12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar

Advent Thinking of You

Welcome to another day in our week with the SU! 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar, where each day we’re opening two boxes together and then creating a fun project with the goodies we found inside. Thus far, we’ve scored a set of dies that coordinate with the Advent Calendar stamp set, some patterned paper, some glitter shaker elements, and a set of foiled diecut elements. Today, we’re opening boxes 5 & 6. Let’s see what’s inside!

Alrighty, so today we have a set of decorative masks and some fluffy felt stickers. I’m not gonna lie, I was initially pretty stumped on what to do with our new goodies. But I started looking through the rest of the Advent Calendar goodies for some inspiration and decided that continuing with the floral theme would work best, especially since I wanted to incorporate the new items in today’s design. After stacking the decorative masks and getting a sense for the scene they would create, I pulled a sheet of patterned paper that would coordinate and went to town.

We get started with a backdrop of Cloud Cover cardstock. A quarter sheet of Cloud Cover is machine embossed with the *new* Beautiful Pattern embossing folder, which releases next week. I used a strip of the coordinating Advent Calendar patterned paper on the left of the panel. The focal panel floral scene is created with today’s decorative masks, blending brushes, and a combination of inks — Daffodil Delight, Crushed Curry, Pretty in Pink, Strawberry Slush, Cloud Cover, Misty Moonlight, Garden Green, and Shaded Spruce. The panel is cut with the largest circle in the Spotlight on Nature die set and then adhered with dimensionals. The sentiment from the Advent Calendar stamp set is heat embossed in black on vellum and then diecut with one of the smaller circles from the Stylish Shapes set. The panel is adhered over Balmy Blue sheer ribbon with dimensionals and a pink bow from the new fluffy felt sticker set finishes off the sentiment panel. A fluffy felt flower and a few of the Hues of Blue Flowers in the corner finish off our floral theme.

Isn’t this fun? Every day we’re stretching our creativity! Can’t wait to see what our Advent Calendar brings us tomorrow!

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Mother’s Day

Lovely Mom

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms, moms-to-be, grands, and moms in the gap. What a privilege it is to love and care for another. There isn’t more truth than a child is a piece of your heart walking outside your chest.

This week we’re exploring all the ways we can use our crafty stash to make lovely things for our moms. And we’re finishing out our series with the Thankful Garden bundle.

This lovely gets started with a base of Blackberry Bliss cardstock. The focal panel backdrop starts with a quarter panel of white cardstock that is machine embossed with the Dotted Circles embossing folder and is then matted with the Thoughtful Designs specialty paper. Our Thankful Garden bundle takes center stage here with the hydrangea bloom in the center. After stamping the image on white cardstock several times, I used the decorative masks to color the image. I chose to have the blooms be a combination of pink and purple — which was my grandmother’s favorite hues to aim for with her hydrangea (easier said than done). A layer of Wink of Stella over the blooms makes them shimmer in the light. The coordinating dies made quick work of cutting out the bloom and adding the life-like dimension. A combination of pink and purple regal dots serve as the floret centers. I cut some extra stems of leaves from a combination of the Lovely Garden patterned paper and a sheet of Shaded Spruce and laid the hydrangea bunch on top. The sentiment is created using a combination of Sweet Blooms dies and She’s the Greatest stamps. The lovely is cut from purple silver foil and Berry Burst glimmer paper. I adhered the two layers together with the glue pen before adhering over a bow of iridescent striped ribbon. I stamped Mom in Blackberry Bliss on white cardstock and used a heart punch to cut it out. It’s adhered with a dimensional. A few drusy embellishments finish things off with an extra sparkle.

We’re going to be honoring our teachers next week as prepare to wind down the last couple of weeks of school. I hope you’ll drop by for some cute ideas to thank the folks who work selflessly and tirelessly all year to impart knowledge into the next generation!

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florals

Butterfly Garden

We’re tiptoeing through the craft garden this week as we focus on our stash of floral Stampin’ Up! goodies. Today, we’re combining the Layers of Beauty bundle with Beautiful Butterflies to create this beautiful all-occasion card. I stepped out of my comfort zone a little bit as I played around with applying a light ink wash to my stamped panel using blending brushes and I even threw ink a little ink resist for grins.

