This week, we’re exploring some of the ways we can use the Stampin’ Up! Season of Green & Gold suite of products. Today, we’re using it in a more traditional holiday-inspired layout.
Our design gets started with a base of Shaded Spruce cardstock. Our focal panel uses two patterns from the Season of Green & Gold designer series paper pack. I just love the gold-foiled patterns, and here we’re using the mistletoe and diamond patterns to create the backdrop for our focal section. The sentiment from Greetings of the Season is stamped in Shaded Spruce on Very Vanilla cardstock and then diecut with the Autumn Leaves die using the extension method. The greenery and bells are cut from a sheet of the Season of Green & Gold patterned paper and then adhered with several layers of dimensionals. The bells are adhered over a satin bow tied with the Very Vanilla satin ribbon. A mixture of drusy embellishments add sparkle and draw the eye across the card design.
I hope you’ll pop in tomorrow to see how we can use this suite to create a fall-inspired design.
Products used in this card: Shaded Spruce, Very Vanilla cardstock Season of Green & Gold DSP Greetings of the Season stamps Autumn Leaves dies Very Vanilla satin ribbon Drusy embellishments Dimensionals Adhesives
How excited was I to wake up to a rainy cold front this morning?! While it’s not exactly fall cool yet, we’re definitely headed in the right direction.
Today, we’re continuing a closer look at the Stampin’ Up! Season of Green & Gold suite of products. This suite includes beautiful gold-foiled patterned papers, coordinating vellum, stamps & dies, and lovely satin ribbon. Today’s card is another take on a traditional holiday design.
We started with a base of Basic Beige cardstock. Our background panel is a greenery pattern from the Season of Green & Gold designer series paper pack. Our focal panel background in the center is a strip of Basic Beige that is embossed using the Cute Crochet embossing folder and then matted with the backside foiled pattern of the background panel sheet. The sentiment panel is cut from Basic Beige using the Greetings of the Season dies. The sentiment from Greetings of the Season is stamped in Mossy Meadow toward the bottom of the tag. Using some of the leftover sprigs of greenery that I cut for yesterday’s card design, I affixed them to the sentiment panel to overlap the top of the tag and then tied a bow of Very Vanilla satin ribbon and affixed it in the center. A few drusy embellishments on either side of the sentiment help draw the eye and add a bit of finishing sparkle.
Tomorrow we’re going to round out our winter holiday designs before transitioning to a few out-of-the-box designs. I hope you’ll pop in.
Products used in today’s card: Basic Beige cardstock Season of Green & Gold DSP Cute Crochet embossing folder Golden Greenery dies Greetings of the Season stamps &dies Very Vanilla satin ribbon Drusy embellishments Dimensionals Adhesives
Welcome to a brand new week and the start of FALL! Have I mentioned that fall is my absolute favorite season? Unfortunately, Texas isn’t being very cooperative with me right now, and it doesn’t feel a bit like fall. Not one bit!! In fact, it’s still feeling like we’ve been thrown into the deep end of the frying pan. But we’re only a couple of good cold fronts away from fall officially being here to stay! *wink-wink*
This week, we’re going to be spending time with the Season of Green & Gold suite of products by Stampin’ Up! And we’re going to mix it up with some obvious holiday designs and some out-of-the-box fall designs. Today’s card is solidly in the holiday mood.
We get started with a base of Shaded Spruce cardstock. Our focal panel is a sheet of white cardstock that has been diecut using the Dotted Circles embossing folder and then the panel is matted with gold mercury vellum. Using the Golden Greenery dies, we cut a variety of greenery from the Season of Green & Gold patterned paper with coordinating shapes. These are then layered on the focal panel using dimensionals to create several different visual planes. Our sentiment from Peaceful Season is stamped white cardstock in Versamark and then heat embossed with gold embossing powder. We cut it out with the smallest circle from the Everyday Details die set. This is then mounted on a circle of white glimmer paper cut using the Spotlight on Nature dies and adhered over a twist of Cherry Cobbler & Gold satin ribbon in the center of our greenery. A few iridescent faceted gems finish things off with a nice sparkle.
Tune in tomorrow as we keep things in the holiday zone.
