I've had a lovely day today finishing off my swaps in readiness for our quarterly team training tomorrow. Our swaps always have a theme and this quarter it's 'technique'; I've based my swaps on a card I made for the challenge over at Seize The Sketch this week, which has this great layout:

Here is my card - can you tell what technique I'm showcasing?

I know Father's Day is still a few months away, but I love the sentiment on this stamp and have been keen to use it for the first time. I decided that I would showcase the 'acrylic block & markers' technique on my card: this is where you colour an acrylic block with markers (I used a variety of greens and browns) and then spritz with water (I add a few drops of alcohol to mine so that it dries quicker) then stamp the block onto the paper.

I thought this technique would make a lovely background to the tree stamp and would add a little more interest than just colouring the image with markers directly. Here's a close-up of the stamped background:

Whilst all of my swap cards look the same, each has a slightly different central panel as each time you stamp using a block it comes out differently, making them all unique.

Sticking with the wood theme, I added a panel of Chocolate Chip embossed with the Woodgrain Textured Impressions Embossing Folder and stamped the layer of Crumb Cake beneath this with the Hardwood background stamp. To finish, I added a couple of chevrons as an accent - wooden of course, coloured with my Chocolate Chip Stampin' Write marker pen:

I also incorporated some Old Olive into the mat layers just to give the card a lift and so that it wouldn't appear too 'brown'.

I'm quite pleased with the overall end result - let's hope my team like their swaps tomorrow too!

Back tomorrow with another card; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Hardwood	Look Up To Father	Woodgrain Textured Impressions Embossing Folder	Big Shot Die-Cut Machine	Essentials Wooden Elements
Very Vanilla A4 Card Stock	Chocolate Chip A4 Card Stock	Old Olive A4 Card Stock	Chocolate Chip Classic Stampin' Pad	Neutrals Stampin' Write Markers
Old Olive Stampin' Write Marker	Pear Pizzazz Stampin' Write Marker	Clear Block D

Yay it's Friday - the weekend is almost here! For today's card I thought I'd try something different with the sketch over at Retrosketches this week:

Geometrical patterns have been on-trend for a little while now, with stripes, chevrons and hexagons all very popular, and this trend has continued into 2014 with triangles. Lucky for us that Stampin' Up has a great Geometrical stamp set and co-ordinating triangle punch for perfectly punched triangles every time along with the bold and bright geometrical designs of the Kaleidoscope Designer Series Paper in the current seasonal catalogue and it was this that I used for the basis of my card:

I decided to use the triangle as the repeat image for my patterned layer and used a few additional stamped ones to break up the white space on the top layer in co-ordinating colours. When it came to anchoring my sentiment banner, I didn't want to spoil the sharp angles of my card with a button and twine as in the sketch, but what to use instead? Then I remembered - the little triangles in the Essential Wooden Elements set would be perfect! I simply inked these by pressing into the ink pads of my chosen colours and arranged them to echo the pattern of the DSP - perfect!

I hope you like today's card; I have some fun things to share with you this weekend, so do pop back to see what else I've been up to. Until next time, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Geometrical	Kaleidoscope Designer Series Paper	Essentials Wooden Elements	Card Stock A4 Strawberry Slush	Strawberry Slush Classic Stampin' Pad
Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad	Smoky Slate Classic Stampin' Pad	Neutrals Candy Dots	Whisper White A4 Card Stock