Christmas Countdown: Card Party

A few times a year I host a little card-making party/card class with some co-workers and friends. I always do one for the holiday season and my next one is coming up fast! Next week in fact. I've started putting together the card kits for the class and thought I would share the designs I'm doing for this year.

This is a technique that I've shown before - the masked glitter background, but I thought it might be worth repeating as the possibilities with this technique are quite exhaustive.

I went to my LSS today to pick up a very specific item - large chipboard snowflakes. Darned if I could find them but I'm glad I asked the ladies there because they suggested that I use the diecutting machine and make my own. Well, I guess I've been living in the dark, because in all the years I've been papercrafting, I've never used the big Ellison diecut machines in the LSS. In any case, I bought a bunch of grungeboard (if you've never seen this stuff -check it out - very cool) and cut myself a bunch of nice snowflakes. I was very impressed.

The grungeboard has subtle patterns embossed into it so its pretty fun stuff. You can ink this up with your stamp pad or paint it as I did to give it some colour. Colour it to match your project - its quite versatile that way. I'm using Adirondak dauber painters. Once you've painted them, leave them to dry while you work on the rest of the card.

For the glitter masking you will need a piece of cardstock about 2.75 x 5.5 inches and some double sided adhesive tape to cover it. This is scor-tape. You can purchase it from the Scor-pal online store. Put the tape onto your cardstock and press it down. Leave the cover on for now.

Cut out your mask images from another piece of tape cover using punches or die cuts. I'm using a variety of snowflake punches and small circles from my hole punch. Its important to use the tape cover for this step so they don't stick to your tape.

Peel off the tape cover and lay down your design using your cut out shapes. DO NOT TOUCH THE TAPE with your fingers!!! If you do, the oils from your hands will make it not so sticky. Use tweezers or other tools to place your images. You do not need to press them down - just lightly place them on the tape background.

Lay down your first layer of glitter. This will be your background colour. I'm using silver Glitter Ritz glitter. Once you have your background colour down, brush off the loose glitter using a makeup brush and pour back into the jar. Then peel off the next layer of images to put down your second colour.

I'm using Gunmetal Glitter Ritz glitter to create a shadow effect behind my snowflakes (which will be the foreground colour). This is quite subtle but adds a bit of dimension to your background. Brush off excess as above and peel off your final layer of images.

The last layer I put down was white Glitter Ritz glitter. Here is how the final background looks once the excess glitter has been brushed away. Be sure to burnish your glitter by rubbing your finger over the entire surface. That will really make it shine.

Make yourself a base card of 8.5x5.5" cardstock folded in half. Trim your glittered background to 2.5" and add a navy or dark blue cardstock mat to it (3x5.5"). Glue to the card front. Use glue dots to attach your large snowflake and then use a pop dot or foam square to attach another snowflake on top. I added a few spots of glitter to my large snowflake with a glue pen and then a clear rhinestone to the centre of the small snowflake. Add a sentiment and you're done!

Supplies: Cardstock (Bazzil - swiss dot white, SU! - nearly navy), Grungeboard (snowflakes), glitter (Glitter Ritz), stamps (Sunshine Designs), punches, double sided adhesive (Scor-tape), paint (Adirondak), Ink (Adirondak).

To Unmount or Not Unmount...That is the Question.

I spent a good part of this summer unmounting my collection of wood mounted stamps and thought I might share some of that journey with you. Why did I do it? Well, I will say it wasn't an easy journey for me. I have toyed with the idea of unmounting my stamps for quite a while now but I have always loved the feel of a wood mounted stamp so I've resisted. Reality set in though as my scraproom began to be over run by wood mounted rubber stamps. Frankly, I just got tired of having my stamps in multiple places. I had my wood mounts in one set of drawers, my Stampin' Up! sets on another shelf, my clear acrylic stamps in CD cases on yet another shelf and my purchased unmounts (such as Stampin' Bellas) in binders. Not too mention the odds and sods such as Gel 'a tins and Paper Salon sets in metal tins and my Technique Tuesday clear sets in binders. It just became too much to look all over the room to find stamps - particularly if I was mixing and matching from different sets and companies.

