Less is More - Challenge #301 - Purple and Gold

The current challenge over at Less is More is to use 'purple and gold'. And appropriately enough, our own Purple Princess Kathy K was the really deserving winner for October over at LIM, well done Kathy!

Kathy is often the very first into Less is More on a Saturday morning, whilst I'm usually bringing up the rear at the end of the week! This is what I made:

I used:

- 3" x 6" white card blank (gonna have to make an envelope to fit as well, sigh)

- a slightly smaller panel of the same white card, with the centre die cut using a die which came free with a recent issue of Die-cutting Essentials magazine (along with an embossing folder which has yet to be tried out here)

- backed the die cut panel with medium strength double sided sticky paper, leaving one side still covered and the sticky side showing through the die cut

- then used the same die cut to cut a gold star from mirri card and the rest of the scene in two shades of purple and stuck all the little pieces in place, inlaid into the sticky apertures

- backed the panel with a slightly larger piece of gold mirri card

- glued the whole panel onto the card front

- lastly, stamped the word 'Rejoice' using a stamp from the Paper Smooches 'Christmas Sampler' set and Memento 'Elderberry' ink

As I knew it was going to be a bit fiddly with several sets of die cuts to work with, I made two at the same time. Not identical, the sentiment is at the bottom of the other card - the one shown here was die cut with the image at the bottom hence the sentiment at the top. Not really what I planned 'cos it was a lapse of concentration on my part when placing the die, but I like it for a change from my usual 'straight sentiments go underneath the image'.

Today is Armistice Day over here, 11th November:

LEST WE FORGET

 

Stickeroo aperture Christmas cards

Most of you will know that I really love Penny Black Stickeroos. Up until now I've used them as 'toppers' on cards, always mounting them onto a snippet of card as a backing first as they really are impossible to move if you get it wrong when placing them.

I fancied making a little run of Christmas cards, so turned to a single sheet of Stickeroos and made five aperture cards for a change:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blanks

- five Stickeroos from the Penny Black sheet called 'Starry Night'. The sheet comes with six stickers in total but one just didn't 'do it' for me in terms of not being very Christmassy

- stuck each sticker onto pieces of white card about quarter of an inch bigger all round than the sticker itself

- rifled through my dies and found two Spell binder dies (square and 'wonky rectangle') plus a Lil'Inkers Stitched rectangle die which were just marginally smaller than the stickers

- lightly marked the card fronts with pencil lines across the horizontal and vertical centre lines, placed the dies one by one on each card (used removable tape to hold them in place) and die cut an aperture in the front of each card

- used a soft eraser to rub out the pencil lines

- then ran a fine line of Collall glue around the inside edge of each aperture on the reverse and adhered the corresponding Stickeroo in place

- to finish off the insides of the cards I just added white card panels trimmed to slightly smaller than the card size to cover the back of each image

- finally, added the sentiment using the Misti, acetate grid, Memento 'London Fog' ink pad and stamps from the Paper Smooches 'Christmas Sampler' set

Five Christmas cards rustled up in double quick time and I do like the 'Stickeroo behind an aperture' technique. The sentiments also look just right (in real life!) as the Memento 'London Fog' ink tones well with the actual Stickeroo images.

The sentiment stamps are from a set exactly the same as the one on offer as a prize this week in the Snippets Playground :)

Addicted to CAS - Challenge 100 - 'Monster'

Determined to join in with Addicted to CAS where the theme is 'Monster' right now,  I spotted an unused set of 'monster' stamps here in one of the NBUS boxes - so it would have been rude not to play really!

