from my ink pad to yours

Soho Birthday Love

Crisp Cantalope is one of the soft new In Colors that Stampin' Up! is introducing with the new catalog release in June. Isn't it lovely in the this Soho Subway print.

• While there will be a pretty Crisp Cantalope ribbon available when the new catalog truly arrives in June, it wasn't available for preorder. So, I made my own by mixing several drops of reinker in about 1/4 cup water and smooshing a piece of Very Vanilla Seam Binding into it. Hang it overnight to dry and you're good to go.
• The image/sentiment is from Label Love which has a matching Artisan Label Punch.
• Other shapes in my focal point include the Early Espresso Apothecary Label and the Crisp Calypso Modern Label.
• Just a bit more texture with the Early Espresso Core'dinations embossed with the Delicate Designs embossing folder.

Secret Garden Triple Play with whitewashing

I've seen this whitewashing technique done on Crumb Cake paper by a few different people (I think the first was Karen Barber's lovely card.) and have been wanting to try it myself on River Rock. Then, when I saw yesterday's Splitcoaststamper's color challenge for River Rock, Not Quite Navy, and Baja Breeze I knew it was time to give it a try. A couple of other challenges came into play too.

The Paper Player's Challenge #142: a one layer CAS card.

Splitcoaststamper's Free 4 All challenge F4A165: be inspired by something on Pinterest

    Christmas Baubles by Danielle Daws  I had been eyeing this card as a way to try out this technique on a little smaller scale

Splitcoaststamper's Color Challenge CC423: Quite a River Breeze (Not Quite Navy, River Rock, Baja Breeze)

• Basically you emboss your image(s) on colored card stock. Most examples I've seen were done on Crumb Cake or kraft.  I masked off the sides of the card so that I jsut stamped on a narrow panel.
• The sentiment is another greeting from Wonderful Mother.
• Then paint the flowers in with white craft ink. 

• After this dries you can color them in and the color will be much more true than if you had tried to color directly onto the colored card stock. I used my aqua painter with Baja Breeze and Not Quite Navy. 
• I added white lines with my gel pen.
• While I'm not that crazy about the way I arranged the flowers here, I LOVE the technique and am thinking of all kinds of variations to try another day.

I wasn't sure how much color I wanted to add to the flowers so I took a picture before adding more Nto Quite navy to the centers of the large flowers:

(I was having trouble getting my River Rock color to show true in my photos. On 80% of my shots I ended up with something that looked more like Crumb Cake. Can you tell I was all over my house trying different light sources on these?)

Happy Stamping!

Red Label

Sunday's Featured Stamper on Splitcoaststampers is Robin aka Missro who has a lovely gallery. When I spied a pretty card done with an Apothecary Labels stamp in red and ivory I knew I had to get my labels stamp set out to and spend a little time with one of my all time favorite stamp sets.

Robin's card is far more intricate and layerd but I did try to keep to the red and polka dot idea.

• I colored my flowers with a blender pen and the Real Red ink pad plus the Summer Starfruit and Pear Pizzazz markers after stamping the image in Always Artichoke.
• I sponged a bit of Soft Sky ink on the background - should have done that first but it was an afterthought. Pool Party would work too if you don't have Soft Sky. That is a color that will be making a come back in June.
• The red layer is cut from Real Red Core'dinations card stock and embossed with the Honeycomb embossing folder and lightly sanded.
• While Robin used the dotted embossing folder I decided to switch it up a bit and emboss my card front with the Distressed Dots background stamp.
• After I took the picture I moved the Vanilla Seam Binding Bow over a bit to the left and I liked it better. My battery is charging so I can't retake it right now. Like I think I've said before: there's nothing like a camera to tell you what you could do better!

Here's a close-up:

Thanks so much for stopping my little blog!

Wet/Dry Embossing

 I played around with my Flower Garden Textured Impressions Embossing Folder yesterday.

I used So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Pear Pizzazz, and just a touch of Early Espresso markers on this one. I left Plenty of paper on either side of the image before pushing through the Big Shot so that I could paly with the image placement. Double Seam Binding bow. Sentiment is from Wonderful Mother stamp set. You're ready for this Mother's Day aren't you?