So why unmount? I can give you a few good reasons:

1. Unmounted stamps take up considerably less room allowing you more room for more stamps! (or whatever else you want to fill the space with).


2. Unmounted stamps can be stored the same way that clear acrylics are allowing you to consolidate all your stamps in one place (in binders, CD cases or however else you might want to store them).


3. Purchasing stamps unmounted can save you a considerable amount of money over wood mounted stamps and more and more companies are offering this option now.


4. Unmounted stamps are easier to place accurately using a see-through acrylic block.

There are several systems you can use to store and use unmounted rubber stamps.

1. You can remove the cusion completely and use double sided adhesive or a tacky glue like Aleene's Tack It Over and Over (available at many craft stores) to adhere them to an acrylic mounting block. I'm not a big fan of not having a cushion so this option wasn't one I opted for but I know many people have had great success with this method. The advantage is that it they take up even less space then cushion mounted stamps and the overall cost is much less expensive then using a cling mount system.
2. A second option is to use a tradional cushion mount (with adhesive on both sides) and a vinyl cling film like the type used to make window clings. You can purchase vinyl cling film at some office supply stores and specialty art supply stores. The cling film will adhere to an acrylic block
3. Option three is to use a loop and hook tape system such as the Halo system. This system uses Velcro strips to mount the rubber stamps to an acrylic block.
4. Option four, and my choice, is to use a cling mount such as EZ Mount. This is a foam cushion which is sticky on one side and matte on the other. The matte side will "cling" to an acrylic block for stamping.

I get my stamps from a variety of companies but I want to give you a couple of examples of how I went about unmounting my stamps. Here is a typical sheet of stamps from Stampin' Up! This is a new set so fortunately it came already die cut, eliminating the need to cut out the stamps from the rubber sheet.

Just pop out the stamp and you're ready to "unmount"

Pull back the rubber from the cushion mount. You can usually get it started by inserting your fingernail between the rubber and the foam cushion. I find that the Stampin' Up! stamps peel back from the mount quite easily. You may get a bit of sticky residue left on the rubber. Just rub it with your thumb or finger and it will come right off.

After removing the cushion you will have a thin piece of etched rubber ready to be put on EZ Mount.

The process is similar for a purchased wood mounted stamp. This stamp is from Whipper Snapper Designs (which now offers a cling mount version of their stamps).

Pull back the rubber from the cushion mount. If you find the rubber is particularly stubborn in coming off the cushion, try putting it in the microwave for 5 second intervals. The heat of the microwave will loosen the glue and make it easier to remove. Some brands of stamps are particularly stubborn and may leave significant residue or even pieces of the foam still clinging to the rubber. If this happens, use a product like Goo Gone to get loosen the adhesive and rub the residue away.

Here is the stamp after being removed from the wooden block. Every manufacturer is slightly different in how they make their stamps. Sometimes the rubber is quite thick and other times it is very thin. This doesn't make any difference when unmounting your stamps.

This is EZ mount. It comes in 8.5 x 11 sheets and has protective sheets on both sides. One side is sticky - very sticky. This is where you put the backside of your rubber stamps. The other side is the cling side which will adhere to your acrylic block. Peel away the cover from the sticky side.

Start putting your unmounted rubber onto the sticky side of your sheet of EZ Mount. Put them as close together as possible but leave some room between them. You can fit a larger number of stamps onto one sheet of EZ Mount. Here I have put two Stampin' Up! sets and four Whipper Snapper stamps and I haven't even used the whole sheet yet. If you can't fill the whole sheet, don't worry - you can save it for later. The adhesive is very, very sticky so be careful when handling it.

