Club Scrap Creates: Geometrics

I am excited to be your guest artist this month. The Cinema collection really captures my style. I love everything about this collection: the richness of the color palette and materials, the classic images in the art work, and the distinctive sentiments. I had a great time integrating digital elements, applying techniques and making interactive cards.

Set A: 4" x 9¼" Cards

This card idea popped into my mind as soon as I saw the sentiment. It is so true! In fact, I had to hide this piece of bubble wrap from my family. I used a couple of cardstock circles and piece of acetate to stabilize the bubble wrap, along with the silver brad to allow it to swivel.

The front panel was created using stamps from the Cinema Borders & Backgrounds and Art Nouveau inked with Lagoon CS Hybrid Ink on a white panel. Afterwards, I heat set the ink and brushed over the paper with Tumbled Glass Distress Stain. It gives a brushed look on the glossy paper that I'll call the "glossy staining technique." The background on the inside panel is Ash CS Hybrid Ink on a bubble stencil. I inked the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink.

Movies are such a part of everyday life and everyone has their favorites. I pulled out some of my favorite classic movie quotes and the Cinema digital collection to make the front panel. The fonts used in the kit can be found in the blog post on the first of each month.

Together with a digital background and movie reel overlay, I printed the quotes onto white cardstock. I added the flap closure since I could not bear to cover any part of the quotes. The sentiment is stamped onto a Stampin' Up punched panel with the glossy staining technique (described above).

I love exploring the cutaparts and extra little goodies added to the embellishment package. This card is a waterfall card made with cutapart squares and the 1 mm silver tape. The background is a white panel colored with Lindy's Stamp Gang Magical (powered mica paint) in Sweet Violet Purple Teal with images stamped in Lagoon and Ash CS Hybrid Ink.

I embellished the pull-out with more cutaparts and a glassine envelope embossed with the Tin Tiles embossing folder. The tab at the top includes Martha Stewart Deco Fan and EK Success Scalloped Scallop punched edges.

What classic cinema is complete without rich velvet curtains?

I made the curtains from a Splitcoaststampers tutorial for window blinds. The base is a white panel colored with Orchid CS Hybrid Ink direct to paper, then colored with Distress Black Soot Stain. The ribbon is from the Tin Tiles collection. The header is the Deco Tassel punch from Martha Stewart. The greeting is a cutapart matted with plain papers.

For this card, I just accentuated the elements provided in the Greetings to Go kit. I inked the white panel with CS Hybrid ink in Orchid and Ash. I added silver 1 mm tape to the reels and Ranger Holographic embossing power to the "lighted" section. White flowers from my stash were colored with Lindy's Stamp Gang Magical in Sweet Violet Purple Teal.

Embossing Folder Leaves:

This technique is a new favorite! Fold a scrap of Aqua Print in half (the fold becomes the center vein of the leaf). Use the CS Picnic Thin Lines embossing folder to add lines at a 45 degree angle to the fold. While still folded, use a portion of a circle punch to create the basic leaf shape. Cut out a curve at one end to create the leaf "tip." Ink the edges and center seam. Pinch to add dimension.

Set B: 4 ¼" x 5 ½" Cards

My go-to source for inspiration is the CS member forum challenges. The Monthly Card Sketch challenge is my favorite! Not only do you get a sketch, but members submit many different interpretations of the same concept. As a bonus, I usually have most of the supplies on hand. This month's card sketch is a wonderful CAS (clean and simple) card from Marya. I liked it so much I made two cards using it.

The border strip was created by inking the CS Geometrics Stencil and heat embossing Lindy's Stamp Gang Sliver Moon Turquoise. Next, the film strip (Border & Backgrounds) and star images (Art Nouveau) were stamped in CS Hybrid Ink in Orchid and Lagoon. Finally, the whole strip was clear-embossed using Versamark Dazzle. To echo the border strip, the sentiment was stamped in Orchid and heat embossed with both Sliver Moon Turquoise and Versamark Dazzle.

This card is my horizontal version of the challenge sketch. The background was made using several Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays, sprinkled heavily with kosher salt: Glory of the Seas Gold, Silent Night Silver, Time Travel Teal, and Mission Bells Brown. (Actually, I accidentally added more salt than I originally wanted, but I left it alone to dry and was pleasantly surprised by the results!) The border strip is Aqua Plain embossed with the Tin Tiles Embossing Folder, brushed with a light layer of gesso and sprayed with Lindy's Stamp Gang Glory of the Seas Gold mist. The greeting is white embossed ink with mini star brads from my stash.

This card resulted from an experiment with a new product, WOW! Melt-It powder, and a new art medium, Izink, a very fluid acrylic-based pigment ink. The button-like embellishment is a combination of Melt-It powder and WOW! Violet pearl embossing powder. The mixture was heated and poured into a Martha Stewart silicon mold.

The background was made with Izink in four steps:

Apply silver Izink through the Get The Picture masking stencil onto mixed media paper.
Clear emboss the projector image (Collection UM) over the stenciled area.
Drip Turquoise, Topaz, and Opaline Izinks randomly over the background. Blend with water spray and damp towel.
A mixture of Opaline and Geranium Izinks was added to the edges.

I finished the card with 1 mm black tape lines, matting, and black and white ribbon. The sentiment was colored using the glossy staining technique over Orchid Hybrid Ink and Tumbled Glass Distress Stain, finished with final layer of Brushed Pewter Distress Stain.