I used:

- 5" x 7"white card blank, tent style

- piece of slightly smaller white card, embossed using one of the Cuttlebug 'Coolio' set of four embossing folders and glued onto the card front

- a stamp from the Woodware 'The Blimps' set, stamped onto white card stock using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and coloured using Pro markers

- then I die cut a 'Polaroid' frame using the Lil' Inkers 'Instant Camera' die 

- stamped the words 'Selfie time' using  Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the 'Good to be Bad' set by Clearly Besotted

- then positioned the image how I wanted it behind the frame with one arm 'out of shot', trimmed it to size and stuck it in place using very narrow red line tape

- added the frame with image to the card front

- finally glued a couple of goggly eyes in place

I quite like the 'outer space' feel of the embossing folder - cue spooky Martians music :)

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 254

Hi there! For those of you who saw my post of yesterday, yes, it's been a long week in terms of not being able to get fully comfortable - but I think there might just be a glimmer of light ahead. The joy of respite, if only for a short while, is wonderful and I'm very thankful for any positive signs. The little dog in the photo I posted here is 100% like the little Bichon Frise looks like when having a bath. All dark eyes with a huge black button nose, and under that white puffball there's quite a small and skinny little pooch when it's wet!

Let's move on to my snippets make for this week:

I used:

- 5.75" x 5.75" square white card blank

- snippet of white card stock, backed with Stick-It self adhesive sheet and then die cut using Apple Blossom's 'Woodland Scene' die

- snippet of deep blue pearlescent card onto which I layered the white die cut and the 'snowflake' cut outs before trimming it around the edges as a 'frame'

- then added the sentiment using Delicata 'Silvery Shimmer' ink pad (it's so luscious I don't see any need to emboss it like I normally would do with some metallic ink pads) and a stamp from the Paper Smooches sentiments set called 'Christmas Sampler'. For this I used the Misti and an acetate grid - more details are underneath this little list of steps

- glued the panel to the card front and added teeny, very flat, sparkly 'gems' to the centre of each snowflake

- final touch, which doesn't show up in the photos of course, I added lines of clear Wink of Stella down the tree trunks

A couple of things about this card:

First of all, the die I used was bought online back in July - and I felt a bit cheated when it then appeared to be a free gift with Die Cutting Essentials magazine in September. But, from what I can see online, the freebie die is actually a bit smaller then the one I bought (mine is 5" x 5") and it also has a few stars cut out as well as the snowflakes - so it's not absolutely identical! I see that the die I have is no longer available, which is a shame as it's a real beauty.

And, when stamping the sentiment, I used an acetate grid I'd printed from the Internet to help with placing the sentiment absolutely straight. Misti does have a free printable grid on their website but it's only the size of a USA A2 card, similar to our UK A6 size - so I had a little hunt and found freely available grids online. Mine came from here and, once trimmed, it covers almost the whole of the standard sized Misti's stamping area. You do need to print onto the slightly rough side of printable acetate BTW. Plus, do be aware that even if you adjust the print setting by ticking/unticking 'Ignore scaling and shrink to page width' there will still be a gnats whisker's difference either way if you hold a ruler up against the squares. For me it doesn't matter, and as yet, I haven't come across a way to replicate 100% perfectly quarter inch grid squares. Of course, a well known stamping store in the USA does sell the acetate grids on line as well!

Now for the weekly peek at the picks:

What a great card, made by Kim. And, what's even more inspiring is that she made her own stamp for the swirly background! I won't tell you how but I bet it's something you'll want to try out - go over to Kim's and take a peek.

And here's another really fun card you might want to try out for yourself as well! Made by Barb, it's a slider card - perfect for all ages really, but especially so for kiddies. Slider cards have made a comeback lately and are certainly on my 'to do' list :)

I think you might very well want to keep this fabulous, fresh looking pop up Halloween card in mind for next year girls! Made by Liz and I think it's really great way to use up lots of snippets.

And another Halloween make, brought to the Playground by Kitty to share with us. It's a shaker tag and what a brilliant design - the eyelash ribbon is a lovely finishing touch!

Aren't these butterflies absolutely gorgeous? This card was made by Cathy R using 'Finnabair art alchemy opal magic paint' and nosy me had to go and Google it of course. My first thoughts were that the paint would be very much like Twinkling H2O's but in fact the little pots contain liquid acrylic paint all ready to use (unlike Twinkles which are hard little blocks of mica enhanced colour that you apply using water once you mix up a nice little sludge). Another great idea to help you spend your pennies :)

Isn't this a fun card? Made by Lynn (Linby) and what an impact. A very neat little trick which somehow 'completes' the card is how Lynn used some of the waste from the 'splat' die cuts to fill in a few small areas of the word die. Clever little sausage!

