Welcome back on this Saturday. How’s your weekend going so far? We’ve had lots of things to cross off the around-the-house to-do list so it’s been a busy one around here. But now it’s time to put the feet up and relax.
This week we’re getting a sneak peek at the new Violet Dreams suite that will release in just a few weeks. And today I wanted to show how you can easily use this suite to create beautiful masculine designs. So I’m turning to one of my favorite sentiment sets right now — the Words & Wishes dies.
We get started with a base of white cardstock. I choose the sheet of Secret Sea dotted paper from the Violet Dreams paper pack to serve as the backdrop. A panel is cut from this sheet with the Branching Out dies to allow for the lighter Cloud Cover striped pattern to tuck in behind and shine through our new window. The sentiment is a combination of shimmer vellum and velveteen specialty papers cut with the Words & Wishes happy birthday dies. The sentiment is mounted over some gold sheer ribbon with dimensionals. And we finish things off with some gold metallic gems around the sentiment to draw the eye across our design.
While I might turn to this suite more often for more delicate and feminine designs, I always like to explore how each product can lend itself to neutral and masculine designs, too. Next week is all about summer. I hope you’ll come along for all the summer fun!
Products used in today’s design: White CS Violet Dreams (releasing in July), shimmer vellum, velveteen DSP Words & Wishes, Branching Out dies Striped gold sheer ribbon Metallic gems Dimensionals Adhesives
Welcome back, everyone! And TGIF. It’s certainly been quite a day around here as heavy rain on both commutes nearly necessitated a boat. Seriously though, I made it fine, but we got crazy amounts of rain today. I hope you’re dry & cozy wherever you are.
This week we’re getting a sneak peek at the new Violet Dreams suite that will release in just a few weeks. This suite has some gorgeous paper, coordinating specialty paper, a stamp set with coordinating dies, satin ribbon, and gemstone floral embellishments. And for this card, we’re getting a look at almost all of it.
So we get started with a base of Highland Heather cardstock. The background cross-stripe pattern in the background is from the Violet Dreams paper pack and then we use the Shimmering Stripes specialty paper to create a sparkly striped pattern in the center with a little bit of the Highland Heather as a mat. Our focal panel is a combination of images from the Framed Violets stamp set to create our oval frame and violet images and then cut them out with their coordinating dies. Some Granny Apple Green and Pretty in Pink Stampin’ Blends give us the shading on our violet image with a few velveteen pieces for some added texture. We add a bow of Fresh Freesia Satin to finish our violet bouquet. The sentiment from the Rolling Waves stamp set is stamped in Gorgeous Grape on white cardstock and then cut into the banner with the Stylish Shapes dies and affixed under the violet. We finish things off with some pearlized circles and fine purple shimmer gems, along with our little butterfly friend from the Gilded Wings accents pack.
We’ll be finishing up our sneak peek tomorrow. I hope you’ll drop by to see what else this beautiful suite can do!
Products used in today’s design: Highland Heather, white CS Violet Dreams, Shimmering Stripes (both releasing in July), velveteen DSP Framed Violets stamps & dies (releasing in July) Rolling Waves stamps Stylish Shapes dies Fresh Freesia satin ribbon (releasing in July) Gilded Wings accents (releasing in July) Stampin’ Blends Pearlized faceted circles, fine shimmer gems Dimensionals Adhesives
Howdy, folks! I’m glad you’ve dropped by. Although it’s still technically spring here in North Texas, it’s certainly starting to ramp up and feel like summer. I’m sure all of our World Cup fans have been lamenting the temps and humidity this week because it’s not been fun even for us natives!
But what IS cool is the new Violet Dreams suite that will release in the latest batch of Stampin’ Up! Online Exclusives in just a few short weeks. And today we’re pairing it up with the Words & Wishes dies to create this lovely mailbox pick-me-up.
We get started with a base of Fresh Freesia cardstock. I chose the subtle striped patterned sheet from the Violet Dreams paper pack as the backdrop for this one. We have some nice contrasting floral patterned paper as our accent strips. The sentiment panel has several elements. First, we have the backdrop of the Shimmering Stripes banner where we start building the sentiment. It’s adhered over a bow of Fresh Freesia satin ribbon using dimensionals. The sentiment itself is cut from a combination of pink shimmer vellum and pink velveteen specialty papers using the Words & Wishes dies. It sits neatly in the center of the bow atop several layers of dimensionals. Then we add some small floral accents from the precut accents sheet included in the Violet Dreams paper pack. Dimensionals give us lots of depth of field with our flowers. We finish things off with some iridescent pearls for some classy sparkle.
I had this post all ready to go last night and then forgot to post it. Oy! So you’ll get a two-for-one special today. *snicker* Later today we’re going to include the coordinating stamps & dies from the Violet Dreams suite. I hope you’ll drop by and check it out.
