Autumn · Autumn Trees

Autumn Birthday Wishes

Happy Friday, friends! I don’t know about you but I can’t believe that we’re already at the end of October. The last part of the year always feels like it’s on fast forward.

We are continuing our design series for this week using the new Autumn Trees bundle by Stampin’ Up! And today we’re really letting the stamps take center stage in this beautiful masculine design, where we’re pairing our featured bundle with designer series paper and several die sets.

We get started with a base of Crumb Cake cardstock. A sheet of the neutral dot-patterned paper from the Gathering Together paper pack serves as our focal panel backdrop. I stamped the focal panel scene on white cardstock before diecutting it with the largest die from the Branching Out set. I used most of the stamps from the Autumn Trees stamp set to create our tranquil scene and then shaded everything with ink and blending brushes. I love the soft look that this lends. Our deer is stamped on Crumb Cake and then diecut with the coordinating die from the Autumn Trees set and adhered with dimensionals to give some depth to our scene. The sentiment from the 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar is stamped on Crumb Cake and then diecut with the Stylish Shapes banner die using the extension method to get the perfect length. The sentiment is adhered with dimensionals over linen thread that is wrapped around the focal panel. And we finish things of with gold iridescent foil dots in opposing corners for a touch of twinkle.

We’ll be wrapping up our autumn series tomorrow. I hope you’ll drop in and see what’s in store!

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Autumn · Autumn Trees · L2S Group Instahop

Autumn Window

So glad you’re back, friends! You probably noticed that my day shaped up as I expected and I didn’t have the opportunity to post yesterday. But never fear, the card design I had in mind is about halfway finished and coming your way tomorrow!

But today, we’re hopping along with the Luv 2 Stamp Group over on Instagram. And our card today continues our design series using the Autumn Trees bundle by Stampin’ Up! I thought it would be fun to do a variation of last month’s window card design by making it a double flap card to make room for a nice note section on the inside panel. Let’s take a look!

We get started with a base of Crumb Cake cardstock and cut a window using the largest Everyday Arches die. To make the shaker section, we cut a window frame from a sheet of Country Woods patterned paper using the largest and third largest dies to make the frame wide enough for our two-sided tape to adhere the window sheet. The front window frame is adhered directly to the card front. The second frame and window sheet is assembled and then we use adhesive foam strips to create the box in which the shaker elements will move about inside our window. Before adhering this window frame, we add our shaker bits to the back of the outside window sheet and then seal everything up with the inside window frame. I used the new shaker bits that I scored from my SU! 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar.

Now we move on to our inside fold-out panel where we build a fall scene using the Autumn Leaves bundle and a sheet of Thoughtful Journey patterned paper. The base is a quarter sheet that is cut a half-inch wider to allow for the small fold-over flap that is adhered to the inside card base under the message panel. We get started by building our background scene. The mountain is cut directly from our patterned paper using the Scenic Adventure dies. The top piece of the sky is cut down to size and then adhered at the top of our panel and then the mountain section is adhered over it with dimensionals. I added Wink of Stella to the portion resembling a lake, giving it time to dry while we work on the forefront of our scene.

From another sheet of Thoughtful Journey, we cut a small section of trees using the Light & Wonder die set and adhered at the water’s edge and just under the mountain ridge. Using a small scrap of black cardstock, we use the deer die from the Autumn Trees set to cut the doe and fawn. They’re adhered directly to the background. Next up, I stamped the tree image from Autumn Trees in Early Espresso on the slightly smaller quarter sheet of Crumb Cake and shaded the trunk with blending brushes and Crumb Cake ink. We cut leaves in several different colors. I especially love the look of the red and green leaves from the Season of Elegance paper. Each set of colored leaves is adhered on top of the other with dimensionals and slightly askew of one another to create lots of depth. The tree is then adhered at the base of our scenic panel along the edge using dimensionals. We finish things off with some grass in the foreground that is cut from the other sheet of Thoughtful Journey using the Scenic Adventure die. This panel is then adhered to our inside panel with tear-n-tape along the small fold-over flap. The inside message panel has a small buck in the bottom corner and the sentiment from With You in Mind at the top.

