Christmas

Snowy Greetings

Have you had the chance to check out Stampin’ Up!’s Holiday Mini catalog yet? I’ve been giving you sneak peeks of many products from the catalog over the last month. I have to say that of all of the catalogs that have launched over my 15+ years of being a customer, I haven’t loved a catalog as much as I love this one! I think I dog-eared more than half of the catalog!

So today, we’re taking a look at the new designer series paper pack called Snowflake Magic. There are 3 different designs in this pack, and each one is a foiled design. What I love about these papers is that you can very quickly make a stunning card design with just the paper and a few embellishments!

For this card, Pretty Peacock serves as the card base. I had a hard time deciding on the base color but ultimately liked how Pretty Peacock makes the shimmery snowflakes stand out so beautifully. I kept the design very simple because I wanted the gorgeous paper to be center stage, so I heat embossed the sentiment in silver, added a strip of the silver & white sheer ribbon, and scattered silver pearls and glitter sequins across the design to move the eye across from top to bottom. For a little added drama, I popped up the whole panel on dimensionals. Simple yet stunning, don’t you think?

Products used:
Pretty Peacock cardstock
Snowflake Magic DSP
PTI Stylish Sentiments: Holiday (retired)
Silver & white sheer ribbon
Glitter sequins
Silver pearls
Silver embossing powder
Dimensionals
Adhesives

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Christmas

Peace of the Season

Have you enjoyed the sneak peek at the Magical Meadow designer series paper that launched this week in Stampin’ Up!’s Holiday Mini catalog? These watercolor designs are beautiful. Today’s focal pattern from the paper pack is one of those sheets of designer paper that you almost hate to cut! But with just the right design, you can showcase those really stunning sheets of designer paper and not feel quite so guilty about cutting them up.

Because I wanted the designer paper to be the show-stopping focal point of this design, I chose a cardstock color that complimented the DSP but basically disappeared into the background of the design. Lost Lagoon was just the ticket to help this beautiful sheet of paper really stand out. I chose the peek-through fun fold design again because it allowed the greatest use of the sheet of paper but also added a lot of visual interest to the overall card design. The sentiment is heat embossed on vellum and mounted atop a complimentary-shaped Lost Lagoon mat. A few carefully placed shimmery gems and the ribbon add a touch of sparkle.

TIP: When you want to color match a heat embossed element but don’t have the exact color embossing powder, you can make your own. Surprised? Wondering how? Before you ink your stamp, apply a heavy layer of Versamark and then cover the stamp with your preferred ink color before stamping. Then coat with clear embossing powder before heat embossing. This allows your ink color to shine through as your embossing color. Voila! Color-matched!

Products used:
Lost Lagoon, vellum cardstock
Winter Meadow DSP
Ornamental Pine stamps (retired)
Rose Garden (retired), Window Frames (retired) dies
Clear embossing powder
Fine sparkle gems
Silver & White shimmer ribbon
Dimensionals
Adhesive

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Christmas

Joy & Peace

Are you getting excited about the upcoming launch of the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog? I’ve been taking a tour of some of the wonderful products from this catalog over the course of the last month. If you’ve missed any of the product spotlights, I would encourage you to peruse through the posts from the last month to take advantage of all of the sneak peeks!

One of the designer paper packs that will be launching in the new catalog next week is called Winter Meadow. Each of the sheets has a watercolor look and each one is simply stunning. Today’s design uses the sheet with the deer in the snowy woods. This sheet can be used for so many different themes, but today’s design takes a holiday turn. The base of the card is Shaded Spruce and ties to the backing for the sentiment panel, which is the foiled green plaid sheet from the Joyful designer paper pack. The sentiment is heat embossed in gold on a sheet of vellum in order to allow the beautiful foiled background to show through. Just a few carefully placed gold sequins help the eye move across the design. Although not easily visible in the photo, the deer also has a touch of sparkle from Wink of Stella which really helps tie everything together nicely.

Products used:
Shaded Spruce, vellum cardstock
Winter Meadow, Joyful DSP
Magical Meadow stamps
Deckled Rectangle dies
Gold embossing powder
Wink of Stella
Adhesive-backed sequins
Dimensionals
Adhesive

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Christmas · Fun Folds · Tutorials

Oh Deer

We’re taking another tour of the One Horse Open Sleigh designer series paper pack. There are so many beautiful winter scenes in this 6×6 paper pack. I’ll be making a variety of fun fold cards to show you how you can take beautiful paper that you’re hesitant to use and turn it into gorgeous cards that really allow the paper designs to shine.

