Create with Connie and Mary--Pastel Techniques

Hello friends! I am really excited to share a pastel technique with you today. As well this is my final blog post as a Designer for the Create with Connie and Mary Blog Hop. I have really enjoyed participating in these weekly challenges for the past year + and have learned so much! I have appreciated the comments and encouragement along the way. I will be continuing to share here and on my Instagram so I hope you will continue to follow along with me on my creative journey!

Have you played with our new Stampin’ Pastels yet? I have made so many fun things with them! I have been stamping long enough that I remember way way back when Stampin’ Up! had them in the annual catalogue. So I was able to draw on a few of those long forgotten techniques plus play around and experiment with some new ones as these pastels are different than what we offered in the past.

TOP TIP: In order to get the ‘chalk’ off of the pastel, use the scraper tool attachment of the Pick a Tool to scrape the coating from the outside of the pastel. If you were to open your package and rub your finger over the chalk, you would notice nothing would be on your finger. However, after you scrape the chalk it will easily rub off on your finger!

Along with using the new pastels I wanted to use another new product we have which are the Plenty of Patterns Decorative Masks. I love masks because you can use them with so many other products we sell. Embossing Paste, Blending Brushes, Finger Daubers, Spritzers and the list can go on!

I started by selecting my Decorative Mask and pastel color. For this project I used the pastel that looks like Coastal Cabana.

I placed my mask over top of my Basic White card stock and simply rubbed my chalk over top of the mask.

The ridges from the mask will help shave or release the chalk from the stick.

I removed the mask and with gentle pressure you can remove the excess chalk with your Blending Brush. You do not want to press too hard to lose the design from the Decorative Mask.

I really love this technique as its quite simple but creates a really wonderful background for your project.

To embellish and decorate the rest of my card I used the Flowers of Friendship Bundle. I stamped the flowers with Momento Black Ink and then I colored them with a Water Painter. I applied the tip of my Water Painter DIRECT to my pastel and colored! It is another fun way to use this product. And using a Water Painter gives the finished look a ‘watercolor’ feel which I love!

I hope you will add the Pastels to your next order as they are inexpensive and so fun to experiment with! I will continue to share projects with the Pastels over the summer so keep checking back in!

To continue on with the Hop you can go BACK to see what Melissa made this week or NEXT to see what Connie has designed. Please feel free to leave a comment or use my Host Code if you are inspired and live in Canada!

Color Fusers--June 2021 Blog Hop

Hello friends! Welcome back to another fun blog hop featuring the new amazing In Colors 2021-2023. Now, I have been stamping with Stampin’ Up! for a quite a while, coming on 15 years actually! And I have to say that this new lineup of colors is probably some of my all time favorites. Remember that year they released Coastal Cabana…me neither but its probably at the top and this new collection just might kick it out of first place!

If you are a total newbie to Stampin’ Up! then this might be one of your first peeks at these colors or experience with the In Color collections. If you are a seasoned stamper than you have been seeing this colors ALL OVER THE PLACE because demonstrators like myself, cannot get enough!

I wanted to make a scrapbook page and showcase these colors with another new amazing product— the Shimmer Vellum. Now this ain’t your regular old vellum friends, this is shimmery and awesome in all the right ways and it comes in 12x12! Yay! You can expect to see me using this alot during this catalogue period.

This is my awesome friend Jessica and I on our last girls trip together in March of 2020! Look at us, so smiley and happy. The day after this trip ended to Ohio—guess what happened? Covid.

I used the Flowers of Friendship bundle and the Biggest Wish stamp set as the features on this layout. The crisp Basic White base really helped these flowers pop right off of the page. Now vellum can be tricky to adhere because you can usually see the adhesive through the vellum, but would you believe there is a Mini Dimensional behind these flowers? This vellum is just thick enough they disappear on the white page base.

One of my favorite new embellishments are the Loose Flower Flourishes which I have also added onto this page as they are available in Pale Papaya, Polished Pink and Fresh Freesia. They work so well with the Flowers of Friendship bundle too as the flowers have a similar look to them. And they are a flat backed embellishmentt so they attach easily with a Glue Dot.

I stamped out the sentiment in Fresh Freesia and die cut it with a shape from the Stitched So Sweetly Dies. I then stamped it again in Polished Pink and Soft Succulent so I could trim out a couple of the words to pop up on a Mini Dimensional.

I added some of the new Pale Papaya & White ribbon behind the sentiment with some white twine. I can’t help myself, I love my embellishments and almost always had some ribbon or twine, or both, behind my sentiments.

I wanted to incorporate the Biggest Wish stamp set into this page as I loved the fact that it had the word Friend in it. I am always on the lookout for that. I stamped it with Fresh Freesia and punched it into a circle. I used one of the mini flower embellishments for the dot of the ‘i’.

Behind the ‘Friend’ I added the new Evening Evergreen 3/8 Chevron Weave ribbon which is so nice in person! And of course a little more white twine.

I stamped ‘happy’ twice in Polished Pink and once in Soft Succulent and hand trimmed them out to add to the page with a Mini Dimensional. How did we survive before Mini Dimensionals…these are the thoughts that keep me awake at night! hahaha!

I hope this page inspires you and if you have not added the Shimmer Vellum to your cart than do so! You can shop with me by clicking the Hostess Code link on the side of my page.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the team creates with these fantastic new In Colors! You can hop NEXT to see what Melanie has designed for us!

Or if you want to head backwards you can do that too! Either way go all the way around so you don’t miss any awesome inspiration. By clicking Previous you will be heading to visit Bonnie! Have a lovely June and we will see you back again in July!

