Stampin Up Trim Your Stocking Outside of the Box

Stampin Up Trim Your Stocking Outside of the Box is what we have for you today. We have a die that we figured out how to use it for something outside of the box..

I made what you would expect, a Christmas stocking, with the die set. As you can see, this die is a nice size. It is approximately 6″ in length.

After making the Christmas stocking, I then thought why not think outside of the box? We created A Breast Cancer Awareness Gift Card and thought you would want to check it out too! Breast Cancer Awareness Month is October and what better way than to bring awareness to Breast Cancer than to put together a gift card holder for a loved one that is battling this horrible disease?

Supplies Needed for the Stampin Up Trim Your Stocking Outside of the Box Project

A Creative Journey with Melissa Awareness Ribbon #3 – Ready for a Fight Stamp Set

Trim Your Stocking Thinlits Dies by Stampin’ Up!

Acrylic Block for stamping

Adhesive

Black Memento Ink

Pink Ink

White card stock

Pink Paper (I used suede paper)

Place the awareness ribbon stamps on your stamp block. Ink your stamp block with pink ink and stamp on your white paper using a varying pattern.

This is how I made my own background paper for this creation.

Take out your manual die cut machine, base platform and clear platform.

Get your stocking die out from the set.

Place your awareness ribbon background paper down on your clear platform. Put your die on top of that cutting side down. Place your second clear platform on top of the die.

Run your die through the machine and set the die cut piece aside. Set the stocking die and the leftover paper aside as well.

Take out your plain white paper and place pillow box die on top of it. Place your clear platform on top of the die. Run your pillow box die through the die cut machine.

This is what your cut pieces from your dies will look like.

Using the A Creative Journey with Melissa Awareness Ribbon #3 – Ready for a Fight Stamp Set, take out the sentiment of your choice. I chose I love you for the sentiment.

Ink and stamp your sentiment on your pink paper.

Using the stocking trim dies, cut your stocking top, toes and heal parts from your pink paper. Center your sentiment in the top of the stocking die.

Here are the cut out pieces for the stocking. Set these pieces aside.

Take out your pillow box die cut. Fold in the tab at the bottom of the die. This tab will hold in your gift card once it is placed inside.

Fold in the two sides toward the center of the die. This is where you will be gluing it to the stocking.

Here it shows what it will look like once you have finished folding the pillow box for the Stampin Up Trim Your Stocking Outside of the Box Project.

Apply adhesive to the tab as well as the two sides you folded in.

Line up the sides to the back of the stocking die. The stocking die and the pillow box die will not line up at the bottom.

Here is a side view of what it will look like once you have lined up the sides and them are compressing the two sides together.

Be sure to push down on all areas that were glued to ensure its adhesion.

This is the gift card holder once it is glued.

Place adhesive on the back of the three pink pieces for your stocking.

Notice the embossed curved line here? You will use this as a guide.

Line up the top of the stocking with the sentiment to the embossed curved line.

Place the larger die cut piece on the toe of the stocking.

Put the smaller remaining piece on the heal part of the stocking as shown.

They are complete! Isn’t it amazing what you can do if you just think outside of the box? If you are interested in any of the die sets or the paper trimmer from Stampin’ Up, check out Brandie’s Website Here and you can order your own!

Now for this weeks GIVEAWAY! We are giving away the A Creative Journey with Melissa Everyday Alphabet Upper Case and Emoticon stamp set

and the A Creative Journey with Melissa Awareness Ribbon #3 – Ready for a Fight Stamp Set

I have had a number of people say how much they love these stamp sets for organizing, their planners, lists and just about everything else under the moon so I thought this would be the perfect prize for this week. TWO winners – one for each set!

To qualify to win, you must be BOTH:

A public follower on YouTube, subscribe to our mailing list/blog posts and you may also comment on this blog post for an additional entry to win! Winners will be announced next week on our Mondays with Melissa blog post!

If you do not contact me within two weeks of the announcement of winning, you will forfeit your prize. Thank you for your understanding.

