Chef Ian Tea Cup card (+ embossing ribbon with no starch)

Ooops, late today...was running so low on energy...
but here is something new pour vous...
&
Thank You ever so much for always being there with
such kind kind words to keep a gal's mojo a'gogo!

Oh Man oh man, this Happy Chef stamp set is worth it just for the cute accessory stuff they've cooked up in there, IMHO. This tea/coffee cup stole my heart so I had to make a card with just it (and that wee "enjoy" sentiment is so yummy too!) You'll be seeing the rest of this Greeting Farm set here soon, but if you'd like to check the whole set out right now, it's at Paper Garden Projects...

click the pic:

Adorable huh?

1...brew up wee cups of tea
2...make a double-sided tea bag tag
3...emboss ribbon (with no starch)
4...Cheap Tricks: sneaky speedy stitches
5...Tool talk: Beads & Tim Holtz Design Ruler

-1-

...brew up wee cups of tea

• Tea/Coffee cup stamp from Happy Chef
• Copic markers
• Puffy velvet pen
• Crystal Lacquer
• Paper: Basic Grey Marrakech paper pack

Step 1) Stamp the tea/coffee cup (I stamped it onto patterned paper from the Basic Grey Marrakech paper pack. It has a sweet little pattern on it.

Step 2) Colour it. I used... for the tea: E-44 Clay, E-49 Dark Bark, & a multiliner to shade near the cup rim. For the cup: B-00 Frost Blue & BG-15 Aqua & BG-75 Abyss Green

Step 3) Add puffy pen details on the little swoop of whip cream, dry it, & heat gun to puff (SO cool!) :O)

Step 4) Cover coffee cup with Crystal Lacquer & set aside to dry

Step 5) Cut coffee cup out ( I found there was no need to cut out the inside of the handle, but if you wanted to a hobby blade would make short work of that.) :O)

-2-

...create a double-sided tea bag tag

This is the bag of the "enjoy" tag. I always like to make things double-sided, feels like a cute sneaky secret is built into your card for someone... ;o)

• Tea/Coffee cup & "Enjoy" sentiment stamp from Happy Chef
• Paper: Basic Grey Marrakech paper pack, River Rock, Basic Grey Flurry
• Watercolour pencil crayons
• Scor-Pal
• Oh So Sticky Tape
• Tag punch
• String from a real tea bag

Step 1) Stamp "enjoy" from Happy Chef onto patterned paper [this is Basic Grey's Flurry (Dasher)]

Step 2) Punch with a tag punch to cut a tag

Step 3) Adhere the tag on an end of a piece of cardstock (River Rock)

Step 4) Score, fold & trim the tag (to create a frame the shape of the small punched tag

Step 5) Pierce a hole (at the top of the fold) for the tea bag string & stick it in there (creating a loop, if you like). Adhere it in place.

Step 6) Stick the inside of the tag together (I used Oh So Sticky Tape)

Step 7) Stamp the tea cup again (I stamped in turquoise) onto that Marrakech paper

Step 8) Colour it in (I used Watercolour pencil crayons) & punch it with tag punch

Step 9) Adhere the tea cup onto the back of the tag

...hmmm well that was a lot of steps for a simple thing (useless to the majority of you for sure, but maybe good info for a beginner, LOL)

-3-

...emboss ribbon (with no starch)

Some green crafting for your green machine (or other embossing apparatus...) I was super stoked when this happened to work, because I detest the environmental effects of aerosol cans and this requires no spray starch or time consuming brushing on of ribbon stiffener.

This is as easy as sticking adhesive on paper (cause that's all you do really...) Hope it's as fun for you as it was for me.

• Ribbon
• Double-sided tape
• Cardstock
• Cuttlebug/other machine
• Embossing folder
  

Step 1) Cut strip of cardstock to measure just under the width of your ribbon (or wider if you want a cs edge to show) U can use DP & sheer ribbons too



Step 2) Trim cardstock (to the width of your card or project) & Cover the front of your cardstock with double-sided tape (If you are using patterned paper, put adhesive on patterned side so it'll show) :O)



Step 3) Adhere paper strip to ribbon (sticky side down onto back side of ribbon) & stick ends to back



Step 4) Emboss ribbon-cardstock strip with an Embossing folder

;o)
Of course, different ribbons will show the embossing to lesser or greater effect: stiffer ribbons hold embossing much more nicely. The two ribbons below are a polyester twill (TOP which was so-s0) and a taffeta ribbon (BOTTOM which was the cat's meow!):

Stiffer ribbons hold the embossing like a dream
(with the cardstock & adhesive underneath it stays put)

Below is the piece used on this card:

It's SU's Baja Breeze grosgrain ribbon with the white stitching removed. The dots were still there after a great deal of handling the piece, but not as crisp as with Taffeta.

...create sneaky speedy stitches

I'm a sneaky cheat! hehehe. This looks like a funky blanket stitch (and some of it I really did sew) but the rest of it is faux! The fine dark lines are from my beloved Copic Multiliner.

It's hard to tell that some of it is fake
(without a magnifying glass, anyway) ;o)

Another stitch trick: Colour stitches with a Copic marker to change their hue as an afterthought. The turquoise stitches on that dark Verdigris piece were the wrong shade of Turquoise. (Interested in how that dark Verdigris was made? There's a tutorial for making Faux Verdigris with mod podge, here. It's also embossed and the flattened. Squished Cuttlebugging here.)

(seed beads)

I love seed beads WAY too much. They are dirt cheap (especially if your dollar store carries them! I've noticed recently that Michael's is packaging the exact same beads in WAY smaller quantities and jacking up the price. Hissssssss!) ;o) But beads can still be found for next to nothing.

There are so many ways to use beads on cards.
You can glue, but you know I like to sew...

The beads on here are alternated in colours (black & clear with silver centers.) It'd look really nifty if you had the patience to lay out a pattern of a bunch of colours. :O)

(Tim Holtz Design Ruler)

I got mine here, at Paper Garden Projects. Tim has a fabulous demo here. (Though I must be honest that I wasn't at all happy with that piercer in the demo (sorry); the tip bent & it slid into it's casing all the time...granted I am hard on my tools...) I couldn't work without this ruler though. It's my piercing buddy, but is also great for drawing templates & for lining up pieces on cards:

Makes it so easy!

and there you have it...

...another way too long post,
but I hope it held something useful for you. :O)

Happy Happy Happy Spring!

(today the ol' blog should be called: Coffee, Tea, or Embossed Ribbon?)

P.S. how to make the texture cardstock here: