L2S Group Instahop · Winter

Snowy Window

Thanks for dropping in today, friends! After a looooong day at work yesterday, I didn’t have any zip left to play in the craft room. But never fear, that childhood throwback card is coming to you tomorrow!

But today, we’re hopping along with the Luv 2 Stamp Group over on Instagram. And we’re continuing our snowflake series as we combine the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper with the Winter Scenes stamps to create today’s shaker window card. Let’s check it out.

We get started with a base of Pretty Peacock cardstock. Two panels of the Pretty Peacock frost pattern from the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper cover both the front and back of our front card panel. The window is cut using the Everyday Arches dies, and I ran the whole sheebang through the machine a couple of times to be sure it cut all the way through all of the layers. Acetate window sheets create our shaker panel, and we adhere one on each side of our card front, filling the shaker with sparkly things, and then adhering our patterned paper covers on each side. We dressed up the window with two small arches cut from white cardstock using nesting dies from the Everyday Arches set. And then the upper corner of the window has a snowflake cut from a combination of Peaceful Garden silver glimmer paper and a sheet of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper. This snowflake is the perfect compliment to our snowy winter scene.

The smallest center arched piece is used for our image panel. The image from the Winter Scenes stamp set is stamped in black and then colored with a combination of Stampin’ Blends and blending brushes. To give it the sparkle of falling and fallen snow, I covered the snowy bits with Wink of Stella. The sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack is adhered over Balmy Blue sheer ribbon with several layers of dimensionals and affixed underneath the focal image. A few Traditional Sparkling sequins on the inside and outside focal panels finish things off with the perfect amount of twinkle.

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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Elegant Pine Snowflakes · Winter

Season of Snow

Welcome back, friends. This week, we’re having all kinds of snowy fun as we explore some of the great snow-inspired products in our crafty stash. Today’s clean and simple design uses the Elegant Pine Snowflakes products and Greetings for You ephemera to create this lovely embossed design. Let’s check it out.

We get started with a base of Secret Sea cardstock. The focal panel starts with a sheet of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes patterned paper, which we’re going to mat with a sheet of the Cloud Cover Flower Garden Foils specialty paper. I really wanted the patterned paper to take center stage, so I opted for an embossed effect for the focal images. I arranged three of the Delicate Pines stamps over the coordinating images in the paper and stamped in Versamark before heat embossing with clear embossing powder. I just love this shimmery, raised effect that really draws attention to the beautiful detailed snowflakes. We finish things off with a ’tis the season sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack, which is mounted over a twist of Mossy Meadow & Gold ribbon using dimensionals. A scatter of Old Olive sparkling sequins finish things off with a touch of coordinating color.

Tomorrow we’re going to have a throwback to our childhood as we use the paper snowflake effect. I hope you’ll drop in and check it out!

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Winter

Joyful Flakes

Welcome to fall, y’all! When I was choosing this week’s design theme, ironically, I didn’t even think to make it coincide with the changing of the seasons here. That’s a real face-palm moment, don’t ya think? *snicker* But that’s just the way it goes sometimes when you’re excited about digging into some new crafty goodness.

This week, we’re delving into everything SNOW. There are some wonderful new snowy products in the new SU! Holiday Mini catalog and Online Exclusives that I can’t wait to show you. And today we’re getting started with a mixture of Elegant Pine Snowflakes & Snowy Delights to create this beautiful card. I decided on the word joy from the Greetings for You ephemera pack because snowflakes bring me joy. What about you?

