Thank You for Being a Friend JAI #465

Happy Friday everyone and welcome! We are mid way through Winter now and the chill is certainly palpable in the air. This week is particularly seasonal, with blizzards in the Alpine regions and even in the city we've had heavy rain and Gale force winds. But...when we see the sun they tell us it is rising earlier and setting a little later already 😉

So it's perfect timing for this week's new Just Add Ink challenge!! Nikki has suggested that we "Just Add...the Season."  So what is the Season where you are? Winter? Summer? Or maybe you have a favourite Season that you'd like to share with us. Whichever of the four weather based Seasons you'd like to choose, we'd love to see how you make them the focal point of your project.

For my card this week, I've gone with my favourite Season - Spring!! I am not a huge bird fan but I did love the look of this pretty page from the Bird Ballad Suite. Flicking through the catalogue I was reminded of the Lots of Happy Kit and that's where the sentiment comes from. Btw, has anyone found themselves singing the song this comes from or am I showing my age? Somehow it has become stuck in my head now 😀

The Nesting dies were used to layer the sentiment. But the next size up than the white layer was quite a bit longer.

So similarly with how to shorten a rectangle die, I simply placed the top cutting plate only half way over the die so it cuts only as far as the plate After passing it through the die cutting machine, I kept the die in place and placed the white layer on top and then moved the die over to frame the white layer evenly.

Another floral spray was fussy cut to add to the label with some Basic Pearls as centres. There are some soft layers of Burlap, twine the opposite side of the DSP and some black sequin trim. Wink of Stella was applied to all the blooms and this card is ready.

Card stock: Basic Black, Pool Party, Whisper White

Designer Series Paper: Bird Ballad

Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black

Stamps: Lots of Happy (Kit)

Accessories: Big Shot, Nested Labels Dies, Burlap Ribbon, Black Sequin Trim, White Twine, Basic Pearls

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope that you can take a moment to pop on over to Just Add Ink and see all the fabulous inspiration our lovely team has created for you. I look forward to seeing what Season you choose for your projects too!

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan

Bird Ballad Thinking of You

This week has been one filled with sad news for several of our friends and as a card maker that means we need to head into the craft room. Sometimes, especially in the emotion of the moment, it is not easy to come up with an original idea which is what happened to me this week. But we are blessed to have the internet and lovely friends who inspire us and today I've CASE"D (Copy and Share Edited) a design by my fabulous Just Add Ink team mate, Rochelle Blok. Funnily enough, her cards were inspired by another of my favourite card makers Jennifer McGuire 😊So I feel better that we all need inspiration sometimes!

The technique Jennifer calls "Floating die cut frames" and you get two cards out of the one design which was perfect for this situation as I wanted a card each for 2 sisters. 

Rochelle used the Bird Ballad DSP for her project and it's so very pretty that I wanted to give this a go too. The only thing I didn't have is the Glad Press n Seal. But I do have a roll of Post it Tape. 

So the idea is to lay your images (these are fussy cut from the Bird Ballad DSP ) to cover the card front. Add the Press n Seal or in this case, Post it Tape strips that I had first de stickied (is that even a word?) by taping to my jeans a few times... then die cut with a frame. Add dimensionals to every tiny piece of the cut images and then using the Glad or Post it Tape, add it to the card front and then remove the Glad/Tape. I can say it is worth the de-sticky process and I can also verify that Painters tape doesn't come off easily enough.

For this first card, I have added a smaller Nested Label to help show off the frame shape and a sentiment from Magnificent Magnolia. You can really see the dimension of the floral frame here too.

To help the label shape be the star, I added a white frame around the second card and the sentiment comes from a Saleabration set, Part of My Story.

Hopefully you can see here that the frame is flat to still allow the dimensional florals to shine.

Card stock: Whisper White thick and standard, Basic Black
Designer Series Paper: Bird Ballad
Inks: Versamark
Stamps: Magnificent Magnolia, Part of My Story (Saleabration, 2019)
Accessories: Big Shot, Stitched Nested Labels Dies, Black EP, White EP, Gold Faceted Gems, Basic Pearls.

Thanks so much for stopping by and if you too find you need to CASE a card or two please do but remember that it is always good to give credit to those that inspire you. We all need a little encouragement from time to time and it is really lovely to hear when you have inspired someone to get creative as that is what we are all here for. 😊

Happy stamping until next time,

Jan