Graffiti's Club Stamp 12-pack Colorbomb

Hi, Stamping Friends!

With the 4-up text weight prints and two additional 8.5x11 prints in the Club Stamp Graffiti paper collection, I had all sorts of colorful card making options this month. And between our polar vortex and the Alberta clipper, I'm so glad we had something cheerful to help us survive the month of January!

Here are your cutting instructions to make a total of fifteen standard-sized (A2) cards:

1. Trim both 8.5x11 White Text Prints vertically at 4.5 and 4". Cut each 4x11 horizontally at 5.75 and 5.25".

2. Score each of the seven papers listed in the diagram below vertically at 4.25". Cut horizontally at 5.5" and fold in half to make fourteen card bases.

3. Trim the 8.5x11 Black Smooth Plain horizontally at 10.5, 8.25 and 5.5". Trim the 2.75x8.5 horizontally at 8 and 4". Cut the 2.25x8.5 and .5x8.5 horizontally at 4.25". Score and fold the 5.5x8.5 horizontally at 4.25".

4. Trim the 8.5x11 White Smooth Plain horizontally at 9.25, 6.75 and 4". Cut the 4x8.5 horizontally at 6.75, 4.75 and 2.75". Trim the 2.75x8.5 and 2.5x8.5 horizontally at 7.5 and 3.75". Cut the 1.75x8.5 horizontally at 6.5 and 3.25".

5. Trim the 8.5x11 Black Smooth Plain vertically at 8 and 4". Cut each 4x11 horizontally at 10.5 and 5.25". Trim the .5x11 horizontally at 5.5".

I incorporated all sorts of techniques into the cards. I'll try to touch on just a few . . .

The rainbow on the left card panel was made with swipes of ink directly from the Neon Ink Pads. The panel on the right was done with the Neon Dabbers. Two great looks!

One 8.5x11 Black Smooth was trimmed into four 4x5.25" panels (see photo below). I brushed a coat of white acrylic paint onto each of them and used it as a stamping surface. The teens in my life are going to be so jazzed when they receive these lively cards.

Such a quick set of cards . . . I used the 8.5x11 White Smooth Print as the card base and layered strips of washi tape behind the panels on the two cards on the left.

The White Smooth panels are trimmed to fit quotes from the unmounted stamps in the collection. Each panel was edged with a Neon Dabber. Neon inks were used to alter the black/white panel in the card at right.

The quad printed panels make it so easy!

Check out the addition of the printed sequins included in the set!

I hope you enjoy making your version of the cards. Have an artful day!
Tricia

Graffiti Greetings to Go--Guest Artist

Hello to all my Club Scrap friends! KnitterPam here. Wow, what an honor to have been contacted by Club Scrap and asked if I'd create some cards from the January '14 Graffiti kit!

Although it was fun researching and collecting ideas, getting started proved difficult. After thinking about it for a bit, I decided to just make some "art" first. It's so fun to pull out supplies and just mess around. I figured if the art backgrounds turned out alright, it would spark some ideas. Luckily, that is exactly what happened. Once I started "arting" (as Julie Fei-Fan Balzer calls it), the ideas came fast and furious.

I used the Graffiti Greetings to Go as the base for all of my designs. Want some details?

The matte on this Thank You card was embossed with a brick design and inked with Earth Hybrid Ink. I cut slits on either side of the sentiment with a craft knife and slid the ribbon underneath.

The "Art" card background is Raven ink sprayed on the Adobe (2010) stencil onto white plain. I added the printed Cutapart sentiment bordered with the thin pink ribbon included in the Greetings to Go pack.

I still had some Raven ink spray left on my stencil, so I pressed the 8.5 x 11" White Smooth Print paper onto it. The result was a reverse stencil imprint with some lines and some ink blops (my technical word) that was the perfect background for the Great Job card.

For the Congratulations card, I cut slits on either side of the sentiment to create a channel for the ribbon, and added four quadrants of color as a matte.

For this Thank You card, I pulled out my trusty Art Spinner ala Tricia's lovely Spin Class from a past Retreat. (Check out the video here.) I used Hybrid re-inkers and spray inks dribbled into the spinner. Fun!

This birthday card features an Adobe (2010) image stamped and embossed with that yummy Tribal Hematite Embossing Powder on Black Plain. I used it as part of the matte, covering the seam with various ribbons from the Embellishment Pack. I also added four little square orange brads in the corners.

Here I tried Tricia's cool brick/embossing technique with Musical Interlude Red from my stash and Tribal Hematite embossing powder.  I added a bit of ink spray to the stamped sentiment, and finished off the card with that delicious HUGE striped ribbon and a few square brads.

The Good Luck card features more Hematite-embossed Adobe stamp pattern, as well as some faux stitching on the banner using a black pen.

Here I stamped the Graffiti Art Nouveau noise pattern on one side of the orange matte, flipped it over and ripped it back a bit, and sealed it down with a rolled scallop-y flower made out of that wonderful blue paper! I think in Tribal Red (I'm going to have to hit GHM for more!), the flower would look like a carnation or dianthus, don't you think?  