NOTE: You must be subscribed to BOTH with MATCHING NAMES. If I am unable to match you with your subscription to both the email list and the YouTube Channel, you will miss your chance to win a prize. If I can’t decipher if you are a matching subscriber (if your profile doesn’t show publicly who you subscribe to) and I can’t confirm you have subscribed to both, I won’t be able to enter you in for the prize. **DO NOT COMMENT WITH YOUR ENTIRE EMAIL ADDY. Only give me the first 6 NOT INCLUDING YOUR HOST. Just enough for me to match your name will work perfectly.

Here’s the GIVEAWAY from last weeks post which is the A Creative Journey with Melissa Everyday Alphabet Upper Case and Emoticon stamp set and the A Creative Journey with Melissa Everyday Alphabet Lower Case and Numbers Stamp Set.

The winner is Verna A. AGAIN!

Verna, please send me your contact information via contact page on our website, which post you are a winner from and I will get your prize out to you! Thank you so much for being a YouTube follower and subscribing to our mailing list/blog posts!

We hope you enjoyed our Stampin Up Trim Your Stocking Outside of the Box post!

Have a wonderful week and thank you for going on A Creative Journey with Melissa.

Relaxing Coloring Therapy for Cancer Awareness with GIVEAWAY

Relaxing Coloring Therapy for Cancer Awareness with GIVEAWAY is what we have for you today. I really wanted to do two cards today. I realize Breast Cancer Awareness Month is this Month and Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month is November however I felt compelled to create something for both and I did!

Today for the Relaxing Coloring Therapy for Cancer Awareness, we are creating a Thinking of You card to honor those with cancer.

Specifically, Breast Cancer for October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I wanted to create a card for Pancreatic Cancer for my friend Kim. She is an amazing woman, mother and friend. We would appreciate all of the positive thoughts, prayers and love for her during this difficult journey with Pancreatic Cancer.

For my first creation using Coloring Therapy for Cancer Awareness, I created a Breast Cancer Awareness card. I used the Awareness Ribbon Set #3 – Ready for a Fight stamp set as well as my Chameleon Pens.

We are giving the Awareness Ribbon Set #3 – Ready for a Fight stamp set away to one lucky winner! All you have to do is subscribe to both our YouTube channel as well as our Blog Post/Newsletter Sign up and you will be entered to win the stamp set! Anyone can enter! Today is the last day you can use the coupon fclh2016 to save 25% off all of your none sale/bundle purchases!

I used the same techniques for the second Pancreatic Cancer card with a few different materials. I liked using purple too in order to highlight the Pancreatic Cancer Awareness color. Here is a close up picture of the card creation.

Here are the supplies I used for my second card.

First you will want to take out your Awareness Ribbon Set #3 – Ready for a Fight stamp set out as well as your ink, stamp block and paper to stamp on.

Take out your sentiment and place it on the block and ink the sentiment and stamp on your paper. I like to make a few extra so I usually stamp at least one extra to keep on hand.

Clean off your stamp and stamp block then take out the gloves from your Awareness Ribbon Set #3 – Ready for a Fight stamp set.

Stamp your glove onto your paper.

*Note: I usually make a few extra so I have them on hand for future projects.

Stamp the other glove so you have opposite hands for your project.

This is what it looks like as I am stamping.

*Another Note: You want to be sure you have one of each hand or else it will not look right on your creation.

Take out your punch and sentiment.

Punch out your sentiments with your punch. Set the extras aside for future use on another project.

.Take out your V04 Chameleon Pen and then take off the cap to the nib side in which you prefer to use. Set it aside and place your blending solution chamber on top of the nib. You need to ensure your nibs are touching in the chamber and hold the pen upright and I held it upright for approximately 15 seconds.

For this pen, the pigment is so intense, it really doesn’t get as light as lavender. It is really just a slightly lighter version than concord grape in color as shown.

Due to the dark color of the v04 pen, I colored using the blending solution/ink combination first in the area in which I would like to highlight.

Color in the remainder of the glove. It will start to shade darker as the blending solution wears off and more of the pigment comes through. Repeat the blending solution/ink mixture process again for approximately 15 seconds and color the areas in which you want to highlight on your image.

You will then want to color in the rest of the image and go over the areas in which you want to shadow or darken. I trace around all of the image lines to show depth in your image.

Here shows the shadowing with the variation of color in your image.

Cut out your colored gloves and leave a small amount of white around your image to highlight it on the creation.