After you have adhered all your stamps remove the other protective cover to reveal the "clingy" side. You will now need to cut out around each stamp, staying very close to the edge of the rubber. You can use a pair of scissors such as Kai scissors, but my preferred method is to use a hot knife which cuts through the foam cushion as if it were butter. Because EZ Mount is so sticky it can be a bit of a pain to cut with regular scissors. A couple of options if you don't have a hot knife/tool are to put a little Neat washing up liquid on your scissor blades or to sprinkle some talc onto the space between the stamps to "de-stickify" the rest of the sheet. Make sure you cut off your excess before you do this or you won't be able to use it again.

After you have cut out your stamps they will look like this.

EZ Mount comes in two formats - regular (grey, thick cushion) and thin (black, thin cushion). I mount the majority of my stamps on the regular, grey sheets but for very tiny stamps and sentiment stamps I prefer to use the thin mount type. Here's an example of the thin mount used with a sentiment stamp.

After you have attached your cling mount cushion to your stamps, the next step is to store them. There are several ways to store cling mounted stamps but probably the most popular are in CD cases or in binders on laminated or special purpose cards. I use a combination of both types of storage depending on the stamps. For CD storage be sure and purchase the regular style CD cases - not the thin ones. You will need to remove the black liner from inside the case.

After removing the liner, put your stamps inside. The cling foam will stick to the CD case. Check to make sure that your stamps are not being squished by any part of the case when you close the lid. You will need to start them about 3/4 inch from the inside edge to avoid the lip of the front cover. There are also four little tabs at the top and bottom which hold the CD case cover. Make sure that your stamp is not directly under these. Pressure on the stamp can damage the image.


With few exceptions I have found I can usually fit an entire Stampin' Up! set in one CD case.

Next, you will want to make an index card to put inside your front cover which shows you which stamps are in the case. Cut a piece of cardstock 4.75" x 4.75". Stamp all the stamps in the case and slip under the tabs of the front cover.

Close your case and you have nice storage for your newly unmounted stamps. The CD case takes up considerably less room than a traditional Stampin' Up! case and can be kept in any storage solution designed for CDs.

As a final step, I make a label on my label maker with the stamp company and name of set. This is a 6mm label size which fits perfectly on a CD case.

Here is how the majority of my stamps are stored. This shelf, which is about 24" by 48", contains more than 1000 unmounted stamps. The remainder of my stamp collection is in two three-ring binders. I hold large collections in the binders because it just didn't make a lot of sense to store those in CD cases.

Here is a close up of the CD cases. All the stamps are stored alphabetically by company and the clear and rubber unmounteds are stored together in the cases. This makes it really easy to locate a particular stamp.

Here's an example of a binder storage. These sheets are made by Sunday International. They are essential a heavy, laminated sheet which is three-hole punched to fit in a binder. You can also make your own sheets but laminating cardstock. I've even seen people make sheets by covering a piece of cardstock in packing tape. I use binders to store large collections or to store extra large stamps that don't readily fit in CD cases.

To maximize the CD storage, I will store multiple single stamps in one case. In order to keep track of the stamps I number them when I stamp them on the index card and on the back of the index card I list each stamp in the case. The CD is labelled with the stamp company's name (in this case Amuse Artstamps) and then each case is given a number (such as Amust Artstamps: CD 1). Its easy to add to your collection and when you fill up one case you can start another.

In addition to unmounting your wood mounted stamps, there are a lot of companies that offer unmounted stamps either exclusively or as an option. More and more companies seem to be offering this option every day. You will find that these stamps come in a variety of different formats. The stamp here is from Sunshine Designs and comes diecut and already mounted on cling film so you simply have to put it into your CD case, stamp the index card and you're ready to go! Other companies that do this include Lizzie Anne, Magnolia Stamps and Magenta. Some companies offer stamps on sheets already mounted onto a cling cushion. Cornish Heritage Farms offers many of their sets like this. You simply cut out the stamps using a sharp pair of scissors and you're ready to go.