Products used in today’s card: Shaded Spruce, Basic White cardstock White glimmer, gold mercury vellum, Season of Green & Gold DSP Dotted Circles embossing folder Golden Greenery, Spotlight on Nature, Everyday Details dies Peaceful Season stamps Versamark Gold embossing powder Cherry Cobbler & gold satin ribbon Iridescent faceted gems Dimensionals Adhesives
Do you ever have weeks where you aren’t sure which end is up much less what day it is? I’ve been confused about what day of the week it is all week and it’s NOT even a holiday week! Perhaps it’s a phase of the moon or something.
Today is another installment of Sketchy Fridays, where each week we’ll be using a card sketch to design our featured card. Right now, we’re working through a full series of designs using the card sketches found in current Stampin’ Up! catalogs.
This week’s card is based on Sketch #13 in the Holiday Mini catalog and features the Joyful ephemera packs and the fun Take a Bow designer series paper in the new Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog.
I know I probably say this often enough that you’re beginning to think that I’m a broken record, but what I love about using sketches to build a card design is that it’s merely a starting point. There aren’t any rules that say your card HAS to look exactly like the sketch that inspired it. Today, you’ll notice that I’ve taken some liberties with the sketch. Rather than using actual rectangles in the design, they’re a representation of the images from the Joyful Images ephemera pack. Can you see it?
We get started on this card design with a base of white cardstock. Our background panel is a sheet of the red polka dot Take a Bow patterned paper with a strip of the green star pattern from the same pack. In each of the places represented by rectangles in the sketch, I’ve put images from the Joyful Images ephemera pack, building a cute scene of a cup of cocoa surrounded by snacks you might enjoy with it. There’s a twist of the peppermint baker’s twine tied behind the images for a little visual interest. The sentiment down below is mounted on a banner from the Images pack while the word Joy is from the Joyful Sayings ephemera. A few adhesive peppermints and some drusy embellishments help the eye move across our design and add some pops of fun color and sparkle.
Tomorrow we’ll be rounding out this week’s series with a trip to grandma’s house. I hope you’ll come along!
Products used in today’s card: Basic White cardstock Take a Bow DSP Joyful ephemera packs Real Red & White twine Real Red & White peppermints Drusy embellishments Dimensionals Adhesives
We’ve made our way to another weekend and halfway through the month of September already! This week, we’ve been All About Christmas and have been exploring a whole selection of Stampin’ Up! holiday products. Today, we’re revisiting a set of products that carried over from last year’s holiday release. And it’s no wonder because the Merriest Trees set and the Winter Meadow paper pack both offer so many ways to create beautiful cards and not just holiday designs!
Today, we’re pairing up the Merriest Trees dies with one of my all-time favorite fun folds — the Center Step fun fold. I also gave a new coloring technique a try to make my own patterned paper for the trees. So let’s take a closer look at how this fun fold comes together.
We get started with a base of Pretty Peacock cardstock. A sheet of the Winter Meadow designer series paper serves as our backdrop for the center focal panel. Our pair of trees start with a custom coloring technique using Pretty Peacock and Old Olive ink. (Tune in on my YouTube channel on Tuesday for a full tutorial during the next episode of Terrific Tuesdays!) I also splatter some white craft ink to give the look of snowflakes falling in front of the branches. Using all of the various sizes of trees in the Merriest Trees die set, I cut out tree panels and then selected ones to layer to create each tree. Dimensionals on the bottom fringes of the branches help give a little dimension and the look of the stacked branches. Each tree is then decorated with garland and stars cut from textured gold specialty paper. The trees are adhered to the bottom of the center fold portion of the card base with dimensionals. Our sentiment consists of a mat of gold foil cut with the banner die from the Peaceful Season die set. The sentiment from Merriest Trees is heat embossed in gold on white cardstock and then diecut using the Peaceful Season dies. It’s adhered to the top of the center panel with dimensionals. I tucked a few bunnies by the trees for a little added interest and then scattered snowflakes in the background.
Next week we’re going to be exploring the new Christmas ephemera. I hope you’ll tag along!