We start today’s design with a base of Blackberry Bliss cardstock. Using the Beautiful Butterflies embossing folder, I machine embossed just the front panel of the card base. The focal panel is a white panel stamped with a combination of the Layers of Beauty stamps to create a patterned paper. I used the coordinating decorative masks to lightly fill in the center rose image with a combination of Fresh Freesia, Blackberry Bliss, and Shy Shamrock inks. I added some smaller butterflies in three corners with white embossing powder. And then I set about applying a light application of Blackberry Bliss and Pretty Peacock wash to the edges of the panel, leaving the center image mostly uncovered. The focal panel is adhered to the card base with dimensionals. A paper butterfly approaching the roses completes the garden scene. I added a twist of metallic ribbons to the top — a combination of Pretty Peacock, Blackberry Bliss, and Gold striped mesh ribbon (set to release in May). Two tone sparkle gems and rhinestones add some sparkle and draw the eye across the card design.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to go through with this card design because I didn’t feel very confident with the color wash panel. But sometimes you just have to keep going until you get all of the right elements in place to make it all come together.

Tomorrow we’re going to be hopping with the Luv 2 Stamp Group. I hope you’ll drop in and see what garden goodness awaits!

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florals

You Mean So Much

This week we’re tiptoeing through the garden as we use beautiful floral products from the Stampin’ Up! lineup. Today we’re featuring part of the Lovely Garden suite using the diamond fun fold. I love this particular fold because it gives lots of opportunity to showcase beautiful patterned paper.

We get started with a base of Crushed Curry cardstock. I used two different patterns from the Lovely Garden paper pack as the backdrops for the inside and outside card panels. The diamond panel is a combination of textured gold specialty paper and a sheet of foiled paper from the Nature’s Sweetness paper pack. The focal image from the Thankful Garden stamp set is stamped in black on white cardstock and then colored using the decorative masks and a combination of Shy Shamrock and Daffodil Delight inks before being diecut with the coordinating die. For a little added visual interest, I stamped, colored, and diecut the smaller flower a second time and then popped it up on the full floral stem. The stem is adhered to the diamond panel with dimensionals. The sentiment from the Enduring Beauty set is stamped in black on white cardstock and then diecut with the smaller sentiment die from the Mixed Labels set. I tucked a twist of gold thread behind the sentiment panel before adhering it at the bottom of the diamond panel with dimensionals. A few gold textured dots serve as floral centers and eye-catching sparkle in opposing corners.

Tomorrow we’ll be stopping to smell the roses. I hope you’ll plan to come by and sit a spell.

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Botanicals

The Best

It’s wonderful Wednesday and we’re halfway through the week. And it was quite the busy hump day for me today. Between performing a set for my professional music group and plugging away at work, it was a go-go-go day today! But in a few down moments, I thought about how we could use some of our newer goodies in the crafty stash to give a little ode to spring, and I think the Thankful Garden bundle definitely does the trick!

I don’t know about you, but there are certain sets — and florals, in particular — where I like to do a bit of research on color patterns and combinations to help with a more realistic look. And I knew I wanted to have more pink in the hydrangeas today. I think the combination of Flirty Flamingo, Pretty in Pink, and Melon Mambo is perfect for pulling out all of the subtle shading in these flower bunches.

We get started with a base of Berry Burst cardstock and use a sheet of the lighter pink floral pattern from the Unbounded Beauty patterned paper pack as the mat for our focal panel. Using the Thankful Garden stamps, I stamped a floral bunch in each of the corners and used the decorative masks to color them. I stamped a full bunch of hydrangea on a separate sheet of paper, shaded using masks, and then cut it out with the coordinating dies. I stamped a portion of the floral bunch two more times, shaded, and then diecut with the smaller detail die from the Thankful Garden dies to create a more realistic-looking floret to serve as our focal point in the center. Layering the dimensionals really helps with the more realistic look and feel to the hydrangea stem. The sentiment from the Pattern of Friendship set is stamped in black on white cardstock and then diecut with the smaller sentiment die in the Autumn Leaves die set. I stamped an identical panel from the berry Beautiful Bokeh and then cut it in half and mounted it under the sentiment panel to serve as a mat. I added a few pink Blooming Pearls for an eye-catching pop of sheen. The sentiment panel is adhered with dimensionals to help it catch the eye. I finished things off by adding some floral centers of foiled regal dots across our hydrangea florets.

