You Are Amazing – Kylie Bertucci’s International Stampin’ Up! Blog Highlights

Image ~ 14 March 201722 February 2018 ~ Anna Krol ~ 16 Comments

Anna’ Stampin’ Cave – You Are Amazing – Kylie Bertucci’s International Stampin’ Up! Blog Highlights

Thanks for coming to my blog today! We are being highlighted internationally by Kylie Bertucci and you are able to VOTE on my project. The top ten winners will get to be part of an international blog hop so please vote for my project. You can do it here or use button at the end of my post.

Our theme for this highlight is using the stamp set All Things Thanks! This is a Wonderful stamp set with so many gorgeous sentiments. We wanted to highlight how versatile it really is.

This is my first time taking part in Kylie Bertucci’s International Stampin’ Up! Blog Highlight so I’m a little bit nervous. For my card, I went with monochromatic clean and simple design.

You Are Amazing Card dimensions:

Whisper White cardstock: 11-6/8″ x 4-1/8″ scored in half at 5-7/8″ (29.7 x 10.5 cm scored in half at 14.8 cm)
Basic Grey DSP from Neutrals DSP Stack: two pieces 3″x 3″ each (7.6 cm x 7.6 cm)
Basic Grey cardstock: 1/2″ x 3-3/6″ (1.2 cm x 9.5 cm)
for sentiment piece of Whisper White cardstock
Whisper White Thick Baker’s Twine: 12″

First, I stamped my sentiment in Basic Grey on a piece of Whisper White cardstock and die cut it using 2nd smallest oval from Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies. Next, I took my card base and adhered my squares of Designer Series Paper in the middle, offsetting them slightly.

I took Basic Gray strip of cardstock and created a fun banner using a dotted strip die from Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Dies.

I adhered the banner in in the centre of my card front and popped up the sentiment on top using dimensionals. I wrapped bakers twine around my card and tied a simple knot on the front. For the final touch, I added a rhinestone to the ‘i’ in the sentiment.

Thanks for visiting my blog today and make sure you head over to Kylie’s blog to check all lovely projects and vote for your favourites. Hope my project will be among them as I would love to be chosen to do an international blog hop.

Thank you for stopping by and have a blessed day,

Shake It In Teals – Birthday Card For Sweet 17

Image ~ 14 March 201722 February 2018 ~ Anna Krol ~ 2 Comments

Hello and welcome! Today I want to share with you a card I’ve made for our daughter’s 17th birthday. I don’t know where the time has gone but I could swear she was just 7 not that long ago.

She’s not a girly-girl ( happy mamma here lol). She’s studying fine art in Sixth Form and she loves mixed media. So I had to come up with something little more ‘sophisticated’ than flowers and butterflies if you know what I mean 😉

This year I decided to make a shaker card in beautiful teal shades. [You can see her last year’s birthday card here]

Shake It In Teals Card dimensions:

Thick Whisper White cardstock: 11-6/8″ x 4-1/8″ scored in half at 5-7/8″ (29.7 x 10.5 cm scored in half at 14.8 cm)
Watercolour Paper: 5-6/8″ x 3-7/8″ (14.5 cm x 9.7 cm)
Basic Black cardstock: 1/2″ x 5-6/8″ (14.5 cm x 1.2 cm)
for die-cutting word happy pieces of Basic Black, Island Indigo and Emerald Envy

It’s very simple, a straightforward card so I won’t include a whole step by step instructions, just some hints, and tips.

Frame: To create a teal-like shade for the watercolour panel I’ve mixed Island Indigo ink with Emerald Envy ink in a watercolour wash. When the panel was dry I die cut a rectangle from the middle of the panel, creating a frame.

Numbers: I didn’t want the number to look flat and boring, so I took that watercoloured rectangle, stamped two paisley images in Versamark in the middle, heat embossed them in white and die cut numbers 1 and 7 from that piece.

‘Happy’: I die cut it three times: one from Basic Black cardstock, 2nd from Island Indigo and 3rd from Emerald Envy and adhered them together. To add shine to it I cover my word in Versamark and heat embossed in clear. I did the same with the Basic Black strip.

Before I put my shaker card together I adhered few sequins to the base of my card so not all sequins fall down when the card is standing on the shelf. For the final touch, I added some random gold dots to the frame with my gold Sharpie.

