Summer birthdays are the most fun!

Happy August friends! I thought I'd pop in here to share a summer-y birthday card AND to let you know what's been going on around here! You all probably think that I've dropped off the face of the earth, which I guess I have! ha ha! I had already planned to take the summer off from most of my design work, but I guess I never really said anything here! I have some projects coming up later this month using some new products that I KNOW you'll love! Other than that, I'll be returning to all of my normal work in September, so things will definitely pick up then! In the meantime, I have a card I created yesterday for a new friend's birthday. I know I've mentioned it a time or two, but making summer cards is my favorite and I haven't done as many as I would have liked, so....I decided to whip something special up for here using a mashup of supplies! 

To begin this tropical design, I die cut a panel of Fresh Snow Linen Cardstock using the largest die in the Love to Layer: Notched dies set. Once that was done, I stenciled the background using Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide Ink and the Taylored Expressions Breezy stencil. I blended from the middle outward, leaving a bit of white around the edges. I also gave the bottom portion a light spritz of Salvaged Patina spray stain for a watery look! I wanted a bit of shimmer and shine so I added some shimmer spray over the top.

I set the background panel aside to dry and got to work on the leaves, flowers, and flip-flops! I die cut the leaves and flowers using the Tropical Bouquets Honey Cuts from white cardstock as well as the flip-flops using the Flip Flop Builder Honey Cuts. I bought these last summer because I HAD to have them and I just barely used them! ha ha! I colored all of the leaves, flowers and flip-flops using assorted Distress Oxide inks.

Before I began assembling the card, I stamped the sentiment, which is an old one from Papertrey Ink that has been retired. You could use any of your favorite summer sentiments in its place. Once the sentiment was stamped, I was able to add the flip-flops, leaves, and flowers using liquid glue and foam squares. 

A few dew drops here and there add just the right amount of detail to finish off this design. I layered the notched panel to a Berry Sorbet card base using foam squares. I added some glitter as well, but only after I took the pictures. I was going back on forth on whether I should add it, but it looks really nice! Thanks for fluttering by!

 

Sending Good Cheer and Best Wishes for a New Year!

I'm still busy as a bee creating all kinds of holiday/Christmas projects! How about you? Have you started your holiday crafting yet? I'm sharing a card and a couple of tags using the Wendy Vecchi Warm Wishes Stamp/Die/Stencil set. If you saw THIS project, you might have remembered me saying that I did the die cutting and stenciling in an awkward order...I remedied that for this project! ha ha!

Some of the images are "stenciled only" and some are stamped, stenciled, AND embossed! I'll explain how I created all of the images and what inks I used as well! To begin, I stamped the line art images, such as the bow, the holly, and the poinsettia. I actually stamped them first in Watering Can Archival ink, making sure to keep the images in my MISTI for the embossing step. THEN I did the stenciling, and put the sheet back into the MISTI to stamp again using Versamark ink to do the gold embossing. Hopefully that makes sense. I just didn't want to do the stenciling on top of the embossing, so I did that step later.

The bow is stenciled using the Bluebird Blendable ink pad ( I also did one in red for one of the tags) . The arced greenery is all stenciled in Fern Green Blendable Ink as well as the holly (used on the tags). The pine images are stamped directly with Fern Green Archival Ink and they don't have any stenciling.

The outline of the pinecones are stamped in Acorn Archival Ink and then stenciled using Potting Soil Blendable ink. I absolutely love this particular color combination for the pinecones and feel that it gives them a very realistic look!

The two sentiments, which are included in the Warm Wishes stamp set, are heat embossed using Super Fine White Detail Embossing Powder. This is my go-to embossing powder especially for sentiments because it is so fine! It really allows you to keep the integrity of the image without making it chunky or altered in any way!

The holly berry images are stencils only with coordinating dies. I added some Carnation Red Liquid Pearls to each of the berries in varying sizes and placement for a more realistic look. I added some Tinsel glitter to the stamped/stenciled images for some snowy detail.

The focal panel was created by blending some Bluebird Blendable Ink around a piece of Spring Rain cardstock and then I added some white paint splatter over the top.

The entire panel is added to a top folding A2 card base using foam squares for dimension. I cut the focal panel a little bit smaller than I normally do so that it would have a larger red border around it. A few sparkling clear sequins finish off this design!

I had a lot of images left over that were just begging to be used, so I decided to create a few tags using the same colors and supplies to create two cohesive tags.

