Happy 3rd Birthday Topflight Stamps!! Let's Hop!

Welcome Topflight Hoppers!! It's Topflight Stamps 3rd birthday and to celebrate, I’ve teamed up with some great designers to showcase birthday cards using the unique products available at Topflight Stamps. Please hop along with us and see all the beautiful talent from this group of amazing designers! You should have arrived here from the Topflight Stamps blog. If not, no worries, catch the details below.

I made a fun mixed media robot birthday card for my project! Scroll past all the Hop info to find the background tutorial. Be sure to leave a comment to be eligible for my blog prize and the grand prize.

I was having so much fun I made a matching ATC too using the same techniques:

Follow along here and if you get lost you can always start at the Topflight Stamp Blog. 

Topflight Stamps
Lisa Hoel
Jennie Atkinson <<<<<NEXT
Cornelia Wenokor
Jenny Colacicco 
Karen Bearse
Dina Kowal
Kathi Rerek
Connie Mercer
Toni Maddox
Lindsay Weirich
Ericka Strange
Jenny Marples
Autumn Clark
Rachel Greig 

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

Of course, it wouldn’t be a birthday celebration without prizes!  Topflight Stamps is giving one lucky winner a $50 Gift Certificate to the store. But wait, there is more, each stop on the hop has an additional $15 Gift Certificate up for grabs for some lucky commenter.  For a chance to win, make sure to visit every stop on the hop and leave a comment by March 28th. Winners will be announced on the Topflight Stamps blog on March 31st.  Good Luck! Check out the sale at the store too!! 25% off your whole order!

Here is the tutorial for the background and a supply list:

Step 1 - I used a piece of heavy manila folder for my substrate. I base coated it with Stone and Mahogany Fresco Paint.

Step 2 - I wanted to give Andy Skinner's Cosmic Shimmer Resist Paste a try. (see his video about it here if you like) It works well! Once my first layer of paint was nice and dry, I used a stencil and blending brush to apply the paste.

Step 3 – Once the paste was applied, I painted over it with another layer of paint and then let that layer dry.

Step 4 - I used a damp baby wipe to remove the paint that was on top of the resist paste:

Cool beans!

Step 5 –  After applying texture paste through another stencil, I sprinkled the wet paste with Patina Oxide embossing powder and let it dry. One slight annoyance, the resist paste was still a bit tacky and grabbed some of the embossing powder. Once the texture paste was dry, I just used a dry paint brush to remove some of the extra powder. When I made the ATC background, the painted base sat around overnight before I did the embossing powder step and I had no trouble with excess powder sticking. (fyi)

Texture Paste added.

Sprinkled with embossing powder.

Step 6 - After melting the embossing powder, I gave the whole card front a wash of thinned out Paynes Grey acrylic paint. It unified the background and pooled around the raised areas which made them pop out more. The robot was stamped, watercolored, fussy cut and then attached to a Wobbler so it really pops off the card and moves around.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the Hop!! Comment below for a chance to win!

Supplies used:

Topflight Stamps Products:
Visible Image - Robot Data
Paper Rose - Cog Frame Border Die Set
Stamperia stencil - Microchip
Visible Image Stencil - Short Circuit
Prism Embossing Ink
Versafine Ink - Onyx Black
Seth Apter embossing powder - Patina Oxide
Cosmic Shimmer Resist Paste
Wobblers
Ink Blenders
PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Paint - Stone, Mahogany, Dusty Teal, French Roast
ATC greyboard blanks

watercolors
Tim Holtz Mini Fasteners
Tim Holtz Distress Mica Spray - Tarnished Brass
Ranger Texture Paste - Opaque Matte

Some links in this post are affiliate links which do not affect the price you pay but allow me to earn a small percentage of a sale. Thanks! (My husband also thanks you!) If you shop at Topflight Stamps, use my coupon code LISAHOEL for 12% off your order.

Mermaid Garden Shaker Card with Eileen Hull

What a month this has been! At least we can continue to look outside and see spring unfold. I've been working hard in my yard getting all the spring cleanup done. I'm eager to see some flowers start to bloom. All this month on Eileen Hull's blog the Inspiration Team has been busy creating and sharing lovely projects celebrating spring. I created a mermaid's garden shaker card mounted on a base cut with Eileen's new Display Stand Sizzix Die. I made it as a birthday card for my sister-in-law Katie who is a fellow lover of mermaids.

The shaker front is a sample from the January Creativation show. We R Memory Keepers was demoing one of their new (very cool!!) machines, a Mold Press. (see the short demo video here) It is basically a mini vacuum form machine and you can mold a sheet of hot plastic over pretty much everything! They had a scallop shell and foam stick on letters so I got the bright idea to make one with my SIL's name so I could use it later for a card. (Thinkin' ahead I was!!) So check out the video. I'm not gonna lie, I'm coveting one of those machines lol.