Here are a couple of others plus a mini tutorial I put together:

"Wet" Dry Embossing Mini Tutorial:

Supplies :

Embossing Folder

Big Shot with standard cutting pads

Markers

Card stock (light color or neutral)

Spray bottle with water

Extra dies or books (to flatten paper)

Color the raised area of one side  (inside) of your embossing folder with markers. You could use either side but don't color both sides.

I think it's best to lay your folder onto your cutting plate before misting it with water.

I've found that the colors are more likely to run into each other if you hold it in your hand while you spray it. Of course, if that is part of the artistic effect you want to achieve by all means let it tilt all you want. It's kind of hard to see in the photos but once you do this yourself you will see that spritzing the ink with water actually makes it appear more vibrant.  Usually 3-4 spritzes will do the trick. If you spray parallel to you folder just letting the water fall onto the folder instead of spraying directly onto the folder you will get less movement of your ink. Keep in mind that moving the ink around may also be the look you want to achieve. You can't really do this wrong.

Place your paper into the folder. Close it and cover with a second plate before running it through your Big Shot with your regular embossing folder sandwich. When you are done you will see something like this:

Allow to air dry for a short while and then apply weights to flatten over night. I usually place on an acrylic plate and cover with one of the larger dies. If the paper is still a little wavy I often reinforce the piece I've trimmed down with another piece of card stock that's just a tiny bit smaller.

Sometimes I like the image I get right away. Sometimes I'm less impressed. But just about everything ends up being card worthy. It's amazing how a simple setting will set these off:

This one is a CAS sketch challenge, turned on its' side. It is a 4 x 5.5" card.

This is the one that I liked the least.Maybe because I thought the green was too bright. I had switched to Gumball Green with a touch Eggplant Envy at the flower centers. Once it was mounted though it's practically a masterpiece, no?

Inspiration Challenge

Have you seen much of this silhouette?  It's from Million-Dollar Moments, one of the Stampin Rewards aka hostess sets available with the Spring Catalog.

I saw some retro silhouette wall decals shown with a polka dot tablecloth on Splitcoaststampers Inspiration challenge site, mydeco.com and pretty much imagined this card just as it turned out. That usually doesn't happen!

• I'd ordered the Patio Party papers just a few days before the Color Refresh was announced. I thought this group of papers might stick around for another year but now that Baja Breeze is retiring I guess that isn't possible. Anyway, I'm still glad I ordered it but I wish it had more sheets of this awesome Summer Starfruit Polka Dot print. 
• I like skinny black layers. This one is trimmed just 1/8" larger that the DSP.
• The silhouette layer is popped up on double dimensionals with a little bit of gray striped Washi tape in the corner.

above & beyond color challenge

This week's Splitcoaststampers Mixability Challenge, Pop Goes the Color Wheel, is  to use either the warm or cool side of the color wheel and then add one accent with the opposite side of the wheel. I started with a warm card first but haven't managed to finish that one yet so here is the "Cool Card":

• I started with a piece of Chevron embossed cardstock that had blues greens and purples in it from coloring on the folder with markers running the paper through the Big Shot.
• Since the piece had more white than  color in it I started sponging, mostly with Island Indigo, plus a little bit of Rich Razzleberry and Night of Navy thrown in for good measure.
•  I stamped the words from One in a Million in Island Indigo on a strip of Pool Party card stock.
• I played with quite a few reds and oranges before deciding that I liked this Poppy Parade ("vintage color") butterfly the best in terms of making the contrast between cool and warm.
• Layering the colors onto a Whisper White card seems to help make the warm - cold contrast pop.

Thanks for stopping by!

Epic Day This and That Washi Tape Duo

I could just tell you that I am im love with the Epic Day series of product but how about if I use one more post to show you? I was just playing with the epic day washi tape the other night and decided to layer some stripes and see where it would take me:

 

Here are a few more shots:

I kept on using the Basic Gray/Basic Black Two Toned ribbon from Monday, but toned it down with a knot instead of the big bow.

 

The sentiment is from the stamp set Field Flowers and is stamped in Basic Gray ; Bitty Butterfly is punched from This and That Epic Day designer series paper.