This tag features the poinsettia image as well as the holly that I didn't use on my card.

The tags use another one of the fun sentiments included in the stamp set. I love the typewriter look that these sentiments have.

You can see the red bow on the tag on the right. I really do love how nice the blue bow looks, if I'm picking favorites!

As I mentioned earlier, I used Tinsel glitter, but in all honesty, I thought I was grabbing my crystal glitter, but I really like how this looks in the end!

I'm getting ready to pull all of my Christmas projects out of storage that I've been working on all year. I plan on putting a long table up and sorting everything by category so when I'm getting ready to do my wrapping/assembling, everything will be visible and at arm's length! Thanks for fluttering by!

 

Have a Colorful Cozy Fall

While it seems that the rest of the world has moved on to Christmas, I'm still thoroughly enjoying my autumn crafting! I know that may seem like a silly thing for me to say since I work on Christmas ALL year long! ha ha! What I mean, is that the non-crafting world has moved on! LOL! I love giving Thanksgiving treats and gifts so for today's projects, I've created three box/bags that are filled with hot cocoa packets. I used the Swiss Miss Caramel Delightvariety for these gift. I plan on making some Pumpkin Bread to go along with the hot cocoa. I think it will be the perfect autumn treat to drop off to friends and neighbors!

I used some pretty autumn pattern papers from a paper pad(Fall Tapestry by Recollections) that my sweet sister gave me earlier this season that I've been dying to use! These colors and patterns work perfectly with the beautiful images from the Wendy Vecchi Autumn Greetings Stamp, Die, & Stencil set. I love that all of these come together in a bundle! These box/bags are so easy to put together! To begin, you will need a piece of pattern paper or cardstock measuring 7 inches by 10 1/4 inches. Score the long side at 1 1/2 inches. Rotate it to the short side and score it at 1 1/2 inches, then move that score line over to the 3 1/2 inch mark, then move that mark over 1 1/2 inches, and then 3 1/2 inches again. Hopefully that makes sense. What you're doing is creating a box with sides measuring 1 1/2 inches and the front and back measuring 3 1/2 inches. You will be left with a 1/4 inch flap that will be used to glue it together. Use a bone folder and crease the score lines crisply. You will need to cut up from each of the score lines on the bottom flap up to the long score line so you can fold them in to create the bottom. Once that is done, use ScorTape on the 1/4 inch flap on the side to secure it. Fold in the bottom flaps and secure with additional ScorTape. You can easily pinch the top and then secure with the clips like I have done, or you could punch holes to tie with ribbon, etc. This is a fun box/bag base that you can get creative with and tailor to your needs! You can see similar type boxes with visuals on how to put them together HERE and HERE (this one has a top flap, but the main box idea is the same).

I used the Wendy Vecchi MAKE ART Stay-tion to do all of the ink blending using the stencils that are included in the set. What I love about these stencils is that it gives you both the negative and positive shapes so that you can do masking if you want!

The Wendy Vecchi MAKE ART Stay-tion is so awesome! It comes with these 4 large magnets to hold your stencil in place and the actual mat is easily wiped off to keep it clean! In hindsight, I would have stamped the images FIRST, then done the ink blending with the stencils and then die cut. I die the die cutting first which made it a little tricky to hold the stencil in place! Lesson learned! I'm so excited to finally have a good system when using stencils!

I used an assortment of inks to color this pretty pile of leaves! Wendy vecchi Blendable Tiger Lily Die Ink, Wendy Vecchi Acorn Archival Ink, Fern Green Archival Ink, Archival Ink Orange Blossom, Archival Ink Sunflower

I made some simple tags and then added the leaves and acorn using foam squares for dimension. I also stamped the "autumn greetings" sentiment in Acorn ink underneath the larger leaves.

I particularly like the "stay cozy" sentiment and it goes perfectly with the hot cocoa gift so I added it to the side of the tag for an extra bit of detail and fun!

I added just a bit of ink splatter to the tags and the I added a fun assortment of Liquid Pearls to the tags to really give them some autumn color and for extra detail!

I don't normally add three different sentiment to a project, but once those fun Liquid Pearls were added to the tag, it just seemed fitting to add the "colorful cozy fall" sentiment to the bottom of the box/bags!

The tags are added to the top with a clip for an easy presentation! I had a lot of fun putting these together and now I just need to do the baking! We're expecting snow today,  so these might be just the thing to get delivered! I better get baking...thanks for fluttering by!