And how about this for a clever design for a Wedding Anniversary card, made by Pat? Love the sheer drama of the black, white and red - and using the little hearts left as 'waste' from the die cut gives the impression of confetti, IMHO :)

I really love this card, made by Megan! Am always a fan of easel cards and as for the brilliant image - that glass of wine looks a perfect size to me for sure!

And last, but by no means least - Erika hopped in to play again, with this great card. I love the design and such a perfect way to use up strips of snippets as well!

We had no new Playmates last week - and not quite as many of you came to play (47 in total). I have a strong feeling that folk have suddenly realised that the countdown to Christmas has begun, now that we're into November, and there could well bit a bit of frenzied work going on! Visions of little fingers flying, scissors, stamps and dies being flung around - and a lot of muttering as well.

Prize draw time now and our winner of the Paper Smooches 'Mirror Blocks' stamps and the Lawn Fawn 'Love You Tons' of stamps is:

 Kathy K 

Well done Kathy, and about time too! I've scouted right back through blog posts and can't find exactly how long it is since you first began to play with us. At least three years initially by my reckoning, and certainly weekly for a while now! Can it be true that this is your very first win? I think that may well be the case as you often play for fun Kathy - am just so pleased that you finally got to win a prize!   

Can you please drop me an email with your address in and I'll post your prize off as soon as possible! My email address is on the right hand side bar. 

This coming week's prize is:

But of course, it's an Apple Blossom 'Woodland Scene' die that I bought at the same time as mine back in July - and a Paper Smooches 'Christmas Sampler' sentiments stamp set. I do love the variety of fonts in these sets.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 12th November. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Once again, I think both items work really well as a pair so they are one prize, but if you have a burning desire for just the die or the stamps set then please feel free to say and if your name pops out then I'll do a second draw for the item you don't want. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Have a lovely week! And a big hug from Parsnip of course - he's got his ear defenders ready for the inevitable fireworks tonight, I'm writing this on Saturday of course :)

Just about sums it up really!

Teenage boy's Birthday card

Oh how I struggle to make cards for boys once they're past the 'cutesy' stage! Len's 15 year old nephew Ben had a Birthday recently and, after almost banging my head on the desk here trying to think what to make, I resorted to buying a digital card set on line. I'm only really posting it on here as my blog also serves as a reminder of who I sent which Birthday cards to, mostly so I don't do any repeats to the same person.

I used:

- 4" x 5.75" white card blank

- a digital card set which came from here, printed onto almost matt photo paper

- trimmed and glued the backing layer onto the card front

- then just cut the top layers and backed them with pieces of white fun foam before gluing them onto the card front. I already said in a previous post last week that a full layer of white foam underneath largish raised areas will help to prevent the card from ending up with 'buckles' here and there, especially after being whipped through the Royal Mail sorting machines!

A really quick and easy card and I do like how the silver outlines look so realistic. There's a £5 minimum spend on the site I bought this from, so I bought a few other card/topper sets at the same time. Now I just need to remember to use them of course :)

And another reminder for myself - this card was made for a little neighbour who is eight years old tomorrow. Card topper designed by my in-house critic - trimming and sticking by yours truly :)

I was really thrilled when a lovely bloggy friend asked if Len would do a repeat of the 'builders' card he designed this Summer - for her little Grandson. Of course he was more than happy to do so and and altered the name and age to suit. Bless her (you know who you are if you're reading this) - she even offered to pay for it! It was a total pleasure to help out and the payment was to know that you and the little chap liked the result.

Less is More- Week 300 - Time to Celebrate

The current challenge over at Less is More is 'Time to Celebrate' - and Chrissie and her brilliant team certainly have every reason to celebrate is it's Week 300! Congratulations ladies!