I used the left over die cuton this Graduation card. The sentiment is from the set Blue Ribbon and is stamped in Basic Gray. The ribbon is Stitched Grosgrain in Basic Gray. If I wanted a card for a girl I might have used the big two-toned ribbon again but this stitched ribbon lets me give it a special touch without seeming too girly.

I couldn't let any of the trimmed washi taped pattern go to waste so I decorated the inside.

Sending a Butterfly Kiss

I set out to make a card last night that would pull together the luscious wide two-toned gray ribbon and the This and That Epic Day paper. As you may have noticed I've been using more bows lately. Sometimes these are easy to add but often I struggle with balance and maing my focal point clear. Here's what came from my efforts:

• I cut into a sheet of DSP with larger honeycomb patchwork pattern.
• I had uncovered a Whisper White Honeycomb piece as I had been cleaning and thought the two might work well together. An interesting aspect of this group of papers is that they can be used with both Very Vanilla and Whisper White. I like the texture the honeycomb adds to the card.
• I had tried a border between the two papers with the ribbon but it didn't quite work so I thought I'd try using the Washi tape knowing that I could easily remove it if I didn't like it. But I liked it!
• I played around with diecuts and various sizes of butterflies cut from the DSP, but nothing felt quite right.
• I set that part aside and moved on to the tag ending up with the skinny tag from the Lots of Tags sizzlets. I stamped "sending a KISS" from Petite Pairs and added a little punched butterfly. The tag is tied on with linen thread.

• Once the tag was on it made the large bow a clearer focal point, which in turn made it easier to add a somewhat smaller butterfly as an accent. The butterfly accent is made with a die cut butterfly, a punched butterfly and a sliver of Basic Gray card stock.

Here is a peek at the inside and the rest of the sentiment:

 

I hope your week gets off to a great start.

Thanks for stopping by...

 

White Embossing on Epic

I took a break in cleaning up my stamp studio this afternoon to play along with the Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS. This week's Featured Stamper is Lin, aka Bearpaw, and though you will enjoy her whole gallery, I was inspired by her most recent card which featured white embossing on patterned paper. Here's what I came up with:

• I chose the paper from the This and That Epic Day Designer Series Paper. Pool Party and Basic Gray make one of my favorite color duos.  I'm so glad that we are getting an additional lighter gray in with the Color Refresh. It will be fun to add that to this mix.
• I trimmed my paper to 5 x 3 3/4" and white embossed the image and sentiment from Just Believe.
• Since I knew I would want to pop this piece up from the card with dimensionals , I applied my paper to another piece of Whisper White card stock that I cut to be just a smidgen smaller than the paper. You could cut it the same size but this usually saves me from having to retrim the card stock because I didn't get it placed just right.
• I tied a Pool Party Seam Binding ribbon around the peice before attaching it to my card.

Back to straightening the studio. Hopefully I'll be done before Sunday night popcorn!

 

 

 

Congrats #1 with Epic Day tape

My package with Stampin' Up!'s This and That bundle arrived yesterday and I couldn't wait to play with the washi tape. So I got right to work on a couple of challenges that called for strips of paper (or tape) and Calypso Coral.

The Color Challenge is from Splitcoaststampers and calls for Calypso Coral, Baja Breeze and Basic Black. I like these colors together even more than I expected. The Mojo Monday sketch challenge this week looks like this:

Not only did the color challenge use one of the colors in the washi tape but it also gives me another chance to play with Baja Breeze which is, surprisingly, one of the colors leaving our line-up with Stampin' Up's Color Refresh. I realized as I played with this combination that I have quite a collection of Baja Breeze ink pads. Aside from my original pad, I had purchased the Craft ink refill and blank pad because I had to have a pad dedicated to my favorite Baja Breeze. This last year, the first pad that I bought in the new foam pads was Baja Breeze. I even had back up spools of Baja Breeze Seam Binding...