Although it was pretty challenging to figure out the proper orientation of the smaller detail die for the hydrangea, once I did, it was a breeze to get the detail pieces cut. And to help myself remember the orientation the next time, I marked the image in my stamp case. A similar hack works well for the placement of the decorative masks.

I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow as we continue our ode to nature!

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Uncategorized

Celebrate!

Welcome to a bright & shiny new week, everybody! I don’t know about you, but my weekend was BUSY! I spent a lot of time catching up on the homefront after being gone for training in the middle of the week. And my best laid plans for having time in the craft room totally went awry.

This week, I’ve decided to pick back up with last week’s design theme — nature. We’ll be looking at all of the current sets on the shelf this week to work in our theme. And today we’re getting started with the lovely floral bundle called Layers of Beauty, which includes stamps, dies, and coordinating decorative masks. I’ve borrowed the layout from fellow demo Stamping Beauty (@stampingbeautynz).

We get started with a base of Melon Mambo cardstock. The focal panel background is a sheet of the pinkish Beautiful Bokeh pattern and matted in Berry Burst glimmer paper. The focal panel itself is a sheet of the Lovely Garden paper that is cut with the Textured Notes dies and affixed slightly askew. I stamped the full Layers of Beauty image in Early Espresso ink and then colored using the masks and an assortment of pinks and greens. The image is cut out using the coordinating die and then affixed to the focal panel with dimensionals over a twist of Summer Splash ribbon and silver trim. I cut a few sprigs of leaves from Summer Splash cardstock with the Layers of Beauty dies and then tucked them behind the raised focal image. The sentiment is cut from silver foil and Berry Burst cardstock using the Wanted to Say dies and then mounted with dimensionals over the focal image. A few iridescent faceted gems finish things off with some subtle sparkle.

I must say that I wasn’t a huge fan of the decorative masks when they first came out, but they’ve really grown on me. Using them to color images makes quick work of beautiful shading — something that I’m not always the best at! Have you tried a bundle that includes masks? What are your thoughts on them? I’d love to know!

I hope you’ll pop in tomorrow as we revisit an older stamp set for a more masculine design that’s most certainly all about nature!

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Frosted Forest

Forest of Amazing

This week, we’re working with the new Online Exclusive bundle from Stampin’ Up! called Frosted Forest. This bundle includes a photopolymer stamp set, coordinating dies, and coordinating decorative masks. Up until I added this bundle to my stash, I had staunchly avoided decorative masks. Decorative masks allow you to quickly color and add detail to your stamped images with sponges or blending brushes. I thought they were going to be too fussy, but Stampin’ Up! has made it super easy to line them up perfectly every time with the corner notches.

Wanna know something else I really love about the Frosted Forest set? It pairs beautifully with SO many other SU! products. And today’s card shows you exactly that, so let’s talk about how this one comes together.

We get started with a base of Mossy Meadow cardstock. I chose a quarter panel of Pool Party as the backdrop for the focal panel so that I wouldn’t have to add the sky myself, and it allowed for a soft backdrop for all of the stamped images that follow.

So next we start building our background scene with a combination of the In the Grove and Grassy Grove stamp sets. The mountain range from In the Grove is stamped in Gorgeous Grape and then I lightly sponged over it with Highland Heather and pulled that color down to create a valley. With the grass stamp from Grassy Grove, we add a layer of grass slightly over the purple of the mountain valley using Mossy Meadow ink and continue down the panel with the grass stamp from In the Grove, also using Mossy Meadow, until the panel is complete. A few gaps here and there give a sense of changes in terrain and elevation.

Next up, we start building our forefront scene by stamping both the large and small tree from Frosted Forest in black in on Gray Granite cardstock. Each is shaded using the coordinating decorative masks with a combination of Shaded Spruce, Old Olive, and Garden Green and then each tree is diecut using the coordinating Frosted Forest die. The smaller trees are adhered on either side of the panel with dimensionals. The larger tree is adhered in the center with dimensionals so that it stands taller. The larger and smaller deer silhouettes are diecut from Crumb Cake cardstock using the Grove dies and then tucked into the trees and adhered with glue dots. The bird from the Frosted Forest set is stamped in black on Smoky Slate cardstock and then diecut with the coordinating die. It’s adhered with a dimensional over the grass so that it appears to be soaring through the valley.

