Friendship Valentine Card with Yana

Valentine’s Day cards, I think, are not just for the love birds, but can be given other people - friends, family, even co-workers.

Hello friends, this is Yana and today I’m sharing an example of such a card created using some older products from WPlus9.

I filmed a video tutorial showing my cardmaking process from start to finish.

Watch my video tutorial:

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

I wanted to use “Hugs & Kisses & Valentine Wishes” sentiment from the the Valentine Wishes stamp set for my card. I decided to alter the sentiment a bit and use large Whimsy Alpha letters to spell Hugs Kisses.

I stamped my letters in Falling For Blue ink, cut them out using companion dies and also created a banner stamped in Lake House with “Valentine Wishes" stamped in Falling For Blue.

After foam mounting letters and banner onto a Dove Grey cardstock panel I added selective dry embossing using my bone folder and scoring board just like I did in their post here; I’m rather enjoying this old technique these days - I feel it lets me easily add unique texture to my cards.

I also stamped and cut out images using Fresh Cut Florals stamp set. I used Silver Lining as well as Bloomsberry and Cockleshell ink colors for my stamping and added little floral details to my sentiment cluster.

Have fun stamping!

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured supplies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase. Please note: this list contains affiliate links.

WPlus9 Whimsy Alpha Stamps Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Whimsy Alpha Dies Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Valentine Wishes Stamp Set Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Valentine Wishes Designer Dies Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Fresh Cut Flowers Stamps Shop at: WP9
Wplus9 Fresh Cut Flowers Dies Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Dove Grey Cardstock Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Silver Lining Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Lake House Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Falling For Blue Dye Ink Shop at: WP9
WPlus9 Bloomsberry Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Cockleshell Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Spellbinders Platinum Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS | SC | SPEL | AZ	Spellbinders Tool 'n One Shop at: SSS | SC | SPEL | AZ	Neenah 110 Lb Solar White Cardstock Shop at: SSS | AZ
Scor-Pal Mini Scor-Buddy Scoring Board Shop at: SSS	Martha Stewart Mini Scoring Board Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ	Tonic Deluxe Adhesive Nuvo Glue Shop at: SSS | SC	Scor-tape 2 1/2 Inch Crafting Tape Shop at: SSS	White Fun Foam 12 Pack 9 x 12 Shop at: SSS | AZ
Scrapbook Adhesives White Foam Squares Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ	Tonic Violet Galaxy Nuvo Crystal Drops Shop at: SSS

GUEST ARTIST FEATURE: Kay Miller & A SALE

Hi there! It's Kay Miller and I am so excited to be guesting again with WPlus9! I absolutely love everything they come out with!

For my project today, I decided to use a few older stamp sets that are some of my favorites. And, since we've past the halfway mark and are now counting down the days until Christmas, I wanted to get a head start on my Christmas cards and share a little about how I'm going to be doing mine this year.

I love to layer stuff. That is just my thing! I cut out lots of stuff, then have so much fun messing around with it in different ways until I get something I like. I still plan on doing a lot of cards this way, but I also want to do some flat cards, because last year, I had a really hard time mailing my cards. Some of them would not even fit into the envelope, and of course they all took extra postage.

So today I'm going to share with you a “fluffy” layered card, and then a couple of flat versions. I have found that even with my flat versions, I can still layer the stamping which I love!

So my first card here is they layered one. I used mainly Silver Bells stamp set and coordinating dies, along with Fresh Cut Florals and Folk Art Flurries. I first watercolored a blue background with Peerless Watercolors. When that was dry, I stamped some of the small snowflakes from Folk Art Flurries.

Next I stamped the sentiment in black then stamped and cut out all of my images. I layered them with foam tape and adhered this to my watercolored panel.

Lastly, and this is why most of my cards won't fit into envelopes, I mounted the whole panel onto an A2 top folded card with fun foam. I also added a few drops of Nuvo Crystal Drops.

Okay now for the flat version. And I mean completely one layer flat. I just stamped everything directly onto a top folded A2 size white card. I did use my MISTI stamp positioning tool for this because I wanted to be able to stamp again, if I didn't get a good impression, but it was not necessary. Everything was only stamped once.

Using the MISTI though would be a great way to mass produce this design. I did add a few drops of Nuvo Crystal Drops for that finishing touch.

This is another flat version done exactly like the one above, only I splattered a little bit of gray ink mixed with water after I was done. I thought that added a unique touch.

Even though these are simply done, I do like the design a lot, and I love how the design is stamped over the sentiment. I will definitely be doing some different designs like this for my Christmas cards this year.

Thank you so much for stopping by, and a huge thanks to Dawn and Wplus9 for having me guest!

~Kay

FLASH SALE

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Coupon Code: eclipse2017

***Coupon Code is valid on all orders completed 9:00 a.m. ET August 21, 2017 to 8:59 a.m. ET August 22, 2017, while supplies last. Valid on in stock items only. No rain checks. Discount can not be applied to previous orders. Excludes wholesale orders.***

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured Wplus9 supplies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase.

