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February 12, 2019

Wood Textures Birthday Card

I've had some requests to do a video about how I made one of the cards I originally posted last Friday.

So, I've been doing my homework, checking for other dies and Designer Series Paper (DSP) patterns that would work with the basic technique and fine-tuning the actual technique that works best to do this card.

On Valentine's Day my family also celebrates my son's birthday. Since I needed a birthday card for my adult Valentine's "baby" one of my "fine tuning" cards turned out to be what I think is a perfect masculine birthday card.

A few of the details.

The only papers that show on the front are Wood Textures DSP and Gray Granite card base.
On most of my cards I used a 3 3/4" x 3 3/4" piece with a 1 3/4" x 3 3/4" piece of DSP. I planned this to have the wood grain of the two pieces going the opposite direction. Once the die cutting is done I often trim it down so that it may be narrower than 3 3/4", depending on the die.
I did some stacking of the die cut pieces with a few more layers of Early Espresso though this doesn't actually show. I will show the assembly of these layers on Facebook Live tomorrow.
Once the layers are stacked I attached them to the card base with Stampin' Dimensionals.
I decided that this particular card would look better with a few skinny dark toned wood strips on the sides of the panel.
This card is in the mail (very mailable with no embellishments) so I can no longer get a picture of the inside which was simply a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of Whisper White with the "Let's Celebrate You" greeting from Itty Bitty Birthdays stamped in Early Espresso ink. There are greetings in that set that will work for all ages.

Coming on Facebook Live:

Often when I'm are designing a single card with an end result in mind, I kind of make it up as I go along. Sometimes I get lucky and the first one is really easy. Then, when start mass producing for a swap or something I find problems or things that could be done more efficiently. After doing several other versions of these cards with different products I'm happy to say that I'm ready to try a Facebook Live showing a technique and tips for this card. I hope that you will see that you can adapt it to to your supplies. Check my Facebook Page, From My Inkpad with Chris Smith for the time. I'm hoping to do it sometime tomorrow morning. If you can't catch the Live, the replay should be available in the afternoon. I hope.

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Stampin' Up! catalogs can be viewed with the Current Stampin' Up! catalogs link at the top of my blog. If you don't have regular Stampin' Up Demonstrator and would like hard copies of any of our current catalogs please feel free to email me at [email protected]

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

If you place a minimum $50 (US) order using the February host code, 2MRXBEJM, I will send you the Glitter Enamel Dots . February orders also earn a free Sale-A-Bration item . US customers only. Customers placing an order smaller than $50 will still receive my February thank you.

If you place a $150 or greater order please don't use the hostess code. You will still receive the gifts but you will also get your own hostess benefits.

Product List

Posted at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 11, 2019

Painted Seasons Blossom ... etc

We have a one day reprieve from the snow here in Minnesota. We had beautiful, sparkly snow almost all day yesterday and it will be starting up again late tonight sometime before midnight. Meanwhile, my sister sends me pictures daily of their travels in the warmth of Australia.

Whether you are enjoying winter or summer it is a great day for a blog hop, so today I'm participating in...

... with some cards featuring the Painted Season's Bundle which will be joining the wonderful line up of products you can get for free during Sale-A-Bration. This bundle, featuring botanical images in Stampin' Up!'s Distinktive® style plus gorgeous designer series paper will become available this Friday, February 15.

The sketch for this card is from the Sunday Stamps Challenge.
The blossom and leaves were stamped with the Painted Leaves stamp set and Petal Pink and Pear Pizzazz ink on Whisper White card stock.
Though framlelits will be available for this set starting in March and are available to demonstrators now I decided to test out the set before I ordered them. Now I know that I will be ordering them! I am impressed with the possibilities of this set. This time the flower and leaves were fussy cut with the paper snips.
The Lace embossing folder is from the Floral Romance Suite in Stampin' Up!'s Occasions catalog. I used it on both the small oval and the DSP strip.
I was using up left over elements from previous cardmaking sesssions. Ovals are from both the Layering Ovals framelits and the Stitched Shapes framelits.
A few Grapefruit Grove Faceted Dots finish it off.

