Coming Soon · Winter

Glad You Exist

I don’t know about you but I really love getting snail mail. I have since I was a very little girl. Some of my most cherished memories in my scrapbooks are handwritten notes from loved ones and friends. It’s one of the reasons that I continue to send notes to people I care about and why I became a cardmaker.

This week, we’re exploring ways we can use our holiday products for designs that speak to the everyday. Today’s card can serve a number of occasions — from birthday to encouragement to anniversary — and goes beyond the bounds of winter.

We get started with a base of black cardstock. A sheet of the Pretty Peacock and gold Season of Elegance designer paper serves as our gorgeous backdrop. Our focal panel base is a piece of white woodgrain from the Nests of Winter paper pack diecut with a larger Spotlight on Nature die. The focal image of the pair of titmice birds is fussy cut from another pattern of the Nests of Winter pack. The sentiment from the Saying Hey stamp set is stamped in black in white cardstock and then diecut using the Greetings of the Season banner die. A few Pretty Peacock and gold sequins across the card front add sparkle and draw the eye across our focal panel.

Tune in tomorrow as we use our ephemera packs to create a design to reach across the miles.

Products used in today’s card:
Basic Black, Basic White cardstock
Nests of Winter (coming soon!), Season of Elegance (coming soon!) DSP
Saying Hey stamps
Spotlight on Nature, Greetings of the Season dies
Sequins trio, neutrals sequins
Dimensionals
Adhesives

Changing Leaves · Coming Soon

Note to Brighten Your Day

This week, we’re getting a sneak peek at the upcoming Online Exclusive called Changing Leaves. This bundle includes photopolymer stamps, coordinating dies, and a hybrid embossing folder. Today, I wanted to highlight another way you can use this set to create something other than a fall-themed card with a bright and cheery color palette and a fun complimentary product pairing.

Today’s card is all about a little friendly encouragement. With a fun color palette and incorporation of the Friends for Life set, we have a a terrific note to brighten someone’s day.

We get started with a card base of Summer Splash cardstock. Our background panel is a sheet of the Flowering Zinnias designer paper. Our focal panel backdrop is a leaf pattern using the Changing Leaves stamps. I used one of my larger stamp blocks to arrange my leaf stamps in a pattern I liked. I then layered the ink on the stamps for an ombre-looking effect by starting with Summer Splash over the entirety of the leaf images, then placing Old Olive up the centers, and then lightly tapping the edges with Pretty Peacock. I stamped these twice to get my panel, cut it to size, and then matted with Pretty Peacock for a nice contrast against the Flowering Zinnia DSP panel.

For the sentiment panel, start by diecutting the word friend using the Friends for Life dies. The background is Summer Splash glimmer paper, while the detail lettering is Summer Splash cardstock. The sentiment from Changing Leaves is stamped in Pretty Peacock on white cardstock and then diecut using the smallest banner from the Nested Essentials die set using the extension method. I liked the look of stitching on either end of the sentiment banner to really draw the eye in and give some interest. The sentiment is mounted on dimensionals over a twist of Pretty Peacock & Gold metallic ribbon. A scattering of the blue iridescent discs gives some eye-catching sparkle to draw the eye in.

Tomorrow we’re wrapping up our sneak peek of the Changing Leaves bundle with an earthy palette. I hope you’ll pop by and take a look.

Products used in today’s card:
Summer Splash, Pretty Peacock, Basic White cardstock
Flowering Zinnias, In Color Glimmer DSP
Changing Leaves stamps
Friends for Life, Nested Essentials dies
Pretty Peacock & Gold metallic ribbon
Iridescent discs
Dimensionals
Adhesives

Product List
Botanicals · Country Flowers

Best Friend Tea

This week, we’re exploring all of the ways we can use the Country Woods suite by Stampin’ Up! to make beautiful projects. We have focused on the Country Flowers bundle, along with the Country Woods designer series paper. Today, we’re headed to tea.

One of the things that I enjoyed sharing with my grandmother was a love of tea sets. Anytime we found ourselves in a shop with tea sets, whether big or small, we couldn’t help but oooh and aaaah over them. We were most fond of the sets with intricate floral patterns. And that has inspired today’s card design — right down to the designer papers that stand front and center.