The marker board focal image (Collection UM) was heat-embossed in white on black cardstock. The popcorn (Border & Backgrounds) and ticket images (Collection UM) were stamped on white glossy paper and heat set. The popcorn was colored with Scattered Straw and the ticket with Tumbled Glass Distress Stain.

Elements from the Cinema Digital Collection were used to create this card. The photograph is my husband's restoration project, a '71 Mercury Cougar Convertible, combined with a digital mask. I printed the picture and mustache ribbon on silver paper. The greeting was stamped in Black India ink and colored with Tumbled Glass Distress Marker.

Set C: 4 ½ x 6 ¼ Cards

For this card, I wanted a simple night sky. Stars from a Cape Cod unmounted were embossed with CS Hematite embossing powder. I used a light layer of Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Silent Night Silver brushed on and then covered with gloss gel medium in a light coat to give a shiny texture to the sky. A larger star was embossed with Lindy Stamp Gang Silver Moon Turquoise to make it stand out. The large stars are silver foil cut with the Sizzix Stars #2 die.

The "I'm ready for my close up" sentiment spoke to me of formal occasions like a graduation or a wedding. I made the dress from the aqua paper embossed with, you guessed it, the Tin Tiles embossing folder. It was lightly painted with gesso and sprayed with Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Glory of the Seas Gold mist. I cut the dress freehand and added the Martha Stewart Eyelet Lace punch along the hem. Mini pearls from the Bookshelves kit and 1 mm gold tape dressed it up. The waistband is twisted sheer wine ribbon. The background foil was made using the Tin Tiles Embossing Folder.

The cutapart film strip had such a lovely shape that I cut it out for the edge of this card and accented it with gold 1 mm tape. I mixed embossing powers for the speckled background: CS Hematite, Gold UTEE, and Lindy's Stamp Gang Silver Moon Turquoise. The "Celebrate" tag has a ribbon tab and was tucked into a glassine envelope.

The "Congratulations" cutapart made me think of graduation. I used this Splitcoaststampers tutorial to make a building blocks card.

I scaled the letters and numbers from the digital collection to fit the pop-ups. A few stamps, ribbon, and foil stars from the Sizzix Stars #2 die complete the design.

This is my "trash to treasure" card. I experimented with many techniques, but not everything worked out as planned. Some of those elements found new life on this card.

The star background embossed in CS Hematite has only one panel since I embossed the image upside-down on the other side.
The bottom layer was from an experiment with embossing powder over texture paste. It had a cool effect, but was too "heavy" to use for a whole card base.
The brighter blue strip was heat embossed with Lindy's Stamp Gang Hydrangea Blue Moon through the Geometrics Stencil from above, but the color did not work for that particular card.
The white block is a glassine envelope embossed with the Tin Tiles embossing folder. It became too delicate to use as an envelope.
The car image was the first one I printed in black, but it was too dark on the silver paper.
The rest is a collage of leftover die cut stars and ribbon pieces.

The result is a masculine birthday card. I'm so glad I didn't clean my desk until I was all done!

Happy Crafting,
Debby H
Masculine Inspirations in Paper & Crafts

Elements from the Cinema Club Scrap Kit, digital collection, and Borders & Backgrounds stamps were used in addition to the supplies I was provided as Guest Artist.

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Guest Artists are provided with the following materials from the current monthly kit:

Greetings to Go Pack
Embellishment Pack
Collection Unmounted Rubber Stamp sheet
Greeting Unmounted Rubber Stamp sheet
Art Nouveau Unmounted Rubber Stamp sheet
Extra 8.5 x 11" plain papers from the monthly kit

The artist may also choose to incorporate items from their own craft stash, as well as different inks and art mediums. We do our best to make note these additions in the card descriptions whenever possible.

Recently, Karen wrote a blog about the new collection, Geometrics and some cool cards that she created. I really liked the clean and simple style that Karen used, so I thought it would be fun to recreate that look digitally. And it gave me a chance to make some nifty cards with Geometrics Digital!

Let's start by making that square with just two rounded corners:

Note: There are several ways to make that shape - I'm just showing you one way that's pretty easy to create.

1. Open a new document in your digital layout program of choice (I'm using Photoshop CC). Give it a white background to make it easier to see what you're doing!

2. Create a new layer.

3. Change your foreground color to Black on the tool palette.

4. Click and hold on the Rectangle Tool and select 'Rounded Rectangle Tool' from the fly-out menu.

5. Edit the Radius to 80 pixels in the rounded rectangle settings located in the tool status bar.

6. Draw a square about two inches wide. Holding down the Shift key while drawing the square will constrain the shape so that it remains a square.

7. Create a new layer.

8. Click and hold on the Rounded Rectangle Tool and select 'Rectangle Tool' from the fly-out menu.

9. Draw a square about 1/2 inch wide. Holding down the Shift key while drawing the square will constrain the shape so that it is a perfect square.

10. Duplicate the layer with the 1/2 inch square.

11. Use the Move tool to move each of the squares so they line up at two opposing corners. It may be helpful to magnify your view so you can get more precise positioning.

Position the first square

Then position the second square in the opposite corner

12. Merge the three layers together.

Okay, that's your basic shape or mask - yup, we've created a mask! It wasn't that hard, right? You can duplicate that layer as needed and/or resize it to achieve the look you want. For a refresher on using masks, check out my blog on multi-colored stamping HERE.

Here are a few cards I made with this neat mask shape: