Blast from the Past Day 3

Day 3, we're midway through our "Blast from the Past" week! today we are showcasing StampTV kits Gina has designed, I chose "Eclectic Summer" because I love this hot air balloon! They are so popular and this is the only hot air balloon stamp I have (and only one I need, hee!) A tent topper card (a square card with the top cloud mounted to fit inside an A2 envelope) was the perfect design for this uplifting concept! (greeting is from the "Eclectic Summer" greeting set)
I stamped the balloon in Vivid Inky Blue and pieced it with October Afternoon "Report Card" DP. Then I die cut the three clouds with the Large Big Scalloped Oval Nestabilities dies and sponged them with a little ink on the bottoms before removing the dies. Don't these make great clouds?? I got these dies recently and haven't used them near enough, now I'm just gonna call them my "cloud dies"! When you do all different sizes for one project, you can die cut them all in one pass, which is great! The Cosmo Cricket "Boyfriend" DP with the paper airplanes as sky makes it more whimsical, but this card is bling-free again, because it's for my other son heading back to school! cardstock layer and base is Pure Luxury Red Hot and Creme de Menthe.
TIP: Be sure to use pop dots here for dimension, it really creates the illusion of the clouds drifting by and the balloon hovering...

For even more samples of some of our favorite 'Blast from the Past' Gina K Designs stamp sets, check out these participating designer's blogs:

• GinaK


• Jessica


• Theresa


• Nina

• Lee


• Lynn


• Kurtis


• Emily


• Erika

Thank you for visiting me today!!

Blast from the Past Day 2

Welcome back to our Gina K Designs Blast from the Past Hop, we're on day 2! First illustrator we are featuring today is Theresa Momber, so I made a mad dash for "Autumn Beauty"!
Sometimes a single image is all you need for inspiration, and all your card needs if it's the right one, I even left it greetingless! I framed the sunflower with two pendant dies cuts in Wild Dandelion layered on top of each other to echo her beautiful flower I'd colored with Copics. The Grass Green layer is stencilled with the Impressabilities Flourish, sponging olive ink over it before removing. Layered finally on Pure Luxury Chocolate Brown and White, and embellished with some gingham, punched wave flourishes, button and adhesive nail heads, I'm in autumn heaven!! I think I may have to send this card (measures 5 1/2"x 7") to a really beautiful illustrator I know...! ;)

Our next featured illustrator is Rupa Shevde. Last year she released the adorable "Back to School" which I knew would be perfect for making a card for my son William, who starts (gulp!) kindergarten in a few weeks! Here he is graduating from preschool, just a couple months ago...(sniff!)He is excited but some days has seemed a little apprehensive. Letting him pick out a new backpack, however, seemed to make any worry go away, so I thought I'd try to recreate the one he chose for his card!After stamping the backpack image onto Pure Luxury White, I wanted to paper piece the pockets to match, so I stamped it again onto the cover of a Star Wars LEGO kit directions pamphlet he had, carefully placing the inked portions I wanted to be on the pockets over the LEGO logo and storm trooper faces. I glued the pieces on after cutting them out and finished coloring the image with Copics. This super cute DP from the October Afternoon "Report Card" pack is so similar to all the worksheets he's been doing in Preschool, I knew he'd associate it with school immediately, more than a boyish print! I stamped the little shooting star in red at the top and layered it onto Pure Luxury Red Hot and Black Onyx.

I used R46 Strong Red and R59 Cardinal to color the straps and trim, and C5, C7 and 100 Black for the pack. Instead of adding bling, I just circled the correct answers on the paper with a pencil to make it a little more personal. He loves this card! (Yes, he's already seen it, came in when I was working on it and stole it as soon as I was done taking the photo LOL! I'll have to steal it back so I can write something before the first day, he is very proud of how well he can read many words by sight or sounding them out)

For even more samples of some of our favorite 'Blast from the Past' Gina K Designs stamp sets, check out these participating designer's blogs:

• GinaK


• Jessica


• Melanie


• Theresa


• Tami


• Cathy


• Lee


• Lynn


• Donna


• Kurtis


• Emily


• Erika

The entire GinaK Designs team would like to invite you to the virtual Release party we'll be having this Thursday, August 5th on StampTV. It will be a bit different than our usual release party, but we'll still have challenges, contest questions, and designer samples that you won't want to miss out on! More information on that event will be shared by GinaK soon, so stay tuned to her blog for all the details this week.