This card is even prettier in person. And I thought you might enjoy seeing it in action to get an idea. *grin*

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! 

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Autumn · Autumn Trees

Grateful

Howdy, friends, and welcome back! I’m so excited to be bringing you some fall cards this week. I almost feel like that maybe inspired Mother Nature to send us our first real cool weather here in North Texas. *snicker* If only that were true, but we really are cooling off here and the trees are starting to look like the fall show is imminent. Man, I love fall!

This week is all about autumn as we pull together things in our crafty stash that pair well with the new Stampin’ Up! bundle called Autumn Trees. This is a gorgeous stamp and die set that allows you to finish all of your fall scenes with the perfect complimentary trees and things. And today the dies from the set take center stage in this very clean & simple (and incredibly easy) design.

We get started with a base of Crumb Cake cardstock. I left a teensy border of it exposed around the edges of the card to pull out some of the lighter colors in our sheet of Thoughtful Journey patterned paper. This sheet of fall grasses provides the perfect meadow backdrop for our doe and fawn pair from the Autumn Trees die set. The pair of deer are cut from a sheet of Cajun Craze cardstock and tucked behind our grassy panel to give the effect of them standing in an open part of the meadow. To create this look, I used the full 6×6 sheet of Thoughtful Journey and started by cutting around the top set of grasses to allow us to create some depth of field by adhering it over the top portion of the sheet with dimensionals. The sentiment from the Sentimental Framing stamp set is heat embossed in copper at the top of the sheet. A few drusy embellishments flank either side of the sentiment to draw the eye in and provide some sparkle in the sky.

And that’s all there is to this design. What do you think of this simple scene? The paper and dies really do all the work here with a stunningly simple result!

I have a full day at the office tomorrow but hope to have some time to bring you another clean & simple design using the Autumn Trees set. But you definitely want to tune in on Thursday when I’ll be bringing you a fun fold design as part of the Luv 2 Stamp Group Instahop. It’ll be worth the wait if it turns out half as well as the design idea!

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Autumn Trees · Fall

Means the World

Here we are at the start of another week. Did you enjoy last week’s series as we worked our way through the Stampin’ Up! 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar? I had a lot of fun coming up with things to make from each day’s new crafting goodies.

Well, this week, we’re turning back to autumn. I just got the new Autumn Trees bundle in a recent order, and I’ve been dying to get crafty with this awesome new set. The stamps and dies are so detailed and there are so many ways to really punch things up with this set. Today, the beautiful oak tree is taking center stage, along with our doe & fawn. Let’s see how this all comes together.

We get started with a base of Crumb Cake cardstock. This provides a nice neutral base that plays along with our nature-themed design. I used several different patterns from the Gathering Together patterned paper pack to create the backdrop for our focal images. The contrast from dark to light really let the beautiful tree and its foliage shine. The base image of our tree from the Autumn Tree set is stamped in Early Espresso on Copper Clay cardstock and then diecut with the coordinating die. (While this color is retired, you could just as easily substitute the Cajun Craze — it will simply be a bit brighter and I was going for a little more subdued.) The tree is adhered to the card front with glue dots. To really give some depth and realism to our beautiful fall foliage, I used the detailed leaves die from the die set and cut both Copper Clay and Oxidized Copper leaves and layered them a bit offset and affixed with dimensionals. I just love how the oxidized copper catches the light. The doe & fawn are the perfect addition to this serene scene. They’re cut from the woodgrain patterned sheet in the Gathering Together paper pack. The sentiment panel needed to be soft to allow our autumn scene to shine so I opted for some vellum. The sentiment from Gathering Moments is heat embossed in copper on the vellum and then diecut with the medium-sized banner in the Stylish Shapes set. It’s mounted over some Mossy Meadow & gold ribbon. And we finish things off with a touch of copper & gold in our Cajun Craze & Gold dots.