This card shows a little more of this gorgeous DSP. (DSP is short for Designer Series Paper.):

I used a 1/2" x 5 1/2" strip of the botanical print with a 3 3/4" x 5 1/2" panel of the Pool Party geometric pattern. I used cellophane tape to attach these together on the back side so there would be no overlap. This makes it look as though the paper came with the border.
I love how the subtle shading changes is these papers make them look handmade.
These were adhered to a A2 sized Whisper White card. This is a basic US card size of 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card.
The hello greeting from Life is Grand is stamped with Pool Party ink on a 2" x 4 1/4" piece of Whisper White card stock.
I added 2 leaflets stamped in Pool Party and Granny Apple Green.
The border above and below the message panel are two trips of the tiny stitched scallop border included in the Be Mine Stitched Framelit dies. I just allowed the scallops to show through on this card. It seemed to call for a bit more simplicity.
Beautiful card that you can easily mail without a care in the world. No bows, knots or extra embellishments to worry your postal worker.

Now it is time to check out the other blogs:

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

If you place a $150 or greater order please don't use the hostess code. You will still receive the gifts but you will also get your own hostess benefits.

Product List

Posted at 02:57 PM in Itty Bitty Greetings, Life is Grand, Painted Seasons | Permalink | Comments (15)

February 09, 2019

Happiness Blooms Note Card

I hope you are having a good weekend. Ours is full of good things. Here is something good to use when your life is too busy for creative time:

This little note card is made entirely with the Happiness Blooms Memories and More Card Pack along with the Happiness Blooms Memories and More Cards and Envelopes (plus adhesive for the larger layer).
The smaller pieces have adhesive on them already!
There are plenty of pieces for you to embellish an album and make several cards.
And you know from this week's earlier posts that I love Night of Navy. What could be better than these envelopes with navy and white striped flaps?

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

If you place a $150 or greater order please don't use the hostess code. You will still receive the gifts but you will also get your own hostess benefits.

Product List

Happiness Blooms Memories & More Cards & Envelopes

[148806]

Happiness Blooms Memories & More Card Pack

[148531]

Liquid Multipurpose Glue

[110755]

Posted at 06:09 PM in Happiness Blooms Suite | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 08, 2019

Valentine Variations

Happy Friday everyone! It's the last weekend before Valentine's Day. Are you ready?

In case you need some ideas I've got a few more Valentines to share, along with some techniques that will be fun to try far beyond Valentine's Day.

The first two were inspired by the Sunday Stamps' Pretty in Pink Challenge.

I've had those colors in the back of my mind since they published the challenge almost 2 weeks ago. Choosing the colors was my hurdle until I got a few of them out to get to know my new Painted Seasons stamp set. This is a Distinctive® set that will be available with its coordinating designer series paper starting February 15. It will be free with a $100 order while supplies last or until March 31. During the month of March you will also be able to purchase dies to use with it. My little get to know you session was basically a variation of the #simplestamping idea. I was just using stamps + ink + paper.

I chose to work with Melon Mambo, Berry Burst and Merry Merlot stamp pads.
I inked a stamp and started at the bottom of my paper, stamping full strength color at the bottom and continuing up my cardstock without reinking the stamp. I repeated this until the cardstock was covered with an ombre effect. This photo shows the fern/pinebough like stamp image done in Merry Merlot.

I continued doing this using other images with the other two colors. I've done this technique with solid images before but never with Distinctive® stamps, which are more photograph like. I love the texture that I was able to develop with this unique type of image.
I left one card simple with no special effects:

I pulled out the Rose Glimmer paper and Lovely Lipstick Foil to dress up my larger, more textured piece:

You can see how different stamps with different colors give you varying amounts of texture. I also liked the way the foil worked with this! The sentiment used on both cards is from an Occasions catalog set, Life is Grand. Definitely a Valentine, just without the hearts.

Here is a quick shot of one my other practice cards which will give you a better idea of the images:

Moving on. Another challenge calling for Valentine projects, the Paper Players, has a deadline for linking the cards this afternoon so I will quickly post that one too.

I've been wanting to perfect a card I first played with earlier. It uses the multi heart die in the Be Mine Stitched Framelits .

edited to add: I found the card that originally inspired this: It was done by Shari Carroll in 2014! And now I see she has a video...

