Paper Pumpkin Alternatives #3

I had posted an alternative card for the January Paper Pumpkin using the This Little Piggy stamp set and the hogs & kisses sentiment. This stamp set also has a pig in it that is flying & has the sentiment of She Believed She Could. The Paper Pumpkin set for January 2019 Be Mine Valentine has a stamp in it that says You're So Fly. After I posted my hogs & kisses card a gal mentioned that the flying pig & You're So Fly sentiment would be cute together - challenge accepted!!!

~Enjoy

---

I decided to create a Z-fold card so I could actually get the pig to fly. Another alternative was to add a little spring behind him, but since I did not have any of those - I decided to go with the Z-fold. After a little card design work, I had to decide where the pig would look best so that he could still fly. This is the Z-fold card closed.

I replicated the stamp technique I used on my hogs & kisses card for the hearts, one says You're so Fly & the other says By My Valentine? I stamped up to 3 times with the photo-polymer before re-inking & sponged the edges with Melon Mambo. They are not straight, but I think they are cuter a little wonky, especially with this little wonky font. You can see the piggy in full flight here. The wings are vellum sandwiched in-between 2 piggies.

I added a little pocket on the inside fold & used one of the hearts from the kit & made it into a tag by stapling some ribbon on the top. The edges of this tag are inked in Wink of Stella as well as my little piggy.

I made an alternate design for just a flat normal card, my piggy is missing his wings in this picture though.

Here is the card in action!

---

Shop Stampin' Up! products here!

Paper Pumpkin Alternatives #2

When I was creating my Chinese New Years cards (the year of the pig) I found This Little Piggy stamp set. When I saw him and his sentiment was hogs & kisses I thought I would use some of the January Paper Pumpkin leftovers with him. This is how it turned out!

~Enjoy

---

Who knew that Stampin' Up! makes a cute little piggy tail embossing folder?! OK, it is actually called Swirls & Curls, but it fits perfectly!!! The red hearts and red heart embellishments are from the January Paper Pumpkin. The red heart paper is from the pillow boxes and the ribbon is retired. Pig & Sentiment are edged with a sponge and Melon Mambo. I also added some Wink of Stella on my piggy because it is Valentine's Day!!!

Now I did have to cut apart my stamp for this next piece. I separated the hogs & kisses sentiment from my little pig because I wanted to use it to create some background paper that said hogs & kisses all over it. As I was playing with setting it up in my Stamparatus, I was not fully inking the stamp - just to see if I was going to like it or not. The cool thing that happened was it started to vary in shades and I really liked it, so as I started to stamp the sentiment I stamped up to 4 times without re-inking to get the different colors - another happy accident! I did end up using my Stamp-a-ma-jig for this technique since I was only making one card and I could not see thru the stamp, even then it is a little wiggly and not perfect.

Another tip I wanted to share was what I did with my sentiment. First, I made it extra long so I could cut some really deep tails. Then with my fingernail, I dragged it across the tails & pulled up so get them to curl slightly. Now you have to imagine splitting your sentiment up into sections, the tails, just inside the tails, then about at 30% & 70% of the length & then the middle. I adhered adhesive to the middle & just before the end of the tails and added dimensionals to the 30% & 70% marks and also the very end tail parts to keep them up/curled. This results in a very wavy ribbon.

---

Shop Stampin' Up! products here!

Chinese New Year 2019

I had submitted a request to Stampin' Up! that they make the animal for Chinese New Year. When I got the annual catalog, then the Holiday Catalog and then the Occasions catalog and found no Chinese New Year stamps set I was a little disappointed. They did have a set called This Little Piggy which I bought because I thought he was super cute.

Then it came time to make my Chinese New Year cards (coming up on Feb 5) & when I went to research what year it was I discovered it was the Year of the Pig! How fortunate!!

~Enjoy

---

The Year of the Pig colors for 2019 are Red, Gold, Pink and White. The background is made from the Swirls & Curls embossing folder, the white swirls are Spellbinders Draping Vines Elements and Stampin' Up!'s glimmer paper, Numbers are from Stampin' Up!'s Retired numbers set & the pig is from the current catalog and it is called This Little Piggy. I added some Wink of Stella to the pig so he matched the other shiny elements. He is just too cute!!!

---

Shop Stampin' Up! products here!