Cat Tales and Paper Trails: Stamping Friends Trifecta Blog Hop: Gina K. Designs, Picket Fence Studios & My Sweet Petunia

Thursday, May 30, 2019

Stamping Friends Trifecta Blog Hop: Gina K. Designs, Picket Fence Studios & My Sweet Petunia

Good morning and welcome to the Stamping Friends Trifecta Blog Hop!

I'm thrilled to be part of this really fun and exciting blog hop. Today the Gina K. Designs, Picket Fence Studios and My Sweet Petunia teams have joined up and are using products from all three companies to share inspiration and our love of these three companies' amazing products.

There are many participants in this hop, so I know you will find lots of inspiration. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy hopping through all of the blogs. Leave comments along the way to be entered to win one of three great hop prizes. Each company is offering a $50 gift certificate to a lucky winner chosen from comments left along the hop. Each company will announce the winner of their $50 gift certificate prize on or before June 7th, so don't delay!

Let's get started with some fun combo projects, shall we?

My first card uses the Martini Glasses Stencil from Picket Fence Studios.

I used two pieces of Masking Magic to protect the majority of my single layer top fold card base, using the grid lines on my MISTI Mouse pad as a guide to line up the masking paper, creating an area for my images. I laid the stencil over my card base, and used Gina K. Designs' Key Lime ink to add color to the martini glasses. I removed the stencil and washed it as the ink on my martinis was drying. Once dry, I replaced the stencil, and pressed my Versamark ink pad into the stencil, then used a clean Picket Fence Studios' Life Changing Blending Brush to carefully and evenly distribute the Versamark ink into the stems and corners of the glasses. I then removed the stencil and heat embossed the martini glasses with clear embossing powder.

I cleaned my stencil and brushes, then brushed ink my focal area with Gina K. Designs' Blue Denim, Sweet Corn and Jelly Bean inks, then used a dry cloth to remove any excess ink from the embossed areas.

I diecut the word Wishes with the Gina K. Designs Wishes Word Die from Heavyweight White Cardstock that had been partially inked with Blue Denim ink, and adhered it to my card with Connect Glue. I then, using my Original MISTI, stamped the word Birthday from the Wishes Mini Stamp Set onto a small piece of Jelly Bean Green cardstock with Blue Denim ink. Leaving my stamp and cardstock in place, I cleaned the stamp, and restamped with Versamark ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I then used the Cut-Align from My Sweet Petunia and a craft knife to trim out the embossed word with a 1/16' inch border.

My next two card use the Elegant Asters Stamps and Dies from Gina K. Designs. I cut a variety of the Asters from her Sea Glass, White, Wild Dandelion, and Sweet Mango cardstocks. I used Jelly Bean Green and Fresh Asparagus for the leaves. I saved the negative from one of my cardstocks to use later.

My next step was to darken the edges. I used the blending brushes from Picket Fence Studios to add the following colors of ink: Jelly Bean Green, Sweet Corn, Tropical Teal, Soft Stone, Faded Brick and Dark Sage. The ink looks rather dark at first when it was wet, but it did fade considerably when it dried.

Now I placed my three Aster stamps on the lid of my Original MISTI and stamped them onto a sheet of the lined paper pad. I used the negative piece from my earlier die cutting to frame each of those stamped images, securing them with Purple Tape.

Now I just popped each of my inked diecuts into the frame and stamped them in corresponding inks.

I used the same method to stamp the leaves.

My next step was to create a vase for my flowers. Using my MISTI, I stamped the vase from Gina K.'s Buds and Vases stamp set at the bottom of a panel of Artist's Choice Cardstock with Whisper Amalgam ink. It's very soft color makes it a great no-line coloring ink. I added color with Prismacolor pencils, using various turquoise, blues, greens and even a yellow-orange as a reflection, and used a blending tortillion and gamsol to blend the colors together.

I trimmed the panel to fit within a Turquoise Sea card base and stamped the greeting from Picket Fence's Forever and Ever Stamp Set in Turquoise Sea ink. I added small dots of both Copic marker and white gel to my flower centers, and even added a bit of white highlight to some of the flowers with gel pen, smudging it out and softening it with my finger. My last step was to assemble my floral arrangement, layering the leaves and flowers and adhering them to my card panel with Connect Glue or foam dimensional adhesive.

I used a few more of the Asters that I'd inked and stamped for the next card as well. I started with a piece of Heavyweight White Cardstock, and Gina K.'s Rounded Swirls Art Stencil. This is a rather delicate stencil with lots of little tendrils. I used Pixie Spray Stencil Adhesive to help hold my stencil in place as I inked it with Soft Stone and Slate ink with a blending brush.

I wanted to lighten my color a little and add a bit of extra elegance, so I used Elmer's Craft Bond spray adhesive to lightly cover the whole panel (be careful of overspray, it's messy stuff!). I added fine prismatic glitter to the whole sticky panel, using a piece of waxed paper to carefully press the glitter firmly into the adhesive. I shook off any excess glitter and set the glistening panel aside to dry.

I wanted a simple sentiment strip for this card, so I stamped the sentiment from Picket Fence Studios' Let's Shake Our Tail Feathers stamp set in Versamark ink onto Slate cardstock and heat embossed it with white embossing powder.

I used my Cut-Align tool and my craft knife to trim out the strip. I used the 1/8" grid measurement along the bottom of my letters, to leave room for any descenders.

I likewise flipped my Cut-Align and strip and used the same measurement along the top of the lower case letters, leaving enough room for any ascenders.

I then simply adhered the sentiment strip to my glittered panel, and trimmed it to fit an A2 card base, and added the white Asters, some of my remaining inked leaves.

My final card, uses stamps from both Picket Fence's Let's Shake Your Tail Feathers and the sentiment from Gina's Elegant Asters stamp set.

Using my Original MISTI, I stamped with Versamark and heat embossed the peacock tail image with silver to the bottom of an A2 panel of Heavyweight White Cardstock. I turned my panel and repeated the image on the opposite side.

I used Seaglass, Turquoise Sea and Wild Lilac inks to ink the panel, wiping excess ink from the embossing with a dry cloth.

I created my own background for my oval sentiment by first arranging the two thin sentiment images along one of the grid lines in the center of my MISTI grid paper. I picked up the stamps with the MISTI lid and stamped onto the grid paper. Next I traced the outer edge of my stitched oval die, onto a slightly larger rectangular piece of white cardstock. This allows me to easily repeat stamp my sentiments, creating my background. I simply placed my rectangle lined up with one of the 1/4" spaced grid lines, secured it with my bar magnet and stamped. For the next and following stampings, I simply moved my paper, up or down, to the left or or right, each time lining it up again with one of the grid lines before stamping.

I stamped the You are Loved sentiment in Slate ink before diecutting my oval.

I lightly pressed the edges of my stitched oval die cut into my Versamark ink pa16thd and heat embossed a very faint silver edge to my die cut before adding it to my peacock panel. I trimmed the panel down, 3/16th of an inch on each side so that a sliver of my Turquoise Sea card base.

That's all from me today, but there are many more posts to visit! Make sure to visit them all, commenting your way through to be entered to win one of the $50 gift certificate hop prizes and make sure you stop back to the company blogs on June 7th to see if you are one of the lucky winners!

Thank you for visiting, and enjoy the hop!
Your next stop should be Emily's blog!

The full list of hop participants is listed below for your convenience:
Gina Krupsky