Stretch Your Dies Class

I love love love the Online Card Classes -- I learn so much not only from the instructors, but also from my fellow students who are full of tips and good ideas. Today was the 7th day of the Stretch Your Dies class and,  as always, I'm inspired!

Each day has several great projects, and my goal is always to create at least one card from each day of class while it is in session, and then go back and complete as many others as I can. So far I have only created projects from the first 6 days but hope to get more time this week before the Gallery closes. Here's what's up so far:

Day 1 -- word dies. This was fun. Who knew that fun foam shrinks!

Day 2 addressed flower dies but I used tags instead.

One of Day 3's project for shape dies was to create a hinged window in a card with a sentiment visible when you open the flap. Here are the inside and outside views:

On Day 4 -- mini dies -- I finished a project using negative and positive cuts to make two cards:

On Day 5 we learned ways to use coordinating die and stamp sets. I chose the project where we cut masks to leave space for stamping before coloring the background.

This Day 6 project may be my favorite so far. We simply cut a curve out of clear acetate and used it as a guide to ink swathes of color.

 

I have a Day 7 project in progress that I'm not thrilled with at the moment. Perhaps I'll like it better tomorrow, or think of a way to improve it. 

Clean & Simple 4, Day 7

Day 7 was the final day of Clean & Simple 4 at Online Card Classes. I didn't think I would be able to participate because I didn't have the Cute Fruit stamp set the instructors used; and I don't have any stamps that are fruit. However, after leafing through the stamps I do have, I found the Watts Up set that I had lots of fun with last year, and thought I would do something with the light bulb. After stamping a few light bulbs I happened to turn the piece upside down and saw ... a pear! From there it was easy to repurpose my light bulb as a pear and do a couple of the projects.

I was feeling pretty smug about this brainstorm when I saw that  a fellow student, (Mike G, #14 in the gallery) already had the same idea! Great minds, ya know?

I didn't have a face to put on Mr. Pear, but I did have a pair of glasses that worked fine and a letter "c" became a mouth.

My final project lines up a stamped greeting on the white panel with colored stamping on the pear. This was fun and pretty easy too.

I have absolutely loved this Online Card Class as I have loved every other one I've taken, and can't wait to see what class is being offered next!

Clean & Simple 4, Day 6

I was real pleased with my Day 6 projects, starting with this cute tri-fold birthday card. The front balloon is cut to show one of the balloons on the second page and a balloon there is cut to show the sentiment. 

The next one gave me fits. A mixture of reinkers, rubbing alcohol and perfect pearls is brushed onto vellum. I tried this on 3 different pieces of vellum: white, pink and patterned white. All 3 promptly rolled up into a little tube and laughed at me. I weighted them all down flat and let them dry only to discover that I probably needed to mix in the perfect pearls more thoroughly -- fortunately, it was still pretty. The first two pieces I cut into tags, and found that Multi Medium Matte does show through vellum -- ugh! I set that one aside to see if I can do something with it later. Meanwhile, I adhered the last piece to a double sided adhesive sheet so it would behave itself, and die cut it into a fancy rectangle. Hah! Take that! It turned out just fine and I liked the offset word as well.

Last up was a project moving a piece of tape across the card and dabbing just a bit of ink on the edge each time. The sample had a black image over that, and I decided to do that too. It was pretty easy and I was pleased with the end result.

All in all, another good day of projects!

Clean & Simple 4, Day 5

We learned some inking tricks on Day 5 of the Clean & Simple Card Class.

I love the way this first one turned out. The lesson was direct ink to paper (the blue circle). The cool part was the stamped concentric circles with the blue showing through. I ran the card base through an embossing folder for a little texture.

For this second card, we masked off geometric shapes with tape and then inked in the exposed cardstock.

My third project attempt was a total disaster. Laura's project is so pretty, inked by dropping reinkers on a stack of baby wipes and using that as an ink pad. I didn't have plain wipes, and I don't have that many colored reinkers, so I tried misting some partially dried up Charmin wipes with water, which didn't work at all. I do have some baby wipes with a pattern in them, so I may try again even though Laura didn't recommend the textured ones. If I do get back to it, I'll update this post.

Clean and Simple 4, Day 4

Texture was the Day 4 theme, and I had fun with these.

We started with poking holes around the shape of a die and stitching.

I liked the tone-on-tone look of the next project. I didn't have the double sided tape that the instructor used, so I tried to improvise with an old roll of carpet tape I had laying around. Oh, brother! BIG mistake! It die cut OK, but the stuff is SO sticky. It stuck to my fingers. It stuck to itself. It stuck to the card in places I didn't want it to. I managed to make this card, but some of the "happys" are a bit wonky. Needless to say I then bought some of the correct type of adhesive and I will surely try this again.

This last one is my favorite from Day 4. Texture paste through a stencil and when it's dry...more texture paste through a different stencil! This time I cut my word using the right kind of double-sided adhesive and it was easy to use and adhere.

I have a few more cards in progress from Days 5 and 6 and will hopefully get Day 5 up tomorrow.

Clean and Simple 4, Day 3

Inked  backgrounds was the Day 3 theme. The first card was watercolor over a shape stamped in gesso. I like the idea a lot, but you can barely see my stamped shape. Still, the colors are pretty.

The next background was Versamark ink stenciled over a heavy coat of ink applied directly to cardstock and dried. Mine was a total flop, as you can barely see the stencil. I set it aside to see if I could find a use for it later; but when I die cut the fun foam for the Day 2 project. I liked the look of the foam flower on blue so much that I totally changed up the project. I did do the background -- the card just looks nothing like it is meant to!

I did this next one twice with mixed results. A background is stamped in white ink and when it dries,  a non-outline shape is stamped over it. The idea is that the white background will create a pattern under the new stamping. My first effort used a music stamp as the background, and you can barely see it.

The second one was more successful, using a geometric line background stamp. You can clearly see the pattern in the leaves. I do like this technique.

Tomorrow I will finish Day 4 and post them. Hope also to get time to work on Days 5, 6 and 7!

Clean and Simple 4 Class, Day 2

The theme of Day 2 was Die Cutting, starting with this fun scallop:

 I wasn't sure I was going to do this next one even though it looked pretty cool. Die cuts were cut up and rearranged to fit within a shape. The sample was a heart; I used a circle. Easier than I thought to design but still kind of a pain to glue down.

This last one was my favorite. The flower was cut out of fun foam and used once as a stamp, and then flipped and glued down. The inked color is intense on the stamp, and pale on the foam. A smaller cut was left white. The photo doesn't show that the large flowers are purple and lilac. I love the way the fun foam softens the ink color as it sinks in.

OK, gonna post these in the Gallery and then put Day 3 up.