Hints:

This time I got a little more contrast by adding the polka dot Lovely Lipstick DSP from the 6" x6" In color 2018 -2020 stack.
I started by attaching a 3 3/4" x 4" piece of All My Love DSP to a piece of 1 3/4" x 3 3/4" polka dot DSP. To do this you butt up the edges and apply cellophane tape from the back. Die cut across the front of this seam with the multi-heart die. You can save the pieces you cut out for another project since you only need the upper and lower parts left of the DSP.
In order to pop up the die cut layers you will need to back up all parts with an additional layer of Whisper White thick cardstock.
This means you will cut the die out of Whisper White card (thick) stock twice. Once should be from a small piece of Whisper White and one out of a 6" x 6" piece. You will only use the frame and the large upper and lower pieces so all of the other little white pieces and hearts can be saved or discarded.
I used Multipurpose adhesive to attach the white upper and lower pieces to the back of the DSP. Trim off any excess.
Making a double layer stack of the heart frames: You could add a Sizzix adhesive sheet to the small piece before die cutting. I usually forget until it's too late - so I'm pretty good with a sponge and multipurpose liquid glue.
You will need to use regular cellophane tape on the back to delicately attach the white heart frame to the upper and lower layers.
This is a good card to use up some of the edges of your Stampin' Dimensional sheets.
Hopefully this makes sense...after doing this a few times, I'm thinking it might need a Facebook video...

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

If you place a $150 or greater order please don't use the hostess code. You will still receive the gifts but you will also get your own hostess benefits.

Product List

Posted at 02:51 PM in Life is Grand, Painted Seasons | Permalink | Comments (12)

Beyond #simplestamping with Vibrant Vases

Today I am back where I left off a few days ago with Vibrant Vases. Same vase. Same flowers. And more Night of Navy. In fact, you could almost call this a celebration of Night of Navy. I've used it in all three cards I'm sharing today, some for a few challenges. Here's the first:

So this challenge calls for a clean and simple card with a bouquet.

This Vibrant Vases bouquet is done much the same as Tuesday's card but it is monochromatic, in other words all in one color, Night of Navy. I still used my "faux watercolor" technique of stamping light shades of the bouquet flowers to look a little like a light watercolor background.
I was actually using up a scrap which wasn't big enough for the whole front. So...
...I layered it and added a piece of trim I've had hanging on my "odds and ends" board. It was made with the Delicate Lace Edgelits die and I only let a portion of it show. I thought it kind of mimicked the design in the vase.

The Global Design Project is the challenge I drew upon my next card.

Once again, I used Vibrant vases and pulled something else from my odd's and ends board: an "L" shaped piece I had previously cut from a lovely Garden Impressions piece of paper.

I've made several cards with this layout with the "L" shaped border. Maybe it would even seem a little like a "garden path".
This time I thought the border would look good with the stitched tiny scallop edge from the Be Mine framelits. This set of framelits is getting a lot of attention during February with its variety of heart shapes. This little border shows that the set will have a lot of use even after the Valentine season is over.
The stamps in this set have two parts: outline and solid to fill in the outline. At first I tried just the solid in Crushed Curry. It was OK but I think it does look better with the Night of Navy outline.
The vase is stamped on a white scrap, punched out and popped up with a Stampin' Dimensional. The vase also has two parts the outline and the "solid" stamp. I used Night of Navy for both but stamped off the solid stamp so that I could get a lighter look.
The line under the vase is also a stamp in the Vibrant Vases set. It is great to keep your vase from seeming to float on your card.

After using this trio of flowers in a vase for a few cards I started to wonder what they would look like without the vase. I guess you could say this was my self imposed challenge. I practiced on a piece of scratch paper and determined that they would fit in the corners of the largest Stitched Shapes square.

The only way I could get a greeting from the Vibrant Vases set inside the bouquets was to turn the square so it had a diamond orientation.
The "roses" are stamped with Night of Navy and colored with the light Night of Navy and Balmy Blue Blends markers, along with the light Granny Apple Green on the leaves.
I added a little more texture with a piece of Whisper White embossed with Tin Tile.
Using Night of Navy means it's an opportunity to use some of my favorite ribbon: the 1/2" Night of Navy Gingham. My desire to incorporate the ribbon led me to trim off one corner of the floral piece. I just had to make room for the bow!