Our card today gets started with a base of Cloud Cover cardstock. This brings out the subtle hues of blue in our background paper from the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper pack. Our trio of snowflakes is built from two sets of dies – Delicate Pines and Snowy Delights. Using a scrap of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper, I cut several different sized snowflakes from a corner of the sheet. I paired up the larger printed snowflake with some of the Summer Splash glimmer paper and cut a detailed snowflake to go behind using the Snowy Delights die. Before adhering the two layers together, I sandwiched a faux bow of Lost Lagoon soft cording in between. The smaller snowflakes are paired with some Shy Shamrock glimmer paper cut using one of the smaller detail snowflake dies from the Delicate Pines die set. They’re adhered together with dimensionals to give them a more realistic depth of field before adhering them to the backdrop with dimensionals. Each snowflake has a center of Traditional Sparkling sequins. The sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack is adhered toward the bottom-center of the card front. (HINT: did you know that these sentiments are already sticky? Just peel the backing & stick!) I added another sparkling sequin as the tittle for J in joy. A few blue sequins in opposing corners finish things off perfectly.

I hope you’ll drop in tomorrow to see what other snowy goodness there is in store!

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Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

Wreath of Joy

This week we’ve been making clean & simple holiday card designs using some of the new Stampin’ Up! holiday products that just launched this week. Today we’re pairing up the Joyful Days Memories & More cards with the Greetings for You ephemera to create this lovely wreath of joy.

We get started with a base of Early Espresso cardstock. I love how it pulls out the wood stem of the evergreen in the wreath. Our backdrop is one of the larger cards of Christmas plaid from the Joyful Days pack. This really makes things festive. Our focal panel consists of two panels – the wreath card from the Joyful Days pack and the mat of Old Olive Season of Elegance paper. I love how this gives the perfect amount of sparkle that really helps bring our sentiment front and center. The full panel is adhered to the card backdrop using dimensionals. The sentiment JOY is from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and is adhered on multiple layers of dimensionals to ensure it stands tall above the rest of the design. We finish things off with a bow of Mossy Meadow & Gold ribbon at the top-center of our wreath and then some gold sparkly sequins from the Traditional Sparkling Sequins pack in opposing corners to tie the gold elements together.

I hope you’ve gotten some good ideas from this week’s designs to get you started on your holiday card stash. Next week is all about birthdays. I hope you’ll come along as we tour through the crafty stash to make some fun birthday cards.

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Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

Christmas Wishes

Howdy, friends! Have this week’s card designs gotten you into the holiday spirit? Well, today’s card will have you smelling evergreens. *wink*

We’re using some of the new Stampin’ Up! holiday release products to create our clean & simple holiday card designs this week. And today, we’re pairing up the Joyful Days Memories & More card pack with the Christmas Tags & More paper pack with coordinating ephemera sheets and the Greetings for You ephemera pack. And what kind of card would it be if I didn’t include some sparkle? *grin*

We get started with this card with a base of Shaded Spruce cardstock. The background panel is a sheet of snowflake pattern Christmas Tags & More paper diecut with the largest Textured Notes die. The bottom of the panel is wrapped with Shaded Spruce sheer ribbon that is tied off with some gold thread (both now retired). Our focal panel is the smaller evergreen card from the Joyful Days card pack that is matted with some (retired) Shaded Spruce festive glimmer paper and mounted on dimensionals. I added some of the packages from the ephemera sheet included in the Christmas Tags & More pack and mounted them on varying levels of dimensionals for some realistic depth of scene. The tree baubles are some of the traditional sparkling sequins. We finish things off with a holiday sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and mount it with enough dimensionals to stand above the center focal point.

This is such a super simple design – so fun & so easy to put together. And don’t you think it’s just a lovely way to send some holiday cheer? Tomorrow we’re going to close out this week’s design series with a traditional evergreen wreath. I hope you’ll pop in and check it out.

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Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

From Our House

It’s hard to believe that we’re already quickly approaching the weekend. It’s been a super busy week, so it’s really just flying by. I’m gonna need two weekends just to recover. *ha!* So have you gotten to check out all the new goodies that launched yesterday? Which ones are your must-haves? I’m looking forward to playing around more with my faves from the new Holiday Mini catalog & the new Online Exclusives. And since it’s craft show season, I’ll have even more reasons to be in the craft room creating fun new projects!