Tune in tomorrow as we take a stroll through the autumn meadow.

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12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar

Advent Love

Welcome to the weekend, everyone, and to our last day of this week’s SU! 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar series. Each day, we’ve been opening two boxes in our Advent calendar and then creating a project with the new crafty goodies. Let’s see what’s in boxes 11 & 12 today!

Alright, so we’re closing our 12 days of crafty treats with some gold glittery glue, a package of embossed notecards, and some beautiful, intricate laser cut pieces. Let’s get to work and see how we can put a lot of our new crafty goodness to work today. The first thing that I wanted to do was work with the laser cut pieces to create a focal feature for the card. And from there I built the remainder of the design around what ends up being the sentiment panel.

We get started with a base of Basic White cardstock. This really lets our other elements take center stage. I used two notecards from the Advent Calendar as our background pieces — a pink notecard with bows, flowers, & butterflies and then one of the new embossed panels from today’s box. The two cards are adhered offset over one another directly to our card base. To bring out the embossing on the white notecard in front, we use a blending brush and some Pretty in Pink ink to make a circle of color in the center where we’ll put our sentiment panel. The sentiment panel starts with a plain circle and decorative laser cut circle from today’s pack of embellishments that are adhered together with glue dots. Sequins, bows, and butterflies from the shaker elements bag gives us little pops of color and detail all around our wreath of flowers & greenery. Don’t you just love the tiny, little butterflies? I didn’t notice them in the shaker elements but wanted them to get special attention today! The sentiment from the Advent Calendar stamp set is stamped in Pretty in Pink in the center. And the full sentiment panel is adhered in the center of our brushed pink circle. We use leaf bunches and hearts in opposing corners to draw the eye in to our sentiment and finish things off with some dots of glittery gold glue next to each heart and then in the centers of each of the flowers on our wreath.

I hope you’ve had fun this week as we’ve opened our Advent Calendar and found creative ways to use each of the new additions to our crafty stash. You’ll be seeing these elements pop up in future designs. Next week we’re going to be touring the autumn woods. I hope you’ll stroll along!

12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar

Advent Hugs

Welcome back, friends. Today we’re on Day 5 of our 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar series, where we’re opening two boxes of our calendar each day and then making a fun project with the new goodies. Today we’re on boxes 9 & 10. Let’s see what we’ve got.

So today we have a set of notecards and a new set of pinkish-hued shaker elements. And guess what I figured out as I was going through the notecards to come up with a design — they’re two-sided! How fun is that?! Today’s design is extra fun because I wanted to use the shaker elements in a traditional way. Who doesn’t love a shaker card??

So we get started with a base of Strawberry Slush cardstock. The sheet of Very Vanilla leaves from the Advent Calendar paper pack serves as our neutral backdrop for the focal panel. I decided to use a little shortcut for the shaker panel and dug out a cellophane bag I’d saved from a prior order to serve as the shaker bits holder. The scrap of pink paper from yesterday is the mat for the center section of the focal panel. I used the pink floral notecard for the sentiment panel and picked the coordinating long oval diecut piece from an earlier calendar box as the panel where I heat embossed the sentiment from the Advent Calendar stamp set in gold. All of these elements are adhered together so they’re nice and flat so the shaker pieces will move freely in our containment bag. We tuck the panel in and then shake in the shaker pieces in the front and seal the bag shut. I adhered the bag to the neutral front panel piece with tear-n-tape to ensure a good stick. This panel is then wrapped with the Strawberry Slush baker’s twine from our calendar before the panel is adhered to the card front. I chose two diecut pieces from today’s bag—a pink butterfly & flower—as our accent pieces in opposing corners of the shaker panel. We finish things off with a few of the gold shaker bits in opposing corners.

It’s hard to believe, but we’re down to our last two boxes tomorrow and I absolutely cannot wait to see what we’re closing out our crafting adventure with! I hope you’ll drop in and see!

