Color Fusers--October Blog Hop!

Hello friends! Welcome to the most SPOOKTACULAR month of the year! Our Color Fusers Blog Hop this month is featuring the color combo of Just Jade, Evening Evergreen and Cajun Craze and it was a good challenge to create a Halloween Project—since that is the theme of my blog this month!

The project I created to share this month is a mashup of the Detailed Pumpkins Dies, the Adorning Designs Decorative Masks and the Banner Year stamp set. All of these elements came together to create a unique Halloween card!

I started with a card base of Just Jade and used one of the masks or stencils with my Just Jade ink pad and Blending Brush to create a fun tone on tone design on my card front. I also angled the mask so that it was a diagonal for something a little bit different!

I cut a thin strip of Evening Evergreen card stock and attached it following this diagonal to bring more attention to that detail. After I stamped out the sentiment, Happy Haunting (in Evening Evergreen ink) I used the same stencil over top with Just Jade ink. This is a really fun way to jazz up your sentiments and to blend these two greens together. I added some retired Cajun Craze Twine (I seriously need to quit being a hoarder) and some of the new awesome Chevron Evening Evergreen Ribbon behind the sentiment.

The two Cajun Craze pumpkins are from the Detailed Pumpkins Dies. Both of the dies, in their original form, have area that you can ‘see’ through. I wanted my big pumpkin to be more solid so I glued it to another piece of Cajun Craze card stock and then trimmed around the edges with my paper snips!

Bling makes everything better of course, so I couldn’t resist adding some In Color Jewels in Evening Evergreen for a little sparkle!

If you are just joining our awesome hop here you can go back to see what my fellow Artisan Design Team member, Tami Hewlett, has designed or you can keep going forward and loop around. Next up on the hop is the amazing Melanie Hockin!!! Whatever route you take I hope you visit everyone along the way!

Color Fusers--August Blog Hop!

Hello friends and welcome to another fun hope featuring the Color Fusers Design team and this awesome color combo! I really love purples and Just Jade has been permanently living on my craft table lately so I was super excited to create something with these four colors!

This card is all about the layers beginning with a base of Basic Grey! I cut a base layer out of Basic Grey as well and stamped some little flowers from the In Bloom stamp set in Basic Grey ink. A great tip for background stamping is to add all of the images , in this case little bitty flowers, on the block at once! It is a great time saver!

This card is an eclectic mix of items from the Annual Catalogue, the July-January Holiday Catty and Sale-a-bration! I just couldn’t resist using a little bit of something from all three of our publications!

The next layer on top of the Basic Grey is some Just Jade DSP from the Penguin Playmates collection in the Sale a bration catalogue. Off set to that I added some Basic White card stock that I ran through the new Timber 3D Embossing Folder from the July-January Catty and lastly, the Highland Heather DSP print is from the Hand-Penned collection.

Have you ordered this new Highland Heather 1/2 Grosgrain Ribbon yet? If not add it to your cart now! I love the shimmer to this ribbon and its easy to fold and tie and was the perfect add on behind the sentiment “Congrats You’re so Fancy Now”.

I die cut flowers from the Pierced Blooms dies in Gorgeous Grape and Highland Heather. A few of the purple toned pearls from the Pastel Pearls were an awesome finishing touch!

I also die cut some leaves for a little more Just Jade using the In Symmetry DSP and the Pierced Blooms dies.

I hope this card inspires you to play around with this fun color combo. If you look through our many fantastic Designer Series Papers you will see how many awesome options you have to create with!

Up next on the Hop is Melanie! I love her style and am always inspired by her creations! You can visit her next by clicking on the button below!

If you are just joining in her too you can always go back and see what Bonnie has designed as well! Either way, make sure you go all the way around our Design Team!

Around the World on Wednesday--3D projects!

Hello friends! I love when I can participate in a 3D Design Challenge because I loosely interpret 3D as anything but a card—-so the sky is the limit with what you can create! I can’t wait to see what everyone has designed this month!

The days are getting sunnier and the snow is melting here in Edmonton, where I live! So I have definitely been feeling those spring vibes and I wanted to create a wreath for my front door to welcome in the change in season!

I picked up a twig style wreath from my local craft store. Typically these are pretty inexpensive wreaths that have a lot of creative options.

I used hot glue to pretty much assemble the entire project from the flower construction to adhering everything to the wreath itself.

The Butterfly Brilliance Bundle is really exciting and new right now so I knew that I wanted my spring wreath tot have some butterflies on it. I stamped them with Momento Ink and colored them with a light hand using the Water Painters and the following ink colors—Calypso Coral, Mango Melody, Just Jade and Mint Macaron. I also added Wink of Stella over top of the butterflies to give them a little glimmer.

I love that you can stamp all these butterflies ONE TIME and then die cut them all in one go! It makes creative projects like this so much faster to put together.

I cut the word SPRING out using the Playful Alphabet Dies and the Foam Adhesive Sheets. The letters are cut from the Butterfly Bijou Designer Series Paper and are placed on a Stitched Oval that is stamped with some of the butterflies from the Butterfly Brilliance stamp set in Soft Seafoam. Behind the sentiment I created an oversized bow with the Fine Art Ribbon from the Art Gallery Suite.

