Going Ape over Valentine's Day - The Creative Eclectic

In my last post, I highlighted how Love is all around and how it seemed like everyone was going “ape” over Valentine’s Day! I shared with you one of the cards that I made in response to my Downline and stamping friend, Kim Heath‘s subtle challenge to use the Hey Love cling stamps.

Going Ape.

The Hey Love stamp cling set is full of cute little critters and one of my favourites is the ape. What’s not to love about apes? They’re intelligent,expressive, intuitive, fun and sorta cute in their own hairy way.

Enough about apes, let’s look at the card.

Like I said that ape is pretty cute. Today I’m NOT going to give you step-by-step instructions on how to make this card but I will share with you FOUR techniques (yes 4!) that I used making this projects, so let’s get started!

What’s different?

You might notice something a little different about how this card is folded. It’s not a run of the mill fold half a piece of A4 card stock in half… no it’s a “Z Fold”.

The top view shows what I mean a little better.

See how it looks like a “Z” shape. The inside of the card is partially visible when it’s closed so you need to decorate the inside too.

Making a Z fold card is easy. Simply take a 10.5cm x 29.7cm base card (in this case basic gray) and score it 7.9cm and 14.9cm using the scoring blade on your Stampin’ Trimmer ( or you could use your Simply Scored tool) and use your bone folder to make crisp folds on each score line. The 7.9cm will be a “mountain” fold and the 14.9cm will be a “valley” fold. A Valley fold is when the crease is at the bottom of the paper so it forms a “v” – most simple every day cards are a valley fold. Mountain folds are where the crease like a mountain peak.

TIP: When you aren’t using your Stampin’ Trimmer cutting blade, move it to the one end of the cutting channel and cover or secure it with a piece of washi tape. This will prevent you from using your cutting blade instead of your scoring blade. You may also wish to label the blades “cut” and “score” so you don’t mix them up.

So that’s our first technique all sorted. Pretty easy huh?

Technique No 2 – partial embossing

You may have noticed that the front left flap of the z card is embossed with the big shot and but the rest of the card isn’t. No, I didn’t emboss a piece and stick it on. It was so much easier that that. I basically placed the section of card stock I wanted embossed in the Scattered Sequins embossing folder and left the rest hang out of the folder then ran the whole lot through the big shot. (see the pictures below)

So that technique wasn’t hard either… you’ll manage these first two techniques easily.

Ape for Scattered Love Hearts

You may have noticed little scattered love hearts on the background of the square melon mambo piece and the white background. You’ll find these hearts on the skunk stamp in the new Hey Love cling stamp set from the 2019 occasions catalogue.

As you can see in the picture above, the hearts on the skunk stamp are super cute. So I grabbed my Lovely Lipstick Stampin’ write marker, carefully coloured each of the hearts and stamped them on the large Melon Mambo square and whisper white background. I repeated this process until I was happy with the coverage This was way easier than trying to use a post-it note “mask” and an ink pad.

Using the Lovely Lipstick marker, I also coloured and stamped 5 hearts from the “Otter” stamp on a scrap of whisper white scrap, then fussy-cut (hand-cut) each one and stuck them on the white card background.

Although this third technique is easy, it’s a little time consuming but don’t be tempted to rush.

Colouring my Ape.

My Ape was stamped in Memento Black Ink then his body was colour basic gray using my clear wink of stella brush. His face and belly are Smoky Slate and the heart in his hands was coloured with the Lovely Lipstick stampin’ write marker. I went over the coloured heart with the cleaned Clear Wink of Stella brush to make it shimmer too.

The basis of technique number 4 is using the clear wink of stella brush in place of a blender pen or aqua painter to blend and add a shimmer effect at the same time is easy. Of course, if you want a more vibrant blended look, you could choose to colour your ape with Stampin’ Blends Markers ( basic black, smoky slate and lovely lipstick) instead.

I just love how Mr Ape turned out – take another look:

Everything you need to go Ape

To make it easy for you to recreate this card, I’ve listed all the supplies used below. Just click on the picture and it will take you to my Online Stampin’ Up store. Don’t forget that when you place an order of $50 or more with me during February 2019 you will get a free class at home AND for every $90 you spend during Sale-a-Bration you can choose Sale-a-Bration rewards.

I really hope you this project and will try one of the four techniques I used in this card. Here are the techniques again:

Z fold
Partial big shot embossing
Wink of stella colouring
Using the Stampin’ Write marker to ink part of the image

I can’t wait to see what you create using these techniques.

Until next time… Happy creating

Chrissy x

The supplies and dimensions

Hey Love Cling Stamp Set [148644] $33.00	Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad [132708] $10.00	Basic Gray Classic Stampin’ Pad [149165] $13.00	Smoky Slate Classic Stampin’ Pad [147113] $13.00	Coastal Cabana & Lovely Lipstick Stampin’ Write Markers [147526] $10.50	Clear Wink Of Stella Glitter Brush [141897] $11.50
Basic Gray A4 Card Stock [121689] $14.75	Whisper White A4 Card Stock [106549] $17.00	Melon Mambo A4 Card Stock [119980] $14.75	Card Stock A4 Smoky Slate [131291] $14.75	Stampin’ Trimmer [129722] $50.00	Bone Folder [102300] $12.00
Big Shot [143263] $159.00	Scattered Sequins Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder [145649] $17.00	2-1/2″ Circle Punch [120906] $31.00	1-1/4″ Circle Punch [119861] $28.00	Stampin’ Dimensionals [104430] $6.00	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755] $7.00