Products used in today’s design: Fresh Freesia CS Violet Dreams, Shimmering Stripes (both releasing in July), shimmer vellum, velveteen DSP Words & Wishes dies White & gold ribbon Fresh Freesia satin ribbon (releasing in July) Iridescent pearls Dimensionals Adhesives
Howdy, friends! And happy Wednesday. We’re halfway through this week, but it sure feels like it should be Friday already! It’s been a busy one at the office and my tail is just dragging. Ever have weeks like that? Sure felt good to play a little in the craft room this evening though.
And speaking of that, this week we’re going to get a look at some of the new things in my crafty stash that haven’t seen any love yet. And first up, we have a sneak peek at a brand new suite that will launch in just a few short weeks called Violet Dreams. And let me tell you, it is scrumptious! So much beautiful detail in the paper, the stamps, and the dies. You are going to love it!
So our sneak peek card gets started with a base of Gorgeous Grape cardstock. Our backdrop is a sheet of the new Shimmering Stripes specialty paper. The focal panel is a sheet of the new Violet Dreams patterned paper on a mat of Gorgeous Grape. I tied a bow of white & gold ribbon around the bottom. The hello sentiment is from the Saying Something ephemera pack and is coated with Wink of Stella to give the perfect amount of twinkle against the beautiful butterfly from the new Gilded Wings butterfly pack. We finish things off with some of the new adhesive blooms from the Violet Dreams suite.
I can’t wait to show you more of this beautiful suite this week. I hope you’ll drop back by to get some more peeks at all of these wonderful goodies!
Products used in today’s design: Gorgeous Grape CS Violet Dreams, Shimmering Stripes DSP (both releasing in July) Saying Something ephemera Gilded Wings accents (releasing in July) White & gold ribbon Adhesive blooms (releasing in July) Wink of Stella Dimensionals Adhesives
Happy Thursday, everyone! It’s been a wild week so far here in North Texas as we’ve had a string of daily thunderstorms. And it just happens to be the time of year when thunderstorms turn nasty in a hurry. So needless to say, we’ve been on our toes this week!
Today’s card, on the other hand, is an ode to sunny weather that is perfect for grilling in the backyard. In particular, we’re looking ahead to Father’s Day when, ironically, most dads grill a meal in honor of their own special day! And the new BBQ Master bundle of stamps & dies is perfect for this tribute to dad. We’re revisiting the side step fun fold to create this backyard bbq scene for dad.
Our fun fold base is created with Cloud Cover cardstock. We use our instructions to cut and fold to create the 3 step folds on the side of our card and then we start building the scene. We create the tree using a sheet of the medium-shade woodgrain from the Woodgrain Wonder paper pack and cut the trunk using the Gliding Garden Swing die and then adhere it to the larger left side panel, allowing the branches to overhang freely over the step panels on the other side. Using the bush dies from the Garden Swing set, I cut out Shy Shamrock and Summer Splash bunches to create the tree canopy on the overhanging branch, layering the bunches with glue dots and dimensionals to create realistic dimension.
Now we get started with the real meat & potatoes of our scene. The grill image from the BBQ Master stamp set is stamped in Secret Sea on Cloud Cover cardstock and then cut out with the coordinating die. The grill flames are stamped on Peach Pie with a combination or Real Red and Timid Tiger ink and then cut with the coordinating die from BBQ Master die set. The tongs are stamped in Smoky Slate and Gray Granite on Cloud Cover cardstock and then cut with the coordinating die. Dimensionals give us our depth of scene and a little extra snip of the tongs allow them to hang on the side of the grill in a more believable way. The sausages and hamburger are created with the BBQ Master dies and a collection of paper scraps to create realistic-looking grilled yummies. I used some leftover pieces of white picket fence cut using the Notes & Toes die to create the picnic table. The table and food are affixed to the middle side panel to give the look of the tail being more under our shady tree branch. The sentiment is front and center on the bottom right and is heat embossed in black and we use a few moody palette dots to finish things off with an equal amount of glossy sheen.
Isn’t this fun fold perfect for creating this dad’s day bbq scene?! If you’d like to try it out yourself, you can snag the pdf side step fun fold tutorial here.
Today’s card is a part of the Luv 2 Stamp Group Instagram Hop, which goes live at 9 AM Pacific Time (PST). Click here to head over to my Instagram feed at 9 AM Pacific/11 AM Central and check out what the other demos in our L2S Group have created for you today!
Welcome to the weekend, everyone! It’s a rainy Saturday here in North Texas. And while I have lots of things on the outside spring to-do list, the indoor activities won out today. I started the day providing music for a funeral and then spent the afternoon at the kiddo’s Academic Pentathlon district meet, where he placed individually in Literature and then took several medals with his team. And before hitting the home to-do list, I’ve stolen a little time in the craft room to bring some of my own sunshine to this overall dreary day.