12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar

Advent Extra Special

Welcome in, friends, and thanks for joining me! We are currently on Day 4 of our 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar series, where each day we’re opening two boxes in our calendar and then creating a fun project with the new goodies. Let’s see what our calendar has in store for us today.

OOooo, today we’ve got a new set of postage stamp dies and two spools of baker’s twine — a Strawberry Slush & a Cloud Cover. And I think we’re going to try the layout that I started working on yesterday that just didn’t pan out with the elements I had to work with. I think a variation of Sketch #3 from the Holiday Mini works beautifully today.

We get started with a base of Basic White cardstock. I used a quarter panel of Strawberry Slush as the backdrop and stabilizing piece for the fractured panels of the floral Advent Calendar patterned paper. Using the new postage dies, I cut 3 panels of varying sizes from the sheet of pink from the Advent Calendar paper pack. The largest panel holds our sentiment from the Advent Calendar stamp set. The two smaller panels provide the perfect backdrop for our fuzzy foam stickers. I used the new baker’s twine to add some pizzazz to our long & skinny panel. The foil diecut elements from Day 2 make the perfect accents to help our postage stamp panels really pop. We finish things off with some adhesive gold heart sequins in opposing corners.

One of the fun things about this week is getting more comfortable with designing on the fly. We’re on to boxes 9 & 10 tomorrow and I’m excited to see what we’ll get to work with next!

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12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar

Advent Birthday Wishes

Happy Monday, everybody! Have you missed seeing crafty inspiration because I’ve certainly missed having time for it! Sometimes we just have to know when to make a little space for other things — like coordinating major work programs and family time, all of which were time well spent.

But we’re back at it this week with 12 days of crafty Christmas! Each day we’re going to be opening 2 slots in the Stampin’ Up! 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar. Each calendar comes with a box of crafty surprises, as well as a coordinating stamp set. Let’s see what we have in store today!

So isn’t that fun — today we’ll be working with the coordinating dies and 6×6 patterned paper for the Advent Calendar stamp set. The first thing I wanted to do was put everything side-by-side to decide on a theme and color palette for a card design.

The pink floral pattern stood out to me in the selection of papers, so from there I looked for a simple design that would allow me to use the stamps & dies. I pulled out the Holiday Mini catalog and turned to the sketches on page 14 and was drawn to the very first one — clean and simple & a perfect way to coordinate the paper, stamps & dies.

So we have a sketch, our 2 Advent Calendar boxes, and the stamps. We pull coordinating papers together — Strawberry Slush, Pretty in Pink, Mossy Meadow, and white — to get started. To add a pop of interest, I decided to add some texture to the background panel using a *NEW* embossing folder that releases in just a few weeks.

We get started with a base of Strawberry Slush cardstock. The background panel is a quarter sheet of Strawberry Slush that I machine embossed with the new Beautiful Pattern embossing folder, which releases in just a few weeks! The sheet of pink florals is cut and then wrapped with Strawberry Slush ribbon before being adhered to the embossed background panel. Using the Advent Calendar stamp set, we stamp the large and smaller flowers on Pretty in Pink in both Strawberry Slush & Pretty in Pink ink. The center is stamped in Timid Tiger. The flowers are then diecut with the new coordinating dies we opened today, along with coordinating leaves from Mossy Meadow. Our flower is adhered over the ribbon on the left — substituting for the circle in our sketch. The sentiment from the Advent Calendar stamp set is stamped in Strawberry Slush on white cardstock and cut with the banner from the Mixed Labels die set and adhered over our flower element and just under the ribbon. A few Strawberry Slush & Pretty in Pink gems finish things off with pops of twinkle across the card front.

I hope you’ll pop in tomorrow to see what our next 2 boxes will reveal. I know I can’t wait!

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Autumn

Gather Decor

We’re rounding out this week’s design series with some home decor. I have a craft show in a couple of weeks, and I’m still working feverishly to prepare all of the things I have on my display wish list. Last year was the first year I offered home decor items, and they generated a lot of interest.