There’re few things that didn’t come out as I hoped for, but with my numb hands, I think that overall the card looks nice. The most important is the fact that our girl loved it, so YAY!

If you wish to purchase any of products I have used, simply click the images below to go directly to my online store and don’t forget to enter the hostess code for the month of March G3JKVASG to receive a gift from me.

Thank you for stopping by and have a blessed day

New Adventure Card For GDP076 Case The Designer Challenge

Image ~ 4 March 201722 February 2018 ~ Anna Krol ~ 4 Comments

Anna’ Stampin’ Cave – New Adventure Card For GDP076 Case The Designer Challenge

Hello and welcome everyone! Today I’m back with my entry for Global Design Project. This week’s challenge is to CASE lovely and talented Kylie Bertucci. And oh, boy! What a brilliant card it is!

Phew, I did it! To be honest I really thought I won’t make it this week. Lately, I’m so exhausted it’s unbelievable. Living with MS alone isn’t easy, but working night shifts on top of that truly wreak a havoc in my body. And even though I only work two shifts per week, sometimes I am so drained I need to recover for a couple of days before I get back on track. Then I have to pick up on things at home that have to be done, spend some quality time with hubby and daughter…and by the time I’m ready to sit down and create, another week roll on…crazy vicious cycle isn’t it haha

But today I woke up with ‘this idea’ that I just had to turn it into a card. So I jumped out of bed, brew myself a cup of chicory coffee, done my Bible reading and sneaked straight into my ‘cave’. I’ve used a really fun technique called ‘layered embossing resist’.

New Adventure Card dimensions:

Daffodil Delight cardstock: 11-6/8″ x 4-1/8″ scored in half at 5-7/8″ (29.7 x 10.5 cm scored in half at 14.8 cm)
Whisper White cardstock: 5-7/8″ x 2-1/2″ (14.8 cm x 6.4 cm)
Pumpkin Pie cardstock: 2 strips 5-7/8″ long and 1/2″ wide approx (14.8 cm x 1.3 cm)
Soft Sky cardstock: 3-1/2″ x 1″ (9 cm x 2.6 cm)
Whisper White Baker’s Twine: 6″

The bright colour combination I’ve used is inspired by this month’s Colour Your World Challenge.

To create this fun background (and a focal point of my card) I decided to use the clusters of leaves from Perpetual Birthday Calendar Stamp Set.

For the first layer, I randomly stamped few clusters of leaves using Versamark ink on Whisper White panel and heat embossed them in clear. Once it’s done, I inked the panel using Soft Sky Ink Pad.

To create the second layer I stamped and heat embossed my leaves in clear again and sponged my panel in Tempting Turquoise. For the last layer, I stamped my leaves in Dapper Denim. Next, I used iron and regular copy paper to remove embossing from the panel.

I added strips of Pumpkin Pie cardstock under my panel and adhered it all to the card base.

The sentiment is from Wild About Flowers Stamp Set. I stamped it in Dapper Denim on a piece of Soft Sky cardstock and cut one of the ends diagonally creating and wrapped white baker’s twine around the other end. I adhered it to the card base with dimensionals.

So this is it from me for today. Very simple card and so different from my usual style, but I quite like it. And I hope you like it too.

As always, I really want to encourage you to visit the Global Design Project challenge blog to see other beautiful projects from all around the world. Just click on their logo below to visit the website

Thank you for stopping by and have a blessed day,

Roses and Dragonfly Thank You For A Smile Card for GDP#075

Image ~ 24 February 201722 February 2018 ~ Anna Krol ~ 10 Comments

Anna’ Stampin’ Cave – Roses and Dragonfly Thank You For A Smile Card for GDP#075

Hello and welcome everyone! Today I’ve got for you a card I created for this week’s Global Design Project theme challenge: Winged Creatures. I’m bit late to the party but thankfully not too late.

I’m a big fan of detailed die-cutting and had this idea bouncing around in my head for a while now, just never had enough time to try it.

In this card, I’ve incorporated two die-cutting techniques – inlaid die-cutting and partial die-cutting – using a couple of detailed die sets: Rose Garden Thinlits Dies and Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits Dies.