This week, we’ve been letting spring inspire our designs. And today is all about the gorgeous Lovely & Beautiful patterned paper, along with a few other things from the crafty stash, and a sketch as we create this beautiful encouragement card.
Because I’ve got a list of things to do, I wanted to create a beautiful card but without a lot of time spent on designing from the ground up. And what helps the most in those situations? For me, sketches are a must! So we’re using #719 by the Freshly Made Sketches team to make quick work of today’s card.
We get started with a base of Fresh Freesia cardstock. A sheet of the small floral pattern from the Lovely & Beautiful paper pack serves as our background pattern. A strip of Fresh Freesia helps break up our busy patterned background and we spruce it up just a touch by machine embossing our strip with the Beautiful Patterns embossing folder. From a scrap of one of the larger floral patterned sheets from the Lovely & Beautiful pack, I cut a gorgeous peony and adhered it on the left with dimensionals. The sentiment from the Fabulous Sayings stamp set is stamped in Versamark and then heat embossed in gold before being diecut with the Nested Essentials banner die using the extension method to get it just the right size. The vellum sentiment panel is adhered over the flower with mini glue dots. We finish things off with some pearlized faceted gems for just a touch of twinkle.
There are so many more beautiful spring florals in the current Stampin’ Up! lineup that I think we’re going to continue it for one more week. Do you have any current floral-y favorites you’d like to see? Maybe they’re in my stash. Drop me some suggestions in the comments! Until then, see you next week.
Happy Friday! We have made it to the end of the week. And it was quite an exciting day for me. In the middle of a big work meeting today, we had a medical emergency. There’s nothing like someone crumpling in their chair to get the ol’ adrenaline pumping! Luckily, we could rouse the person and get them on their way for a medical evaluation pretty quickly. And on top of the excitement of the work day, it seems that the weather in our area is ramping up to make for an exciting evening. I hope it turns out to just be rain. I’m not sure my poor heart can handle anymore crazy adrenaline rushes today.
But on to our crafty fun for today. We are having another Sketchy Friday (even more appropriate than I originally intended!). For those of you who are new here, Sketchy Fridays is a weekly series where we use a card sketch to design our featured card.
This week’s card is based on the Freshly Made Sketches #722 sketch. A sketch like this one is the perfect way to use busy patterns and/or scraps. In our case, we’re doing both!
We get started on today’s card with a base of white cardstock. Since we’re using a lot of pattern, we want a nice neutral backdrop. A sheet of the Easter Joy pattern paper serves as our background. For the three diagonal corner strips, we combine the floral foil from the Pleasant Patterns pack, the pink sheet from Garden Textures, and the small floral foiled sheet from the Lovely & Beautiful pack. The two competing floral patterns are broken up with the solid textured sheet from Garden Textures. I wanted all of our fun patterns to show through, so the sentiment from the Fabulous Sayings set is stamped on vellum in Versamark and then heat embossed in gold. Before adhering our sentiment, we add a few floral bunches on either side from the Easter Time ephemera pack and then adhere the sentiment over them with glue dots. We finish things off with some pearlized faceted circles.
Welcome back for today’s bonus post. This week’s theme is all about spring as things here in my area are certainly starting to feel like spring, including last night’s storms! But with spring showers come spring flowers and isn’t that what we’re all in for?! Today’s bonus card is showcasing more of the Delicate Dreams suite as we pair the Delicate Dreams and Delicate Designs foil papers to create this lovely thinking of you design.
The layout for today’s card uses Sketch 276 from the Freshly Made Sketches team as the starting point. We get started with a base of Misty Moonlight cardstock. Our base layer combines the small blue floral pattern from the Delicate Dreams pack and the leaf pattern from the Delicate Designs pack and then separated with some Misty Moonlight and silver edged ribbon in a faux book binding look. Our focal panel plays double duty as our sentiment panel. The sentiment from With You In Mind is stamped in Versamark on vellum and then heat embossed with copper. The panel is cut with the Label Me Grateful panel die and then adhered over some leaf fronds cut with the same die set from a combination of earthen toned metallic and blue garden textures foil sheets. We finish things off with a combination of metallic gems on our sentiment panel and then blue opal rounds surrounding our focal panel.
This paper is just so beautiful that I keep turning to it. But I promise I’ll be branching out into some other goodies in the crafty stash tomorrow as we continue our spring design series! Hope to see you then!
Edited to add: would you like to know what happens when you get in a hurry to post your card because you’re so excited about how it turns out? You forget to actually insert it in your post. DOH!
Welcome in, friends, on this very soggy day. We experienced some record-breaking rainfall in our area yesterday, which made yesterday’s commute home very interesting and is sure to impact this morning’s commute, as well.
