Becky and Melanie's Holiday Hop!

This blog candy giveaway is now closed. See post above for the winner.

  
Good morning!  Becky and I thought it would be great fun to team up for a little Holiday Hop today! We are showcasing Becky's new set, "Warm Woolen Mittens" along with Becky's new cut file "Grand Banners" and "Grand Banners - Winter Sentiments" and my newest set, "Lots of Letters" (clear  and rubber) today, along with a few of my designing friends' recent faves from me! Joining us are some dynamic designers that will knock your socks off with their beautiful work today!  Make sure you visit everyone's blog to leave a comment and be entered to win a clear "I do!" and "Beyond Baskets" stamp set! We will draw a winner randomly and announce Thursday morning!

Now on to today's projects!

 Today I have a sample using both Becky and my newest sets, Warm Woolen Mittens and Lots of Letters! I love how this design turned out and hope it gives you lots of ideas for other ways to frame the letters than the ones I included in the set, like, mittens, for instance! I stamped the outlines of the mittens in Memento Espresso Truffle, and because I didn't have any masks ready, I just went ahead and made them overlap, and colored in the little areas with a Blue Copic, just like the loops in the scripty greeting (and over parts of the knit pattern for accents), isn't that fun?! Then I centered a letter on each mitten to start my greeting, cut them out and popped them up, and added Becky's cute sentiment below. 

TIP:  Stamping out the Lots of Letters alphabet to create just shorter, large words on a card is a *great* way to incorporate them with part of another greeting, rather than spelling out a long one. Mixing fonts and letters sizes this way gives you cards and sentiments such a fresh feel.  I used a Spellbinders Matting Basics B die to trace a border with a marker and then added the little faux stitch detail to connect the greeting to it.  Card base is the beautiful new Powder Blue Pure Luxury!

 Next, I have a very simple card with Lots of Letters and the coordinating Pretty Patterns set (clear or rubber). This fun circles border looks terrific with circle framed letters (punched with a 3/4" circle and popped up), and I will be making some personalized cards and gift sets for the holidays.  Inks are Memento Teal Zeal, Summer Sky, Sweet Plum, Bahama Blue and cardstock is Powder Blue and Pure Luxury White.

 Finally, I had to share this card (because I love it so!) using the magnolia from Stately Flowers 3. It's one of my favorite images in the series, and I made it for a movie inspired challenge (favorite films, can you guess?*)  This is like the triple panel stamping technique, but way easier if you have Spellbinder Matting Basics dies!  Stamp just one piece of CS with the magnolia in hot pink.  Now place three nested rectangle dies from the set on top, centering each and run through your cutting machine. Leave the dies in place and sponge peach ink on top with a sponge dauber. Remove dies and cut two mats 1/8" larger from Passionate Pink to layer under smaller stamped mats.  

  Adhere to a Just Peachy Pure Luxury base.  I used one of the smallest dies in the set for the greeting and stamped the flower again on Ivory (in that same pink) and added just hints of color with Copics (E93, YG00, YG63) and cut out.  I stamped it one more time on Fresh Asparagus cardstock in Bamboo Leaves and cut them out to layer underneath the flower.

Here are the sets I used today:

Warm Woolen Mittens

Lots of Letters clear
and rubber

Pretty Patterns

Stately Flowers 3

 Happy holidays and happy hopping!  Don't forget to leave comments for more chances to win some stamps!

Designer Hop-

Becky Oehlers (Illustrator of Warm Woolen Mittens)  

Beate Johns

JJ Bolton

Laurie Schmidlin

Latisha Yoast

Michelle Woerner

Richard Breaks

Vera Yates

Tosh Leyendekker

Thanks for visiting today! And thanks to my fabulous guests!

*Steel Magnolias, using Shelby's wedding colors "Blush" and "Bashful"

Cut Files a' Comin'!

So how pumped is everyone after seeing Gina's video of the Silhouette Cameo in action? I am just giddy knowing there are cut files coming for all your favorite Gina K stamps, aren't you?!! So I haven't blogged in a week, because ever since I've been creating cut files for the store for my stamp sets, squeal!! So here we go: a photo a day for every day this past week I missed blogging!

First up, Pretty Patterns meets the Silhouette! SQUEEEEEEAL!!!!!
I have done some experimenting with my stamps on the different files, since some of the sets I am working on came out before we had the clear option and I'm happy to report that the close die cutting of the rubber stamps makes it super easy to stamp them inside these cut outs, perfectly lined up! I stamped all these from Stately Flowers 4 using rubber stamps ( I have both the clear and rubber version of this set, and ahem, couldn't find my clear set on my messy desk!! )

And here I am showing how to line it up just position the stamp over the cut cardstock until you can't see ANY white cardstock, whihc means you are lined up, and press down.