This week, we’re getting a look at some of the must-haves that I got from the new release. And we’re using the new products to create clean & simple holiday cards. Today’s card combines the Joyful Days Memories & More cards with the Christmas Greenery Dies and the Gathering Together patterned paper to create a design that extends well beyond the traditional Christmas holidays. With the more masculine, neutral color palette, you can easily use this design from fall through winter. And that’s a design I can get behind!

We start with a base of Cherry Cobbler cardstock to tie with the subtle striping in our focal panel plain backdrop. I chose a sheet of the striped foiled Old Olive paper from the Gathering Together paper pack as the full-panel backdrop. It coordinates perfectly with the Joyful Days card that serves as our focal panel background. The evergreen branches are cut from gold foil specialty paper using the Christmas Greenery dies and are tied together with some (now retired) Cherry Cobbler & Gold satin ribbon. The sentiment is from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and is mounted on a small panel of gold & white foiled grid paper from the Nature’s Sweetness paper pack and cut using the Traditional Labels dies. I added some dimensionals behind the sentiment and then behind the full panel when adhering over the greenery to be sure they catch the eye. Some extra sparkle from the traditional sparkling sequins add the perfect coordinating gold finish.

Tomorrow we’re headed to the trees … the Christmas trees. I hope you’ll drop by and check out O Tannenbaum!

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Coming Soon · Holiday Mini Catalog

Merry & Bright Plaid

I don’t know about you, but I have a love-hate relationship with holiday weeks. We all love a short work week, but it always feels to me like I’m just squeezing in a lot more work into a shorter time period. That was definitely the case today anyway!

And I’ve been SO off on my days as of late that I was thinking today was the new product release day when it’s actually tomorrow….womp-womp! But it doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for you to see all of the new stuff. I’m just sad you have to wait one more day.

Anywho, this week we’re getting another peek at some of the cute holiday products that will be available tomorrow. Our design focus this week is clean and simple holiday cards using the Joyful Days Memories & More card pack, the Greetings for You ephemera, and the Christmas Tags & More patterned paper pack with ephemera sheets included. So much good stuff! Today we’re mixing in an embossing folder.

Today’s card starts with a base of Cherry Cobbler cardstock. I had a leftover strip of light brown patterned cardstock from one of the sheets in the Christmas Tags & More pack which served as the jumping-off spot for the color palette and design for the rest of the card. I paired it up with a piece of Pecan Pie machine embossed with the Birch Wood embossing folder to create the backdrop for the focal panel. The focal panel backdrop is a combination of one of the smaller cards of plaid from the Joyful Days card pack and a plaid tag from the sheet of tags in the Christmas Tags & More pack. I chose the Merry & Bright circle sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and matted it with a banner of gold foil specialty paper and adhered it to the focal panel with several layers of dimensionals to be sure it really catches the eye. I finished things off with some gold sparkly sequins from the Traditional Sparkling Sequins pack so your eye catches some sparkles all the way across the card front.

I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow to see another clean & simple holiday card design.

Products used in today’s card:
Cherry Cobbler, Pecan Pie cardstock
Gold foil, Christmas Tags & More DSP
Greetings for You ephemera
Joyful Days Memories & More card pack
Birch Wood embossing folder
Traditional sparkling sequins
Dimensionals

Coming Soon · Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

Happy Season

Welcome to a bright, shiny new week, everyone! We’re enjoying a day off and taking full advantage of not doing much! So that means plenty of time to play in the craft room with some new goodies and getting a start on making new gifties for an October craft show, which means playing around with goodies from the retired stash.

It’s hard to believe that a whole new batch of Online Exclusives AND the brand new Holiday Mini Catalog goodies are due to launch tomorrow! I’m so excited for you to see all of the new things. The last few releases have been a little underwhelming, in my opinion anyway, but this one is worth the wait. This release is jam-packed full of good, GOOD stuff!