Our sentiment from the Changing Leaves set is stamped in black on white cardstock and then diecut using the Friends for Life smudge banner. A piece of the Moody Mauve shimmer paper is also cut with the Friends for Life smudge banner and is cut in half to allow it to serve as a mat for the sentiment. The full panel is adhered with dimensionals and a few rhinestone jewels are added to draw the eye to the sentiment.

While this card may look a little complicated, it comes together quickly and easily. I love thinking about how I can use various sets together to create beautiful scenes, and the Frosted Forest set lends itself so easily to doing so.

I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow to see how we can create a snowy scene. You won’t want to miss it!

Products used in today’s card:
Mossy Meadow, Pool Party, Basic White, Crumb Cake, Smoky Slate, Gray Granite cardstock
Moody Mauve In Color cardstock
Frosted Forest stamps, masks, and dies
In the Grove, Grassy Grove, Changing Leaves stamps
Grove, Friends for Life dies
Rhinestone basic jewels
Dimensionals
Adhesives

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Frosted Forest

Towering Thank You

Happy Wednesday, crafty friends! It’s hard to believe we’re already halfway to the weekend. This week, we’re exploring designs using the new Stampin’ Up! Online Exclusive bundle called Frosted Forest. Like so many other sets, Frosted Forest can be paired with a whole host of products in the current catalog to give you a variety of looks. Today, we’re using Autumn Leaves for a fall-inspired design.

I have seen so many wonderful cards using the Dotted Circles embossing folder and some sort of circular diecut, and I really wanted to give it a try. This card really just fell together. And I certainly can’t say that about very many cards that I make!

We get started with a card base of Cajun Craze cardstock and emboss just the front-facing portion of the card base using the Dotted Circles embossing folder. The tall tree from Frosted Forest is stamped on a quarter panel of white cardstock in black ink and then shaded using the decorative masks and a combination of Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, Pretty Peacock, and Shaded Spruce inks to tie with our other leaf elements. Our image panel is two layers — a mat diecut from Country Woods and the image panel, both cut using the Spotlight on Nature dies. I chose the two larger leaf dies from the Autumn Leaves set to complete our focal element. The larger leaf is cut from the Pretty Peacock sheet of Oxidized Copper, while the smaller leaf is cut from the Gold Mercury vellum. The leaf veining is cut from the darkest woodgrain patterned sheet in the Country Woods designer paper pack. The full focal section is adhered to the card front with dimensionals. The sentiment from Frosted Forest is stamped in black on white cardstock and then diecut with the decorative banner die in the Unbounded Love die set. I frayed an entire section of Pretty Peacock & Gold metallic ribbon by “unzipping” the gold and then separating the strands of thread. After gathering them together, I tied a small knot in the center and adhered it to the back of the sentiment panel and then adhered the sentiment panel with dimensionals. To help the eye move across the design, copper sequins are placed in opposite corners.

I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow to see how you can use the Frosted Forest bundle to build beautiful scenes. You won’t want to miss it!

Products used in this card:
Cajun Craze, Basic White cardstock
Country Woods, Oxidized Copper DSP
Gold Mercury vellum
Frosted Forest stamps & decorative masks
Spotlight on Nature, Unbounded Love, Autumn Leaves dies
Dotted Circles embossing
Pretty Peacock & Gold metallic ribbon
Neutrals sequins
Dimensionals
Adhesives

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Frosted Forest

Forest of Birthdays

We’re on day 2 of our featured Online Exclusive bundle from Stampin’ Up! called Frosted Forest. The full bundle includes photopolymer stamps, coordinating dies, and decorative masks. And today, we’re keeping it pretty simple, much like yesterday, because you really don’t have to put much with this bundle to make eye-popping cards.