Today’s design focuses on the sheet of paper with the deer in the grove of snowy trees. The gate fold is the perfect design to allow you to look through the trees.

In this video, you’ll learn how to make this card design and how easily you can adapt it to showcase other vignette paper designs. So grab a cup of tea and let’s make a card!

Products used:
Balmy Blue, vellum cardstock
One Horse Open Sleigh DSP
All That dies
Magical Meadow stamps
Silver & white ribbon
Faceted gems
Adhesive-backed sequins
Adhesives

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Christmas

Beautiful Season

Today we continue our tour of the Winter Meadow designer series paper pack. Many of the designs remind me of snowy mountains. The two patterns included in this design are a perfect example. Don’t you feel like you’re in the winter woods when you see these patterns together?

Lost Lagoon cardstock serves as the base for this card design. It coordinates well with the designer paper and brings out the finer details in each sheet. This is a peek-through fun fold design, where the card front is just a touch short allowing you to see through to the pattern inside the card. The overall design for this card is quite simple with the paper doing the heavy lifting. Just a few special details with the sprigs of greenery and shimmery ribbon underneath the simple sentiment panel bring it all together for a stunning design with a real WOW factor.

Products used:
Lost Lagoon, Basic White, Mossy Meadow, Soft Seafoam cardstock
Winter Meadow DSP
Peaceful Cabin stamps (retired)
All That, Magical Meadow dies
Fine sparkle gems
Silver & White sheer ribbon
Dimensionals
Adhesive

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Christmas · Fun Folds · Tutorials

Winter Cabin Fun Fold

Have you seen the One Horse Open Sleigh designer series paper that is currently available in the Online Exclusives section of my online store? Every single sheet of paper in this 6×6 pack is gorgeous! It makes them so hard to cut and use! So I’m designing cards that use as much of each sheet in one card design as possible.

And I’m going to be bringing you a series of videos that show you how you can make stunning cards with the One Horse Open Sleigh paper pack, and your supply list will be pretty simple for each design because we’re going to have this beautiful paper take center stage in each design.

First up is this cozy cottage scene. We’ll be making a single panel z-fold card together using this sheet of designer paper. Won’t you join me?

Products used:
Early Espresso cardstock
One Horse Open Sleigh DSP
Magical Meadow stamps
Misty Moonlight ribbon
Wink of Stella
Adhesive-backed sequins
Adhesives

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Christmas

Season of Joy

This week we are focusing on the additional design offerings in A Walk in the Forest designer series paper pack offered by Stampin’ Up! in the next Holiday Mini catalog which goes live next week. All of the designs are festive, but I especially love the holiday greenery designs because they are so versatile. I saw this fun fold design using a different designer paper and was inspired to create this card.

After seeing this fun z-fold design, I felt like it lent itself well to making a card that felt like a beautiful double door with a holiday wreath hanging on the front. A sheet of Crumb Cake serves as the card base and helps the lighter elements of the paper, like the branches and music notes, really stand out. The gold glimmer vellum keeps things festive and draws out the gold embossing and foiling on the outer portion of the card. I kept the interior of the card light and bright with a sheet of the white foiled holly design from the Joyful specialty paper pack.

This z-fold design also works really with designer series paper sheets that I like to call story sheets. They’re the designs that really look best when you can use larger portions because they have a scene that encompasses a much larger footprint of the sheet of paper. I’ll be showcasing a story sheet design with this fun fold in a few days and that post will include a video tutorial.

Products used:
Crumb Cake, Basic White cardstock
Shimmer vellum (retired)
A Walk in the Forest, Joyful DSP
Welcome Christmas (retired), Christmas Messages (retired) stamps
Magical Meadow, Seasonal Labels (retired) dies
Gold embossing powder
Adhesive-backed sequins
Dimensionals
Adhesives

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Christmas

Halls Bedecked

Our winter walk takes us under the pines today as we’re checking out another design in the paper pack called A Walk in the Forest by the Stampin’ Up!, which will release next week. This sheet is the perfect backdrop of freshly dropped pine needles and pairs perfectly with the winter foliage stamps and dies you may have in your stash. When I saw this particular sheet of designer paper, I knew that I had to pair it with the Christmas Season stamp/die set, which is one of my favorite foliage sets. Although this SU! set happens to be retired, there is a beautiful bundle of winter foliage in the Holiday Mini catalog called Joy of Noel and it would make the perfect substitute in this design!

