Marvelous Metallic Foiling

What better way to top off a certain look for your cards then with Metal Leaf Foiling. This metallic flake product is so fine that it will adhere beautifully to tape, glue, or Palette's Stamp & Stick glue pad and re-inker @ $12.95.

For the following two cards we used the Palette glue pad. Keep in mind that this pad wants to be lightly re-inked for each stamping session. Once you have inked up your stamp and stamped it onto gloss card stock, you will need to heat it for approximately 15-20 seconds. This ink/glue is not tacky until it is heated, so it is kinder on your stamps then some other products. If you have trouble with the metallic leaf smudging it is because your ink is not dry. When your heating the ink, watch for the look to go from glossy to flat. With a brush, softly work the flakes into the adhesive and brush away extra. This coloured combination of metallic flakes is dynamite on black gloss. The stamp used in the first card is Hero Arts' Silhouette Grass.

It's easy to change your white gloss card to coloured gloss by blending a few colours of Distress Inks on the surface before you stamp and foil. The below sample was made with Faded Jeans and Concord Grape. The stamp is Iris by Penny Black.

Another way to decorate with foil leafing is by laying a strip of double sided tape to frame up an image. In this card we've used Be Creative 3mm tape as a very fine foiled border on the edges. This tape is a great value, $3.50 for a whopping 25 metres. We carry this tape in a number of different widths up to almost 5" and each roll is 25 metres long. The stamp used in this card is from a kit by Elusive Images called Tall Trees.

We presently have the above mentioned products in stock, Happy Foiling!

The Perfect Cardstock

Are you looking for the perfect base for an elegant card? Although we've had this product in for awhile, the more I use it, the more I love it. The textures include linen, and a heavier texture, all with a beautiful shimmer finish. The linen comes in white, off-white, and gold. A nice weight at 84lb. The textured comes in white and off-white and it's a bit heavier at 105lb. All of these sell for $0.75 a sheet at 81/2" x 11". To complement this cover stock we also carry a liner paper to match in white or off-white with the shimmer finish. These sell for $0.50 each at 81/2" x 11".






The embossing background used for Claudette's card is "Daisies" from Crafts-Too as well as a flourish border from the Cuttlebug Organic set.

The Organic flourish was also used on the inside paper liner.

The liner paper is much easier to punch through or emboss. On this card we've used Martha Stewart's Doily Lace border punch and Tim Holtz's Regal flourish embossing folder. We've also used Martha Stewart's water lilly punch to punch the flowers from the liner paper and used Brilliance sky blue ink to colour them and the panel behind Stamp Barn's Happy Anniversary. We finished the flower centers with another small flower punched from the liner paper and pearls.

These strips of bling are from Kaisercraft. A nice inexpensive way to jazz up your cards. There are 7 colours choices in the rhinestone strips and 6 choices in the pearl. These self-adhesive gems sell for $2.79 a package. There are some unusual colour offerings. I love the brown and caramel pearls as well as the amber / jet rhinestones.

Have fun embellishing, see you next week.

Wonderful Webbing

Creative Impressions has a great product called Web Ribbon. This 2" wide woven poly-cotton blend is a nice way to add colour without too much weight. You can spray through this with your shimmer mists for a funky background pattern. It will also take embossing powders if you keep your heat gun at a distance. Simply lay your webbing on scrap paper, press your embossing ink pad down across the length of your webbing. Then move webbing to a new piece of scrap paper and pour on embossing powder, tap off the excess, and heat. You can go back and put embossing powder on your original scrap paper and heat it. It will create a broken embossed background. This product sells for $1 /yard and we presently have it in: Fuchsia, Lime Green, Aqua, Black, Brown and White. We also have a Christmas Red and Green on it's way in.The above card was made using Stamp Barn's Cone Flower by Sunshine Designs and some pink flocking.

This is a sample of the white mesh embossed gold, and a Magenta flower embossed and tiny happy birthday sticker words. To the right is the leftover scrap piece that I embossed.

Happy Stamping

Adding Cork to Your Creations

We have just had too much fun with cork recently.

This is such a nice change from using card stock. The fact that this cork sheeting is so thin allows us to use punches with it as well as using it as a layer. 8 1/2" x 11" @$1.25 a sheet, 12" x 12" @$2.00 a sheet.

Magenta has taken this a step further by offering pre-cut and adhesive backed cork. It is a fast way to use cork shapes when creating a card or page. I find it very user-friendly. There is opportunity to peel off and re-stick (8 1/2" x 11" @ $4.95 a sheet). Above is an example of using the small scalloped circle punch with a cork sheet to use as a backing for the word circle. The punches cut through the thin cork easily. Consider some cork flowers, buttons, or fish as embellishments.

I found the pre-cut cork very simple for a quick card layout. Try colouring the cork with your alcohol inks or permanent pens to change colour.

Welcome Back To Stamp Art's Blog

We're back from CHA with renewed enthusiasm, and so many ideas my head hurts. Here are a few of the make & takes to tempt you. Unfortunately, we won't see the new product until the end of August.

The Trees are from a new clear set from Hero Arts, simply coloured with the Tim Holtz blending tool & Peeled Paint Distress Ink. The felt snowflake, with layered gemstones creates a nice dimension to the card.

Bev made this Penny Black sample. 'Be Merry' is made with (4108k Christmas Usher), this funky Christmas gal has been stamped with Black Versafine. The new poinsetta (4104k Christmas Star), has been stamped with Platinum Metallic Staz-On, which has a nice tone on tone look. The colouring was done with Memento markers and the skirt has been cut out and lifted, before it was adhered with a sweet tiny ribbon knot.

Our hope is to have a new posting weekly. We'd like to continue providing inspriation for your stamping needs.

Thanks so much,

Nancy & Staff.