Memento Luxe Ink Review

Hello! Leah from Paper Blossoms here today. I thought it may be helpful to share a review of the newer Memento Luxe pigment inks that I recently purchased. I know that I am always looking for reviews and personal experience with a product before I decide to try it out, so hopefully this will help someone!

There are great explanations out there on the difference between dye ink and pigment ink but for a quick re-cap, dye ink dyes the paper which means it absorbs into it very quickly so that it is basically  dry the moment you stamp it. The colors in general are going to be more translucent as well since the color sinks into the paper. Pigment ink is a much heavier, wetter ink that sits on top of the paper and is more highly pigmented so get you a much more opaque look which can equal more vibrancy of color. The Memento Luxe inks are a pigment ink.

One bit of caution using pigment inks is that because they stay wet quite a bit longer than dye ink unless you are going to not touch your project for several hours after completing it, I'd recommend heat setting it so that you don't accidentally smudge the ink. You can also very easily use embossing powder to seal it, which you would also heat set.

 Here is a card I did using all Memento Luxe Inks. They give vibrant, rich color and cover clear stamps super, super well! Dye ink can have challenges with good coverage and non splotchy images. I was very pleased with the amount of detail the Luxe inks captured as well and I really like the layering of colors (the bit of overlap in my sentiment) they provide. I personally think that for general stamping they are a fabulous ink that give rich color and great coverage!

If you read about what the Luxe inks were designed for it says Mixed Media. I haven't had mine very long yet, so I am still trying techniques out, but one I did try is watercoloring with them. For this card I stamped the image onto watercolor paper and immediately swiped a water brush across my still wet image. It moved the color around to give a watercolor wash but didn't obliterate the outline of the image. I then picked up other colors directly from my ink pad with a dry brush and brushed on the ink to my damp paper adding more water to blend. These inks allow you to do some watercolor techniques using just the ink itself. Once the ink is dry or heat set it is no longer reactive with water.

These are just a couple of my findings so far about these inks! I am super happy with them and look forward to trying them on other mediums such as fabric, wood and ribbon. I hope this has been informative and I would highly recommend the Memento Luxe inks. Thanks for letting me share! Have a blessed day :)

Memento Luxe ink colors used:
*Rhubarb Stalk
*Rose Bud
*Teal Zeal
*Pear Tart
*Gray Flannel
*Dandelion

Just a few Valentines

Hey everyone! 

It's Candy here from Candy's Craft Corner. It's my day to share today. Thanks so much for having me Sheila. 

Late post today. I swear if my head wasn't attached I'd misplace it. LOL. 

Just wanted to share a few Valentines I made this year. 

I got the first idea from Kim. She made these cards for a Made in Minutes for the My Creative Time blog. I loved them so much I just had to recreate them. With some little extras of my own of course.

This one was made with a little boy in mind.  

This one for a young lady. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Take care,

Candy

Gypsy Made Simple - Spinner Birthday Card - Free Gypsy & CCR Files

I sure hope you are having a GREAT day! Today I am sharing one of my favorite cards... the Spinner Card. I thank Melissa at Melissa Made for she helped me along the way when I made my first Spinner Card. Melissa  gave me the dimensions of the slider and my Gypsy Woman did the rest! It was so much fun to make... Now I just use the same base and change up the little critter that moves along the slider. And they all look great!

This video is long but it goes all the way from choosing papers, to designing your card. Just click HERE for the Gypsy file, and click HERE for the CCR file. But remember you will need to watch the video to know exactly how to put it together. I cut my own 5x7 solid, 2 4.75x6.75 print, and 1 4.25x625 solid for the sentiment area.  I did not use the cuts on the file for them as I could move faster and have less waste. Carts used: George, Celebrations, Cricut Sampler, Sentimentals, and ZooBalloo.

This video shows you step by step instructions of how to put your card together... It is just so adorable when completed, you will love it!

This is the little bee and I made him from either Doodle Charms or Walk In The Garden. It became special just by adding a lot of chunky glitter. This is called Sprinkles and it is from Stamps Of Life, however it is very similar to the Martha Stewart chunky glitter. Isn't he just too handsome?

Here is how the front of the card looks. Notice how I stamped the slider giving it a look of a bee in flight. How fun is that? My stamp is from Stamps Of Life.

Here is the inside of the card.... I just love how festive it looks, don't you?

I hope you like today's little project and give it a try yourself. If you would like me to share your card on She's A Sassy Lady just mail it to: Sheila McShea, 3005 Stonecreek Trace, Helena AL 35080 as I would love to share it.

Thanks for joining us today and thanks for your sweet sweet words. Your comments inspire me to continue sharing with you! Have a blessed week.