Today is going to be a two-post day since my evening didn’t go quite as planned yesterday — I’ll tell you a bit more about that later. This week, we’re tipping our hats to spring with all of our projects. And today we’re letting the brand new Flowers Fair background stamp and the Delicate Dreams foiled paper take center stage.
We get started with a base of white cardstock. A sheet of the small floral patterned paper from the new Delicate Dreams paper pack serves as the backdrop for our focal panel. The focal panel starts with a quarter-panel of Cloud Cover cardstock where we stamp the new Flowers Fair image in black. Using a combination of Pretty in Pink, Berry Burst, and Lost Lagoon Stampin’ Blend markers, the image is colored in. The panel is cut down to size for our card front using the Branching Out dies. I wrapped some of the new Berry Burst shiny ribbon around the midsection of the panel and then adhered the sentiment panel over it. The sentiment panel starts with a mat of the Earthen Toned metallic paper that is cut with the larger sentiment die from the Words of Beauty set. The sentiment panel is cut from white cardstock with the smaller sentiment die from the same die set. Then we carefully stamp the sentiment using a combination of stamps from the Wonderful Thoughts stamp set using Blackberry Bliss ink. We finish things off with our embellishments — a dash of Wink of Stella to the lighter pink flowers, some smaller iridescent pearls to the sentiment panel, and a few metallic dots on either side of our focal panel.
I really love how this card came together. And this is truly one of those instances where the whole design evolved as I went and pulled new crafty goodness that I wanted to be sure to include.
Now how about a little backstory on how my evening didn’t go to plan. Aside from the exceedingly long and rainy commute home, one of the feral kitties we’ve been feeding finally returned to our porch last night in between bands of rain. Yes, we’re some of those crazy cat people!
She’s quite young — likely approaching her first season — and super friendly. While she’s naturally skittish, if she figures out that you’re one of the nice ones, she sticks to you like glue and just wants all the pets. We’re calling her Ava. So needless to say, we quickly began formulating a plan to try to catch her the next time she appeared so that we could get her vetted, fixed, and put up for adoption through our local rescue group.
Last night, she was being pursued by a suitor in our driveway and I went outside to see if I could call her up. I called once and she came running — suitor hot on her tail….until he caught sight of me. After she snacked for a bit and got lots of pets, I swooped her up and brought her inside with our feral momma kitty who is close to her release date. So she got to stay safe and dry during last night’s torrential rains and we’re now making plans to find her a happy home.
Hopefully this evening will be a little less eventful and I can bring you the card I have in mind for today. As always, thanks for popping in and I hope you’re enjoying this week’s series so far!
Products used in today’s card: Basic White, Cloud Cover cardstock Delicate Dreams, Earthen Toned metallic DSP Branching Out, Words of Beauty dies Flowers Fair, Wonderful Thoughts stamps Stampin’ Blends Wink of Stella Berry Burst shiny ribbon Iridescent basic pearls, metallic dots Dimensionals
Howdy, friends! Welcome back. Second semester of school is always busy for us as the kiddo’s extracurricular activities really pick up and start overlapping. This weekend was one of those overlapping weekends as we met ourselves coming & going! But we got to spend it together, which is always fun and worthwhile.
Needless to say, I needed a weekend from my weekend and by the time I got a card made yesterday evening, I too pooped to sit down and write anything about it! So here we are in a brand new week with a brand new design theme — spring. I don’t know about where you are, but here in North Texas it’s already feeling like spring. Our weekend temps were in the 80s and everything is blooming & budding. So it only seemed appropriate to throw a spotlight on spring this week, which is perfect since there are so many awesome new things in the shop that a perfectly spring! Have you gotten a chance to take a look yet?
So our first spring card this week uses the brand new Delicate Dreams foiled paper. We get started with a base of Crumb Cake cardstock. Our focal panel is a sheet of the new Delicate Dreams floral paper that is matted with some earthen toned metallic paper to really bring out the coppery foil elements of this gorgeous patterned paper. The panel is wrapped with some Misty Moonlight & silver bordered ribbon that is then tied in a neat bow. To add a pop of additional color, I added a bow of the new Berry Burst shiny ribbon to add a second bow. We finish things off with our sentiment panel which uses the smaller decorative elements from the 2025 Advent Calendar. The sentiment from the Simply Said stamp set is stamped in Blackberry Bliss ink on the circular panel and then the diecut floral edging is adhered with glue dots. Some purple fine shimmer gems add a shimmery touch to the floral centers around the sentiment edge. A few extra metallic gems in opposing corners tie everything together and draw the eye across our card front.
There are so many wonderful new spring-inspired goodies in the shop. I hope you’ll drop in each day this week to see them all!