Card Making

*Featured on the Honey Bee Stamps Blog*

This pretty much sums up my life! HAHA!

I have been planning this card for AGES, but I was waiting for the postman to deliver the awesome Brush Grunge Alpha stamp set from Honey Bee Stamps! This is a BEAST of a bargain, a massive 6X8 stamp set, and it is reduced down to $24 over on the Honey Bee Shop. You get capital and small letters, as well as numbers and a selection of brush stroke accessories like this cool ink splat!

I started by cutting a panel of cardstock to match an A2 notecard, then I stamped four brush strokes in yellow, pink, mint and blue. To align them perfectly, you can line the left edge of your card with the side of the MISTI tool, and use the rulers to slide your card up about 1 1/4 inch after each impression.

Next I added the text on each line. I used an acrylic block for this, and stamped the middle letter first, then worked my way out to the right, then back to the left. I like this technique as it makes sure the card is fairly centred.

I have a lot of alpha stamp sets in my stash, but this one is DEFINITELY going to get a lot of mileage. The letters are big and bold and blooming marvellous! They are easy to line up and they look totally hand drawn, like real brush lettering! After stamping the words, I added some ink splatters to give it an artsy look. Oh, and in case you are wondering, I used Versafine ink – I love that one impression gives a really deep dark image – but be warned, this is a JUICY ink pad, and its easy to get it all over your fingers!

To finish off the card, I wanted to add some embellishments, so I grabbed my stash of exclusive Honey Bee Stamps embellies! Those blue and yellow dew drops from the Fairy Dew Drop collection look good enough to eat! I also used the Honey Bee Mix (yellow tones) and the Frozen Collection (silver drop and blue teardrop). To adhere them, I used my Multi medium matte from Ranger – that glue sticks pretty much everything!

Thanks for stopping by to see me, and next MONDAY I will be back with some exciting news to share! So WATCH THIS SPACE!

Happy Crafting!
Lesley

Hello my crafty friends! It’s Lesley here – I am back in the UK and my crafty fingers were ITCHING to get playing with these Octopi stamps!! Oh geez, they are so CUTE!!

One of the Honey Bee Stamps gals Taniesa was so sweet and kind, she surprised me with a Lawn Fawn gift when we met at the Creativation Conference – the new Octopi My Heart stamp set and matching dies! Now THAT is a life long friend! I LOVE THEM! Thank you Taniesa!

I decided to have some fun with this new Octopus stamp and create a glitter shaker card, with an underwater scene. I used two other Lawn Fawn stamp sets- So Jelly and Mermaid For You, which were perfect accompaniments to the Octopi My Heart set!

For the background, I decided to build a fun watery effect using the ink smooshing technique. You simply tap your ink pad onto a smooth surface, spray with water and then use the inky liquid to create your background. You can pick up the colour with a paintbrush, or push your paper directly into the ink, but I like to pick up the ink with a piece of acetate, and then use this to apply the ink to my cardstock.

To build texture, I also used the circle piercing dies from Cheery Lynn designs – these are new to me, and give a really cool effect, although the ink kind of covers it up. If you look really closely behind the Octopi, you will see circles of dots which look a bit darker than the rest of the background. I will have to use them again on another card so you can really get to see them in action.

I coloured the images using some Copic markers and cut them out using the coordinating dies. I also die cut some foam in the octopus die, so I could make them pop!

For the inside of the card, I used the AMAZING Ice Chips Glitter from Honey Bee Stamps – this stuff is SO FUN! It looks like shards of glass, but it sparkles like crazy, and the great thing is that it is fine, so I only needed one layer of foam behind my acetate today! You might also notice that I also some blue fine glitter as well as the Ice Chips. Here’s a closer look at the ice chips – doesn’t it almost give a watery effect!?

Thanks for stopping by, and I also wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who watched and commented on my Creativation videos. For so many years I dreamt of being at CHA but had to settle with binge watching YouTube videos – so it is only fitting that I share some videos with you guys so you can experience it too! Another big thank you to everyone at Creativation who LET me video them and their booths- it couldn’t have happened without you guys!

Until next time… happy crafting!