Thanks for dropping in!! Found any new sets you want set? And who will we feature tomorrow??? See you soon!

Blast from the Past Day 1

This week the Gina K Designs team is pulling out some of our favorite sets of the past from every illustrator, which promises to be a week long celebration of "greatest hits"! First up, I chose to use my "A Year of Leaves" set. Although I use these leaves and sentiments year round on masculine and sympathy cards, this set really works overtime when Fall comes, there's nothing I like to stamp and embellish my cards with in late Summer and Autumn than beautifully colored leaves!
Here I just used one leaf image from the set and the simple greeting "Thanks", in one of my favorite fonts of all time! These small greetings are perfect for making tags, and I love how this one turned out, using a Labels Eight die on Pure Luxury Ivory, then punching a border punch on all four sides and stamping the word in the middle! I scored the background in a diamond pattern for more interest and texture and added some stitched ribbon and brads. Base is Wild Dandelion. Popped up, these leaves look like they are gently drifting to the ground...

I also like using them with favorite floral sets, here the same leaves and another greeting take the set "A Beautiful Life" from Spring to Fall...
Drawn in the same style and scale as "A Year for Flowers", these sets are just perfect for mixing and matching!

And just to revisit a few of my faves I've made with the set (which are now coming back around, so to speak!), here is a card and matching acorn and leaf earrings I created that are currently featured in the "Stamping Savvy" section of the newest issue of CardMaker Magazine (p.28-29) These are definitely some of my favorite images for Polyshrink!
"A Year of Leaves" was also featured in the recently released book "Interactive Cards". This is probably one of my favorite projects ever! The little caterpillar image from the set morphs into a pop up butterfly (this butterfly is from "Take Flight", a favorite Gina K set from the past!).

I've also had several designing friends offer to share new samples they've created with some of their past favorite sets of mine, thank you SO much ladies for sharing your talent again with us today!

Brenda Turner

Carla Suto

Carolina Buchting

Geri Utterback

Karen Knegten

Libby Hickson

Linda Payne

Melissa Shultz

Selma Stevenson

Sharri Seffens

Sue Van DeVusse

Tina Gilliland

Next, we have one of my favorites from Nina from last year: "Lord of the Season". I stamped this fall topiary in Vivid Coffee Bean and colored it with with earthy Copic colors inspired by this beautiful Basic Grey Indian Summer print. Those little spots are color are perfect with the tiny details of the fruits, flowers and leaves in the wreath. TIP: when coloring a wreath, select several colors but just use one at a time, putting that color in several different places to balance it out and draw your eye around, so you won't have lots of clumping in just one area, before moving to the next.
Cardstock is Pure Luxury Pumpkin Spice, Chocolate Brown and White, which is sponged around the edges with Wild Honey Distressing Ink. I used a Nestabilities border die and some Pure Luxury ribbon for the bottom. I would have liked to match it to the pink I colored the ribbon in the image but didn't have anything like I thought! good thing there were lots of other colors to choose from LOL! I just love breaking out all these fall colors! It's been a long, hot summer!


And finally more 'Blast from the Past' Gina K Designs stamp sets, check out these participating designer's blogs:

• GinaK


• Jessica

• Nina


• Theresa


• Cathy


• Lee


• Lynn


• Donna


• Emily


• Erika

The entire GinaK Designs team would like to invite you to the virtual Release party we'll be having this Thursday, August 5th on StampTV. It will be a bit different than our usual release party, but we'll still have challenges, contest questions, and designer samples that you won't want to miss out on! More information on that event will be shared by GinaK soon, so stay tuned to her blog for all the details this week!

Baby Carriage

Here is a little baby carriage I made for a recent "Button and Bows" pub call. I posted a card similar to this before using my "Hip to Be Square" baby face and Tami's "Special Delivery" for the punched wheels, but this time changed up the layout, colors, and papers . Cardstock: Pure Luxury Ocean Mist, Turquoise Sea, Creme de Menthe. DP is DCWV Citrus.

Happy Sunday! I posted the winner to the challenge on StampTV, thank you again everyone who played! :)

Blog hop tonight!!!! See you at 10PM CST!

Last Day!

Quickly, and I'll be back with new projects later: today is the last day to upload a card for my challenge on StampTV! Use the colors navy, olive and ivory on your card OR create a stamped focal point that looks similar to the DP you choose to use on your card. Do both to get two chances and you can also use Gina K stamps for another chance to win my new set coming out in August!! Hope you play! Thanks to everyone who has already entered!