• I started with three strips of the Calypso Coral tape (from the Epic Day This and That designer washi tape) on a black square. I love how parts of the tape design are somewhat translucent so the tape looks a little different on different colors of paper. Can you see the subtle hexagon/honeycomb in the tape? It shows a little more in the Basic Gray Stripe tape pattern. Check out the rest of this washi tape package:

           

• I added the grad sentiment with my retired Baja Breeze craft ink. I think the stamps in the Blue Ribbon set are great with this modified chalkboard look.
• To keep going with this look I smudged a little more ink onto the black with my sponge after rounding opposite corners.
• The ribbon piece is probably self explanatory but I did use Basic Gray ink - black would have been too, well just too.
• The seam binding ribbons were wetted and scrunched to make them look a little weathered. Did you know that adhesives do NOT stick to wet seam binding. No, not even your little mini glue dots, Liz.
• The card base is Crumb Cake with layers of Calypso Coral and Honeycomb embossed Baja Breeze.
• I added the (sponged) black Curly Label to the sketch just to help balance the design.

You can see the other parts of the This and That Bundle here. As impressive as they are in the pictures I can tell you that they are even more inspiring in real life. It might take a little work to get up the nerve to cut into the Epic Day pack of paper. It is gorgeous!

Until next time...

 

Chalkboard Birthday

I finally tried out the chalkboard technique while making a card for the Creative Crew Challenge for a masculine card. Here is the challenge so feel free to go to SplitCoaststampers and play along!

Holiday focus: Let's make cards for the men in our lives! I need these often, and I don't make them enough. Challenge yourself by using a non-masculine set to make your masculine card or by trying a new technique. Keywords: CCREW0413HF, CreativeCrew, SUO or SUM

I sarted by stamping the Happy Birthday greeting, from The Best of Birthday stamps, in Whisper White craft ink on Basic Black card stock. Then I centered the window frame framelit over it and cut it out. I added some "chalk dust" style smudging with a sponge and white ink and doodled and outlined the image with a white pencil. This piece is layered onto a square piece of Basic Gray card stock. The card base is Summer Starfruit which has been stamped with Woodgrain background in Basic Gray ink. I added a little more white sponging. The Basic Gray layer is embossed with the Argyle Embossing folder and trimmed to 4 x 2". This has been lightly sponged with Whisper White to bring out the pattern. Basic Gray stitched ribbon emphasizes the line between the Summer Starfruit and Basic Gray layers. I doubled my dimensionals to set my focal point off just a little more from the card. Restamping the image on Summer Starfruit in Basic Gray was an afterthought. It didn't occur to me until after I took the first photo.

River Rock, sigh....

There is a challenge on the SUO Challenge Blog for Monochrome cards and I just had to play along with one of the soon to be retiring colors, River Rock. I remember being so relieved that River Rock was coming back into the line-up when Mellow Moss was retired. I've been using variations of this color in my homes for over 25 years. I'll miss using it on my cards.

• I had the River Rock doily already prepared and decided to do a variation of a card I originally did in Crumb Cake when the Paper Doily sizzlet first came out. My hint on this doily is to roll your diecut around a pencil to get most of the paper bits out; then use your paper piercer to knock the rest. With some Big Shots you may need to use a shim to get all of the pieces to punch out.
• This time I used the Best of Flowers bouquet and Papillon Potourri butterflies in the circle.
• Since the flower image is smaller this time I decided to move the Best Wishes greeting from Petite Pairs into the circle also.
• This left me room in the lower right hand corner for a Very Vanilla Seam binding bow. I would so love to see more seam binding colors when Stampin' Up! releases the new catalog.
• Did you compare today's card with my earlier version? Which one do you prefer? I think I still prefer the simplicity of the first version but I have been on a ribbon kick lately and some occasions just call for a little more pizzazz.

Here's a close up of the butterflies.

Another view...

That's it for today. We're gearing up for even more April snow here in MN; one more sigh...

Dry Embossed Framelits Tutorial

Yikes! We are getting thunder and lightening as we await a snow storm. This has to be quick because we'll need to be up at 4:30am. The possibility of school closings starts to get a little old in mid April.

I do have a bit of a tutorial since I've had questions about the card I posted yesterday.

This was the card I had in mind for my last post but I had to omit the message and then add another. Needless to say I didn't stamp the first message quite right. Bitty Banners to the rescue.  The 'happy birthday' sentiment went right over my mistake.

The birds are from the set For the Birds. Markers used are Regal Rose, Baja Breeze, Certainly Celery, all retiring colors.

Here's a quick series of pictures to show how I did get the dry embossed look.

Use your platform closed, the same way you do for cutting with your framelits.