Other companies offer "raw" rubber stamps without any cushion, cling or foam mount. This example is from Stamping Bella. The stamps come cut out without any cushion. Other companies offer full sheets of rubber stamps without any foam or cushion. This is a very economical way to purchase stamps. Many companies are beginning to offer the option of wood mounted or unmounted (either raw rubber or cling cushion mounted) which is a really great trend to see. Whipper Snapper Designs has begun offering unmounted stamps. Cornish Heritage Farms and Magnolia frequently offer the option or wood mounted or not. I'm sure we will see many more companies go this route in the future.

To use your new EZ Mount mounted stamps, simply peel them off the CD or binder sheet and mount them onto a clear acrylic block. I keep a variety of sizes of blocks on my desk in a basket, ready to use when I need them. My favourite blocks have lines etched into them so that you can line your stamp up straight - especially important with word and sentiment stamps. This block is made by Inkadinkado but there a number of different companies that make blocks. Have a variety of sizes on hand and make sure to use the smallest block possible for the size of your stamp. Tap on the ink and away you go!

Unmounting stamps isn't for everyone but its worth thinking about, especially if your stamp collection is rapidly outgrowing the space you have available. If you have a very small collection, frequently sell your stamp sets or just really, really love the feel of wood, unmounting may not be your best option. If you're unsure, try it on for size with a set or two. You just might fall in love with your stamp collection all over again...

Masking with Tilda

I picked up my very first Magnolia stamps today and thought - what a good opportunity to demonstrate masking. I love these little stamps because they come with lots of neat "accessories" so you can create your own little scene with them. I bought a bench and a fence and you can stamp the Tilda stamps so that they are sitting on one of them. To do that, you need to use a masking technique.

The key to masking is to remember to stamp the image that will appear in the foreground (on top) first. The image in front (Tilda) will be stamped first and the image behind (the bench) will be stamped second. Here's my Tilda stamped and ready to be masked.

Next, stamp the image you will be masking on the masking medium. I'm using Eclipse tape but you can use any number of masks such as Frisket Film or even a post-it note. The key with a mask is that it needs to be very low tack so that it will stay flat when you're using it but won't damage the stamped image when you lift it off. Don't worry if your stamped image isn't perfect - it won't be a part of your final project.

Cut out your mask just inside the outline. Its important to have a good pair of sharp detail scissors or an Xacto knife to do this. Don't cut outside the outline or you will have a halo effect when you life off your mask.

Cover your original image with your mask. I haven't cut around the head in this image because the other stamp I will be using doesn't go up that far. I made a little booboo on her cuff so I just stamped a second mask and layered it.

Next you will want to stamp your image that will be behind your previously stamped image. Here's the bench stamped without the mask. I don't want to stamp right over an unmasked stamp or it will look like the bench is going right through the girl.

Stamp right over your mask where you want the second stamp to appear.

Then lift your mask off and you have a nice stamped image of a girl sitting on a bench. Don't throw away your mask because you can use it over and over again with the same stamp. I store my masks right with the stamp so that its easy to find.

Here is my final card.
Supplies: Stamps (Magnolia, Papertrey Ink), Copic markers, ribbon, Cardstock (Stampin' Up!, Bazzill), Patterned Paper (Cloud 9 Designs), Prima flowers, Bella Baubles, ink (Adirondak, Palette), Nestabilities

Tutorial: Embossing Templates, Paste and Glitter (Oh My!)

So, I'm on a bit of a glitter roll right now. At our shoebox swap on Saturday we were discussing the many ways that you can use microfine glitter and one of the ideas we bantered about was using glitter and embossing paste. This is a technique I've done in the past but I thought it might make a nice little tutorial.