This card was very simple - I just punched circles of various sizes, stamped assorted Graffiti images with India ink and attached them to the front panel. I drew swirlies on the smallest pink circles with a white opaque pen and attached them with foam adhesive. I also drew a little swirlie at the bottom left of the quote with a Pitt pen to hide a mistake, just because I wanted to. 

For this card, I colored in the Love stamps using blue and yellow Gelatos with a blending pen and water, sprayed with blue and yellow ink sprays, and added more of that lovely striped ribbon with a button. 

The Yay, You! card background was created with pounces of Neon Ink Dabbers, stamps, along with some gems, a bit of washi tape and striped ribbon from my stash. I added dots to the arrow stamp with a white opaque pen after seeing Tricia do it. CASE! 

Can you guess the art medium on this Birthday card? It's NAIL POLISH! I tried several mediums, but none would show on the black. So I whipped out my kiddos' nail polish collection and pounced it around on the matte, with hand-drawn lines in white opaque pen around the edges. Love the effect! The sentiment was created from stickers and Thickers from my stash, but I think this card would also look neat with embossed CS Font stamps or alpha stickers, too. 

This Love card might be my favorite of the whole bunch. The night before I made this card, I took my 11-yr-old daughter to a friend's birthday party and one of the cards she received was EXACTLY what I had in my head for Graffiti. So I took a picture of the card, and went home and re-created it with my CS Graffiti supplies. The Art Nouveau noise image was stamped multiple times using a bit of water and assorted Gelatos. The crown was stamped with India ink and topped with a few Glitter Brads included in the Greetings to Go pack. The tailed hearts were stamped with Ash Hybrid ink, and colored with pink Gelato. I stamped the word "Love" with India ink onto a scrap paper. To create the "fill" design, I randomly stamped over the word with an older CS music stamp (yes, Musical Interlude again) and swiped my CS Neon Pink ink pad over the top. I also stamped the "Trust . . . " sentiment with India ink onto a scrap, cut out the individual words, inked the edges and adhered them to the front of the card. So much fun! I love the result.  

And last, but not least, my other "favoritest" card. I wanted to show y'all that Graffiti doesn't have to be wild and crazy. The little elongated inchie panels remind me of an art gallery. I drew over the matted patterned paper squares with Liquid Pearls in a rosy color. Add simple glossy black photo corners and voila, a classy Graffiti card that you could give to anyone.

I hope you enjoyed the walk-through of my Graffiti card designs and that this hasn't turned out to the be world's longest post. Oh, who am I kidding? Have you ever known me to be short-winded, my friends? Thanks for the opportunity, Club Scrap - it was really fun showing off different ways to use the Graffiti kit to make cards.

Pam Butler (aka KnitterPam)

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Greetings to Go Guest Artists are given the current month's Club Scrap materials to work with:

• 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.

Graffiti's Gelli Plate Frame-Up

I had another fun play date with my new Gelli Printing Plate. Oh my, if you haven't gotten one yet . . . we can fix that! We have them right in the store!

I had all sorts of fun impressions after my session with the plate, and wondered what I could make with the colorful panels. This is where I landed:

If you want to play along, here's what you'll need to do . . .

1. Remove the protective plastic film from the plate and squirt a few dabs of acrylic paint onto the plate. (My daughter came home from the store with these colors and said she thought they were so fun! I took them from her. Shhhhh . . .)

2. Spread the paint onto the plate with a brayer.

3. Add texture to the rolled out paint by stamping the plate with the splatter noise image on the Graffiti Art Nouveau UM. Stamp the paint-loaded image onto a separate sheet of paper each time, and you'll get a bonus sheet of artwork!

4. Press a piece of plain white paper onto the plate and burnish to make excellent contact over the entire surface. Lift, and say, "Ahhhh!"

5. Repeat. Once you get the mess going, you'll want to keep playing until you have several sheets to work with. I made more than eight different impressions and could have played all afternoon! Clean the gelli plate, brayer and stamps when finished.

6. Trim a set of twelve 2.5" squares from the parent art sheets. Stamp the art squares with assorted images from the Graffiti collection. Matte with 2.75" black squares. (TIP: You'll get sixteen 2.75" mattes from one sheet of 12x12 paper, or twelve 2.75" mattes from one sheet of 8.5x11 paper.)

7. Gaze at all of that yummy color and texture. Oh, my. Then, plan your 12x12 page. The 2.75" squares make a perfect, equally-spaced border around the outside edges. Use a grid ruler to assist with alignment.

8. Create a page title with a Graffiti Lite cutapart and painted alphabet Thickers.

9. Add a caption or journaling directly onto an art square with your favorite black journaling pen.

10. Stand back. Admire. Long for another afternoon with your gelli plate.

Life is beautiful, indeed.
Tricia