An altered Valentine's Day mail box

Hi Everyone,

Lisa from Lisa's Craft Room here with my project for the month. I know Valentines' Day is over but I wanted to share with you what I made for my mother and sister. I purchased 3 cute metal mail boxes at Target for $1.00 each. I bought 2 pink ones and 1 red one. I still have to decorate the red one for myself.

This is it before decorating it.

I took decorative paper and adhered it to the base. The size of that is 4" x 12". For the covers, I just traced them on the paper and cut them out and adhered them. Then just used ribbons and some embellishments, a purple glittery self adhesive heart, some lace and gems, some tulle and brads. I think they came out really cute and my mother and sister loved them.

To have something to put inside of the mail boxes, I thought of dye cutting small envelopes with little notes in each one, but then decided to just make little bags. I put Valentine's Day Hershey kisses in each bag, stapled them closed and added a paper bow which is a die from Emma. I added a pearl in the middle of each one.

So that is my project for this month. Thank you Sheila for having me and Thank you all for stopping by.

Princess Shopping and Card Making All In The Same Morning...

Good Day Everyone!

First, thank you Sheila for having me here today on your blog!

We hope you all are having a great day and getting inspired to create. Recently I was up at dark thirty and was waiting for my local Target store to open while enjoying a cup of Krispy Kreme Dark Roast coffee and a couple of HOT delicious donuts.

This same day was also our great nieces 3rd birthday party. Happy Birthday to our very sweet KK (Kennedy)! Her birthday is all about Sofia The First. So off to Target I travelled to see what I could find. I found a lot of options and finally settled on some Sofia accessories. A Princess needs a lot of accessories and Target had some great options today at a good price.

No gift is complete until you have the right card and in this case it needed to be a Sofia card. Well I looked in the party section and in the cards to no avail. What is up with that? They have invites, thank you notes, but no cards? Hmmm maybe they were just out do to the recent ice/snow storm we had here in NE Georgia.

I came home and did some Google image searching and found this image.

I opened it up using my Silhouette Designer software and traced the image.

Using the trace window I clicked on Trace Image. Then I drew a box around my PNG image. Deselected the High Pass filter. Increased the threshold to 93%. Click on trace and detach.

I clicked on my image and moved her over on the mat and then moved her silhouette off the mat. I save these for use as stencils on my mixed media projects. Just a simple cut and we have a perfect stencil for Sofia. Now I need to resize Sofia to fit in an A2 size envelope. Click on Sofia and go to the Scale feature. Use the Lock Aspect Ratio and change her height to 5.5"

Now I am ready to add the cut line to my image.  I selected my image and clicked on the CUT LINE (scissors) icon. Then I have to select the type of cut line and I choose the CUT EDGE option as I want it to cut the outline and not the details.  You see it puts the RED cut line around the outer edge of my image. I will have a perfect cut!

Now I am going to open the REPLICATE menu.  Select my image again by clicking on it. I chose the Mirror Right option and then used my directional keys to move the new image to the left until its attached where I want it. Holding down the shift key and clicking on the left image now I have both images selected and to make sure they are welded together I am going to click on the CUT LINE (scissors icon) again and choose the CUT EDGE.

Simple and easy! Now I'm ready to print the image but I need to use the Silhouette Registration Marks so I get the perfect cut card. I click on the Registrations Marks Settings Window and then select the Show Registrations Marks box.  I click on File --> Print and send this to my printer that is loaded with the cardstock or photo paper I want to use.

Once printed I load it on my cutting mat and send the file to my Silhouette.  I tell it to automatically detect the registration marks and it does. Then I get to tell it what kind of paper I am cutting and I can adjust my blade setting based on its recommendations and click on the CUT button.  Once cut I used my ScorPal to score it and used a soft lavender marker to write in it.

Here's a quick shot of the finished card!  I could have made 10 cards in the time it took to write this tutorial, but alas I did not do so!  I am enjoying using my Silhouette, but alas I adore my Cricut and will still be using her and my sweet Gypsy! 

The Silhouette is so easy and very convenient when you need the perfect card or accessory for your gift.  I could add some small pearls to this card, but KK is three so we are not going to do that on this card. Maybe on a scrapbook page, but not her card that she will be touching.

Thank you for stopping by today and happy crafting! Have a blessed day!

Donna Lee

100th Day of School Layout

Hello - Lori here from ScrappinMyStressAway!  Today I am pulling double duty - I am featured at She's A Sassy Lady and Let's Scrap!  This week at Let's Scrap, our challenge is a card sketch.  I rarely make cards, so I turned mine into a scrapbook layout.

Here is the sketch.

For Tanner's 100th Day of school, his teacher made 100 pancakes! 

I created a title using my cameo and a font from my computer. 

I used circles to represent the pancakes.  I sprayed the background paper with Heidi Swapp teal color shine.  I added a strip of paper and some twine.

The paper is from Frosted Designs - Hey Kid!