Do you like to use challenges when creating your cards? There are a lot of them out there. It can be hard to keep track of all of them so I track the challenges I enjoy using on a Pinterest Board: Current Challenges. I try to update it every day or two. Those pins near the top are the most recent, though you can be inspired by the older challenges too. Check it out and play along with some of them!

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

If you place a $150 or greater order please don't use the hostess code. You will still receive the gifts but you will also get your own hostess benefits.

Product List

Posted at 12:09 AM in Vibrant Vases | Permalink | Comments (8)

February 06, 2019

Tropics vs More Navy

Are you in the northern hemisphere and feeling the need for a little tropical escape? I had more Night of Navy cards planned but lets do something tropical instead.

How about this quick baby wipe technique card? I have posted this elsewhere - last summer while I wasn't blogging so I don't think this is easy to find - I may have posted it with other projects but it isn't searchable. For some reason it is showing up on Pinterest and my watermark leads people here so I thought I better get it on and labeled. I get frustrated myself when pins don't match up with the link. Please note that I do have a list of stamp sets on my side bar and this will usually help you find what you are looking for if you know the name of the set. Anyway...

This was my first ever baby wipe technique card.

I folded a generic baby wipe onto a plastic cover - a large acrylic block would work too. I advise a generic baby wipe because I've used name brand wipes that have their name or a design kind of embossed into the wipe and the can come through onto your image.
Dribble a little ink onto the wipe from you choice of ink refills. I used Flirty Flamingo and Granny Apple Green. Flirty Flamingo is not in the designer series paper (DSP) used with this card but trust me it will work. I was inspired by large number of clothing and home decor items I saw last summer with this type of foliage/coloring.
Using the baby wipe as your ink pad stamp several leaves onto thick Whisper White card stock. Cut out with the corresponding die.
Score a 4 1/4" x 11" at 5" and fold.
Attach a skinny strip of the Granny Apple Green (Tropical Escape DSP) with the tiny Shaded Spruce dots so that it just peeks out above a 1" x 4 1/4" piece of the lighter multicolor green stripe. This is my favorite stripe in the package. I had to get two packages just so that it wouldn't bother me to cut into this one. Yep. I like stripes and dots!
Starting in the upper left area of your card start, attach two leaves as shown with your choice of non-dimensional adhesive. Attach the bottom leaf using Stampin' Dimensionals.
Stamp your choice of greeting in Granny Apple Green.
Product List below should link you to my store.

You know what else is good about the Tropical Escape Designer Series Paper? It would look lovely with some of the Glitter Enamel Dots that I'm giving as a gift with all US orders of $50 (merchandise) or more this month that use my hostess code. Just check the details below.

It will start snowing again tonight here in Minnesota. We can get back to the Night of Navy beauties I've been working with tomorrow.

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

If you place a $150 or greater order please don't use the hostess code. You will still receive the gifts but you will also get your own hostess benefits.

Product List

Posted at 06:49 PM in Tropical Chic | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 05, 2019

#simplestamping with Vibrant Vases

I'm back from Arizona and it has been snowing since before I woke up. So it is a great day for stamping...and faux watercoloring! I checked out one of my favorite challenges over on Splitcoaststampers, the Color Challenge and saw this elegant combination:

I decided to play with Vibrant Vases for this challenge. I'm not sure I can quit at one card but for this quick post we will just look at first. I have some thank you mail to get ready to go out tomorrow.

I cut a skinny 3/8" strip off of the right side of my Very Vanilla card base and then layered a 1/2" strip of dotted paper from the Neutrals 6" x 6" DSP (Night of Navy) on the inside right edge. The DSP is on the edge of the part where you write or stamp your greeting.
The vase, greeting and flower outline are stamped full strength in Night of Navy.
I inked the corresponding "solid" vase stamp with Night of Navy but stamped off on scratch paper before stamping over the outline vase.
The solid flowers were stamped in Blushing Bride - at full strength.
After cleaning the solid flower stamp, I inked it again with Night of Navy ink and stamped it on scratch paper 3 times before stamping 3-4 times over the vase and the area around the vase. Though you can still see some of the flower detail I think it looks a little like puddles of watercolor. Very easy faux watercolor!