I love to join in with Less is More whenever I can and was determined to play along on such a special week. I chose to celebrate Christmas at the same time with this card:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank, tent style

- piece of backing card in pearlescent deep red, cut to the same size as the card front and glued in place

- piece of white Centura pearlescent card, embossed using a Sheen Douglass folder called 'Frosty Ice Border', trimmed to slightly smaller than the red layer of card and glued in place

- next I used the Sue Wilson Festive Collection 'Joy' die set to cut out the solid letters J O Y from more deep red card and set them aside

- using the scroll work die from the same set, die cut the word JOY(that layer is an 'all in one' cut) using gold Xcut adhesive metal effect sheet

- stuck the red letters behind the scroll work JOY, then added little spots of glue to the backs of the red letters using a Woodware fine line glue bottle and popped the whole assembled word onto the embossed card front. The glue behind the solid letters plus the adhesive on the back of any uncovered gold scroll work holds it nicely in place

I'd also like to enter this into three other challenges that I love to play along with:

Allsorts  Challenge Week 387 - 'Let's Make A Start On Christmas'

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 305  - Anything Goes So Long As It's Christmas

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for November - Always Anything Goes

Made three the same and although I've slowed down a bit in production due to this wretched back, there's a nice healthy box of cards which probably will cover us anyhow. But, I won't stop production just yet, of all the cards I make, it's the Christmas ones I enjoy most. Weird or what?!

Cuttlebug Mania Challenge - 'Tic-Tac-Toe'

Time for another Cuttlebug Mania Challenge and the theme this time is 'Tic, Tac, Toe'.

 

I sat and pondered for absolutely ages as I'm hopeless at making decisions and there's so much choice! Then realised that the Birthday card I was making at the time was a perfect fit to two of the lines! It fitted in with Animal(s) - Die cuts - Sentiment. (It also fitted Floral (the little confetti-like pattern is a mix of hearts and flowers) - Die cuts - Number - yay!)

You do have to use a manual die cutting/embossing machine for Cuttlebug Mania entries (it doesn't need to be a Cuttlebug but it must be manual, not electronic). And, you can't mix the two, it must be all manual please. Then make your entry, link into the challenge, link to the challenge in your own blog post and and make sure that you also say what products you used for any die cutting/embossing.

Details of our sponsor can be found over on the Cuttlebug Mania Challenge blog.

This is my DT card which is for a cute little grand daughter, Olivia (aka Livi) who is 7 today:

 I used:

- A5 sized card which came in the Hunkydory 'Perfect Princesses'  set of goodies which we were given after the Coventry workshops, scored and folded

- the main topper came from a matching sheet of toppers called 'Magical Kingdom' and I just added some sellotape behind the image to keep the scalloped outer ring in place and put it to one side while I sorted out the rest of the card

- also chose a small topper for the top right hand corner - again, set it to one side while I played

- die cut the 'Happy Birthday' sentiment using some silver Xcut adhesive metal effect sheet and a Presscut 'Happy Birthday #1' die, peeled away the backing and popped it onto the top left of the card

- die cut the number 7 (using Memory Box 'Classic Numbers' die set), again with some silver Xcut adhesive metal effect sheet, and added it to the main image topper

- die cut 'OLIVIA', again from the self adhesive silver sheet using First Editions 'Alphabet Sans Serif' dies

- stuck the main scalloped image topper in place using Collall All Purpose glue and then added the self adhesive 'OLIVIA' letters underneath

- added the small round topper to the top right hand corner using glue

- the bag of goodies also contained a huge array of card inserts, to match up with the cards so I stuck one of those inside to finish off

Happy Birthday Livi!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 253

Crumbs, that week went fast! And we've just  changed the clocks by an hour here in the UK overnight - you did, didn't you? That means darker evenings earlier of course, just in time for Halloween tomorrow.

