stair step card

Okay, this is one of those card-making techniques that I'm late getting in on. It's a fun alternative to the regular A2 cards that I often make, and they fit inside the A2 size envelopes, so no extra fuss as far as that goes.

This is my first attempt at making one....


My apologies for the poor quality of the lighting. It was a gray day here, and even darker than usual because the ice and sleet were blocking my skylights.

I used the stair step base and added decorative wintry cardstock. The leaping deer was made using a Sizzix die. The snowflakes were made using Martha Stewart punches. The embossed dove is a Cuttlebug combo die. The label die cut and scalloped rectangle were made using Spellbinders dies. The Merry Christmas sentiment is by Cloud 9 Design. The remaining stamped images and sentiments are all by My Favorite Things and were stamped using Memento dye inks. The embellishments are Prima flowers, Flower Soft for the bath rug underneath the tub, clear Sakura Glaze pen for the bubbles and glass, Copic clear glitter pen for the mirror, and assorted sizes and colors of hot fix rhinestones.

The card looks rather busy in the photograph. It isn't so busy in real life where you get a better feel for the 3D effect and depth of the images.

This is a fun change from the usual and I'm looking forward to trying my hand at more of these.

white and splash of pink Christmas - DCM

It's been a long time since I've done a daring cardmakers challenge. This one sounded too fun to resist: we are dreaming of a WHITE (and splash of pink Christmas!) I would love you to design a card which includes white mostly (ie: snow, snowmen etc ) and also a little splash of pink somewhere on the card. :)

This is my mostly white with a splash of pink card....


The embossed background is an A2 Cuttlebug embossing folder that I ran through my machine twice since my card is extra long. The die cut is a Spellbinders Labels Two Nestabilities die and the stamped image and sentiment are by Making Memories. The pink ink is a Memento dye ink.


I added a few touches that were hard to appreciate in that first shot. Here's a close up that shows the clear Glaze pen coloring that I used to accent the ornaments. I used a Copic Spica clear glitter pen to accent the garland. I also used the Copic pen to accent the sentiment.

dropping a line, again

I made a card recently using these images and sentiment by Inkadinkado. This time I stamped them with Memento ink, colored with Prismacolor pencils, blended with my Goo Gone pen, and then gave some gloss to the bubbles with my clear Sakura Glaze pen. I made the background by spraying Perfect Resist on glossy paper, letting it dry, then swiping a Marvy blending blox inkpad over it. I removed the excess ink with a soft paper towel. I like the way it turned out, and I was able to get a look similar to using a brayer without the muss or fuss.

the flocking to flock

Flock has been around for a while, but it seems to be making a comeback. It's fun stuff. When I've used it in the past, it's mainly been for my winter cards, using white for snow. I've expanded into using some other colors now.


For this card I used yellow flock for the duck and colored the rest with markers. I used the art deco Fiskars corner edger to embellish the layers, as well as Robin's Nest dew drops.


Here's a closer view of the flock. I need to practice a bit, getting that glue into tighter spaces can be tough. At the same time, it's also easy to go outside the lines. Can't win! LOL!


I used both black and white flock on the skunk and colored the rest with markers. I used my Sakura Glaze pen on the raindrops. The Cuttlebug Bloom Dots embossing folder embossed my green strip. Memento dye inks turned my Bride's ivory flowers into bright yellow ones.


And here's a closer view of the front of that card. I love that fuzzy look!

The stamps were all by Clear Dollar Stamps and stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. The yellow flock is from Stampendous. The black and white are from Cornish Heritage Farms.

Tips for diagonal scoring

Diagonal scoring can be tricky. Scoring boards like the Scor-It have a nice raised edge so that you can push your paper or cardstock flush up against it and make a nice straight score. You can't place your card flush against a raised edge when you're scoring a traditional card front diagonally though. It's also tough if your card isn't a traditional shape. I'm going to describe what I do to try to keep from having to toss too many cards into the scrap pile.

In my post about diagonal Cuttling, I mentioned that I like to set off the look of the embossed and unembossed areas of the card front. I usually do this by scoring, so that the card looks like this....


To do this, I pull out my Scor-It board and open up the card on top of it. In the photo below, I've started to line up the bottom right corner of the card front along the ridge that will make my embossed line. I like to start here because this is the easiest place to see just where to score that line--I can sort of visualize the edge of the embossing following along that metal ridge.


