Happy Saturday, friends! It’s been a busy day here as we’ve made preparations for our first deep cold snap of the season. And in true Texas fashion, that means that today was hot and sunny! *snicker*
Today we’re rounding out our trekking through the outdoors series. And what a fun opportunity to make another card combining old and new with Nests of Winter, Elegant Pine Snowflakes, and Words of Beauty.
We start with a sheet of Pretty Peacock as our card base. A sheet of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes is the perfect backdrop for our tufted titmouse pair from the Nests of Winter paper pack. Circles of Regal Distressed Patterns and Earthen Tone Metallic help our feathered friends really shine. The circles are cut with the Spotlight on Nature dies and then the birds are adhered on top with dimensionals. The sentiment from Words of Beauty are heat embossed in copper on white paper and then cut with the banner die from the coordinating die set. The sentiment panel is adhered over Pretty Peacock and gold ribbon with dimensionals. And we finish things off with a touch of copper sparkle with the drusy embellishments across the front.
Next we’re going to be in thankful mode before turning our thoughts to the Christmas holidays. I hope you’ll drop by and see all the ways you can share thankfulness next week!
Welcome in on this beautiful Saturday, friends! It’s a stunning day here in North Texas as we’re getting our first real taste of fall weather this weekend. The sun is shining, the air is crisp, the leaves are just beginning to turn. It’s my time of year!
And speaking of fall, we’re closing out this week’s design series where we’ve been using the new Autumn Trees bundle by Stampin’ Up! to create this week’s projects. Today’s super clean & simple card design is inspired by all of the silhouette cards I’ve been seeing lately. It’s such a simple design technique, but it really does pack a punch!
So our design gets started today with a base of Secret Sea cardstock. This is the perfect blend of a blackish-blue that really brings out the moodiness in our beautiful backdrop from the Everyday Skies paper pack. We often see both sunrises and sunsets a lot like this scene, where it’s bright & beautiful and casts the perfect light for silhouettes. And here, our mighty oak and pair of deer are silhouetted by our beautiful sunset on the open prairie. To create this effect, we use the Autumn Trees dies to cut the shapes from black cardstock and then adhere them to our backdrop with dimensionals. I love how this accentuates the shadowing in our scene. The sentiment from the Beautiful Butterflies stamp set is heat embossed in black in top-right corner of our card and we flank the sentiment with some Secret Sea faceted shimmer dots as a finishing touch.
What do you think of this super easy design? I’m going to have to remember the silhouette technique more often with beautiful scene-building sets like this one! I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s series. I look forward to spending a little more time in the woods next week as we feature some of the new sets that will go live on Tuesday!
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!
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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
This week, we’re exploring our fall-themed crafty stash as we create our projects. And today, the Gathering Together suite is taking center stage. Because I’m a little pressed for time today, I decided to make things a lot simpler by using a sketch to get started. So I’m using Sketch #5 from the recent SU! Craft-a-Long, which takes the cards on page 42 of the Holiday Mini Catalog and turns them into versatile sketches.
Screenshot
Sketch #5 is the perfect way to use a few scraps of patterned paper and allows for an easy diecut focal point. Here we start with a base of white cardstock, which isn’t visible on the card front itself. A sheet of the white woodgrain pattern from the Country Woods paper pack. A sheet of the lovely Gathering Together paper serves as the backdrop for all of our focal elements. The Cajun Craze leaf pattern is the background panel, while the plaid and foliage strips provide the grounding for the focal leaf element. The leaf is cut from a combination of Gathering Together and Country Woods papers using the Gathering Moments die. To help the pattern leaf stand out against the busy background, I used a darker woodgrain-patterned leaf to provide the shadowing, which really brings out the brown details of the pattern nicely. The sentiment from the Simply Said stamp set is heat embossed in copper and then adhered over gold cording with dimensionals. Some Cajun Craze & Gold dots are scattered around the card front to provide the perfect pops of twinkly color.
Tune in tomorrow to see some more autumn inspiration!