Wplus9 Silver Bells Stamp Set Wplus9 Silver Bells Die Fresh Cut Florals Fresh Cut Florals Die Wplus9 Folk Art Flurries 4x6" stamp set

LinkDeli.com

A Background Study: Heat Embossing & Ombre with Yana

Hello friends! This is Yana and I hope you are having a fabulous week!

During the month of April I shared several projects using background stamps. I titled my posts Background Study as I wanted to explore and test out different background options I could create using WPlus9 stamps and inks for my cards. I used two different stamp sets - Borders and Backgrounds 1 and Borders and Backgrounds 4. I made two sets of cards using different color combinations - some very bold and colorful and some soft and feminine.

For my monthly video tutorial I wanted to continue exploring backgrounds and decided to create several additional card ideas featuring heat embossing. I only used inks for my original cards and did a lot of ombre stamping, this time I decided to do heat embossing and do ombre ink blending for a similar, yet different look.

Watch above or watch in HD at YouTube

I heat embossed several backgrounds using gold and white embossing powders. I used Antique Gold and regular white. You can use Gold or experiment with other embossing powder colors - Platinum, Brass, Silver, you can even do clear.

To create my backgrounds I used a clear block with gridlines, you can also use a stamp positioner, but using a block with etched lines makes stamping go faster. Grid lines help a great deal when aligning images and making sure each row is perfectly straight. When mounting my images onto the block I made sure the bottom of my design was exactly next to one of the grid lines.

Instead of using white, I picked colored cardstock for my projects. Whenever I do ink bending I prefer to use colored cardstock to make it easier on my wrist and also to save time and do significantly less blending. You can use white paper for this, do white on white heat embossing and use 2 or 3 colors of ink to create ombre ink blending, but when you have colored cardstock as your base you need to do a lot less work as you already have that base color right there on your paper.

I used Sweet Gelato ink color for my pink ombre ink blended paper. For my light blue one I used Lake House and for the dark blue I used Falling For Blue and Nautical Navy (these are identical ink colors I used for my original Background Study cards).

I trimmed my backgrounds down and foam mounted onto 4 bar note cards. I simply adore this card size lately, so I wanted to make more smaller cards to have on hand.

To embellish these cards I used More Fresh Cut stamp set - I stamped Happy Birthday sentiment in blank ink onto strips of white cardstock and die-cut and stamped several leaves and flowers to complete my projects.

I used same ink colors I used for my ink blending and also picked Last Leaf and Appletini colors to stamp the leaves. I foam mount sentiment strips onto my cards and foam mounted flowers and leaves on top. I used my fingers and shaped the leaves a little bit to make them look a bit more dimensional.

One last thing I did - I used a black pigment pen, white and black Nuvo Drops and added details to my cards. I used Gloss White dots to add white dimensional centers to my flowers and also used same product to add details to my backgrounds.

So this concludes my April background study! I hope you have found it useful and inspirational. Let me know in the comments below if you’d like to me to do similar studies in my upcoming posts.

Have fun stamping!

FEATURED SUPPLIES

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured supplies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase. Please Note: This list contains affiliate links.

WPlus9 Borders & Backgrounds 4 Stamps Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Borders & Backgrounds 1 Stamps Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 More Fresh Cuts Stamps Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 More Fresh Cuts Dies Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Lake House Dye Ink Shop at: WP9
WPlus9 Falling For Blue Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Nautical Navy Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Shell Pink Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Little Piggy Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Sweet Gelato Dye Ink Shop at: WP9
WPlus9 Last Leaf Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	WPlus9 Appletini Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Spellbinders Tool 'n One Shop at: SSS | SC | SB | AZ	Spellbinders Platinum 6 Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS | SC | SB | AZ	Tonic Gloss White Nuvo Crystal Drops Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ
Tonic Ebony Black Nuvo Crystal Drops Shop at: SSS	Ranger Dylusions Paint Pens 2 Pack Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Intense Black Ink Pad Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Embossing Ink Pad Clear Shop at: SSS	Neenah 80LB Solar White Cardstock Shop at: SSS | AZ
Neenah 110 Lb Solar White Cardstock Shop at: SSS | AZ	Hero Arts White Embossing Powder PW110 Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ	Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS	Hero Arts Heat Embossing Gun PW200 Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ	Ranger Mini Round Ink Blending Tools Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ
Ranger Mini Round Foam Refils Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ	EK Success Powder Tool Applicator Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ	Hero Arts Ultra Clean Stamp Cleaner NK202 Shop at: SSS	EZ Runner Grand - Permanent Shop at: SC | AZ	EZ Runner Grand - Permanent - Refill Shop at: SC | AZ
Scrapbook Adhesives White Foam Squares Shop at: SSS | AZ	White Fun Foam 12 Pack 9 x 12 Shop at: SSS | AZ