Now I ALSO have a few sets I wanted cut files for that I received in rubber, way BEFORE Gina K Designs was die cutting stamps! (ahh, how far we've come!) So I knew this might make it trickier, but look! Ink up your stamp facing up, here you can see my rough cutting the rubber on A Year of Borders, aren't you glad we die cut now?! (Please note: if you order this set now in rubber, IT WILL BE DIE CUT)
Flip over your cut border and carefully lay it on top of the image. Carefully run your fingers over to hit all of the image. (You may want to top it with a piece of scratch paper or pad of sticky notes to press and keep the cut out fro sliding around) Presto! Perfect!
Anyway, I couldn't be happier with the results I am getting with all my stamps, whether they are clear or rubber, die cut or not! Having said that though I think moving forward the easiest way for most people who intend to use stamps with the cut files will probably find clear the easiest. Just wanted to share the good news so you can purchase with confidence and expect great results!
And finally, I also plan to make MASK files that will cut BORDERLESS, so you can use them for masking OR when you don't want a rim around the edge, here you can see two versions of this image cut with a 1/8" border around, and also exact size, these were both cut with the Silhouette Cameo and stamped after! With a rubber stamp! (Do you recognize which set it's from??) :) Imagine having 10 of these all cut for you for an over the top fabulous arrangement! DO YOU LOVE?? So that is just one more option for you!

Thanks for visiting today! What stamp sets are YOU most excited to be able to cut??

Scallops and Photos

Hello! Happy Sunday! Here is the last card I shared at the release party with my new Pretty Patterns set. Cardstock is from the new Gina K Pure Luxury Calypso collection (plus layering weight White), and inks are Memento Teal Zeal, Morocco, and Pistachio. Love the contrast of these colors! So fun to create rows and layers of these scallops inn different inks, what an easy way to work in a color challenge! Butterflies from A Beautiful Life are stamped onto Carnival Blue and then shaded with BG49 Copic. Greeting is from Theresa's Mountain Wilderness.

I also wanted to point out how varying the distance between the scallops when you stamp changes the look: in my card they are nested pretty closely together, but as you can see in Gina's sample above and video, you can put about 1/8" to 1/4" between each row, which will create a white space similar to the width in the patterns of each of the individual scallops. And that looks fabulous, too! The Clearly Gina K stamps make it simple to stack them however you wish!
Last thing today, I wanted to share this cool new free online service, Foto Fuze! (Does this picture look different?!) You can upload any photo to the site that you've taken on a white or black ground, then highlight the image and the shadow with your mouse, and like you magic, it erases the background and adds this bright white background for a really professional look! So I tried this one this morning, a photo I had already taken. (It would have turned out better if I had used a white sheet behind rather than the two pieces of white paper, it works better without a seam, this messes up the shadow slightly as you an see on the right. But how I love how brilliantly white it looks and how the card stands out! I'll be using an 11" x 14" piece of paper for a curved edge behind from now on because I don't have a white sheet.) Just wanted to let you know because it makes editing your photos really easy, no light box necessary. There is even a video before you do your first upload that shows you more pointers for how to use it, although it very simple without, and in it how even a light box photo can be improved. Please enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Like a Rainbow

Although I uploaded this Pretty Patterns sample to the party and our STV gallery, I hadn't put the full cards on my blog yet, oops! A couple things to point out: the space in between the two chevron on the stamp is exactly wide enough to accommodate the chevron when stamped again, so it works perfectly as a filler for gorgeous seamless color! I love stamping off this way to use it like two step and create more colorful backgrounds in half the time with half the inks!

This rainbow I made with Memento Love Letter, Tangelo, Dandelion, Cottage Ivy, Bahama Blue, so you only need to ink up the chevron one time with each, shift and stamp a second time, clean stamp and move on to the net color.

To balance this design, I chose to make the banner with Pure Luxury Blue Raspberry to bring that bottom color to the top, and in the same way stamped the balloon from Square Pegs (this bold all occasion set works nicely with the Pretty patterns) in Love Letter and stamped again without re-inking to make the pink one, putting these at the bottom. This pulls your eye back and forth and provides a nice contrast.

Tomorrow, a scalloped card and some tips for that!

Also, tip sheet is upcoming. But instead of having everything all together, I believe I will try to do more step outs with these so you can see photos of the individual elements in action! From there, you can take that and incorporate into any design you choose. Love this set! :)

Hope you have a fun weekend planned, or if not, a relaxing one! Hugs, thank you for visiting today!

New Stamps Available Now!

Hello! So fun chatting with you all yesterday at the release party! Thanks for all your terrific feedback and support of the new Pretty Patterns set (clear, get the clear!!) All the new stamps are now available for purchase at Gina K Designs! Our hops won't be until after the 4th of July holiday, but if you came to the party, you know I've already cranked out a lot of samples with this set! What can I say, it's fun and they are so easy and FAST! So I'll be sharing them again here in the meantime with you, along with tips for how I designed and stamped each. Right now, you can see a few of them in the StampTV gallery.
Here is a monochromatic design i shared at the part, using just one color ink! Memento Danube Blue stamped and then stamped off for the lighter shade. Cardstock is Pure Luxury White, Calypso Purple and Carinval Blue. Trimming around the stamped chevron on the blue layer in a zigzag to match the chevron adds interest. Greeting is from Versatile Verses.
Now truthfully, I hadn't thought for a second about scoring these images when I designed, but look how fun that is!! Skinny scores for the chevron just living up the V over the tracks in your Scor-Buddy, or intersecting scores around the plus pattern to create a tile look! LOVE!!

Back in a bit, just have to ask, which is YOUR favorite pattern in this set so far or one you can't wait to get inky?? (and if you wish, tell me your favortie sample with it so far) Let me know below! :)