Only days left to get any retiring 2018-2019 Stampin' Up! products

Technique using Stampin' Up! Simple Stripes embossing folder

A few days ago I was lazing in bed watching the hours pass on You Tube and watching some amazing Stampin' Up! demonstrators do what they do best. One in particular caught my eye and I decided to get out of bed and give the technique a go myself.

I'm kicking myself now because I can't remember what demonstrator I watched who taught this, all I know is that is was a male demonstrator. Please, if it's you, or anyone you know, contact me so I can give credit where credit it due.

One thing that I have discovered on more than one occasion is that people on You Tube make things look so easy! So I thought I'd do this post to show you some of the pit falls I fell into and some of my work arounds.

A quick word of warning, this Simple Stripes embossing folder from Stampin' Up! will be retiring on 3rd June 2019 so if you want to get your hands on one, you will need to be quick. You can order from my shop here.

You will need:

• Whisper White card stock

• Simple Stripes embossing folder

• Ink colours of your choice

• Sponges

• Big Shot (or similar)

• Stamp set of your choice

• Embellishments of your choice

With the embossing folder open, use your black ink pad to swipe directly on the raised stripes. Now this is where I hit my first pitfall! This is best done going down the stripes, gently. I went down, across, in circles and you can see the result here.

Once inked very gently place your whisper white card stock down on the un-inked side and close gently, being careful to hold the card stock in place and feed through your big shot.

This is where I hit my second snag! This folder has a tendency to really crease the stripes and where the raised stripes where the paper was so thin, barely holding together, you can see this here where I have held it up to the light.

Stripes barely holding together.

Once you have created your black lines, run it through your Big Shot again but this time without any embossing folder, just between the plates so that it will flatten out again. You will still have very slightly raised bumps but will otherwise be pretty flat.

Using your sponge and coloured inks, go over your whole piece of card stock applying colour.

Now the way I got around the thinning of the card stock was to spritz the card stock with a little water before running through the big shot. Only spritz on one side and make that the side that goes on the un-inked side of the embossing folder as the water would make the ink run and smear your lines. Here is the difference having spritz the paper first.

Card stock holding together much better having spritzed first with water

Pitfall number 3! Make sure your card stock is fully dry before you sponge it. Well to be fair I did know that, I was just being lazy and didn't realise quite how much a difference it would make. You can see the big dark patch below. But the good thing is you can cover it up with your embellishments/stamps. You can't even notice it in the finished results.

The colours I used were Lemon Lime Twist (retiring 3rd June 2019), Mango Melody, Highland Heather, and Berry Burst (retiring 3rd June 2019). The stamp sets I used were Vintage Leaves (retired item) and Forever Lovely with co-ordinating Lovely Flowers dies, until the 3rd June 2019 you can get the stamps and dies as a bundle and save 10% (from 4th June they will be sold separately).

Here are the completed cards.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.