It All Starts with Pretty Paper...(plus a challenge)

Here is some "faux paper piecing" I did with some punches and October Afternoon "Report Card" DP, which inspired the design and colors of this card. I love the pattern, thought the navy, olive and ivory combo was both classic and fresh, and the repeating flower, dot diamond pattern (not a technical term LOL!) would work really well with the elements I had in my "Fun Year Round" set. After stamping the frame in Vivid Inky Blue, I punched circles out of the DP and Pure Luxury Fresh Asparagus and In the Navy in sizes ranging from 3/4" to 1 3/4". Then it was just a matter of placing them around the frame, making the colors weave back and forth around the card. The circles sometime were exact fits or just bigger, which still looks paper pieced! :) I added just the "happy" from the "oh happy day!" greeting in the bottom and stamped a few large and small flowers in the Inky Blue and olive. An olive button as a final touch gave it dimension and texture.

Go through you papers today and find a pattern that speaks to you!

It's almost Friday! )

PS A challenge throw down for a chance to win my new set coming out next month from Gina K Designs! Read all the details here on StampTV, you have until Saturday night to enter! Please play!

Week 4 with Sharri! (the Incredible Shrinking Woman)

This week Sharri gets shrinking, with Polyshrink that is! Inspired by the possibilities with Fun Year Round and shrink plastic, Sharri has three simple projects today! Sharri describers in her own words below how to make all three!

For the card, I stamped the circles on the frame and was contemplating what to do with the centers when I remembered I had picked up some shrink paper at a stamp and scrapbook show last year. This shrink paper can be used in a inkjet printer so took a chance and stamped the circles on the shrink paper with Memento's inks, punch out the circles, shrank them in the oven and attached them to the card with score tape. I love how vibrant the colors turned out! The sentiment is from Gina's Punchy Words and was cut out with a Pinking Circle Nestibility.

Card Supplies:
Stamps: Fun Year Round, Punchy Words
Paper: White, Kraft, In the Navy Pure Luxury papers
Ink: Paris Dusk, Danube Blue, Summer Sky, Desert Sand
Other: Shrink Paper, Pinking Circle Nestibility

After seeing how well the memento ink worked on the shrink paper, I got the idea to make a key chain. I stamped the frame and circles on the shrink paper and let the ink dry. Because the shrink paper is white in color and you can faintly see through it until it shrinks I wanted both side to have the pattern so...After the ink was dried, I cut the frame out, flipped it over and stamped the frame and circles again on this side. After the ink dried on this side, I punched a hole toward the top center and shrank it in the oven. After it was cooled, I attached the key ring. I really like how it turned out and already have some more started. :o)

Key chain Supplies:
Stamps: Fun Year Round
Ink: Memento Dandelion, Rhubarb Stalk, Lady Bug, and Angel Pink
Other: Shrink Paper, Key Ring

The bookmark was very easy to make. I punched a flowers using two different sizes of the Marvy Flower punches, stamped the circles in the center of the smaller ones, attached a button and attached the flowers to the extra jumbo paperclip using score tape and foam pop dots.

Bookmark Supplies:
Stamps: Fun Year Round
Ink: Memento Rhubarb Stalk and Rich Cocoa
Paper: DCWV Crafty Stack
Other: Buttons, Foam Pop Dots, Score Tape, Extra Jumbo Paperclip

Let's go see what else Sharri made!

CAS Butterfly

Here is a recent card I made for a Quick Cards call, it didn't get accepted but how I can be upset when it only took anbout 5 minutes to make? ;) I love this design though and will use it again when I am in a pinch for a card! Simply add a rhinestone flourish* to a Pure Luxury White card base, and add a cut and colored butterfly, traced with glitter pen, from "A Beautiful Life" with a pop dot. Use markers to ink up the greeting, giving it a two toned effect.

*I get these at Hobby Loby when they are on sale, they are a little more pricey of an embellishment but add so much "WOW", and look at all the money it saved me here on cardstock layers and DP! LOL!

Citrus Aloha

Here is a super simple "Aloha" card I made with the appropriately named "Citrus" DP! Love the glitter on this and great matches for Pure Luxury colors in this DCWV pack. I colored the toucan with Copics and then cropped it with a circle die, then layered onto the DP and Red Hot base. Those showy flourishes on the paper complement the bird and prevent the need for a complicated sketch!


