad to "freestyle emboss" your image.  The very talented Jank Tink posted a great video tutorial showing this technique on her blog.

This card reminds me of the beach.  Maybe it's the colors or the embossed striped background that was sanded to give it that distressed look (that's because I used Stampin'Up!'s Core'dinations card stock, now available in all their colors...this is Strawberry Slush, one of the new in-colors).  I love the new ruffle stretch trim (only available in the new in-colors, this one is Coastal Cabana).  The background is stamped using the Very Vintage jumbo wheel, and the greeting and label under it were stamped using the Chalk Talk set.  The label was cut out with the matching Chalk Talk framelit.  The greeting is colored with marker directly to the stamp using Coastal Cabana, Brown Sugar and Strawberry Slush, all new in-colors.

Happy Stamping!
Marge