Happy Heart Day Series | Tropical Love ft Lawn Fawn "Gnome Sweet Gnome"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Sometimes you start out trying to do one thing, or just playing around with no real plan and the result turns out better than you thought it would.

This card is also my first attempt at "mirror stamping" - a fun technique where you can flip an image so it faces the other way. It definitely takes practice, but the results can be very satisfying.

To begin, I stamped the right flamingo from Lawn Fawn's "Gnome Sweet Gnome" set with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. I then used the mirror stamping technique with Paper Smooches "Stamp Mirror Blocks" set to get the flamingo on the left.

The image will not come out as crisp as the original stamp and I highly recommend a stamping tool like the MISTI to get it lined up the way you want it; to fill in the areas that didn't stamp as clearly, I used a Copic-safe liner to trace the lines of the stamp.

I then masked them both off and started on the background. I created a circle mask for where I wanted my setting sun to be and then began sponging Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean and Faded Jeans Distress ink to create the water.

For the sky, I started with Wild Honey at the bottom and worked a blend with Dried Marigold and Worn Lipstick Distress inks, going back and forth until I was happy with the gradient.

Once those were completely dry I removed the sun mask and sponged in Mustard Seed and Scattered Straw.

I then removed the masks from the flamingos and coloured them with Copic markers. I used my Black Soot Distress marker to create the island shadows in the background, and my Salty Ocean Distress marker to create texture in the water. For the white reflection of the water I used the Copic Opaque White.

Finally I mounted the panel to a slightly larger piece of black cardstock and then adhered the whole lot to the front of a standard A2 sized card base. I felt that this card really spoke for itself so I opted to not include a greeting.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Brother 2 Scan N Cut | part 1 - First Impressions and Card

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

Okay, gonna apologize now for a few things. First, I know it isn't technically review day (you'll still get one on Sunday) but I just could not wait. Second, This is going to be a longer post with lots of pictures. Third, The Brother 2 CM350 Scan N Cut is not something I can do all in one review. So as I become more familiar with it I will have more.

I've had this machine less than 24 hours and I legit think I'm in love. I've had other cutting machines but this... this is like nothing else. Based on my less than 24 hours of experience with it I can all ready say that this was the best thing to come into my craft room since my first set of stamps.

So my very first impressions:

• This is not a cheap purchase. I would highly recommend making sure that this is the right product for you. There is a quilting store in the next town that (as of this writing) sells this for $799 CAD. I did not pay that. I almost died when the lady on the phone told me the price. That being said, it was far less expensive on Amazon (Canada) and I still put it off until they had a deal going on. 
• It is about the same size as a Cricut cutting machine. It weighs about the same as well, unless you have the first release of the Cricut then maybe this one is lighter, 'cause that thing was huge.
• It comes with one low tack cutting mat, one blade, a tool for the touch screen (though your finger works) a lifter - you do not want to touch the mat! two pens and one pen holder cartridge which would take the place of the blade in the machine. And more instruction manuals than I have ever seen (They aren't in the picture) All the little tools have a cute little pouch to keep them together.

Here the machine is out of the box, set up and plugged in. Sorry about the lighting, I was way too excited to fiddle around with that. I had to get a picture immediately. The touch screen looks like a hand held gaming device on the top right. It is attached to the machine, don't try to pull it off. Don't ask why I felt that was important to include. It is on a tilter so you can adjust the angle of viewing.

Here is the mat, lifter, touch screen pen and in the bag are the two markers - black and red - and the cartridge they go in.

So for my very first cuts (after test but that's boring and I don't want to bore you. What kind of blogger would I be if I did that?) I decided to use the running unicorn from MFT's "Magical Unicorn" stamp set.

The top one is the original stamp using Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. The lower one is a mirror stamp using the Paper Smooches "Stamp Mirror Blocks". You see what's happening here? 

So sidenote: I'm very new to mirror stamping and there will be a Technique Tip post about it once I practice more. 

The stamp was faint so I went over the lines with a 0.3 Staedtler Pigment Liner. I haven't been able to get Copic Multi-liners and have found that this works.

So basically all you do is stamp your images on the paper, scan it through the machine, crop the area and cut. I chose to add a mini border because it's awesome! And the machine does it all. 

Have I mentioned that this does NOT have to be hooked up to the computer or wifi? That's right this can be used as a stand-alone machine and that is currently my exact intention. It'll be a whole other post if my intentions change.

I coloured the images in with my BG Copic markers and created a spinning card! A glittering unicorn spinning card! YAY!

I used a homemade cloud stencil (spoiler: there will be a DIY post on making that coming soon too!) and Peacock Feathers Distress ink to create a cloudy background.

I sandwiched a length of Unique Ultra Fine Invisible Thread between my unicorns and suspended him in the oval window of my card. I stamped the greeting from the same stamp set in Memento ink and to finish it off I used Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkling Overlay pen on his horn and hooves and covered them with Glossy Accents by Ranger.

I hope you all like this first impressions post on the Brother 2 Scan N Cut machine as well as the first project I used it for. If you haven't all ready, please follow me over on the right sidebar so you don't miss more reviews and projects in the future. If you are viewing this via mobile device, scroll to the bottom and click "View web version" first. You can also follow me over on Facebook.

*disclaimer: I am not paid or given incentive to create product reviews. All reviews and comparisons I do are about products I have actually purchased with my own money, that I find interesting and that I hope others will find helpful. I am not sent products by companies to do reviews nor am I recognized by them for doing so.