Take out your card base and your patterned paper and place adhesive on the back of the patterned paper.

Place your paper on the card base. I chose to put it a little to the left.

Measure your ribbon so that it will wrap around the front flap of the card.

Place a very small amount of adhesive in the middle of the ribbon and then adhere to the inside of the card to keep it in place.

Wrap the ribbon around the front of the card and tie in a knot. Set the card aside.

Take out your white twine and place your foam square on both ends.

Place foam squares on the back of the gloves and adhere to your card front on top of the ribbon.

Place foam squares on the back of your sentiment. Be sure they are pushed down both on the twine as well as the creation so that they do not fall off.

Place the sentiment on the ribbon and make sure that you have it centered between the two gloves.

Wrap the twine around the sentiment on the corners and this will give your sentiment texture and attention in your creation.

Your creation is complete! This is what it will look like.

Here are both of the creations I made and as you can see by changing the color of the gloves, I changed the Awareness theme of the card. Our Awareness Ribbon Stamp Sets are versatile and can be used for multiple Awareness causes.

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel as well as our Blog Post/Newsletter Sign up . You could win one of your very own Awareness Ribbon Set #3 – Ready for a Fight stamp sets!

Thank you for joining us today and going on A Creative Journey with Melissa.

It really has been three years…Remembering Uncle Herb

I think that really says it all.

While remembering Uncle Herb, I can’t believe how time has flown by but yet stood still at the same time. So much has happened. So many things have changed and yet so much has stayed the same all wrapped up in 1065 days.

Uncle Herb was my dad’s brother. He moved to California in the 60’s from Chicago. He lived closer to us than anyone else in our family. We moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles and he was in San Diego. While remembering Uncle Herb… we didn’t see him as often as we would have liked.

Uncle Herb retired when he was 55.

Something that he would recommend to everyone if it is possible. He was a retired Police Sergeant and with his job, he had seen way too much of things he would prefer to forget. He retired early and really enjoyed life by traveling, kayaking and really experiencing the world that we live in. Now he was enjoying the world around him. When we did see him, he always had a story to tell from one of his traveling excursions. Boy did he have stories! Whether it was a story from a kayak trip, traveling or just stories of things that were important to him. He really loved life. The legacy he left behind was great… one of the many life lessons he taught my boys was live life to the fullest.

Uncle Herb lived what he preached.

Uncle Herb was an amazing example and a man who will forever be remembered with love, fondness and gratitude. Fondness because he always accepted me for who I was and who I wasn’t. He listened without judgment. We are grateful for the time we had with him although forever wouldn’t have been long enough. I am honored that he always believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

We all have a dream…

I always wanted to start my own stamp line. Honestly, I never thought I would it was just a pipe dream that really wouldn’t ever come to fruition. That was until I talked to him. He was diagnosed with cancer in August of 2012. As a result of one of our talks during his treatment he basically said, “Miss, if not now, when?” (Missie was a nickname when I was younger and he was one of the VERY FEW that are still allowed to call me that. Funny enough my husband doesn’t even know who she is! LOL 😉

His statement basically stopped me in my tracks.

Well, considering he was going through radiation at the time I thought I really need to LISTEN to what he was saying. He has always lived life to the fullest although uncertain of what lie ahead. So I called around, did all of the leg work and started creating drawings for my stamps. I wrote down ideas and after quite some time, some mistakes mistakes mistakes. (Did someone say mistakes?) Of course there were even more mistakes.. I had my stamps manufactured, organized an awesome group of fabulous supportive creative women that made up the Creative Crew (design team) and was well on my way to beginning my journey of my stamp line release.

My stamp line grand opening release was on September 18, 2013.

The first release included the stamp sets that were inspired by Uncle Herb.

The first two stamp sets were Awareness Ribbon stamp set #1 and Awareness Ribbon Stamp Set #2.

Awareness Ribbon Stamp Set #1 Awareness Ribbon Stamp Set #2

All of my Awareness Ribbon stamp sets have been in honor of my Uncle Herb and his fight against cancer.

Specifically, the Awareness Ribbon Stamp Set #2 .