 

Place 2 silicone mats onyour platform. The lighter version shown is currently available as a carryover from the holiday catalog. It's on the carryover page towards the back of the Spring Catalog. The darker mat is one from last year's catalog. Any combination of 2 will work.

 

Score your card before embossing. This helps with placement of your framelits.

 

I like to position my framelit so that it appears to be equidistant from the top and left and right side of my card. I don't measure this but just judge if it looks OK to my eye.

 

Make sure the cutting edge is up rather than the usual down position for cutting. I like to use a temporary adhesive to hold the framelit in place.

 

Place a piece of scrap card stock over your framelit before placing a cutting plate on top and running it through your Big Shot. It will not feel as tight as your typical Big Shot Sandwich.

Can you see the embossing with the "shadow"  around it?

 

Your sandwich from bottom to top is:

1. Closed Platform
2. 2 silicone mats
3. Scored card, unfolded.
4. Framelit with cutting side up
5. Scrap card stock
6. Cutting plate

Each Big Shot has it's own tension and you may have to adjust this to work well in yours.

Related Posts:

Hello Rose

Dry Embossed Framelit

No Big Shot? Check out the Cereal Box Stencil tutorial link on my side bar. All you need is a cereal bos and a crochet hood. Seriously!

Let me know how either of these techniques work for you.

Thanks for  stopping by my little corner of blog land!

 

 

Simply Elegant Sympathy Card

{Don't forget that today is the last day to order anything from Stampin' Up and get free shipping! See my top post!}

I set out to make a card for the Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS today thinking I might use a cute bird stamp to mimic Ellen Parker's sweet Home Tweet Home card but along the way I tried out a new stamp from one of Stampin' Up!'s 25 anniverary celebration sets, Best of Flowers. While I like to customize my sympathy cards this simple card is great for those times when there isn't a lot of time to do that.

• I dry embossed an oval an oval framelit. This can make any one layer card elegant.
• I stamped the flower bouquet from Best of Flowers in Lucky Limeade and added the sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes. Lucky Limeade is retiring this year and items in this color are available only while supplies last.
• That's it!

Have a good Monday!

 

Paper Piercing Hello and Goodbye to Red Riding Hood

I'm back today with another card that I made for the the April Creative Crew Challenge on Splitcoaststampers. I didn't realize when I made it that this Hello card would actually be the start of saying Good bye to Red Riding Hood, a warm red color that has served me well. Stampin' Up has recently annouced a color revision.

Check out the challenge gallery.

Creative Focus: This month, let's show off our new paper piercing tools! Located on P181 of the main catalog and on P 27 & 36 of the spring catalog, these can add a great accent to any project! Challenge yourself to add piercing to your card in a new way. If you don't have the paper piercing tool, use a pushpin

Keywords to use: CCREW0413CF, CreativeCrew  You can add SUO (Stampin' Up! only) or SUM (Stampin' Up! mostly) and your card will show up in those galleries also.

• This card was started with the supplies I brought with to Brooklyn a few weeks ago so both the flower and sentiment were inked with markers. 
• I was casing another Artisan Embellishment card switching up the stamps and paper to use Oh, Hello stamps and Fan Fair papers. 
• The Window Frame shaped piece is paper pierced with the the matching pattern from Festive Paper Piercing Pack (127857)
• The red in the Fan Fair series is considered Red Riding Hood.
• The bridal lace is from the Artisan Embellishment Kit and is tied in the center with a piece of Red Riding Hood Taffeta.  I love the taffeta ribbon in this color and it's sure to be discontinued so make sure you read my note about the free shipping available this weekend if you are interested in getting your own roll.
• I placed the fussy cut flower over the knot with Glue dots. I took my time trimming the Fan Fair papers because I wanted the larger, lighter toned piece to show an even border. Luckily the pattern made this easy to do and I ended up with a size that leaves an even border when placed on a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2" card.

I liked the way these two patterns of Red Riding Hood looked together so much I decided to try used them to cover an entire card front:

• I used the same method as the previous card to trim the Red Riding Hood patterned papers.
• The flower is punched from the lighter pattern with the blossom punch. I used a pencil to curve the petals and applied it with a dimensional over the ribbon.
• The button and seam binding are from the Artisan Embellishment Kit.
• I tied a small bow through the button with Linen Thread.
• I got the Rose Red Seam Binding ribbon from the embellishment kit wet, crumpled it and made a Shabby Chic looking bow but, though I loved how it turned out, it didn't look right with the flower so I left it with just a simple band of crumpled ribbon.
• The tickets are from That's the Ticket, punched with the Ticket Builder Duo.