The large Calypso Coral flower is created using the Heart Builder Punch. The inside is just a strip of Bumblebee card stock that I cut little slits into and rolled up to add to the center. When its rolled you just fan it out!

I used both of the daisy punches (original and medium) along with the Perennial Petals Dies to fill in my wreath. I stamped some medium daisy’s in Pool Party from the Daisy Lane stamp set.

The Blushing Bride and Calypso Coral flowers shown beside are created by cutting the flower 5 times and then stapling them together. You can then fold and squish them together and add a smaller flower into the center to hide the staple.

I love how the Perennial Petals Dies layer up so well to create so much dimension! The Pool Party flower shown here has 4 layers with an Elegant Faceted Gem in the center.

I am really happy with how this spring wreath project turned out and I can’t wait until I can display it on my door full time. Living here you never know when 3rd, 4th or 5th winter might kick in again! Hahaha! Probaby after May long weekend we should be safe.

Next up on the hop you will be visiting the awesome Tricia Butts in the United States! I love how our hop takes you all around the world!

Easy Watercolor with the Butterfly Brilliance Bundle

Hello friends! I am always looking for an easy way to create a fantastic background, especially if it can be watercolored! I decided to pair up this easy watercoloring technique with the new Butterfly Brilliance Bundle! It is an awesome bundle with a stamp set and coordinating dies that is an early release product from Stampin’ Up!

I started with a base of Just Jade card stock and added two little strips of DSP from the Butterfly Bijou collection. This 6x6 stack of paper is only available this month! So it is a fun exclusive offering!

I order to do water coloring I would suggest using Shimmery White, which is what I used on my card, or water color paper. Shimmery White is a little more cost effective if you are planning to make a bunch of cards and it is thicker than Basic White so it allows more water to be used on the card base.

The Stamparatus will be your best friends with this large stamp! You can use the stamp on the plate either attached to the base or separate like I did here.

To start creating my background I began by inking of the stamp with White Craft ink and stamping it on my Shimmery White card stock. I added white embossing powder on top and heat set it.

This step helps create an ‘ink resist’ technique as the water coloring will not take where the butterflies are stamped.

I cut a piece of our Window Sheets to the same size of my card base. You can also use one of our cello bags too if you do not have access to a Window Sheet.

Choose an ink refill of your choice, I decided on Calypso Coral for this project. You will also need a water mister and a water painter. The water painter just helps spread the ink around on the window sheet if you need to.

Start by adding a drop of ink onto the window sheet. You will then spritz some water on top and if you need to use the water painter to move the inky water around to cover a larger surface area on the window sheet.

Once you have your window sheet ready you are going to take our butterfly shimmery white card stock layer and flip it over so that the stamped side is going to touch the inky window sheet.

I tapped my paper around using my fingers to press the paper into the ink in different spots. I did not just lay this shimmery white piece on top.

The idea behind this method is that you only want the inky water to touch your paper in select spots.

Each background will be unique and different!

I just think this looks so cool and I love how every single piece will look different! And to clean the window sheet when you are done just. grab a tissue or baby wipe! Easy peesy!

To finish off the front of my card I added a small piece of the Natural Touch specialty paper and a small strip of So Saffron card stock over top. I punched a circle from the Butterfly Bijou DSP and I cut a white butterfly from the dies.

The sentiment is from the In Bloom stamp set and is trimmed down by hand from its original form.

I really love this technique and I hope you are willing to give it a try!

Happy Anniversary--soft and sweet!

I wanted to share an anniversary card that I recently created for a swap card in one of my groups. When I went to create this card, I realized that Anniversary sentiments are ones that I severely lacking in my giant stamp collection! The only ‘Happy Anniversary’ that I could find came from the Itty Bitty Greetings stamp set. It is actually a set that I refer to beginner stampers because it has a little bit of everything in it. The sentiments are nice size can fit in many of our punches. This is important to our newer customers because we have not had a die cutting machine to offer them for the past year. So stamp sets that have many punch options are a go to for me!

I am really loving the simplicity and impact that a white card and base can make. Keeping this white gave this card a touch of elegance, especially with the gold and bronze accents used on this card.

I ran the front panel of this card through the Tasteful Textile 3D folder, it really should be a must have in your craft room! I then cut a 2 inch circle out so that when I placed this layer on the card front it would make the embossing folder stand out even more by seeing the contrast of solid paper behind the window.

I once again reached for the Forever Fern bundle to embellish this card. I cut one of the larger ferns out of the Bronze Foil sheets and stamped two of the images, both in Just Jade ink, one on Whisper White and one on Just Jade card stock.

Happy Anniversary is embossed in gold and I added in a few of the Gold Glitter Dots. The twine is from some long ago kit that I found laying around! I will admit, I am a scraps of this and that hoarder! This was the perfect find for this card!

You could easily swap this sentiment out for Happy Birthday, Thinking of You, Hello or anything really! The card design is timeless.