But, I've said it here before--why guess when you can make things a bit more foolproof? Yes, I've successfully eyed it and gotten it right, but there are three more lines to score after this first one. I needed a better plan. Okay, yes, I learned that from experience. :-)

So, here's one way to double check. I use something with two nice straight edges set at a right angle. If you've been Cuttling diagonally using those long Sizzix plates, then BINGO! You can use one of those.


In the photo above, I've placed the short edge of the clear plate flush against the raised edge at the top of my Scor-It. Sliding close to the scoring rail, I can double check where my first score line will be made compared with where my embossing starts and ends. Once I'm happy with it, I can score my line.


Here I'm just showing another option. This is a clear triangle ruler. You can use a regular ruler, too, as long as the short edge is wide enough to be stable against the raised edge of the scoring board. I also like using something clear so that I can see embossed design through it.


Here I've made the first score line and I'm getting ready to make the second one. This is where it's really nice to have a way to check the placement of your line before you make it because if it looks off, then it's rather eye-catching and not necessarily in a good way.


Here I'm basically making sure that my lines will be parallel to each other. I've placed my card over the rail where I think the next score line should go. I slide the clear plate along that raised edge at the top of my board and I make sure that the first line that I scored is still lining up parallel to the scoring rail. The rubberized texture of the board holds my card in place while the clear plate slides easily over the top of the card, so that I can move the plate back and forth from the scoring rail to my first scored line until things are lined up just right. By the way, it took me A LOT longer to write that than it does to actually just do it. :-) When I'm satisfied, I score my line.

Make all of the score lines in the same fashion and you end up with a card that can look something like this when you've finished it off with some stamping and embellishments....


The stamped swirl image is by Inkadinkado and stamped using Memento dye ink. The butterfly die cut was made using a Spellbinders die and embossed and colored with that die as well. The flowers and leaf are Primas.

If you use craft sticks to creatively Cuttle as I've described before, you can set off that embossing with score lines, too. I went through the same steps to score the following card as I did in the one I described above. You just need to tilt the card a couple of different ways because the design changes direction.

For this card I used the Cuttlebug Perfectly Paisley embossing folder and embossed using craft sticks. I set off the embossing with score lines made with my Scor-It. The stamped images are an Inkadinkado mini set and stamped using Tsukineko Memento dye ink. I colored the images with Prismacolor colored pencils and blended with my Goo Gone Mess-free pen. I accented the headlights with a Sakura clear Glaze pen.

By the way I don't have a Scor-Pal. The idea would be the same though. You'd have your card face down in this case and set at an angle on top of the board. You'd position your card so that your first score line makes a nice border between an embossed and unembossed area of your card. Depending on whether one of the other scoring grooves falls in a spot where the next line would ideally be scored, you may or may not have to move your card. If you do have to move it, a clear straight edge can help you make sure that things are lined up properly again before you make your other score lines. Hope that made sense. :-)

Tasty Template - DCM

I love the Self-Addressed kits and have been a subscriber for some time now. I was thrilled to see that this week's challenge on the daring cardmakers site had to do with using a specific card sketch and papers/cardstocks from a Self-Addressed kit, if possible--the Tasty Template challenge. I tend to hoard my SA papers, so this was a good reason to pull some of them out.


This card was made with papers from the May 2006 kit. I used a Stampendous stamp as the main image and embellished using a Sakura Glaze pen for faux stitching, Fiskars scallop scissors for decorative edging, and a butterfly punch. Everything else came from the kit.

Footwear - Wednesday Stamper

What a fun theme for this week's Wednesday Stamper--FOOTWEAR! I love it. I made a card and an ATC.

The card uses See D's stamps by Sugarloaf. I cut out the shoe shapes, embossed them with Spellbinders texture plates in my Big Shot, and brushed them with chalk ink Cat's eye inkpads. The shoe sentiment is by Stampabilities.


For the ATC, I stamped part of a Dolly Mama's stamp image by Stamps Happen for the background and colored parts of it with Sakura Glaze pens. The tag was stamped with part of a Stampabilities stamp and also colored with Glaze pens, then attached with an Around the Block tagger tail.


Thanks for looking!