He wasn’t doing well and had called me September 17th. As I always did, I asked him if he needed me to come to San Diego. He said Yes. I knew it wasn’t good because he rarely said he needed help and asked me if I would come to San Diego. We (my boys and I-including my husband of course!) often came whether he wanted help or not! Well, with tears in my eyes and a very shaky voice I called my husband at work. He really is my rock. Without skipping a beat he left work, picked the kids up from school asI packed up everything I needed for my release as well as my undetermined extended stay and we were on the road in less than two hours. Although he wasn’t feeling well,

Uncle Herb was very excited about my stamp release!

These were created with Awareness Ribbon Stamp Set #1

These were created by Sharon with Awareness Ribbon Stamp Set #2

He watched me get prepared for my release, package my items for sale and get everything organized even though he wasn’t feeling well. When the stamp release day came, he watched me accept orders and prepare them for shipment from San Diego where he lived. He really shared in the excitement that day and I was ever so grateful for him to be able to share this with me.

Sadly, he passed away September 19, 2013. This being the day after my stamp release and stamp business grand opening.

Much of the time within the last year of his life was spent with him while he wasn’t feeling well, under treatment or recovering from surgery, I learned so much from him during our time together. The stories, wisdom, unbelievable courage, strength and perseverance. I am so grateful that he was able to enjoy his support and influence for me come to fruition and watch the first day grand opening of my stamp business.
When remembering Uncle Herb…

If there is anything I have learned from the loss of Uncle Herb it is remember what is important. When we are remembering Uncle Herb weather happy or sad, we share. We talk about it. We share stories. He would never want us to live in sadness. Life was too precious and if we were living in regret or sadness, we weren’t living life to the fullest.

Remember what matters to you most.

Whatever that is, live your life with that which is instrumental in happiness and success in your life. Surround yourself with people that support you and lift you up. Be selective with those that don’t. Your time is valuable. Tell those friends, family and loved ones you have in your life that you love them. Hug your kids. LAUGH. A LOT. Tell them they are important. BE PRESENT. Be grateful. Listen more. Talk less. Live and Love to the fullest. Tell the people that you love how much they mean to you because tomorrow is never promised.

While remembering Uncle Herb the biggest thing I want to do is not be sad but do what he would have wanted and

Celebrate Uncle Herbs life!

He would not want us to live in sorrow. What better way to celebrate Uncle Herbs life than have a coupon for the stamp sets he inspired me to start! All Stamp Sets are 25% off! This would exclude bundles and items already on sale.

Enter in coupon code UncleHerb at check out! Coupon good until 9-22-16

We appreciate you visiting today. We hope you will share your story of inspiration, hope and courage. Thank you for going on A Personal and A Creative Journey with Melissa.

Go Green! Use Recycled Packaging and Remove Alcohol Ink with Archival Ink Technique

Go Green! Use Recycled Packaging and Remove Alcohol Ink with Archival Ink Technique is such a neat technique and I really think you will use this over and over and over again. Did you ever want a little color to your creation or wanted to use the negative space of a creation but weren’t sure how? This will show you how amazing versatile your stamps are and how you can create a negative space that you can remove ink from your creation to make even MORE of an impact! Are you ready? Let’s get started!

If you have watched my videos, I like to reuse packaging material in my creations. What better way to showcase this but with a Breast Cancer Awareness card! October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I thought this would be a great way to highlight this cause. WHO doesn’t love shopping, right? Well, when I shop for crafty fun stuff, I love to purchase dies. Many come in acrylic clam shells. I love to cut them up so that I can reuse them later for a project. This is EXACTLY what I did here!

Supplies you will need:

Awareness Ribbon #1 Stamp Set

Awareness Ribbon #3 Stamp Set

Stamp Block

Recycled Clear Packaging or Clear Acrylic Sheet

Ranger Alcohol Ink

Ranger Archival Ink – Jet Black

Ink Tool and Cotton Pad (optional-you can use cotton balls or make up applicator pads)

Washi Tape

Paper Towel or DRY wipe

First you will want to take out your recycled packaging or clear sheet, your alcohol ink and applicator. Drip 10-12 drops of the ink onto your clear packaging.

Use your applicator to move the alcohol ink around by tapping, sliding or dabbing so that you have all of the area covered in a design you enjoy.