I applied a bit of gold paint to the inside of the letters to make them stand out.

The Display Stand has a built in stand that you can pop up and down so you can fold it flat for mailing (although this one isn't very flat ;-) I mailed it popped up in a box along with her present.

Here are a few peeks at how I put this together:

Step 1 - I inked up a sheet of Mat board with the blue background and then cut out my stand. Then I stamped a bit in the background. I figured out how the shaker front was going to fit onto the front and traced the cut lines with a sharpie marker. It was easy to cut with sharp scissors.

I prepared my mermaid and sea horse die cuts and also painted a bit of gold paint on the inside of the letters of her name to make them stand out.

Step 2 – Filling the shaker was a little tricky. I carefully made a little pile of the shaker bits in the middle of the area under the shell. I then applied Glossy Accents to the back of the plastic front and carefully laid it onto the front of the card. I pressed it down tightly with my hands and held it in place for a few moments until it started to hold. Then I weighted it down until it was totally dry.

When it was dry, I embellished the front with my die cuts and a layer of Dirty Sand embossing powder for the ocean floor.

It it is a little confusing on how to fold the Display Stand at first. Eileen Hull has created a short video on how to do it! Feel free to watch it several times. ;-)



Thanks for stopping by! Check out Eileen's blog and if you are not already a member, join the Facebook Eileen Hull Fan Club group. It is a warm, supportive group with lots of inspiration and sharing going on. You'll just have to answer a few simple questions when asking to join (to keep out spammers) and then you'll be added. ;-)


Dies:
Eileen Hull Sizzix
Display Stand ( Sizzix / SB )

Tim Holtz Sizzix
Holiday Greens Mini ( Sizzix / SB )
Crochet ( Sizzix / SB )

Dream Mermaid ( Sizzix / SB )

Other:

Eileen Hull Embossing Powder by Emerald Creek - Aqua Splash
Eileen Hull Embossing Powder by Emerald Creek - White Wonder
Eileen Hull Clearsnap Blends Ink - Clear
Sizzix Mat board
Lavinia Stamps - Sea Creatures, Seaweed 2
Baked Texture Embossing Powder - Dirty Sand
Glossy Accents
cardstock
various beads and sequins for shaker
shell mold press shaker front

Some links in this post are affiliate links which do not affect the price you pay but allow me to earn a small percentage of a sale. Thanks! (My husband also thanks you!) If you shop at Topflight Stamps, use my coupon code LISAHOEL for 12% off your order.

Mermaid Garden Shaker Card/Display Stand
by MonalisaH -Lisa Hoel
Scrapbook.com

Get Your Green On! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hello and welcome to the blog! St. Patrick's Day is always a fun day for us because it is also my mom's birthday. I usually make her a appropriately themed birthday card too and here is the one I made for her this year:

Ann Butler Designs has some new stamp sets out from the Unity Stamp Company. They are strip background builder sets and you can do a lot of neat things with them! Read on to see…

The four leaf clover is cut out of Yupo paper and colored with alcohol inks. I used the Strip stamps and Alcohol Lift-Ink to create the pattern.

To first color my Yupo paper, I dripped various green alcohol inks onto one piece of the Yupo and then smooshed the second piece into all the drips on the first. I squished the ink around between the two pieces and then pulled them apart. I lightly sprinkled a few more drops of one of the green inks on them to get some speckles.

Next I built the Strip stamps into a herringbone pattern on my stamp blog and used Lift-Ink to stamp the pattern into the alcohol ink. Basically you just ink up the stamp, stamp it onto the alcohol inked surface and then buff it with a soft cloth to reveal the stamped pattern. While the lifted ink is still on your rubber stamp, you can also stamp that off onto another piece of paper:

After my initial stamping, I kept stamping with individual strip stamps to continue to build the herringbone pattern:

It was easy to line up the stamps!

I was able to cut two heart "clover leaves" from each sheet of Yupo. I folded them in half so they would have a crease and a bit of dimension. When cutting, I lined up the heart die so the "points" of the herringbone would be in the center of the leaf.

For the background, I first used a brayer to lightly apply white Fresco chalk paint to the kraft cardstock card base. Then I used the strip stamps to stamp a rainbow up the side:

A banner with the gold tinsel embossed sentiment and a gold cord tied around the card fold completed the festive St. Patrick's Day look.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope the rest of your week is a good one and that you have a chance to relax and get crafty amidst all the disruption that is going on. Stay safe and healthy!