I decided to compliment the sheet of pine needles with a card base of Mossy Meadow. I used Shaded Spruce and Mossy Meadow to make pine bough elements because I wanted to some realism to the age of the dropped branches. I love how the two-step stamps in Christmas Season add so much detail to the pinecones. I didn’t want to completely cover the beautiful background paper, so I chose a sheet of green shimmer vellum for the sentiment panel. To bring in the woody element of the branches, I used the natural wavy trim. The touch of gold in the sequins and sentiment help the eye move easily across the design. A super simple design with a lot of impact!

Products used:
Mossy Meadow, Basic White cardstock
Shimmer vellum (retired)
Christmas Season stamps & dies (retired)
Gold embossing powder
Natural wavy trim
Twine
Adhesive-backed sequins
Dimensionals
Adhesives

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Christmas

Noel

Last week, we took A Walk in the Forest with the bear as we looked at several sheets of the new designer series paper Stampin’ Up! is launching in just a few weeks. This week, I wanted to show you a few of the other designs included in the paper pack. These designs from A Walk in the Forest focus more on the winter foliage. So let’s get started on our walk down the winter nature trail, shall we?

For today’s card, I let the beautiful sheet of designer paper be the centerpiece and kept the design very simple. To pull the more subtle colors from the patterned paper, I used Shaded Spruce as the card base and matted the designer paper on Mossy Meadow. You’ll notice how the mat really helps pull those lighter colors forward. The sentiment is heat embossed in gold on white cardstock, and I used additional gold embellishments to highlight the lighter colors and aid the movement of the eye across the design. I added some Cherry Cobbler twine to help the berry elements come through and add a little pop of festive color.

Products used:
Shaded Spruce, Mossy Meadow, Basic White cardstock
A Walk in the Forest DSP
PTI Think Big Favorites #8 stamps (retired)
All That dies
Gold embossing powder
Twine (color retired)
Adhesive-backed sequins
Gold holly leaves (retired)
Dimensionals
Adhesives

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birthday

Birthday Blitz

The end of August presents many opportunities for new birthday designs as we have lots of friends celebrating birthdays. So this week I cranked out several cards for friends with birthdays in the next week.

First up is this cute fella buzzing in to bring some birthday cheer. This design is for one of my son’s friends. They’re in those awkward preteen years so it’s always hard to know which way to go with card themes, but something whimsical really fits this particular kiddo’s personality. So I pulled out the Zoo Crew designer paper and fussy cut this scootering fox as the focal image. I added a little color and some Wink of Stella here and there on the image from the DSP to add more color and realism to the image. I thought it would be cute to have foxy motoring in the birthday balloons, so I diecut a set from various shades of cardstock and added a little Wink of Stella for some added pizzazz. The whole scene sits atop a piece of embossed cardstock matted on Pretty Peacock cardstock to really help the whole scene stand out nicely.

Products used: Basic White, Pretty Peacock, Calypso Coral, Poppy Parade, Granny Apple Green cardstock; vellum; Zoo Crew DSP; So Many Stars (retired), Bunch of Banners (retired), Zany Zoo dies; Sizzix embossing plate; PTI sentiment; glitter sequins; dimensionals

I had a lot of fun building this cute birthday scene. Once again, I pulled out my Zoo Crew designer paper for this adorable croc pedaling in some flowers. I kicked up the color by adding some to the bike and flowers and also added a bundle of balloons to punch up the birthday theme here. To help it feel as though the croc is trekking to a party, I added some simple trees and a cloud as background scenery.

Products used: Pretty Peacock, Lost Lagoon, Granny Apple Green cardstock; Bright & Beautiful DSP; vellum; Zoo Crew DSP; PTI scalloped circle (retired), Zany Zoo dies; adhesive-backed discs; twine (retired); dimensionals; adhesives

Have any adventure types in your circle of friends or family? There’s a terrific sheet of Zoo Crew DSP for that! And I pulled it out and started working on a scene for my outdoorsy friend. I used a circle punch to cut out the scene with the lion roasting a marshmallow. I used the Zany Zoo dies to cut the adorable birdwatching skunk and then fussy cut the mountains and trees. I filled in with a lot of color using the Stampin’ Blends markers to really help the scene come to life. On a scale of 1 to 10, I rank my coloring skills about a 4, but I’m pretty pleased with how things came out for this design.

Products used: Shaded Spruce, Basic White cardstock; Zoo Crew, Bright & Beautiful DSP; PTI stamps; tinsel gems; adhesives

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