Anyone gone or going on some exotic vacation this summer? We head for Disneyworld in less than two weeks, so excited!

Hope you had a great weekend and a wonderful week ahead!

Dare to Get Dirty Week!

"It's Dare to Get Dirty Week at Splitcoaststampers! If you're a Fan Club Member this is your chance to play along with Dirty Girls, past and present, in a ton of fun challenges. ) If you're not a Fan Club Member, this is the perfect time to become one! You can get all the info here.) We'd love to have you play with us this week! There are 33 challenges to choose from - play one or play them all. if you do play them all (and you can combine challenges on your cards so it's not as many as it sounds like!), you can enter for the Challenge Queen Prize pack, which consists of 12, count em 12 prizes that have been donated, I don't know what all of them are yet but one is my "A Beautiful Life" stamp set! All prizes go to the winner, go for it!

The card I'm sharing today is for a challenge hosted by ME and you can see the details here. (It almost meets the requirements for 6 ther challenges, so you can combine them! :) You WON'T be able to combine 33 into one project thugh, several are sketches!) This shadowbox uses "A Beautiful Life" and Gina's butterfly from "Hope is Faith". Cardstock is Pure Luxury White on the front, Grass Green on the back and lined with Lemon Drop. Front and back layers are 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", score at 3/4" and 1 1/2" on both ends of the green and white, fold on the scores, and adhere the end flaps together with Scor-Tape. When pressed flat, it fits into a large envelope. Butterfly and bee are colored with Copics and covered with Crystal Stickles. I also embellished it with adhesive pearls and some flourish punches.

It's a good time to get dirty! :)

I hope you play!

StampTV Technique Challenge Hop!

Welcome to our Gina K Designs Stamp TV Technique Hop! Tonight our team is sharing samples that use techniques showcased on StampTV, it's pretty amazing when you see just how many videos Gina has loaded to STV in a little over a year, so much to learn and do! I decided to try a Christmas shaker card with my new "Fun Year Round", and this time I embossed the frame in silver, I just love this look, so sharp and festive for the holidays! Shaker cards are always so fun, I especially love to make round cut out for them, so this frame totallyfills that bill! (Putting them in multiple places on this card would have been super fun but I was almost out of pop dots LOL!)

Cardstock is Red Hot, White, and Silver Lining, ink is Versamark and Vivid Brick Red. I filled the inside off the shaker window with microbeads to go with the snowflake theme and embellished the centers of the snowflakes with rhinestones, some colored with a red Copic. The stamped snowflake inside the shaker has a rhinestone on the outside of the clear plastic window instead of on the inside, kind of fun floating like that!

In the following videos, Gina shows you step by step the techniques for creating this card!

Heat Embossing

Shaker Card video

and these two are also helpful if you've never done a reverse cut or inked up a background stamp:

Inking a Background Stamp

Reverse Nestabilities

For more projects from the other designers participating in the hop tonight, please check out these links:

• GinaK


• Jessica


• Theresa


• Melanie


• Nina


• Tami


• Cathy


• Lee


• Donna


• Kurtis


• Emily


• Erika

Thank you for joining us, I'm off to hop myself!

Stained Glass Hummingbird

Hello! I've been meaning to ink up this hummingbird from "Hugs and Prayers" , and all I see when I look at it is stained glass so I wanted to create a little round window so to speak by tracing a Circle Nestability I placed over the stamped image on white and tracing with a black pen to frame it up. TIP: Find a size die that just fits your image allowing it to touch on three or more sides or places like it is connected to the panes. Using the Nestability allows you to see inside the die for positioning the image the way you want.
I colored it with Copics, but didn't go for a smooth Copic look this time, instead mottling the colors by using two or more shades in dabs and removing color with the blender to give it a spotty swirly look like colored glass. Then I covered the whole die cut with Versamark and embossed with white Iridescent Ice EP. Love the sparkly and texture that created, looks like the real thing, wish you could see it in real life as a completely glitter colored image is so hard to photographed but still show all the colors! I stamped some of the flowers from the set on the Innocent Pink mat and sponged the sides with coral ink after coloring the flowers. Other card stock is Pure Luxury Ocean Mist and Black Onyx. Flourish punches in Grass Green and a sateen Copic colored flower and a rhinestone finish the card.

To be completely honest, I made this before Brenda posted her Inspire Stained Glass Challenge, but it fits so perfectly I will be tagging it in the gallery LOL!