Flowers of Friendship Artisan Design Team Project

Hello friends! Thank you so much for stopping by today! I really wanted to create a blog post to showcase these 2 projects I created for the Artisan Design Team for the month of May. Each month the whole team releases a bunch of projects to the Stampin’ Up! Facebook page and then over the course of a couple of weeks they are shared individually on Instagram—so today is my day! It never gets old seeing your creations being featured by Stampin’ Up! Its been truly a dream come true and awesome learning experience to be a part of the team for 2021 :)

My assignment was to create two projects with the Flowers of Friendship Bundle. I LOVE a fantastic punch like this one that creates flowers that look great stamped or on their own.

For my projects I wanted to share a different way to think about using your Flowers and Leaves Punch. I decided to create a stencil with one of our Window Sheets. Now I only wanted to highlight the flowers so I used a bit of tape to cover and block off the leaves.

I then placed my stencil over the card and scrapbook page Basic White layer and used the spatula and Embossing Paste to create a unique textured background.

To create a random placement of flowers you will need to allow some drying time in between applying each flower with the paste as you do not want to inadvertently cover or touch one that is already there and not dry as this will lead to smudging. So patience is your friend with this project but it is truly worth it in the end.

You will notice that my flowers have a soft feel to them and that is because they are stamped in Grey Granite ink. Black just felt like too harsh of an outline with the softer color pallette of this page. I colored my flowers in with the Stampin’ Blends in Pale Papaya and Fresh Freesia.

On the card I added the sentiment from the Flowers of Friendship stamp set in Grey Granite ink as well and looped some twine from the Baker’s Twine Essentials Pack behind along with an accent using the Loose Flower Flourishes (LOVE—in fact you should check out my Top Ten List for my new catty favorites).

I also incorporated the Tailored Made Tags dies into both of my projects and they have become a staple item these past few weeks! I can’t get enough of them as my have been noticing on some of my latest projects shared here on my blog or on my Instagram feed @stampwithbrenda.

I hope these projects inspire you to think outside the box when playing with this awesome bundle! If you do not have it already you can add it to your cart and shop with me by following this link!

Create with Connie and Mary--All In Colors, All in ONE!

This week we are challenged to create a project that incorporates all 5 of our new In Colors onto one project! I actually love doing this and often create cards and scrapbook pages with this design theme.

Our new In Colors are just so fantastic as they look awesome together as a group and they work so well to complement our existing colors. So it was not hard to create with them!

I used the Banners Pick a Punch to create the banners or flags along the left edge in the following colors: Evening Evergreen, Fresh Freesia, Soft Succulent, Pale Papaya and Polished Pink.

I cut a panel of Basic White card stock to layer overtop and pop up with Dimensionals. For the background I stamped the floral image from the Art in Bloom stamp set in Whisper White Craft Ink and embossed it with white embossing powder.

The sentiment is from the Flowers of Friendship stamp set and is stamped in Polished Pink ink and punched with a 2 inch circle (or you can use the Layering Circle Dies) and also popped up with Dimensionals.

Finally I added a couple clear circles from the Silver & Clear Epoxy Essentials which added a nice detail without distracting from the crisp clean background.

You can go BACK to see what Melissa designed this week or keep going along with the hop and see what Connie has created. I hope you are enjoying these new In Colors as much as we all are!

Create with Connie and Mary--My Favorite Pre-Order Bundle!

This was a good challenge as I had a hard time actually DECIDING on what was my favorite. In the end, I think a good punch wins every time so I have landed on the Flowers of Friendship Bundle as my Favorite Pre-Order Bundle!

And of course I needed to use some of our NEW upcoming In Colors on this project as I just LOVE them. I love how they all look amazing together and blend so well with our existing colors. They just feel fresh and lovely.

Nothing beats a crisp Basic White card base and layer. It’s a win every time especially when you pair it with such an awesome floral stamp set such as Flowers of Friendship. This set has 4 floral images and such as great mix of fonts on the sentiments. Of the 4 sentiments, 3 are ‘Thank You’ which is fantastic. Other than birthday, I send more thank you cards than any other. I love how each of the sentiments is unique.

The perk of this stamp set is that is is PUNCH BUNDLE! Yay! I always love a punch as it is more efficient than die cutting. The Flowers & Leaves Punch is designed to cut the two individual flowers, large and small, plus the two leafs in the stamp set.

Nothing beats a flick of your Stampin’ Write Marker or Stampin’ Blends across your project for a spray of color. It’s literally one of my favorite tricks! I flicked my Evening Evergreen Blend on this card concentrated at the bottom. This adds to the crisp white feel of the top of the card.

I felt that stamping in black ink felt to stark against the white, so I chose to stamp my floral images in Grey Granite ink. I stamped the large floral stem three times on the Basic White and then colored the flower buds and leaves in with my Stampin’ Blends in Pale Papaya (with a hint of Calypso Coral), Petal Pink (with a hint of Pale Papaya) and Fresh Freesia. The leaves were colored in with Soft Succulent Blends.

The punched flowers were colored in Soft Seafoam (with a hint of Soft Succulent), Pale Papaya (with a hint of Calypso Coral) and Fresh Freesia. In the center of each of these flowers I added an Opal Round.

The sentiment is stamped in Evening Evergreen—-I really love this color as an alternative to black!

And finally I added my favorite new embellishment, Loose Flower Flourishes! You get two sizes and three colors with this amazing embellishment—Pale Papaya, Fresh Freesia and Polished Pink.

I can’t wait to see what the other members of the Design Team chose as their favorite pre-order item. Honestly, early access is one of the things that I LOVE the most about being a Demonstrator. Haha! We all have our thing right?

You can go BACK to see what Melissa has designed and NEXT to see what Connie has created.