We start our card today with a base of white cardstock. The main panel sits on a quarter panel of white cardstock that has been cut a wee bit smaller than the card base itself. The lovely floral pattern from the Unbounded Beauty designer paper pack serves as the backdrop for the focal panel with a top of diagonal trim to draw on the patterns in the paper. The asymmetry of this floral panel really draws the eye up the card to the center focal panel.

Our focal panel begins with a base of white shimmer paper that has been diecut with the Spotlight on Nature dies. The mat for the focal image is Berry Burst cardstock diecut with the radiating circle from Spotlight on Nature die set. Our teapot is diecut from a sheet of the Unbounded Beauty paper pack using the Country Flowers dies. Note the white space at the bottom of the teapot, which gives this patterned vessel a very lifelike feel. The lovely foliage is spilling out the top of the teapot and has been cut from Summer Splash and white cardstock using the greenery and flower dies from Country Flowers with the flower centers being various sizes of rhinestone basic jewels. The sentiment from Country Flowers is stamped around the panel with rhinestones on either side to really draw the eye in.

I really love how this card makes me feel like I’ve sat down at my grandmother’s kitchen table for tea and a chat. It only seemed fitting to have the sentiment reflect friendship. Don’t you just love it?!

Tomorrow we’ll be wrapping up our walk through Country Flowers. I hope you’ll pop in and see how we round things out.

Products used in this card:
Basic White, Summer Splash, Berry Burst cardstock
Unbounded Beauty, white shimmer DSP
Country Flowers stamps & dies
Spotlight on Nature dies
White diagonal trim
Rhinestone basic jewels
Dimensionals
Adhesives

Product List
Luv 2 Stamp Artisan Design Team · Terrific Tuesdays

Thankful for Friendship

This week, we’ve been exploring all of the fun designs we can make with the new Perennial Postage bundle. This bundle includes a set of cling stamps and dies that cut shapes that resemble postage stamps, and the stamps nestle perfectly within a coordinating die. 

Our Luv to Stamp Group team challenge for the month is to use designated Color Buddies. For today’s design, I thought it would be great to choose a buddy group to work with. I chose a neutral color palette with Crumb Cake, Pecan Pie, and Early Espresso.

Today’s card design also uses a new technique known as dry embossing. Dry embossing involves using your regular dies to emboss rather than cut. One very valuable tip I can pass along is that the way you build your “sandwich” on your die cutting machine absolutely matters to your results. I found a terrific article that discusses a whole host of die cutting machines and what order works best for dry embossing with each. And I wish I had found it before I made this card!

This card begins with a base of Early Espresso, which serves to frame the whole design. A piece of Crumb Cake serves as the mat for our focal panel and is embossed using the Softly Sophisticated embossing folder (currently available in the Sale-a-Bration catalog) to help soften the look and add a bit of interest. This layer is thinly matted with Pecan Pie, which helps to draw out the lighter elements of the stamped images in the focal panel. The focal panel is diecut from Basic White using one of the largest of the Perennial Postage dies. I wanted this panel to resemble a partial book of stamps. Using three of the smaller dies, I made impressions to create stamp windows in the white panel. The Planted Paradise stamps serve as the images for each of the stamps. I was careful to mask the edges of each of the stamp frames to ensure the stamp look really shone through. The sentiment is stamped in Early Espresso atop a strip of Crumb Cake and then cut into a thin strip with each end snipped at an angle. To ensure the sentiment stood out, I diecut a small Deckled Rectangle from Early Espresso to serve as the sentiment backdrop. A few iridescent foil gems add a little sparkle and help draw the eye across the design. I stamped a coordinating image and sentiment in the inside of the card to tie everything together.

Interested in seeing all of the designs we made this week with the Perennial Postage bundle? Check out Episode 8 of Terrific Tuesdays to see the 3 projects we made from start to finish!

Products used in today’s design:
Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Pecan Pie, Basic White cardstock
Perennial Postage, Planted Paradise stamps
Perennial Postage, Deckled Rectangles dies
Softly Sophisticated embossing folder
Iridescent foil gems
Dimensionals
Adhesives

All ads on this site are posted by WordPress.  Song Sparrow Papercrafts is not responsible for ad content.