( I suppose I could add a few stems...)

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

If you place a $150 or greater order please don't use the hostess code. You will still receive the gifts but you will also get your own hostess benefits.

Product List

Vibrant Vases Photopolymer Stamp Set

[148656]

Night Of Navy Classic Stampin' Pad

[147110]

Blushing Bride Classic Stampin' Pad

[147100]

Neutrals 6" X 6" (15.2 X 15.2 Cm) Designer Series Paper

[146967]

Posted at 06:05 PM in Vibrant Vases | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 04, 2019

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mother's 80th birthday. As those on my Facebook page can attest I've been soliciting advice about what kind of card I could come up with for her birthday that could hold a candle (no pun intended) to the card I made for my dad last year. While I started looking at various special fold cards, a video featuring Wood Textures DSP pointed me in a new and better direction.

Mom is a big fan of Fixer Upper, Magnolia Magazine, and Joanna Gaines. She and my dad even took a bit of a detour through Waco when heading back to Northern Wisconsin last summer. I've enjoyed a few episodes of Fixer Upper myself but other than using neutral colors and wood I wasn't too sure how to proceed. I started with Pinterest but did not find any handmade Fixer Upper themed cards.

Left to my own devices here are the elements I came up with:

shiplap (Simple Stripes embossing folder + Hardwood stamp),
the use of different woods (that's how Wood Textures DSP brought me to this idea.)
use of glass and metals.
natural plant materials
chalkboard look
and, of course, a birthday cake!

Voila!

I lightly stamped my "shiplap" with a Hardwood background stamp that had been inked and stamped off with Sahara Sand ink.
The foliage was done with, once again, the Wonderful Floral framelits. I had some that were already cut from Lemon Lime Twist but wanted to see what they looked like if they were Granny Apple Green. I laid them right side down onto the Granny pad and lightly tapped with a sponge dauber. The ink comes across as darker than Granny Apple green but I was really happy with the dieffenbachia type appearance so I just added another.
I used the Vases Builder punch with both vellum and the galvanized metallic paper. I trimmed one vellum vase to make it shorter and ran the galvanized metallic paper vase through the Subtle embossing folder to give it an interesting texture.
The cake is stamped with Early Espresso and the icing is colored with a matching Early Espresso Stampin' Write Marker. The cake itself was colored with Crumb Cake Blends which could be colored right over the Early Espresso marker without making it bleed.
The greeting from Picture Perfect Birthday was stamped with white craft ink on Basic Black cardstock. No need to emboss this since I was looking for a chalkboard type look.
The greeting, along with the Wood Textures frame were cut with the Layering Ovals Framelit Dies. I cut a few extra black frames to stack to give the frame some depth and adhered them to the card with Stampin' Dimensionals. Since the frame is rather narrow I left the piece that was cut out of it off to the side in the picture so you can see which wood pattern I used.

Here is a view that shows some of the textures on this card:

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

If you place a minimum $50 (US) order using the February host code, 2MRXBEJM, I will send you the. February orders also earn a free Sale-A-Bration item . US customers only. Customers placing an order smaller than $50 will still receive my February thank you.

If you place a $150 or greater order please don't use the hostess code. You will still receive the gifts but you will also get your own hostess benefits.

Product List

Piece Of Cake Photopolymer Bundle

[150579]

Make A Difference Photopolymer Stamp Set

[146676]

Picture Perfect Birthday Photopolymer Stamp Set

[145519]

Hardwood Clear-Mount Stamp Set

[133035]

Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad

[147116]

Early Espresso Classic Stampin' Pad

[147114]

Granny Apple Green Stampin' Pad

[147095]

Uninked Stampin’ Craft Pad & Whisper White Refill

[147277]

Crumb Cake Stampin' Blends Markers Combo Pack

[144601]

Neutrals Stampin' Write Markers

[147158]

Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Thick Cardstock

[140272]

Lemon Lime Twist 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock

[144245]

Wood Textures Designer Series Paper Stack

[144177]

Galvanized Metallic Paper

[147805]

Vellum 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock

[101856]

Simple Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

[145648]

Subtle Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

[143706]

[143263]

[126889]

[147040]

[119869]

Wonderful Floral Framelits Dies

[148529]

Layering Ovals Framelits Dies

[141706]

Mini Stampin' Dimensionals

[144108]

Posted at 01:12 PM in Hardwood, Picture Perfect Birthday, Piece of Cake, Varied Vases | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 03, 2019

More Crumb Cake Lace

I'm back again today to share one of the cards I created to use up some of the Lace embossed card stock I made up for the color challenge cards I did last week. (I had embossed 2 6" x 6" pieces of Crumb Cake card stock, inking the folder well with white craft ink.)