Roses and Dragonfly Thank You For A Smile Card dimensions:

Sweet Sugarplum cardstock: 11-6/8″ x 4-1/8″ scored in half at 5-7/8″ (29.7 x 10.5 cm scored in half at 14.8 cm)
Whisper White cardstock cut into two panels: bottom one measure 5-6/8″ x 4″ (14,5 x 10,2 cm) and top one 5-1/2″ x 3-7/8″ (14 cm x 9,8 cm)
Blooms & Bliss Designer Series Paper: 5-1/2″ x 3-7/8″ (14 cm x 9,8 cm)

To create my card I started with die-cutting.

I wanted this small dragonfly to be in the foreground of my die-cut panel so I run it through my Big Shot first.

For this technique, you first want to die-cut the image you want to have in the foreground of your card and you work your way backwards. Everything you die-cut later will appear to be ‘behind’ this first image.

Once it has been die-cut, I removed the dragonfly die and die-cut and I placed the rose die on the panel. I placed it the way that some parts of the die overlapped the negative space where dragonfly was die-cut previously from.

Again, I run it through the Big Shot and very carefully removed my rose die-cut from the die, being careful not to lose all the separate pieces as I will need them all to inlaid them back to my panel. I die-cut two more partial roses (one at a time) from the same panel, every time making sure they overlap the space of a previously die-cut image and saving all the little die-cut pieces. I arranged all my die-cut on the desk, so I knew

Once all the images were die-cut, I adhered what was left of the panel to the Blooms & Bliss DSP piece. And now the fun began: I had to inlay all the die-cut outlines where they came from.

The easiest part was to inlay the dragonfly outline. From there, I worked my way through the roses in the same order I die-cut them. Once I was done, I matted my detailed panel with slightly bigger Whisper White piece and next mounted it onto my Sweet Sugarplum card base.

I masked bottom part of the sentiment ‘Thanks for the smile and everything else’, stamped it on a strip of Whisper White cardstock in Basic Black Archival Ink and cut it into a banner. I also cut a banner from Sweet Sugarplum cardstock and adhered them both to my card, offsetting slightly.

I was pretty happy with the outcome but I had a feeling that something was missing. So I masked the detailed part and all the edges of my card, and I added some tiny speckles in Basic Black and Sweet Sugarplum. Few rhinestones wrap up my card.

I hope you feel inspired and that you give this technique a go. Thank you for stopping by and have a blessed day,

How-To: Partial Die-Cutting To Extend Your Square Dies

Image ~ 22 February 201722 February 2018 ~ Anna Krol ~ Leave a comment

Anna’ Stampin’ Cave – How-To: Partial Die-Cutting To Extend Your Square Dies

Couple of weeks ago I posted on my blog this lovely card and I had an enormous response, and questions on how I turned a square from Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies into the rectangle.

I hoped to post it earlier but as always life got in the way. But finally, I got around to show you how I did it. The technique is called partial die-cutting.

By no means, I didn’t invent this technique. It’s been around for a long time and is usually used to create pop-up elements or intricate borders.

To create a rectangle I took a piece of cardstock and my square die. I’ve used Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies, but you can use any thin square dies for this technique.

I placed the die, with the cutting edge down, on a piece of cardstock. I set the top plate of my cutting sandwich so that is only partially over the die. The portion that is under the top plate is the part that will get cut out. I run it through the Big Shot.

Now I lined up my die with this partially die-cut piece. It’s not difficult at all, as cutting edge of the die slip right into the grove.

And again I placed the top plate so that it’s only partially over the die. Just this time my partially die-cut piece and is on the side that won’t be cut. I run it through the Big Shot.

And voila, you have a stitched rectangle! But as I mentioned before you can use any thin square dies for this technique.

I hope you liked my short ‘how to’ post and that you’ll use this technique to stretch your dies.

Thank you for stopping by and have a blessed day,

Anna' Stampin' Cave

creative life by anna krol – stampin' up! uk independent demonstrator

Stampin Up Spring Summer 2017

You Are Amazing – Kylie Bertucci’s International Stampin’ Up! Blog Highlights

Shake It In Teals – Birthday Card For Sweet 17

New Adventure Card For GDP076 Case The Designer Challenge

Roses and Dragonfly Thank You For A Smile Card for GDP#075

For this technique, you first want to die-cut the image you want to have in the foreground of your card and you work your way backwards. Everything you die-cut later will appear to be ‘behind’ this first image.

How-To: Partial Die-Cutting To Extend Your Square Dies