Thank you so much for all the kind comments and get better wishes re. 'shingles'. Thankfully the rash is already clearing nicely, most probably as I went onto medication the very same day - which was a fluke as I only mentioned it during a routine appointment. The back is on the whole less painful too - getting in and out of my car is a nightmare though. Little by little is how I'm handling it - trying to keep moving seems to be key, loads of fluids and thinking happy thoughts :)

Anyhow - here's my snippets make for this week:

I used:

- 4.25" x 5.5" white card blank, tent style

- a snippet of SU 'Marina Mist' card stock, embossed using a SU folder called 'Happy Heart'. Trimmed to just slightly smaller than the card front and then glued in place

- the little elephants were great fun to play with as I used the 'mirror technique' for them. The stamp set I used is called 'Love You Tons' by Lawn Fawn and it does actually come with two slightly different little elephant stamps which face one another but I wanted to do a mirror image of  just one - to prove it can be done really!

- the secret is over here on Jennifer Maguire's blog and it's much easier for you to see how she did it than for me to explain

- so, I stamped both elephants onto a snippet of white card facing one another, following Jennifer's video. I used Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Paper Smooches 'Mirror Blocks' set, plus a little elephant from the 'Love You Tons' set. Found I had to work very fast. Jennifer recommends using VersaFine ink as it doesn't dry too quickly and I can see where she's coming from on that one! 

- then coloured both elephants using a grey Pro marker before stamping a little heart above (from the same set) using SU 'Real Red' ink

- then I stamped the sentiment from the same set directly underneath the elephants and would you believe there was a teeny bit of fluff caught up on the ink pad so I ended up with a bit of a smudge - sigh :(

- not to worry, I just stamped the sentiment again onto a different piece of card and slightly rethought the card design :)

- trimmed a snippet of SU 'Real Red' card stock plus the image and the sentiment then popped them onto the red card using a tape runner rather than glue (not sure why and it was daring in itself!)

- added the image/sentiment panel to the card front using fun foam to raise the panel - finished

My card design bears more than a passing resemblance to one of Jennifer's cards on the blog post linked above - I really liked the idea of the red, white and turquoise blue together, with embossed hearts on the backing panel.

Of course you can achieve good results using just a piece of acetate and no Misti - I've done this in the past, especially for 'reflections' in water or on snow when you want to 'flip' the image. But IMHO the Mirror Block stamps and the Misti do take a lot of the 'risk' away. You get the chance to stamp over the image again totally accurately if you aren't happy with the first 'press' and the Mirror Blocks are much less likely to 'smudge' as they're made of polymer just like clear stamps rather than slippery acetate.

But there again, we always managed to cope doing it the old way didn't we? I often stop and wonder when the craft world will run out of ideas to tempt us into spending more money - not likely for a good while yet!

Lets move straight onto the weekly peek at the picks, I've kept the numbers down this week - purely as am limiting my time spent at the desk:

I really love this card, made by Sue T. A fabulous way to use up little snippets of mirri card and I, for one, can't bear to throw away even the smallest snippet of any sparkly or shiny card :)

Kath shared this really elegant card with us. I love the way she used vellum with a gorgeous peel off - perfect use of a vellum snippet and also for Less Is More's challenge for last week which was to 'use vellum or acetate'.

Just had to include this wonderful note pad, made by Alice. It sums up Autumn perfectly and really is something I'd love to try making at some point in the future. My understanding is that Alice used the outer cover of a hard back diary or similar as the starting point - so it's clever upcycling too!

Lovely to see Bozena playing along with us again - and what an inspirational Christmas card too! Some wonderful 'colour smooshing' on the blue panel there as well.

Sonia flew in with this marvellous pop up slider Christmas card to show to us. As always, it's an absolute delight and there are loads of details over on Sonia's blog if you want to have a go yourself :)

And, Sue and Roy tied the knot on 22nd October! After his illness and such a worrying time it was really heartwarming to see so much happiness on their special day. The official photos should be on Sue's blog before too long (I hope so Sue?) - meanwhile here's one to keep you going :) Such a pretty outfit as well!

We had two new Playmates last week - and 57 of you came to play in total. As always, such wonderful inspiration from all of you!