Dies:
Crealies Nested Heart Die Set - XXL Heart 29

Stamps:
Unity Stamp Co - Ann Butler Designs Strips Background Builder Set 1

Unity Stamp Co - Ann Butler Designs Strips Background Builder Set 2

Other:

Distress Ink - Cracked Pistachio
Distress Oxide Ink - Lucky Clover, Wilted Violet, Blueprint Sketch, Fossilized Amber, Carved Pumpkin, Candied Apple
Ranger Yupo paper
Ranger Alcohol Lift-Ink
Ranger Alcohol Inks - Limeaide, Willow, Meadow, Clover, Botanical
gold tinsel embossing powder
embossing ink
PaperArtsy Fresco paint - Cloud 9
Tim Holtz Cling Foam Stamps - Cutout Script

Some links in this post are affiliate links which do not affect the price you pay but allow me to earn a small percentage of a sale. Thanks! (My husband also thanks you!) If you shop at Topflight Stamps, use my coupon code LISAHOEL for 12% off your order.

Happy St. Patrick's Day with Eileen Hull's New Gift Box Die

Get your green on because in a week it will be St. Patrick's Day! This is always a special holiday in our family because it's also my Mom's birthday. We will of course have an appropriately themed party for her. I made a new decoration to use in my house utilizing green stuff (of course) and Eileen Hull's new Gift Box Die!

I stamped a wee little green scene all around the sides of the box and filled it with paper shamrocks:

I used lots of Lavinia Stamps from Topflight Stamps as well as luscious Distress Oxide Inks. Take a peek at some of my step photos:

Step 1 - I pulled out all my Lavinia stamps to decide on which ones to use for my scene. The box is cut out of Sizzix Mat board which is the perfect thickness and accepts ink, stains and stamping very well.

Step 2 - I laid down a blended background of Distress Oxide Inks and then stamped with a combination of Archvial inks and Oxide inks. I also embossed the Fern Heads with green embossing powder. The clovers are stamped and fussy cut. I did some light stenciling in the areas of negative space too.

Step 3 - The shamrock leaves are hearts cut out of coffee filters that I dyed with Distress Sprays. I glued a little piece of wire to the back of each heart and then glued/taped the ends to a piece of green floral wire "stem". It's a bit fussy to do but I love how the shamrocks look. There are even a few four leaf ones in the batch! I poked the stems into a block of floral foam that I glued in the bottom of the box.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope the rest of your week is a good one and that you have a chance to get crafty. ;-)

Dies:
Eileen Hull Sizzix
Gift Box with Scallop Edges Die ( Sizzix / SB )

Tim Holtz Sizzix
Scribbly Butterflies ( Sizzix / SB )

Topflight Stamps:
Crealies Nested Heart Die Set - XXL Heart 29
Lavinia stamps: Whimsical Hares, Fairy Thistles, Daydreaming Silhouette, Tree Root, Fern Heads, Trees, Mini Berry
AALL & Create stencil - Florastella
Versafine Pigment Ink - Onyx Black
Eileen Hull Molten Dimensions Embossing Powder - Golden Rod

Other:

Sizzix Mat board

Distress Spray Stain - Mowed Lawn, Lucky Clover
Distress Ink - Tea Dye, Black Soot
Distress Oxide Ink - Aged Mahogeny, Dusty Concord, Shabby Shutters, Squeezed Lemonade, Scattered Straw, Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn, Lucky Clover
Distress Paint - Tarnished Brass
Archival Ink - Potting Soil, Leaf Green
green embossing powder
Tim Holtz Idea-ology - Numeric

Distress Blending Brushes

Some links in this post are affiliate links which do not affect the price you pay but allow me to earn a small percentage of a sale. Thanks! (My husband also thanks you!) If you shop at Topflight Stamps, use my coupon code LISAHOEL for 12% off your order.

St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Party Decoration
by MonalisaH -Lisa Hoel
Scrapbook.com

Rinea Foil Paper, Steampunk Style

Good evening! I have been having more fun playing around with Rinea Foil Paper and their new 2.0 Ghost Ink. (Lots of fun, trust me on that!) I was experimenting with 'steampunk' styles and ended up making a pair of cards that are perfect for a man's birthday.

I gave one of these to my Dad for his birthday.

I also used Sizzix dies and 3-D embossing folders, stamp sets from Tim Holtz and a Xyron machine to make these cards. Let's take a look:

Step 1 - I used my Xyron Creative Station to apply adhesive to the back of a piece of glossy black Rinea foil paper. Then I used a 3-D embossing folder (Mechanics) to emboss the gear design. (The foil paper embosses beautifully!)

Step 2 – Rinea Ghost Ink is formulated to remove the color from the foil paper to reveal the silver metal base. You can stamp with the Ink pad and in this case I used just the reinker bottle for this technique.