You can stamp immediately onto the surface or you can let this dry for 3-5 minutes. If you do it while it’s wet, sometimes the stamped image can smear so be sure you don’t allow it to slip around. To add your image, put your stamp on your stamp block and ink your stamp with archival ink.

Stamp your image onto the clear packaging you have colored.

Be sure you use the archival ink for the image to ensure the ink will get the desired effect on the project.

Wait until mostly dry to completely dry (2-5 minutes) Take out your paper towel or dry wipe. Wipe off the black archival ink.

You will be left with the negative image that you stamped. This means that where you stamped your image, it is now clear and the outside colored area remains highlighting your stamped image.

To put the card together, you will take the card base and stamp the sentiment onto the card base approximately where it will show through the clear space created by the technique.

Take the completed technique clear material, place it over the stamped sentiment and line it up.

Take a piece of washi tape and adhere the washi tape to the clear packaging material. Line the material up to the card base and adhere the washi tape to the card base.

Your project is complete!

Thank you so much for joining us today. We hope we have inspired you and would love to hear what you have done using this technique. Have a wonderful day and thank you for going on A Creative Journey with Melissa.

Stamp Masking Technique, Breast Cancer Awareness Support Card and MORE!

Would you like to create using a Stamp Masking Technique and create a Breast Cancer Awareness Support Card? Have you ever wanted to use two stamps in a creation but didn’t know how to make the stamping looked layered? Well, you have come to the right place! In this video I am going to show you how to mask your stamps so that you can layer until your heart is content and have it look realistic! This can be done with any stamped image and we can’t wait to see how you use this so be sure to share your creations! We have both the video above or a pictorial below so we have you covered! Let’s get started!

Here are the supplies you will need:

Awareness Ribbon #3 – Ready For A Fight Stamp Set

Stamp Block

Punch

Chameleon Pens

Ink

Scissors

Twine

Adhesive

Card Base & Paper for Sentiment

First you will take out your card base, punch, stamps, ink and stamp block.

Take your card base and punch. Punch out the area in which you want to put your sentiment on the front of the card.

Take your chosen sentiment, place it on the stamp block and ink it. Stamp your sentiment inside the window on the front of the card.

This is the result once stamped. You can use whatever punch you would like to create this effect whether it be a heart, star or whatever you wish to convey the message on your creation.

Take out the paper to be stamped on, the glove stamps, stamp block and ink. Place glove on stamp block, ink and stamp on paper.

Take out the post it notes. Stamp the image you want to mask (or protect from the layered image) onto the post it note ensuring that the sticky part of the post it note is under the image being stamped. This will help with the masking process on your creation.

Cut out the post it note image. Be sure to cut as close to the image as possible without going into the image or else it will not give you the masking effect you will want.

Place your mask on top of the image you stamped. Notice how closely the image is cut to emulate the stamped image for the mask.

Place the second glove on your stamp block.

Ink your stamp and stamp on top of the mask.

This is what it looks like once the image is stamped on top of the mask.

This is what the image looks like once the mask is taken off. See how the image was blocked by the mask? This gives the dimensional look of one glove behind the other.

Once you are done with your mask, I suggest you place it with your stamp set. This way they are kept together and it can be used over and over again and would save some time for future creations. The post it note adhesive will wear after a while so you may need to repeat the above process for the mask at some point.

Take out your PK3 Chameleon Marker. Color in your gloves. When coloring, I did not use the blending solution. I just colored in the image with the brush tip. I colored over some areas more than others and I really love how it gave a water-color look to the image.

Cut out the gloves. Be sure to cut them out closely to give a more finished and clean look to your creation.

Take out your twine and adhesive.

Create a bow with your twine. Adjust the bow size for your needs. Trim the excess ends of the bow. Place your twine and gloves on the card for placement and measuring of twine. Cut twine accordingly.

Take out your adhesive. Apply adhesive to the back of the gloves as well as the knot on the bow.

Adhere gloves and twine to your card creation.

Your creation is complete!

Thank you for visiting us today! We hope you enjoyed the creation as well as the two techniques we showed you. Please be sure to follow us on social media and check out our website for awesome clear stamps and crafting products! Thank you for going on A Creative Journey with Melissa.

Tag Archive for: Breast Cancer Awareness