IO Old is New

 

Greetings friends. Today we are revisiting older stamps and I thought I would share a simple winter card.

To make the card, I first started by creating a background.  I sponged Distress Oxide inks onto white cardstock and then added some black Distress Ink here and there over the top to make it look like night. When the piece was dry, I splattered watered-down white acrylic paint on top to look like snow or stars.

When the piece was once again dry, I embossed my trees in white and cut out a snowbank for the bottom.  Simple!

Impression Obsession Items Used:

Forest Trees J23053

IO- Die Cut Obsession

 

Greetings friends.  I wanted to share a Christmas card using one of the newer Impression Obsession dies.  I consider it to be a "go to" tree that can be decorated in any way that you want for the holidays.

For my card today, I used the Large Pine die and decorated it with an assortment of rhinestones to catch the light.  I added my sentiment and then popped up the tree with some foam tape.

The background is actually a generic leaf background.  I had a little leftover paint on the stamp, so I spritzed it with water and stamped it onto some scrap paper.  That is why the leaves are so faint and a little blurry.

Impression Obsession Items Used:

Large Pine DIE1023-J

Clear Set- Kringle Quotes CL1041

Dancing Leaves CC294

Cyber Monday Stamping Deals and a Clean and Simple Christmas Card

Greetings friends.  I wanted to share a few cyber Monday stamping deals with you today as well as a card.  Two of Memory Box's sister companies (Poppystamps and Birch Press Design) as well as Impression Obsession have sales today.

The first is Poppystamps.  You can find them here

The second is Birch Press Design.  They have beautiful ornaments, and you can find them here.

 

Finally, there is Impression Obsession.  It is the last day of their sale.  You can find them here.

Speaking of Impression Obsession, here is a holiday card I made using their stamps:

It is a really simple card.  All I did was stamp the bulb three times, color each with Copic marker and then cover them with a clear glaze pen to make them look like glass.  I punched holes at the top of each and then threaded some waxed linen thread through them.  The nice thing about the waxed linen is that it holds it shape really well and I didn't have to glue it down to the card.

Happy Holidays!

Impression Obsession Items Used:

Christmas Light C21338

Merry Christmas D21336

IO Die Cut Obsession and SALE!!!

 

Greetings friends.  Before I share my die-cut sample with you, I wanted to remind you that the big annual Impression Obsession sale starts today.  If there is anything you have had your eye on, now is a good time to buy!  You can find all the items here or you can click on the banner above.

Today the designers are all sharing ideas for using Impression Obsession dies. My card today combines Christmas dies as well as a stamped background and some washi tape:

I don't know about you, but I often forget about using my washi tape.  It does provide a nice background for your dies.  I also used the smallest piece to help hold down my tree dies.

To make the card, I cut out my two trees with green cardstock and then placed brown cardstock behind the open areas to look like branches.

Next, I cut out my sentiment using white cardstock and my star from metallic gold.

For the background, I stamped my watercolor dots in green ink, turned the image around and then stamped the paper a second time with the same green ink.  Some of the dots overlapped, but I thought it made the circles look a bit more random.  You could use two different colors of ink if you wanted them to stand out more.

As a final touch, I got out my collection of washi tapes and added different patterns and widths of tape to the card.  Here is a close up:

Have a fantastic day and don't forget about the sale!

Impression Obsession Items Used:

Three Trees DIE1038-E

Typewriter Sentiments DIE905Y (The "peace" is part of the set of Christmas words)

Planets DIE829-E

Watercolor Dots L20424

IO Challenge- Give Thanks

 

I always look forward to "give thanks" or "thank you" challenges.  I really enjoy making thank you cards and I appreciate seeing new ideas on how to thank others.  I hope you will join us in the challenge this month.  You can find all of the information over on the Impression Obsession blog here.

 I visited my mom last week and we actually celebrated Thanksgiving early.  This is the card that I plan to send her as a thank you for hosting me.  The sunflower is stamped in black Memento ink and then colored with Copic markers.  The background was created with watercolor paint on 140lb watercolor paint.  I added the paint horizontally so that it created stripes.  As a final step, I splattered the whole thing with gold metallic ink.  Here is a close up of the paint:

I hope that everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving.  It may look a little different than other years, but don't forget to give thanks to those people who are important in your life.