Today’s design is inspired by a recent post on the Stampin’ Up! official Instagram page. I, of course, put my own twist on it. And isn’t that the best thing about inspiration?! So let’s dig in and see how this comes together.

This is a 6×6 frame I found on Amazon. So we get started with a 6×6 card base. HINT: Before you fully commit to your layout, be sure that it shows through the frame as you intend. I neglected this step this time so my Cajun Craze base – that was supposed to be a small border around the focal panel – doesn’t show at all. *womp-womp*

The focal panel base is a sheet of the gold foil hashed patterned paper from the Nature’s Sweetness paper pack. I decided to use the retired Changing Leaves embossing folder to create the background texture because I wanted the pattern to more closely tie with the image theme. The focal image is an image rub using blending brushes.

I decided to create a mask and negative that I could use more than once using some of the acetate sheets I had saved in my stash. When I unpack my acrylic stamps, I always save the thicker acetate sheet to use for shakers and window cards later on. It’s the perfect thickness for a mask and negative too! I used the larger leaf from the Gathering Moments dies to cut through the acetate. I used both pieces to create my focal image. The negative creates the center image, which is rubbed in Mossy Meadow, and then the shape is used to create the highlight around the leaf image, which is rubbed in Flirty Flamingo.

The sentiment panel has several layers. The backdrop is a banner created from two strips of the Gathering Together patterned paper. The sentiment from the Gathering Moments set is stamped in Versamark on Cajun Craze and then heat embossed in gold. I cut around the sentiment using paper snips. The fall foliage arrangement on the left is created using the Gathering Moments images and dies. We finish up with a bow of gold striped iridescent ribbon and some Cajun Craze & gold dots.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s series. I’ll be in and out over the next two weeks as I prepare for the big educational program at the office and then head off to the woods for a little family fall break get-away. But I have new goodies arriving that I hope to be able to show you so don’t go too far!

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Beautiful Pumpkins · Peaceful Garden · Sketchy Fridays

Sketchy Fridays: BIG thanks

Happy Sketchy Fridays, everyone, and welcome to the weekend! Except it’s Saturday, but we’re all good with that, right? *snicker* My week could be summed up by lions and tigers and bears, oh my! We had a major cloud data migration at my office over last weekend and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. So we were having to make due with alternative ways of accessing e-mail and cloud files all week, and let’s just say that it’s been a mess! In and amongst all of that, we’re hosting a big educational conference in our office next week annnnnnd naturally all of my spreadsheets and files were a part of the data migration. *sigh* So it’s been a little challenging at the office this week, to say the least!

BUT here I am on Saturday bringing you the Sketchy Fridays card because it was just going to be too cute not to make & share! 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 #706 sketch. As soon as I saw it, I already had an idea in mind and that made it an easy choice! And we’re turning it on its head, so to speak, to make it landscape. Today’s design features the new Online Exclusives Beautiful Pumpkins bundle.

We get started with a neutral base of white cardstock. Our front panel backdrop is a sheet of the gold foiled script paper from the Nature’s Sweetness paper pack. The focal panel is a combination of two sheets of the Gathering Together paper – the Cajun Craze small leaf pattern and the gold foiled fall foliage pattern. It’s mounted to the card front with dimensionals. The sentiment from the *new* 12 Days of Crafting Advent Calendar stamp set is heat embossed in black at the top of the panel. I wanted the pumpkins to have more texture and interest than what the stamps alone would provide, so I selected several of the woodgrain patterns from the Country Woods paper pack and used the detail stamp from the Beautiful Pumpkins set and a coordinating, but light, color on top of each woodgrain and then used the coordinating dies to cut out each one. The pumpkin stems are also cut from one of the darker woodgrain patterns from the Country Woods paper pack. I tried several different colors for the leaves and vines before settling on the Old Olive sheet from the Season of Elegance paper pack. We give the pumpkins lots of depth of field by adhering them with varying heights of dimensionals. And we finish things off with some gold low profile dots.

I’ll be closing out this week’s design series with some home decor. I hope you’ll drop back by later to check it out.

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