This is the sweetest bookmark, made by 'Paperpapier' - I think it's so pretty and very clever how it slips over the corner of the page.

Helen hopped into the Playground to share this beautiful card - I love the 'camouflage' technique and this really is such a perfect example!

Welcome to both of you and we hope you come back and play really soon!
 

And it's prize draw time, for the prize from last week. Our winner of the Tonic Studios 'Scotty Dog' die and the Inkylicious sentiments stamp set called 'Seasons Greetings' is:

Jenny L

 

Well, that gave me goosebumps when Jenny's number popped straight out of the Random Number thingy! First of all, Jenny's card last week featured Scottie dogs and tartan as my own snippets card did - by pure coincidence. And, Jenny's nickname at school was 'Scottie' so she has a real affinity with Scottie dogs!! Well done Jenny, I'm sure everyone else will agree that this prize is just perfect for you.

Can you please drop me an email with your address in and I'll post your prize off as soon as possible! My email address is on the right hand side bar. 
 
Sadly, no-one took up Penny's kind offer of tickets to the Crafting Live Show at Peterborough on 11th/12th November. But it was really kind of you to offer the tickets Pen!

This coming week's prize is:

One set of Paper Smooches 'Mirror Blocks' stamps (the largest stamp is 2.5" x 3.5" by the way) and also a Lawn Fawn 'Love You Tons' dinky little set of stamps. Just like I used for my snippets card today.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 5th November. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Once again, I think both items work really well as a pair but if you have a burning desire for just the 'mirror blocks' stamps or the 'Love You Tons' stamps then please feel free to say and if your name pops out then I'll do a second draw for the item you don't want. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Have a lovely week!

Parsnip (aka the little white peril) is in disgrace after doing a practice run with green eyeshadow ready for Halloween. But he sends a wave from the 'naughty corner' anyhow!

Less is More Challenge 299 - 'Acetate or Vellum'

It's a lovely theme this week over at Less is More - use acetate or vellum. I flipped a coin, vellum won - and this is the card I made:

I used:

- 4" x 6" white card blank, tent style

- snippet of white card, embossed using a Sizzix folder called 'Corner, flower vine' then trimmed to just an eighth of an inch smaller all round than the card blank 

- added the sentiment using Memento 'London Fog' ink and a sentiment from the Hero Arts 'Truly Appreciated' stamp set

- I wanted the embossed layer to stand out from the card blank so followed a tip I found last week which is to not use double sided foam pads or tape as the card will likely become distorted in the post. Instead I cut a piece of white fun foam just marginally smaller than the embossed panel and glued it in place

- then glued the panel onto the card front. Using the foam certainly makes for a lovely even, raised panel and it's a trick to be used more here in the future

- stamped three flowers onto plain white vellum. First swiped the vellum with a Woodware anti-static bag. Stamped three flowers using a clematis stamp from the SU 'Secret Garden' set using VersaMark ink and then embossed with white embossing powder 

- coloured the flowers on the reverse side of the vellum using Pro markers and quickly dried the flowers using the heat gun (the alcohol ink doesn't soak in so will come off on your fingers if it isn't totally dry - ask me how I know!) The beauty of colouring on the back of the vellum is that the embossed white lines disguise any minor 'blips'/slips of the markers :) 

- next I fussy cut around the flowers and gently shaped them using a bone folder underneath each petal

- glued them in place on the card front using a teeny drop of 'Glossy Accents' - and thankfully the white embossed stamens in the centre of the flowers were enough to cover any glue from showing through

Some tips about vellum. Do keep a little strip of vellum and try out your markers on the reverse before launching into colouring whatever you've stamped. It's really dramatic how muted the colours become once you flip the vellum over to the right side.

When colouring the vellum on the reverse it helps to work with a dark piece of paper or card underneath so that the white outlines stand out - and keep a piece of white card or paper at hand as a background to check how the colours are working out.

Also, my first attempt at attaching the flowers to the card from almost ended in disaster - Collall glue reacts quite violently with Pro markers on vellum and not only doesn't want to stick but will also lift the colour right off the vellum. Luckily I spotted it right away and switched to 'Glossy Accents' instead.