You probably bought a few brass embossing templates back in the day and maybe you haven't taken them out and dusted them off for a while. If so, this is a nice technique to try. If you don't own any metal embossing templates I would encourage you to check out the vast selection of them available. There are several manufacturers but the two big one's that come to mind our Lasting Impressions and Dreamweavers. A lot of LSS are carrying the embossing pastes now which come in a variety of colours and can be mixed with other colour mediums to make custom shades. In this technique I'm just using the white paste since its covered with the glitter anyway.

For this project you will need: Cardstock and patterned paper of your choice, thick cardstock for the embossing, microfine glitter, plastic drinking straws, removeable tape, embossing tape, brass or metal embossing template, embellishments and tools as desired for your finished card.

Step 1. Tape your embossing plate down on your heavy cardstock using removeable tape. Make sure to tape down all four sides starting at the top (the top will act as a hinge).

Step 2. Using a palette knife (or a metal spatula), get a thick dollop of embossing paste from the jar and spread over the template, as though you were icing a cake.

Step 3. Scrape off the excess paste using the edge of the palette and return it to the jar. Its not necessary to have a completely smooth surface for this technique so don't worry if you have some peaks and valleys.

Step 4. Remove the tape from each edge one piece at a time. When just the top piece of tape remains, lift up the template (using the tape as a hinge) and check to make sure your image is complete. If everything is okay, remove the template from the paper. This is the paste embossed image you will be left with.

Step 5. For this image I'm using multiple colours of glitter and I want to start at either the top or the bottom of the image and work my way to the other side. Cut your plastic straws at an angle and use them to pick up a small amount of glitter. The angled straw will allow you to have more precise control over where your glitter lands.

Step 6. You will want to "waterfall" your glitter over the image by tilting up the card and sprinkling the glitter over the area you are colouring. It will not stick to areas that are already glittered which is why you work from one end to the other. The straw will allow you to have pretty good control over where your glitter ends up but it won't be perfect and you will probably get a little bit of overlap. Since we're creating cards and not building bridges, I figure that's okay. Tap off the extra glitter onto a scrap piece of paper and pour back into the jar. Be careful not to touch the embossing paste as it is still wet and will be damaged.

Step 7. With the excess tapped off it will look something like this. Don't worry about the stray bits - they can be brushed off once the paste is dry. Here I have already done three colours. I started with the orange for the flame, then the yellow for the candle and finally the pink for the icing.

Step 8. When you have completed all your colours your image will look something like this. Allow about 1 hour to dry depending on how thick you laid down the paste. Once dry you can brush away all the stray glitter with a makeup brush and burnish the glitter with your finger to make it shine.

Another way to do this technique is create a graduated colour effect over a single image or word. Here I've used gold, red and green to on the word Joy. Between each colour be sure and tap of the excess and put back in the jar. If you end up with a halo effect around your image like I did here - do not panic. It it easily fixed. The glitter has just adhered itself to the temporary adhesive on the tape used to hold down the template.

Simple take an adhesive remove tool (looks like a nubbly eraser) and rub to get the adhesive and glitter off. It will come off easily and leave you with a clean image.

Here's a little tip when using your Nestabilities with an already stamped or embossed image like I have here. Simple centre your image with the die face down onto the cardstock and tape in place with a removeable adhesive. Then run through your die cutting machine as usual. Your image will be nicely centred when it comes out.

Here's the finished card using this technique. The layout is from Taylored Expressions latest Cupcake challenge (which I was too late to enter).

Thanks for looking - I hope you found this technique useful.

Supplies: Cardstock (Bazzill, PTI), Embossing Template (Dreamweaver Templates), Glitter (Glitter Ritz), Patterned Paper (Crate Paper), Dew Drops (Robin's Nest), Stamp (My Favorite Things - sentiment), Nestabilities (Spellbinder), Ink (Palette), chalk, ribbon

P.S. - this is what happens when good craft desks go bad. I've been too busy creating and not busy enough "cleaning up" so I think I've got some work ahead of me tonight because I can no longer find the stuff buried under the mess...