Products used in today’s card: Pretty Peacock, Basic White cardstock Watercolor paper, Winter Meadow, gold foil, textured gold DSP Merriest Trees stamps & dies Peaceful Season, Grove dies Gold embossing powder Pretty Peacock, Old Olive reinker Snowflakes, rhinestone jewels Dimensionals Adhesives
Welcome to Friday, everyone! This week, we’ve been All About Christmas and have been taking a tour through all of the fun holiday products that Stampin’ Up! offers.
Today is another installment of Sketchy Fridays, where each week we’ll be using a card sketch to design our featured card. Right now, we’re working through a full series of designs using the card sketches found on page 22 of the current Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog.
This week’s card is based on Sketch #17 and features the snowman from the Filled With Cheer stamp set and the fun Take a Bow designer series paper in the new Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog.
We get started with a base of Real Red cardstock. I chose a sheet of the new Take a Bow designer series paper for the strip elements in the sketch and used both sides of one sheet of paper. I felt like the focal panel needed to be more than simple strips of patterned paper and this is where I chose to add two additional layers to bring everything together. I used some of the red Festive glimmer paper as the mat immediately behind our paper strips, and this mat is cut using the Perennial Postage die. And then to help the whole focal panel pop against our card base, I added a mat of white cardstock that has been diecut with the Deckled Rectangle die and then embossed using the Snowflake Sky embossing folder. Our focal panel is stamped with the snowman from the Filled With Cheer stamp set and then diecut with the Perennial Postage dies so that we’re just capturing the snowman and Christmas tree. The snowman is colored with Stampin’ Blends. Red and white baker’s twine is twisted around the bottom of our panel to tie everything together (no pun intended). The top-right edge of our panel is lightly sponged with Real Red ink to create a nice backdrop for our separate sentiment panel. The sentiment from Greetings of the Season is stamped in red on white cardstock and then diecut with the circle die from Changing Leaves and then adhered over our sponged focal panel corner. The focal panel is adhered to the backdrop with dimensionals. A few peppermints and rhinestones finish things off and help draw the eye across and to the more important elements on our card.
I love sketches because they give me a great place to get started. Sometimes I stick to a sketch just as it is. And other times, like today, I venture just a tiny bit outside the lines. I really love the simplicity of today’s sketch, but as I started working with it in conjunction with all of the elements in today’s card design, I felt like we needed a few extra layers to be sure everything works together but also, and more importantly, to ensure that all of the elements really pop.
Tomorrow we’re revisiting a few old favorites as we make our way through the enchanted Christmas forest. I hope you’ll pop by and check it out!
Products used in today’s card: Real Red, Basic White cardstock Take a Bow, Festive glimmer DSP Filled With Cheer, Greetings of the Season stamps Stampin’ Blends Snowflake Sky embossing folder Perennial Postage, Deckled Rectangles, Changing Leaves dies Red & white twine Peppermints Rhinestones Dimensionals Adhesives
Do you ever include a gift with a Christmas card? Do you ever find yourself looking for cute and/or creative ways to include the gift? Today, we’re looking at a fun way to include a gift card with this year’s Christmas card to friends or relatives. This card is literally a gift that keeps giving!
For our special gift card, we’re pairing some of the beautiful new patterned paper packs with the dies from the Season of Elegance Suite included in the new Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog. So let’s take a closer look at how this all comes together.
We get started with a base of Real Red cardstock. Our focal gift panel also starts with a base of Real Red that is cut down to leave enough room at the top for our decorative gift card insert. Using the smaller square from the Peaceful Season dies, we cut squares from two sheets of the Season of Elegance paper and one sheet of the Season of Green & Gold paper pack. I alternated the red and cream-colored rows and tried to ensure the center squares lined up so that the Cherry Cobbler & Gold ribbon element ran cleanly from top to bottom. Our sentiment from the Trucking Along stamp set is stamped tone-on-tone on Real Red cardstock and then diecut using the Peaceful Season die, which is matted with the larger rectangle banner from the same die set. The sentiment panel is adhered at the bottom of our package focal panel using dimensionals. I added Drusy embellishments to the panel for added sparkle and to ensure the eye moves to the sentiment. We adhere our full focal panel to the card front using foam strips on three sides to create a pocket behind the panel.