Impression Obsession Items Used:

Sunflower 2 F12288

Give Thanks C14667

IO- Diecut Obsession

 

Greetings friends.  Today I want to share a card that has a favorite die of mine that is being discontinued.  It is called "Peppermint Block," and it contains the stamp as well as the die.  The stamp includes 6 mints like the one I used and 6 candy canes.  It is a favorite of mine because it makes the perfect embellishment for holiday cards.  I think that it might be in the process of being discontinued because people weren't sure how to use it.  Basically, you stamp the block onto paper with red ink onto white cardstock.  It stamps all 12 candies at once as well as a square around it.  The coordinating die is also a square.  You simply place the square die on top of the stamped square, tape it down and cut out all 12 candies at once.  I love how easy it is to mass-produce.  If it is something you are interested in, the stamp/die set is half off until it is gone.

Here is a close up of the candy:

To finish the card, I stamped a peppermint stripe cover a card onto white cardstock and then ended up only using a small strip of it on the side.  I also added a tag, some mistletoe, some twine, and of course, a favorite sentiment that makes me smile.

Items Used:

Peppermint Block DIE314-V (50% off until it is gone)

Stitched Tag DIE798-Y

Mistletoe DIE1025-L

Candy Cane Stripes Cover a Card CC185

Christmas Socks E5731

Slim Scenes Hop - Day 2

 

 

              The Impression Obsession Slim Scenes Stamps Release Hop - Day 2!

 

Each day (October 15th & 16th) you can find a list of participants on the Impression Obsession Blog at 6am. 

 

There will be THREE $25 Impression Obsession Gift Certificates as givaways chosen randomly from comments on the Design Team blogs over the hop - so the more you comment through our Slim Scenes Hop the more chances to win!

 

All comments for all of the event days will be open until Monday November 2nd at midnight CT.

 

All winners will be announced on Tuesday, November 3rd.

 

All of the new stamps and dies are available now! You can find them all HERE

 

 

I don't know if you have this problem or not, but I find sympathy cards hard to make.  I thought I would make a card that could be used for support as well as other occasions.  Plus, I don't always want to stick to just using flowers.

To make the card, I used three different background stamps.  Two you saw yesterday (the sky and the tree line).  This time I added some mountains for extra scenery.  I paired the stamps with various shades of Impression Obsession ink.  The inks are nice because there are light, medium and dark shades that are meant to work together to give you a gradient of color.  The teal theme was chosen because my nearest mountains are the Blue Ridge Mountains.

To finish the card, I chose one of my favorite sympathy phrases and stamped it in the darkest shade.

Thanks so much for stopping by during the hop!

Impression Obsession Items Used:

Cloudy Sky 3232-LG

Tree Lined Hillside Duo 3229-LG

Mountain Layers 3226-LG 

Baby Blue ink (Sky)

Aqua ink

Teal ink

Blue Spruce ink

Pine ink

Here is a list of all the participating designers so you can join in the hop!

Angela Bode 

Anna Wight 

Dina Kowal 

Giovana Smith 

Ilina Crouse 

Jeanne Streiff 

Laura Fulcher  (you are here)

Laura Williams 

Lee Ann Barrett

Lynda Pleckan

Vicki Garrett

Slim Scenes Hop- Day 1

 

              The Impression Obsession Slim Scenes Stamps Release Hop starts today!

 

Each day (October 15th & 16th) you can find a list of participants on the Impression Obsession Blog at 6am. 

 

There will be THREE $25 Impression Obsession Gift Certificates as givaways chosen randomly from comments on the Design Team blogs over the hop - so the more you comment through our Slim Scenes Hop the more chances to win!

 

All comments for all of the event days will be open until Monday November 2nd at midnight CT.

 

All winners will be announced on Tuesday, November 3rd.

 

All of the new stamps and dies are available now! You can find them all HERE 

 

Greetings friends!  Slimline cards are really popular right now, and IO now has a line of stamps that are meant to fit the length of the card.  I made my finished card to be 8 1/2" x 3 1/2."  It fits into a regular business envelope, so there is no need for extra postage.