Have a great day! Blog hop coming up tomorrow night! :)

Week 3 with Sharri Seffens

When I first opened Sharri's sample for the week, I was so taken at first with how CaYUTE the little "Fun Year Round" elements look in these pinking circle Nestabilities die cuts (Sharri, I think you just sold me a set of dies!) I didn't even realize I was staring at a gorgeous tiered cake made from these DP layers! Just two rectangles in the sketch plus a few embellishments and you are ready to celebrate! This is a design I want to CASE again and again in different patterns and colors! Simple and simply brilliant!
The greeting is from "Candles on Your Cake", she says this is for a baby birthday; I get that from the sweet pastels (love this two tone look with these images in these colors) but I think these fun and elegant prints would make it perfect for a lady of any age! (Look closely and the blue pattern on the bottom layer with the green and blue concentric spots and dots I bet was the inspiration for these little stamped die cuts she created!) The tilted banner gives it a lot of energy and the sponging around the die cuts give each a soft glow.

Here is the card recipe, straight from Sharri:



This is a 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" card. I used the pattern papers from Basic Grey's Lilykate to make the shape of a tiered cake and decorated with the fun circle and flower shapes.

Card Supplies:
Stamps: Fun Year Round, Candles on Your Cake
Ink: Memento - Dandelion, Pear Tart, Summer Sky
Paper: Gina K - Green Apple, Little Boy Blue, White
Other: Spellbinder's Pinking Circles & Scrap Mart Custom Dies, Ribbon, Pearls

Now let's go see Sharri's next project!

Aloha Gifts...

Ever since I first saw Theresa's "Aloha" set, I have been wanting to use it with "Gifts from the Sea"! Finally did, and I love the results!
I started creating a ginormous moon to be a backdrop for the quote from "Gifts from the Sea", just sponged around a large Circle Nestability with Vivid Inky Blue and sponging below a sheet of scratch paper covering the top to make the horizon. TIP: If you are using similar colors to color in your images as what you are stamping with, try using that same ink for the whole card, here I used the Inky Blue for everything, greeting, sponging, and images, and it really unifies it all and goes so much better for a "sea" card than black would, at elast in this color scheme. Even though this ink is not waterproof, the green, brown and gray Copics I used to color over the tree and shells look okay! (now trying to color pink or yellow over the blue would give you some trouble LOL!!)

Then I added my birds and stamped Theresa's little reflecting islands (I love these!) on either side and a palm tree in the foreground. I created the waves* with an Inkssentials white pen and the little stippled shoals from "Aloha". For a more feminine card, her flowers cut out and popped up would be perfect embellishments , but I was going for a more masculine feel so I used my shells and the seashell border....

Card base is Pure Luxury Tan Leather sponged with Vintage Photo Distressing ink, which I also used for the sand, this was my first time to use this color and I love that warm golden, rich brown, very different from any of my other "brown" inks! It's a little hard to tell from the photo, but I also scored three lines to the right of the scene in the Pure Luxury In the Navy cardstock, lovin' my new Scor-Buddy for these 1/8" scores!! :)

* My son Jonathan peeked over my shoulder just after I finished sponging and asked what the quote meant. I explained, "You know, like the waves go on forever, it's endless," I replied. "But there AREN'T any waves Mom! Your water is flat! Now that is a huge problem!" Yeah, he was right, but I wasn't finished yet! :D

Throwing You a Curve

Hello! Just playing with some of my new goodies I bought from the last Gina K Designs release: buttons, ribbon, Spellbinders Scalloped border petite die and the Seeing Spots folder!
To make the stems I curved the line in the Fun Year Round set, it is so long it's really flexible to bend and shape it as you see fit! Then I stamped the little bubble bursts and punched them out, centering the Marvy Flower punches over the images, and added a button to each center with a glue dot. I made the little leaves from trimming off a petal punched from green toward the middle in a "v" then popped them up! I am SO glad I threw this ribbon in my cart, I could have thrown several more colors on this card and t would have matched them all! Probably will have to go back and buy all the other stripey colors... :)

I used this greeting a little differently this time, just inking up one of the "thank yous" from the round greeting in the set and stamping it so it curves around the punched flower, this tiny sentiment in an unexpected spot makes it extra playful.

Cardstock is Pure Luxury Turquoise Sea, Sweet Mango, Grass Green and Lemon Drop. I selected these colors because of a recent color challenge on StampTV, but then just had to throw the yellow in at the last minute!

Hope your week starts out great!