We get started on our card today with a base of Early Espresso cardstock. Our focal panel is a sheet of white cardstock diecut using the largest Deckled Rectangles die. The evergreen trees from the Frosted Forest stamp set are offset on the right. I combined both the large and small tree to create the focal image section. The trees are “colored” using the decorative masks with a combination of Shaded Spruce, Old Olive, and Garden Green inks. To give the look of falling leaves or snow, depending on your perspective, I chose the small detail stamp from the In the Grove stamp set and filled in around the trees in Gray Granite ink using the stamp-off method so that my images weren’t super crisp. I diecut a piece of Gold Mercury vellum to serve as the backdrop for the sentiment to ensure that it stood out from the scene. The sentiment from So Sincere is stamped in Versamark and then heat embossed using black embossing powder and then diecut with the longest banner die from the Happy Little Things set using the die extension method. The sentiment is adhered to the vellum panel with dimensionals and the full panel is set apart with a strip of gold trim. To add some sparkle and draw the eye across the design diagonally, I added some neutrals sequins.

Tomorrow we’re going to kick things up a notch with more product pairing. I hop you’ll pop by and check it out!

Products used in today’s card:
Early Espresso, Basic White cardstock
Gold Mercury vellum
Frosted Forest, So Sincere, In the Grove stamps
Frosted Forest masks
Happy Little Things, Deckled Rectangles dies
Gold trim
Neutrals sequins
WOW embossing powder
Dimensionals
Adhesives

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Frosted Forest

Birthday as Great as You

We are already halfway through July, people. How is this possible??! Sometimes I’m amazed at just how quickly time flies by. And all of the Christmas-in-July and back-to-school posts are reminding me of it, for sure.

Well, we’re in a shiny new week and that means a shiny new featured product from Stampin’ Up! This week, we’re going to be working with the new Online Exclusive bundle called Frosted Forest, which includes a photopolymer stamp set, coordinating decorative masks, and coordinating dies. The images include both deciduous and evergreen trees, along with some sentiments. And this week, I’m working with decorative masks for the first time. To be honest, I have avoided them. They just seemed a little too fussy for me, but I have to admit that they’re not all that much trouble. And without them, I would be hand-coloring my tree images and we all know how well that would go for me! (Not very well. *wink*) So let’s take a closer look at today’s card, shall we?

I wanted to keep this design super clean and simple since it’s my first time using the masks. I decided to use the window pane technique as the layout but punched it up a little bit by changing up the standard window shape.

So we get started on our card with a base of Very Vanilla cardstock. The tall tree from the Frosted Forest stamp set is stamped in black in the center of the card front. Using the coordinating decorative masks, the tree is shaded with a combination of Early Espresso, Flirty Flamingo, and Versamark. The Versamark layer is last and heat embossed using copper embossing powder. Some of the copper embossing powder also stuck in the cracks of the trunk because the ink was still a little wet, but I actually liked the look at kept it. Once embossing was finished, I then added a very light sky behind the tree using Pool Party ink. Our patterned paper window pane is a sheet of Country Woods designer series paper that has been diecut in the center using the largest oblong hexagon from the Nested Essentials die set. The die was placed so that the tree would be centered in the window. The sentiment from Frosted Forest is stamped in Cajun Craze on Very Vanilla cardstock and then diecut with the Autumn Leaves die. The sentiment mat is diecut from the shimmery Cajun Craze cardstock with the larger Autumn Leaves sentiment die using the extension method. A twist of linen thread is adhered behind the sentiment panel and this panel is adhered to the mat with the dimensionals and then the full panel is adhered to the designer paper panel with dimensionals, as well. I added a few copper sequins from the Neutrals set for sparkle and to draw the eye across the design.

I love the simplicity of this design and look forward to playing around with different window pane shapes and a variety of foliage colors on the tree. So many different looks can be achieved with just those simple changes! Maybe we’ll try some later this week.

Tomorrow, though, we’ll be making a regal looking birthday card using our evergreens from Frosted Forest. I hope you’ll pop in and check it out!

Products used in today’s card:
Very Vanilla, Cajun Craze In Color cardstock
Country Woods DSP
Frosted Forest stamps & masks
Nested Essentials, Autumn Leaves dies
WOW embossing powder
Linen thread
Neutrals sequins
Dimensionals
Adhesives

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