Make sure you check out the Free Shipping offer at the top of my blog through April 8, 2013. You don't want to miss out on a great opportunity to get some of the retiring colors with free shipping and earn loyalty rewards by shopping with me!

 

 

 

 

From the Heart Goes Pink

Talk about pink and texture. This card has both!

• The image which is from the set From My Heart, a lovely collection of decorative sentiment stamps, is stamped in Early Espresso on Very Vanilla - twice.
• I used my River Rock and Pink Pirouette markers to add a touch of color to one image. I love the softer color markers because they are so easy to use stright to the paper with no blending needed.
• The second image only needs to be colored with Pink Pirouette.
• Trim the whole image for the first and just the "friendship" banner of the second.
• Pop up the banner with dimensionals that have been cut in half. This is easier to do if you ut them before removing from the paper backing.
• The River Rock layer has been embossed with the Square Lattice embossing folder and layered onto a slightly larger piece of Early Espresso. You don't want this border to be too larger or it overpowers the lighter colors.
• The ribbon is actually retired Pretty in Pink Taffeta, It is now available in Pink Pirouette which is a shade lighter.
• The flower is from the Artisan Embellishment Kit. I kind of smashed it a bit to flatten and open it. The wire stem makes it easy to attach.
• The Pink Pirouette layer has been embossed with the Vintage Wallpaper folder.
• The card base is Very Vanilla.

I have this saying "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" that I have shared wtih my downline regarding the use of restraint when adding to a card that is already great.  That might apply to my use of the flower. Part of me is proud of myself for using yet another pretty from the Artisan kit which means I am not hoarding it. With all the texture going, it just continues on "over the top"  theme.  Yet, another part says maybe it over powers the the sentiment image too much. Well, I did a really good job of attaching it with the wire and I guess it's staying put!

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you find time to stamp today...

Vanilla Chevron Invitation

Here's another card that I put together while playing with the Oh, Hello stamp set and its chevrons:

I was inspired by the colors of a colourQ challenge that called for Pool Party, Wisteria Wonder, Lucky Limeade and Always Artichoke. Only when the card was complete - with mostly Very vanilla - did I go back and realize that the challenge also called for white! I tell you, Stampin' should carry white seam binding; lately I've been pulling out Very Vanilla when I start a card simply because I know that a double Vanilla bow will almost always rescue a card that doesn't quite have "it". Oh well, I was surprised that I liked the way that I got Always Artichoke to play with the other colors. I was curious about how that would work.

Notes about this card:

• I inked two of the patterned chevron pieces with the Pool Party marker because I was concerned about how the darker Always Artichoke would blend. The other two are Lucky Limeade and Wisteria Wonder.
• I did kind of  "break" my rule about repeating colors at least once. Both Lucky Limeade and Always Artichoke are only used once in this card. I think it works here because there is SO much Vanilla.
• The butterfly is  from Papillon Potpourri and has one of the tiniest pearls in its center.
• Dimensionals, as always, pop the stamped layer up a bit from the rest of the card.
• I'm lovin' the Chevron embossing folder again on this card.
• The card base is Ivory Naturals card stock - just to change it up a tiny bit from all of the Vanilla.

That's it for today. Have a good one!

 

Blooming with Calypso Coral

As promised, I'm back with the first card I made for April's Creative Crew challenges over on Splitcoaststampers. Here  is the first, a color focus challenge:

"It's almost time to say goodbye to the 2011 In Colors. This month, show us the beauty of Island Indigo, Calypso Coral, Wisteria Wonder, Lucky Limeade and Pool Party! To challenge yourself, focus on your least favorite of these colors."