 

The first stamp I want to talk about is the Cloudy Sky background.  It is amazing!  I thought it might take a while to break in to get it to stamp well (larger stamps with solid areas often do), but no!  It stamped beautifully the first time I stamped it.  It looks so realistic!  I stamped it with Impression Obsession Sky Blue ink.  My recommendation is to use a MISTI or another stamp postitioner when you stamp these images.  You might have to stamp them multiple times to get the color you want.  It is also handy if you want to layer your colors like I did with the trees.

For the trees, I used one of the treeline stamps that comes in the Tree Lined Hillside Duo set.  The other treeline is pine trees.  I colored my trees with an assortment of Tombo markers, but really, any water-based markers would work.  I added marker to the trees, huffed on the ink a bit to keep it wet and then stamped it on top of the cloudy sky.  I repeated the process over and over until I got the look I wanted.  As a last step for the trees, I inked the ground area of the stamp with Toffee Versafine ink and a bit of dark brown marker.  Before I stamped onto the paper, I wiped off any ink that strayed onto the tree part of the stamp.

It may not look like it, but the background is only two stamps...the sky stamp and the tree/ground stamp. All that was left to do was add my sentiment in Vintage Sepia Versafine ink.

 

Impression Obsession Items I Used:

Cloudy Sky 3232-LG

Sky Blue Ink

Tree Lined Hillside Duo 3229-LG

Fall Blessings C198008

 

Here is a list of all the participating designers so you can join the hop:

 

Angela Bode 

Anna Wight 

Dina Kowal 

Giovana Smith 

Ilina Crouse 

Jeanne Streiff 

Laura Williams 

Laura Fulcher (you are here)

Lee Ann Barrett

Lynda Pleckan 

Vicki Garrett 

 

IO Challenge- You're a Hoot (Owls or other birds)

 Greetings friends.  It is time for another challenge.  If you would like to participate, you can find all of the information over on the Impression Obsession blog.  We hope you will join us!

This month's challenge is all about owls and other birds.  I definitely wanted to use my cute owl die and of course, I had to do my annual ode to candy corn.  It makes me laugh at how much I love the look of it and hate the taste of it.

To make the card, I cut out my owl and then placed it inside the Eyelet Circle die.  That die has a heart on the top of the pocket, but I just cut off the heart since it didn't really go with the theme of the card.  I stamped out my candy corn with black Memento ink and then colored them with Copic markers.  I then cut out the candy and glued them inside the pocket.

For the background of the card, I used the Wood grain cover a card background.

Owl items are currently on sale on the Impression Obsession site as the current featured products.  If you want to see the items on sale, you can find them all here.

Impression Obsession  Items Used:

Owl DIE283-O (on sale)

Eyelet Circle DIE924-V

Wood Grain Cover a Card CC359

Hoo's Got Candy A5476

Candy Corn B2273

IO- Die Cut Obsession

 

Greetings friends.  Today some of the Impression Obsession team are showing die cut cards.  If you would like a full list of participants, you can find them over on the Impression Obsession blog.

I must admit that I am a Christmas movie fanatic.  I quote them all the time and look forward to movie season.  That and some cookies puts me in a really good mood.  It seems more important than ever to focus on the things that make us happy.

To make the card, I first cut out my cookies in kraft cardstock and then again in white cardstock so that all the little cut outs would be easy to color.  I colored the inside of each cookie with Copic markers and then added a bit of glue and glitter to the tops to make them look like they were coated in sugar.  (It is a bit hard to see the glitter in the photo).

For the background, I stamped the retro circle cover a card background onto green cardstock using green ink.  I cut out a frame go around my sentiment and then added the cookies to the card.  Simple!

Impression Obsession Items Used:

Frosted Cookies DIE1015-I

Saying from clear set- Sweater Weather CL1037

Mid Size Frame die DIE930-Z

Retro Circle Cover a Card CC352

If you are still working on Halloween cards, don't forget that you can get 25% off select Halloween items- including the latest release!  If you click on the banner below, it will take you directly to the sale.