I was so grateful that the teacher sent me a picture as volunteers were not needed this day!  What a fun day for the class!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

An Oriental Gift Box

Hi everyone!  It's Karon here from Karon's Krafty Korner - thanks so much for having me come visit Sheila. Sending you lots of hugs.

Anyways, I have finally got round to making a gift box for some Oriental cards I have made over the past couple of weeks.  Here's a picture of the cards I made :-)

I wanted the box to look somewhat oriental.  So I started off with a piece of cardboard from a package I had received.  My cards were 8" by 3", plus the envelopes, so had to make the box to fit these.

It measures 9" by 4" and I bought some gold tissue to cover it.  I just wrapped it like a present.  Looks like a yummy bar of chocolate doesn't it :-)

For the underneath, I cut a piece of black card stock just a quarter of an inch smaller and stuck this over where I had stuck the tissue.  Therefore hiding any tape etc.

Next up was making the box to put the cards in.  I cut a piece of card stock 10 7/8" by 5 7/8".  Then scored this piece at 1.25" on all sides, and cut in tabs ready to make the box.

Made up the box and secured this to the gold base.

Next up, is the lid.  You will need an 11" by 6" piece of card stock, once again scored on all sides at 1.25".  For this piece, I also used my circle punch and just clipped out those little pieces for easy of lifting the lid off.

Now, in hind sight, I would recommend that you decorate the panels before you put the box together! But as I was experimenting with the size of the box and it worked, I didn't want to waste it, so I had to put the panels on after it was assembled, albeit a little fiddly :-)

I really didn't want to over embellish the box, as the papers are stunning in themselves.  However, I have added a couple of fans and the scroll.  All the papers and embellishments are from the Polkadoodles Dollie Daydream Goes East collection - it is available as a CD and also as a download bundle!

I scored the fans, added a little pearl dot and then rolled the scroll, to add some dimension to them.

And there you have it, a lovely box to give this set as a gift.

I hope you enjoyed your visit today.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy crafting.

Side Step Cards

Hi, everyone.  This is Charlotte C.  I hope you all had a love-filled Valentine weekend.  Thank you, Sheila, for inviting me in.  All my good wishes for a speedy recovery go out to you.
I had occasion to make some side step cards recently and wanted to share some info about them with you.  I’m sure some of you have created these too.   The birthday card I made, when I saw it a long time ago online, I actually wrote what cuts from Sweet Treats were used and just followed that.  No originality on my part there.  Why reinvent the wheel?
For both cards the card stock base is cut at 5 1/2 by 8 1/2.  When folded, they are A2 size.  The big difference is the length of the cut and where to score for the fold lines.   This picture shows the cut (solid) and score (dashed) lines.  The first score line is always a mountain fold, then valley, etc.

For the dresser card, measure in 2 3/4”  from the long edge and cut from 1” to 5 1/4”; score one side of the cut line at 1”, 2” and 5 1/4” only up to the cut line.  Score the other side at 4 1/4” only up to the cut line.  When folded, the part that’s scored at 4 1/4" becomes the actual “dresser.”   I did not have a fancy punch to create the opening between the “legs,” so I used a Spellbinders label die and just placed it enough on the base to create the opening and ran it through my Big Kick (yep, Kick; the predecessor to the Big Shot).  Drawer sizes are 3/4" x 2”.  I placed the brads on before adhering to the card.  Whether you choose to make the dresser/drawers section on the right or left really doesn’t matter.  On my card, the dress and hanger are from New Arrival.   

For the birthday card, I again measured in 2 3/4” from the long edge.  However, how far in from the edge can vary – depends on your plan for decorating.  You will see in the above photo of the cuts/score lines that I came in only 2”.  Anyhow, you will cut from 1” to 6 3/8”; score the wider side at 1”, 2”, 3” and 6 3/8 only up to the cut line.  Then score across the entire width at 4 1/4".  The little celebrate circles are from Art Philosophy and the stamp is from CTMH.

I used a Martha Stewart gift punch to decorate the birthday card envelope.  Love that punch and I always try to use it if I’m delivering a card with a gift.

 Just a few “me” things.  I did ink the edges of the cards, mats and embellishments, which is something I don’t always do.  I cut two layers for each drawer and glued them together as one to give them a bit of heft and I adhered them with foam tape.  I needed the drawers to be “open” a bit for the lace and ribbon to spill out.   I cut 3 or 4 of each of the embellishments for the birthday card and glued them together as one, again for more heft.   No foam tape on that card.  I find by gluing several layers (use the blackout feature) of the die cut together I get a sturdier, more substantial piece and oftentimes don’t need to add pop dots or foam tape.  Also used some Glossy Accents and Wink of Stella (love that stuff).

Thanks for joining us today.  Have a great day.  (I'm seeing two sizes of type on this when I preview the publish version.  I wonder why.)