Making Cards & Papercraft ~ Whimsy Stamps

Hey crafty friends, the July and August edition of Making Cards and Papercraft finally reached New Zealand shores for me and I have to say, this was pretty exciting, because I'm in the mag! I was asked to create a tutorial using some lovely Whimsy products to be featured in the magazine and came up with a few creations. I'm delighted that they loved and used them all! I was pretty excited to have a 3 page spread! 

I had a very short turn around time to put in the creations, so worked with some items I'd already started crafting with at the time. I had made my nephew a 20th birthday card using a fun set of Alien elements from Whimsy Stamps and also made a shaker card and some gift tags using some of these same elements too. My brief was 'cards for kids', I know, my nephew at 20 is barely a kid anymore, but the card I created could have been used for any age and worked well for the theme. 

I've used a fun combination of elements from Whimsy Stamps for this creation, including the Slimline Observation Deck Die, which I think is SO cool. We're huge SciFi fans in our house, so having a fun die like this to play with is right up my alley! I kept the surround very simple, so the eye is drawn to what is going on through the windows. Looking back at Star Trek episodes, the inside décor was always quite simple, often a creamy colour, so I mirrored this in my make. I wanted the windows to stand out, as they have a fun pattern to them, so cut these from a silver mirror cardstock. I also cut the '20' from the same mirror cardstock. For this Observation Deck scene, I used dies for the people from the Space Ships Die Set, to have them looking through the windows at the alien scene. I cut multiples and used them in different configurations across the scene. I'll add thumbnails of everything I used at the end of the article.

The magazine included some fun 'Top Tips' I'd sent through with my tutorial on the image. Which I think is fun. Including a paper clip tip, which the following image represents, there wasn't enough room to include the image in the article, so here it is just for 'you'.

The next creation, I made as a shaker card, using the same little Space Minions shown above. This die is super cute for space themed creations and comes at an incredibly good price point! I used these cute little aliens on each of my three creations in fun and different ways. For the shaker card below, I used the wee minions as actual shaker elements, for a fun and different twist. I omitted the 'eyes' in the shaker aliens, but added them on the aliens outside the shaker window. 

I created my own background by stamping random words from the Doodle Frames Stamp Set over the base. I also used the stamp and die frame from the Doodle Frames Stamp and Die Sets to create the shaker frame. Something a bit fun and different from the usual round or square windows often used. I created the alien atmosphere background with watercolour paper and watercolour pens and some salt. The article shows this process. The veining you see below, is a result of salt being dropped on the wet watercolour. I splattered the background to finish it off and hand cut it to fit the Doodle Frame shape.

Next of course was to add the sequins and little alien shaker elements before putting the shaker window all together. I used a simple mix of sequins from my stash, which was some toning round sequins and some little iridescent star sequins, perfect for a space theme. The minions I cut from a dark teal cardstock and from silver iridescent cardstock. The shine of the silver minions is fabulous and catches the light so well. 

I finished this card with the large word die smile, which echoed one of the stamped sentiments I'd used for the card base. Who wouldn't smile with these cute aliens to shake around?! A fun creation made for my little nephew who I expected would have a lot of fun shaking these around. I wanted to give it an extra 'finish' once the card was done, so I grabbed my corner rounder and rounded two opposing corners. I was happier with that finish for this fun card. I popped up the aliens at different heights outside the shaker window, so you can see the dimension in the pic below. I also shared a tip in the magazine tutorial, to colour the foam used to pop up narrow word diecuts, so the white edge of the foam doesn't show. I used a toning Copic Marker to colour my foam teal, so it disappears into the cardstock below. This is a cool trick when there's any dimensional foam that would otherwise show. It gives a seamless finish. I didn't bother with the little aliens, because unless you hold the card at the angle I've show below, you really don't see the foam. With narrow diecuts, it's much more obvious.

The final creation I shared with the magazine, was actually three little tags using elements from the previous creations. I used a fun Whimsy Stamps Bookmark Die cut down to make tags, which I then added some washi tape in a toning silver as the base of the design. I tore one edge of the washi tape for a bit of texture. I ink splattered the background of the tags for a bit of interest with metallic frost reinker watered down and flicked from the edge of an acrylic stamping block. 

I then added the Smile and Special Large Word Dies to the first two tags. I used multiple layers of these diecuts stacked up to add a bit of dimension to the words. A trick I'm sure many of you will be familiar with, if you watch Jennifer McGuire tutorials. She is the queen of stacked diecuts and I definitely learnt this trick from her. It does add some fun and eye catching depth and dimension. The third little tag features those cute Space Minions. I used scraps of toning ribbon and bakers twine to finish these tags.

Thanks for sticking with me friends, I know this is a huge post, three makes to share and lots of pics dictated that. But I wanted to share with you some of the extra details that it wasn't possible to share in the article. I hope you've enjoyed seeing these creations and do let me know if you bought the magazine and read the article! I'd love to know what you thought of it. It totally made me day to receive the magazine in the post and see it in the flesh, so to speak. I am a digital subscriber to Making Cards and Papercrafts, as I do really enjoy their content, but getting the physical magazine to NZ shores is expensive, so this was an extra treat for me! I have crafty pals who are regularly featured in this magazine, so it's always a treat to read! The lovely Faye Wynn-Jones has a regular colouring tutorial in the magazine, which is always worth reading and the lovely Sue Hastead has featured a lot lately, making cover girl recently too! 

I caught a few typos in the actual article which weren't in my original script, which I was sad about, because I'm a stickler for those things. I mention this only, because I want to be clear, these were not MY typos! Folks don't seem so invested these days in actual proof reading, relying rather on spell checks, which don't catch everything, sigh. But this didn't diminish my joy at being featured in the magazine!

Wishing you a beautiful week with plenty of 'you' time, so you can refresh your creative soul. Stay safe, healthy and happy. Hugs and happy crafting xoxo

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