Our gift card holder is a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock that is diecut with the largest tag in the Greetings of the Season die set. We create the bow for the top by cutting Garden Green Festive glimmer paper with the Peaceful Evergreens dies. The bow is assembled with glue dots and then adhered to the top of our tag with dimensionals. You can lightly hold a gift card in place by placing a few glue dots on the back and then placing it on the tag. Tuck it into the pocket and you have an instant gift in more ways than one!
I really love how this turned out and can’t wait to use this design this year. It’s always fun to be able to present a gift card in a fun and creative way and with a lengthier note.
Tune in tomorrow for a new Sketchy Fridays card design and see what our snowman is getting up to!
Products used in today’s card: Real Red, Very Vanilla cardstock Season of Elegance, Season of Green & Gold, Festive glimmer DSP Trucking Along stamps Peaceful Season, Peaceful Evergreens, Greetings of the Season dies Cherry Cobbler & gold metallic ribbon Drusy embellishments Foam strips Dimensionals Adhesives
Welcome to Monday, crafty friends! I hope you all enjoyed a nice weekend. Here in North Texas we’re beginning to enjoy the first of a string of very fall-like temperatures in the mornings and it’s been glorious!
This week starts a new design series and we’re All About Christmas! I know it’s hard to want to think about the holidays when we’re not even officially into fall yet. But as you know, beautiful Christmas cards don’t just make themselves! *wink* Today’s card features the Golden Greenery stamps and dies, as well as several of the new patterned paper packs that just launched in the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog.
So let’s get a closer look at today’s card. We get started with a base of Mossy Meadow cardstock. Our focal panel base consists of two coordinating gold foil patterns — the foiled greenery patterned paper from the Season of Green & Gold paper pack and the Old Olive pattern from the Season of Elegance paper pack. I love how the gold foiling in each sheet plays off each other so well to give a cohesive sheen to the background. To create the layers of greenery, I began by stamping two different greenery patterns from the Golden Greenery stamp set onto Soft Sea Foam cardstock. These greenery bunches come together in two steps, and I used a combination of Shaded Spruce and Pool Party to create the stems of leaves. Each one is then diecut with the coordinating Golden Greenery dies. I also cut coordinating stems of the same varieties from shimmer papers using the detailed dies in the set. I chose a mixture of greens to cut the evergreen fronds. All of the stems are then layered up with dimensionals to give a variety of height to the bunch. The sentiment is broken into two parts for a little added drama. The Merry panel is diecut from white using the Peaceful Season dies and Merry is then stamped in Real Red in the center. A twist of Cherry Cobbler & Gold metallic ribbon is adhered behind the panel. Christmas is diecut from Real Red glimmer paper using the Peaceful Season die and then placed to overlap the sentiment panel and greenery. A few red iridescent discs add a pop of sparkle across the card front.
The style of this card would be what my grandmother would have referred to as “plop decorating.” You literally just plop things where they look good. And this card certainly made me smile as I plopped greenery and thought of her!
I hope you’ll pop in tomorrow as we take a little sleigh ride.
Products used in today’s card: Mossy Meadow, Soft Sea Foam, Garden Green, Shaded Spruce, Basic White cardstock Season of Elegance, Season of Green & Gold, Basic White shimmer, Festive shimmer DSP Golden Greenery stamps & dies Greetings of the Season stamps Peaceful Season dies Cherry Cobbler & Gold metallic ribbon Iridescent discs Dimensionals Adhesives
Welcome to today’s BONUS post! It’s the time of year where many of us crafty creators begin thinking about items that we will put in our booths at craft fairs. I have two upcoming craft fairs and am already well underway in the product creation department. One of the many items that I love to offer craft fair customers is an easel calendar. And this year, I’ve been playing around with several different layouts and methods of constructing them.
Today, I’m sharing a prototype with you that didn’t make the cut. Why am I sharing a “failure,” you might ask? Well, it may not work for my customers, but it’s still a lovely design that I intend to enjoy on my own desk. And we’re going to talk about why it doesn’t work because I think there’s value in sharing things that didn’t work out as planned and how we “fix” it.