I put a drop of ink on my craft sheet and used a make up wedge sponge to lightly brush it on the raised portions of the embossed foil. It started to take off the color right away. I buffed off the rest of the ink with a paper towel or rag and it really removed the color. Easy peasy!

I tried it with other folders and colors of foil paper.

I ended up not using this one for a card.

These are the two background I used, on brown and black foil. Having the Xyron adhesive on the back made it really easy to attach them to the card base. I layered diecuts and fussy cut stamped images on the top to complete the card. It's a quick and easy technique that looks really cool!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great weekend. ;-)

Dies:

Tim Holtz Sizzix

3-D Embossing Folder, Mechanics ( Sizzix / SB )

3-D Embossing Folder, Foundry ( Sizzix / SB )

Gearhead ( Sizzix / SB )

Baroque ( Sizzix / SB )

Other:

Rinea Foil Paper - Copper, Black, Brown

Rinea Ghost Ink 2.0 re-inker

Tim Holtz stamp set - Purveyor

Tim Holtz stamp set - Simple Sayings

Xyron Creative Station Lite machine

Xyron Permanent Adhesive Cartridge

Archival ink - Jet Black, Carnation

Some links in this post are affiliate links which do not affect the price you pay but allow me to earn a small percentage of a sale. Thanks! (My husband also thanks you!) If you shop at Topflight Stamps, use my coupon code LISAHOEL for 12% off your order.

There is a big sale at Sizzix going on now through the 25th. Use the code GRAS30 for 30% off your order and shipping is free over $65!

Valentine Gift Box with Power Team Eileen Hull, Rinea Foil Paper and Xyron!

Happy Valentine's Day! It is nearly upon us! I made a cute (and quick) gift box that can hold delightful gifts such as – dark chocolate! (My vote.) I suppose you could substitute some other sweet but really, what would the point be? (ha ha, jk)

I used Eileen Hull's new Sizzix Gift Box with Scallop Edges Die for the structure and decked it all out with Rinea Foil Paper and more of Eileen's dies to create a festive and glam little box that you can use for all sorts of lovely gifts (not just dark chocolate.)

I also used my Xyron Creative Station Lite machine to quickly and neatly add adhesive to the back  of all my foil paper. It made this project fast to make! Read on for a quick tutorial.

I used Sizzix Sizzles Matboard for the substrate (two pieces). On one side of each piece, I spritzed on some Candied Apple spray stain. While that was drying, I cut strips of Rinea's Ruby Star Foil Paper to the width of the board and ran it through my Creative Station. The Creative Station makes it so easy to apply adhesive to papers etc. All I had to do then was peel off the backing sheet and adhere the foil paper to the other sides of the matboard pieces. Then I die cut the box parts.

I also cut smaller rectangles of pink foil paper and ran those through the Creative Station too. (Did I mention it was easy?) All I had to do then was use the Hearts Journaling Cards Die to cut the side panels and then stick them on the box sides.

The Rinea Foil Paper is also an excellent choice for using in embossing folders. The Gold Foil in the 3-D Impresslits Embossing folders is especially nice – it looks just like vintage Dresden Scrap! I made box trim using the 3-D Mini Scallop folder.

Hot tip: stamp on the Foil Paper using Staz On ink.

Once again, by using the Xyron machine to put adhesive on the strips of gold foil before embossing, it made it quick and easy to apply to my box afterwards.

The Gift Box is easy to assemble. Fold on the score lines and glue the tabs to the insides of the box. (Except for the top!)

I also embellished the top of the box with a flower with a large brad center. The Rinea Foil Paper is easy to bend into a desired shape and then it stays put! I die cut the flower layers and then shaped the petals.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope the rest of your week is a good one and that you have a chance to get crafty. ;-)

Dies:
Eileen Hull Sizzix
Gift Box with Scallop Edges Die ( Sizzix / SB )
Journaling Cards, Hearts ( Sizzix / SB )
Flower, Heart & Soul - retired
Journaling Words - retired

Tim Holtz Sizzix
3-D Embossing Folder, Mini Scallop ( Sizzix / SB )
Labels ( Sizzix / SB )

Other:

Rinea Foil Paper - Love Variety Pack, Black
Xyron Creative Station Lite machine
Xyron Permanent Adhesive Cartridge
Sizzix Sizzles Matboard

Distress Spray Stain - Candied Apple

Staz On Ink - Jet Black

Some links in this post are affiliate links which do not affect the price you pay but allow me to earn a small percentage of a sale. Thanks! (My husband also thanks you!) If you shop at Topflight Stamps, use my coupon code LISAHOEL for 12% off your order.

Valentine Gift Box
by MonalisaH -Lisa Hoel
Scrapbook.com