This card was inspired by a Debbie Hughes card I'd pinned on Pinterest some time ago. I've been wanting to try it with the new Lace folder and then I got a little carried away adding things to it.
I decided to use a square instead of a rectangle. I don't know that the measurements are particularly important. You just want to work with the design of the folder you use. I like to make mine fairly symmetrical. I cut my white square about 1/8" larger and after mounting the Lace embossed layer to it, I attach it to the card with Stampin' Dimensionals.
Once again it features the same foliage pieces from the Wonderful Romance Bundle that I featured on yesterday's card. I stamped with either Crumb Cake or Whisper White craft ink + White embossing powder. You can emboss with Versamark too but I already had the White out for the embossing folder. It is also easier to see the white ink on the paper if you are stamping multiple images to emboss.
The Crumb Cake foliage pieces are popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals.
I originally used a bow tied with the Whisper White Flax ribbon and then decided to use just a piece tied in a knot. I tied on a Sahara Sand colored button from Stampin' Up!'s Needle Nook Suite with some Linen thread.

Here is a close-up of the foliage and ribbon detail:

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

If you place a $150 or greater order please don't use the hostess code. You will still receive the gifts but you will also get your own hostess benefits.

Product List

Posted at 03:03 PM in Wonderful Romance | Permalink | Comments (7)

February 02, 2019

Just a Bit of Foil

I saw so many possibilities with this week's Paper Players' Sketch Challenge.

One was to use some of the lovely foliage elements in the Wonderful Romance Bundle.

Papers include Blushing Bride, Gray Granite, Vellum, Whisper White and some scraps of Grapefruit Grove Foil.
I used the 2 1/4" circle punch to make a circle in the lower right portion of a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of Blushing Bride and then added some texture to this layer with the Subtle embossing folder.
I embossed the leaves/ branch from Wonderful Romance in white on vellum and die cut with the corresponding die.
One of the other dies is a more textured leaf though it doesn't correspond to any of the stamps in the set. I cut that one out of Whisper White card stock.
The foil is part of the Sale-A-Bration promotion and Stampin' Up! is telling us that the foil is going over so well that they think it won't last through March 31 when Sale-A-Bration ends. I saved all the scraps after making my partial butterfly card for a swap last week. They are perfect for making little embellishments like the sprig and butterfly that I used on this card. Though the butterfly card used Petal Pink, I think I like Blushing Bride just as well with the foil.
I embossed "sending prayers" in white on Gray Granite card stock and cut it out with the smallest of the Rectangle Stitched framelits. I saw Su Mohr do this with the sympathy message from Itty Bitty Greetings and have since found that quite a few of the messages in that set fit into that framelit. Wouldn't it be great to have a stash of these ready to go?
This greeting wasn't centered since I knew I wanted room to add a little butterfly. I used the Butterfly Beauty dies to cut this out of a scrap of foil. The set of dies has multiples of the small butterfly dies so it is easy to create a little stash of these with just a few passes through the Big Shot.
I didn't have my so called ducks in a row in order to link my card over on the Paper Players site before leaving on a trip this weekend but it certainly is an inspiring sketch. You might just see me use it again soon.

I was just playing around taking pictures of this card when I thought I'd like to see what the metallic sequins looked like. Though I didn't use them on this card, they certainly do look like they fit right in with this color combination. Keep that idea for another time...

One more... a close up of the card:

I really appreciate that you have taken time out of your day to visit my blog. Let me know what you think and come back again soon!

Chris

***If you need a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I would love to help you with your stamping journey and have you shop with me! You can click on "Shop with Chris Smith" at the top of my blog.

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