Finally, on my card above, I'd trimmed parts of a couple of the flowers too close to the white embossed line. Only noticed this as I was finishing off writing this post and I haven't changed the photo - but, those white lines are now back in place along the edges where I'd trimmed too close. Courtesy of my Signo white pen - which did need a little scribble on a snippet of ordinary paper to get the ink flowing. My guess is that it's because vellum is such a silky surface.

Tricks with the Misti #2 - 'Multiple Layer stamping'

I'm sure I have 'wonky' eyes! Even using clear polymer stamps I struggle horrendously when trying to get decent images using the so popular 'multiple stamp' images such as SU flower sets.

My search last week turned up some neat little tricks and this is the card I made first of all:

I used:

- 4.25" x 5.5" white card blank, tent style

- backing layer of SU 'Always Artichoke' card stock, die cut using a Lil' Inkers 'Stitched Rectangles' die and glued onto the card front

- piece of white card stock, stamped using the SU 'Lotus Blossom' stamps set with the Misti - there's a mini tutorial below if you're interested. I used all SU inks, 'Daffodil Delight', 'Pumpkin Pie' and 'Tangerine Tango for the graduated colours on the flower head and 'Old Olive' for the stalk

- added the word 'Friend' using the Misti, Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Inkylicious 'Friend' set of sentiments

- die cut the image panel using a smaller Lil' Inkers 'Stitched Rectangles' die and glued it in place

Wow, I love using the Misti for this type of stamping! You can actually use just the Misti for this technique with clear stamps by carefully lining up the stamps onto the image, to be picked up by the lid as you build it up - and of course you can make several cards exactly the same at the same time, step by step.

As I don't trust my alignment capabilities I used the method which is absolutely perfect for solid rubber stamps whereby you use either acetate or something like the plastic sheet from the Stamp-a-ma-jig along with the Misti.

SU originally used to make their layered stamps from red rubber and boy did I struggle. Can't wait to dig a couple of old rubber layered sets out and have a play now!

There's at least one really good tutorial to be found online but I found it whilst browsing on my Notepad and didn't think to bookmark it. Have had another search using the laptop but can't find it so I hope my few steps/photos/words below are a help! Ha, they could of course totally confuse you! :) But remember that although I used polymer stamps and the plastic sheet - you should be able to do multi layer stamping with clear stamps just by placing the stamps onto the previously stamped images and then picking them up with the lid. So maybe you should imagine that my stamps are solid rubber ones :)

Step 1: First of all I used some masking tape to stick the SU plastic sheet from the Stamp-a-ma-jig to the top edge of the Misti with the lid open, butted right up against the top and side edges.  

Step 2: Then I placed the main 'body' stamp onto the plastic sheet face down and closed the Misti lid onto it so that the lid picked it up. Inked the stamp and stamped the image onto the plastic sheet. 

Step 3: Popped a piece of white card in place underneath the plastic to check where I wanted the flower to be positioned - similar to using a normal stamp positioner. Flipped the piece of plastic back out of the way whilst holding the piece of white card in place with magnets

Step 4: Next I re-inked the stamp using the palest colour and brought it down onto the piece of white card to lay down the main part of the flower. The picture above shows the plastic flipped over the image ready for the next step

Step 5: Then replaced the main flower stamp on the plastic sheet with the middle layer stamp (it doesn't matter if you're not exactly in the same spot). Picked the stamp up with the lid as in Step 2, inked it with the middle colour and stamped it onto the plastic sheet. As the plastic sheet was held in place with masking tape as a hinge I could just move the flower image on the white card around underneath the plastic to find the right stamping position and hold it in place with a couple of magnets. Then re-inked the stamp, lifted the plastic sheet out of the way and stamped onto the white card again.

That's actually all three stamped layers shown in the above photo, and I just added the stalk in much the same way

I really wish I could find that video again! It certainly is a much simpler process than the above photos and words imply!