Casually Crafting Blog Hop

This Month’s Theme is a Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge

Who are the Casually Crafting Design Team you may ask? We are made up of Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators from around the world we love to hop each month with projects to inspire those who may be new to crafting or might like a simpler and more basic approach to crafting. The emphasis is on the use of our coordinating card, inks, DSP (patterned paper) and simple stamping with our fabulous stamp sets to create projects that are easy to duplicate, but are stylish and eyecatching.

So to the Challenge for September, choosing a line either straight up, across or diagonally. I chose bottom left diagonally up to top right, Green, Tag & Embossing.

I thought that the ‘Counting Sheep’ stamp set might be one I could try a simple embossing technique without any fancy machines and only very basic skills, and the Tag idea lent itself to a Bookmark.

How I Made My Bookmark

1. I cut a piece of Thick Basic White Card at 2.5 inches by 5.5 inches and used The Delightful Tag Topper Punch to create a tag top. I had to gently push my 2.5 inch edge into the punch as it’s meant for narrower card, but it works jjust fine.

2. Next I trimmed off the ‘shoulders’ and rounded them off to smarten up the top of my Bookmark. and then corner rounded the bottom of my tag with the ‘Detailed Trio Punch’. I added some Granny Apple Green with the Blending Brushes to create a background and a few splats from the Grey Granite.

3. I stamped two sheep in Momento and two sheep in Grey Granite on Basic White and then stamped in Grey Granite on Vellum. I coloured the Momento sheep with Stampin Blends and the Grey sheep added colour to just the features.

4. Once the ink had dried on the vellum sheep (allow some time vellum is non-porous) I turned the stamped image over and used a ball stylus tool and my sponge mat to make circles on the vellum lightly over the wooly area to make the sheep’ wool look 3D and add a pop!

5. I then fussy cut the full sheep and the ‘wooly vellum coats’ I heat embossed with white embossing powder on black card to create the ‘You’re Amazing’ as we all need to remember this when we are reading our books, don’t you think?

6. I used the hostess paper pack ‘Pattern Party’ to add my green. I added the fun Paper Lattice to add an extra element to the green paper, then on my stepped up Bookmark I added the green to the black and white paper using a range of green Stampin Blends to create a grassy look.

This version features the more basic Stamps, Paper & Ink with a few colouring tools and our punches. I coloured the white ribbon with the Granny Apple Green Blend to create my own matching ribbon. I do this so often!

The stepped up version features my ‘Faux Wool Effect’ and a pretty die cut Scallop Border from the dies that accompany the Hand Penned Petals that coincidentally is featured in my Class for September.

Visit everyone taking part in the Blog Hop

All the products featured are available from my Stampin’ Up! Store HERE