This week, we’re taking an early tour of some holiday goodies as we play with the new Joyful Days Memories & More card pack, the Greetings for You ephemera, and the Christmas Tags & More patterned paper pack that includes coordinating ephemera.

For today’s card, we get started with a base of Crumb Cake cardstock. The background panel is a combination of patterns – a sheet of red Season of Elegance foiled paper and a sheet of the festive plaid from the Christmas Tags & More pack. The focal panel is one of the smaller tree scene cards from the Joyful Days card pack that is matted with some gold textured paper. Some new Real Red shiny ribbon is tied around the bottom third of the full panel. And tucked underneath on several layers of dimensionals is the foiled sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack. I’ve finished things off with a touch of sparkle in opposing corners from the Traditional Sparkling Sequins.

I hope you’ll drop by tomorrow to see another holiday-inspired design.

Products used in today’s card:
Crumb Cake cardstock
Christmas Tags & More (launching tomorrow!), textured gold metallic, Season of Elegance DSP
Joyful Days Memories & More card pack (launching tomorrow!)
Greetings for You ephemera pack (launching tomorrow!)
Real Red shiny ribbon (launching tomorrow!)
Traditional sparkling sequins (launching tomorrow!)
Dimensionals
Adhesives

Fun Folds · Tutorials

Trick or Treat Flap

Happy Friday, craft friends! We have made it to the end of the week and the weekend is fast approaching. What do you have on your weekend to-do list? We haven’t decided if this is going to be a productive weekend or not. Ever have those where you just decide to do fun stuff instead of the things on the to-do list? *wink*

This week, we’re having a good time going through my stash of “must try” fun folds. And today, we’re trying out the Flip Flap fun fold that I saw over at Stampin’ on the Back Porch. I thought it would be super fun to build an unfolding Halloween scene with the SU! Spooky Sweet paper pack. And it turned out sooooo cute, if I do say so myself! Of all the cards I’ve made recently, I dare say this one is the simplest as far as the supply list goes. And the fold itself? Also easy peasy?

We get started with a standard sized base of Basic Black cardstock. This design uses most of a full 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. Half is dedicated to the card base, while the other goes into making the two-sided flap. I chose the door scene from the scene sheet found in the Spooky Sweet paper pack. This scene panel is adhered directly to the card base. I made my flaps next so I could get the placement of the fold correct. And then I used a combination of ephemera characters and a few characters cut from a sheet of the Spooky Sweet paper to create the scenes for each layer. The fold-over flap hides the final scene on the card front. And it’s all about the layers to make these scenes come to life, which means we’re using my most favorite tool – dimensionals!

So what do you think? Is it eerily delightful? Or just plain frightful?

Love this card and wanna give it a whirl yourself? You can download the free PDF instructions here.

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Clean and Simple · Winter

Woodsy Thoughts

I don’t ordinarily post twice in one day or even on Sundays, for that matter. But sometimes our schedules get a little off-kilter and we have to make some quick adjustments. I returned to working full-time in September, and as things are beginning to pick up at work, maintaining a good balance has become a little challenging. So hopefully you guys will bear with me as I work to find that perfect balance between enjoying down time with the family and time doing things I love, like crafting.

This week, we’ve been designing around the theme of in the woods. And I wanted to finish off with a really simple design that combines paper, a die, and ephemera.

We get started with a base of Mossy Meadow cardstock. Our focal panel has a sparkly backdrop of white glimmer paper with a panel of Garden Green diecut with the Winterly Treetops die and mounted with dimensionals to give us the look of peeking through the evergreens. Two reindeer from the Joyful Images ephemera pack are standing in the open glen as snow is softly falling (represented by the iridescent faceted gems). Our sentiment comes from the Joyful Sayings ephemera pack and is matted with a textured gold banner. I just love how simple and elegant this design turned out.

This next week will be a little hit and miss with card designs as I have to fly out of town midweek for some training. Our new design theme will be stopping by on a snowy evening. I hope to give you some fun ideas for working with this theme with some unexpected product combinations.

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