If you have followed my blog at all in the past few months, you know that I love Pool Party and have used most of the others here and there too. The one color that I've probably used the least is Calypso Coral so I knew that would be my challenge:

• I had a Betsy Veldman card that I'd noticed on Pinterest in mind when I pulled out my Calypso Coral ink and Blooming with Kindness flower. 
• The dahlia like flower is stamped in Calypso on Whisper White card stock.
• The sentiment is stamped in Early Espresso. 
• I heated this to make sure the ink is dry before clear embossing partial images of the flower along the left side and lower right corner. Betsy embossed with white but I used clear for the Emboss Resist look I was going for.
• I started sponging with Pink Pirouette because I was a little afraid of too much orange from the Calypso but I'm not really sure I needed to. I think the Calypso Coral might have been just fine all on it's own.
• The upper right and lower left corners are roundeed before popping the piece up with dimensionals on a Whisper White card.

If you are a demonstrator you can find the thread for these challenges in the demonstrator forum. If you aren't a demonstrator I still encourage you to play along. Just post your creation with the 2011 In Colors in the SCS gallery using the keyword CCREW0413DF. You can also use the keyword CreativeCrew to get it into a gallery with all of the Creative Crew works of art.

One more note about about Pool Party and Calypso Coral. It looks like those two colors will be sticking around in some form. I bet you can guess how happy I am at the possibility of not losing Pool Party! Anyway, Stampin' Up! has a new product line, This and That, making an advance appearance before showing up in  2013-14 catalog:

You don't have to wait for the new catalog to purchase these. (I ordered them myself yesterday along with the new just-released Best of Butterflies set. I hope to show you what they are like first hand.) The journal, washi tape (!!!), designer series paper, date stamp and stickers are all available separately or as a bundle right now. Feel free to check them out at my online store.

Color Throwdown says Oh, Hello to Chevrons

In the last week I've been in both New York and Des Moines and now I'm looking forward to some serious time in my stamping studio. I'll be needing it too. They've announced the new Creative Crew for the Stampin' Up! challenges over at Splitcoaststampers and I'm so happy to tell you that I'm on the team for May through August. With Stampin' Up!'s new catalog showing up during that time it's sure to be exciting. Tomorrow I'll be sharing a card I've made for their April Challenges and letting you know how you can play too!

Here's another card for you from Oh, Hello, one of Stampin' Up's Spring Catalog sets. Look at all the chevrons!

The colors come from this week's Color Throwdown Challenge #235:

• You've probably been seeing how well the images from the set Oh, Hello do on their own or in pairs but I wanted to try using a few more of them in the mix. This color challenge, which comes rather close to being a monochromatic challenge helped me do that without looking like I was getting too carried away. 
• I layered the Raspberry Ripple patterned chevron pieces over the stamped off Primrose Petal oval chevron. 
• The greeting is stamped in Chocolate Chip.
• I fussy cut the little Raspberry Ripple flower and popped it up over my little grouping of stamped images.
• My next problem was what kind of a card layout to use. Plain card stock didn't seem quite right so I embossed Primrose Petals Core'dinations card stock with the Chevron Embossing Folder. I tried it both sanded and unsanded. The sanded version was a bit too busy but I like the subtle linen texture that the Core'dinations brings to the Chevron Pattern.
• The ribbon is a retired Chocolate Chip Twill. 

While it was OK, but I thought that the bottom section was a little too plain, even with the chevrons. I snapped a picture before trimming down a bit of doily from the Artisan Embellishment Kit I used for last Friday's card. I think it helped my stamped white layer blend a bit better with my Primrose Chevrons.

Thanks so much for checking in on my blog today!

I'm Back...

I had a wonderful trip and am now back in the swing at work ... and gradually finding my way back to my stamp studio. Today's post is quickie. Though I packed a few things to play with in Brooklyn, nothing was completed. I had been wanting to combine things from the Artisan Embellishment Kit with the lovely Fan Fair papers. They seemed meant for each other. Here's the first from this pairing:

• The map print in this DSP collection has so many looks with it's broad blending of colors. I had been playing with this one morning in Brooklyn but due to my quick packing job forgot to bring any Crumb Cake cards. That proved to be the missing piece and I finished this card last night.
• The wide bridal type ribbon is so lovely it's almost hard to cut into it but it's effects are SO lovely, don't you think?
• The sentiment is from Oh, Hello.
• The ribbon is Very Vanilla seam binding.
• Tickets and flower are also from the Artisan Embellishment Kit.

Gotta run; more later...