I knew that I wanted to build a calendar on a standard-sized card base in an easel design. I wanted the calendar to lie flat and be mailable for anyone who purchased one in my craft booth and wanted to mail it to a loved one. So I began with the simplest of easel stands where the easel folds up in the back to prop up the front-facing portion. But what doesn’t work about this design is the prop catch in the back to ensure that the easel stays in place. The only thing I could find that worked to keep the easel in place was a very large stack of dimensionals, which is not at all pretty. And for me, I like for every angle of a crafty creation I made to be lovely to look at. And that’s how this lovely calendar (from the front) became my new desk companion. But let’s talk about how it comes together outside of my faulty easel design.
I love the new Splendid Autumn designer series paper pack and really wanted to pull out the lovely, more subtle colors in the patterned sheet I chose for this easel calendar. After placing a lot of different color combinations behind the Splendid Autumn sheet, I felt like the combination of Cajun Craze and Blackberry Bliss worked best at pulling forward the lovely shades of fall in the field of blooms AND all of the lovely colors of dusk in the sky. So our Cajun Craze sheet serves as our base for the calendar easel and the Blackberry Bliss serves as the mat directly behind the Splendid Autumn sheet. To pull forward the yellows, I matted the small tear-off calendar (by Taylored Expressions) in Crushed Curry. I added a few Peach Pie shimmer gems in the bottom corner for just a little sparkle. I just love how it turned out!
In this week’s episode of Terrific Tuesdays, I’m going to be sharing the full details on this easel calendar with you, including how this particular design was a fail for me PLUS how I changed things up to create an easel that works how I intended. So I hope you’ll tune in!
Products used in today’s featured design: Cajun Craze, Blackberry Bliss, Crushed Curry cardstock Splendid Autumn DSP Taylored Expressions mini tear-off calendar In Color shimmer gems
This week is all about autumn, and we’re using unique combinations of Stampin’ Up! products to make some beautiful card designs.
And it’s already time again for another installment of Sketchy Fridays, where each week we’ll be using a card sketch to design our featured card. Right now, we’re working through a full series of designs using the card sketches found on page 22 of the current Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog.
This week’s card is based on Sketch #14 and features the gorgeous Splendid Autumn designer paper from the new Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog.
As I was thumbing through the papers in the Splendid Autumn paper pack, I was looking for a sheet that would lend itself to an unexpected combination of products. When I saw this beautiful sheet of the groves of trees separated by a stream with its hues of greens and purples, along with the usual fall foliage colors, I knew I had found the sheet I was looking for.
The beauty of today’s Sketch #14 is it lets us use this gorgeous paper as the focal point and then support it with mats as complements. We get started with a base of Calypso Coral cardstock. I love how this base color makes the oranges in the trees pop over the golden hues. Our sheet of Splendid Autumn is matted in two different colors. We use a very thin mat of Peach Pie glimmer paper right up against the Splendid Autumn, and it’s such a nice complement to the golden hues in our paper. Then we’re using a larger secondary mat of Old Olive Season of Elegance designer paper. Just look at how this brings out the grass along either side of our creek that’s reflecting our gorgeous dusky sky. And in person, the sparkle of the gold foiling in this sheet plays along perfectly with the glimmer paper. The sentiment from Wonderful Thoughts is heat embossed in gold on a sheet of white vellum from the Graceful Greenery vellum pack and then diecut using the Greetings of the Season dies using the extension method to give us a full banner. We finish things off with a twist of ribbons, including iridescent striped sheer ribbon, gold trim, and two colors of linen thread from the new Natural Tones pack, and a few of the new Earth Tones shimmer gems in opposing corners for a little sparkle.
I hope you tune in tomorrow as we round out our All About Autumn card series. I’ll be bringing you another emboss resist project, as well as a BONUS post showing how you can make a simple easel project that packs a big punch!
Products used in today’s card: Calypso Coral cardstock Season of Elegance, Splendid Autumn, Graceful Greenery vellum, Gold textured DSP Wonderful Thoughts stamps Greetings of the Season dies Iridescent striped ribbon Gold trim Natural Tones linen thread Earth Tones shimmer gems Dimensionals Adhesives
Song Sparrow Papercrafts 