Monday, April 30, 2018

Rooted in Nature for Freshly Made Sketches


I went to a birthday party yesterday! It was the party of an old friend who was celebrating a milestone birthday of 70 years. Naturally, I had to make a beautiful card to bring for her and, as I've been itching to play with some more of my new products, I got out my Rooted in Nature Suite*, my absolute favourite of the new 2018/19 Annual Catalogue.

*New products from the 2018/19 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue available to purchase starting June 1, 2018.

In order to enter a couple of challenges with this card, I used the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge sketch for this week as the layout:

and I used the colour palette from Colour Throwdown

Aren't those colours lovely and soft? And they looked just like they were made for my friend, with their soft pastel shades of pink, lavender, green and gray.

Because none of the Designer Series Paper I have has a palette like this, I decided to make my own horizontal strip of DSP using sponging and emboss resist. For this I used all the veiny leaf images from Rooted in Nature*.

  • I used the emboss resist technique on the horizontal panel by stamping the leaf images from Rooted in Nature* in Versamark ink and embossing them with Clear Stampin' Emboss Powder. I used all the Colour Throwdown colours to sponge over these images which allows them to be seen as the ink penetrates all the white spaces in and around them. The colours I used were Smoky Slate, Wild Wasabi**, Blushing Bride and Sweet Sugarplum**. Both Wild Wasabi** and Sweet Sugarplum** are retiring this year in the Colour Revamp.
  • On the Smoky Slate panel behind, I used the embossing dies from Nature's Roots Framelits* to emboss images of leaves on the panel and then I sponged over them in Smoky Slate ink to help them show up better. The cool thing about these embossing framelits is that, unlike embossing folders, which have a fixed pattern on them, you can design the pattern as you like it or have a single embossed image, or combine embossed images with die cuts. The possibilities are endless.
  • The number 70 is die cut with the Large Number Framelits**, which are on the retiring list, from some retired DSP stack paper in Blushing Bride.
  • The sentiment is from Milestone Moments** and stamped in Sweet Sugarplum**.

*New products from the 2018/19 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue available to purchase starting June 1, 2018.
**Retiring products from the 2017/18 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue and 2018 Occasions Catalogue, only available until May 31 or while supplies last.

Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, May 1, you will be able to order the bundles from the early release Share What You Love Suite. Look over these flyers to see which one you want! Each bundle has free gifts or a discount associated with it!! Contact me to order or order from my On-Line Store.







Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today. 


Product List
Heat Tool
[129053]
$40.00
Leaf Punch
[144667]
$21.50
Big Shot
[143263]
$136.00
Glue Dots
[103683]
$7.00


Rooted in Nature Stamp Set*, Nature's Roots Framelit Dies*

*New products from the 2018/19 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue available to purchase starting June 1, 2018.
**Retiring products from the 2017/18 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue and 2018 Occasions Catalogue, only available until May 31 or while supplies last.

Friday, April 27, 2018

Love What You Do Sneak Peek



I'm hesitating to post my card today, but it's the second one I've done and I still don't like it! Because I had a class last night, I ran out of time for a third try so I guess it will have to do. I wanted to give you a sneak peek at the Love What You Do stamp set from the Share What You Love Suite that is an early release from the 2018/19 Annual Catalogue and which you will be able to purchase in May. I also wanted to try out some of the new In Colours, specifically Lovely Lipstick, but I just couldn't get it all to work together.


  • I also tried out the Lovely Floral Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, since I haven't purchased the Designer Series Paper that goes with the set yet, but it was hard to get the light right in the photos so you could see the results of that.
  • I paired the Lovely Lipstick card base with Pineapple Punch and Basic Black, but I'm really not feeling it. They are both lovely on their own, but I need to work some more on finding some good colour combos with the new In Colours.
  • I love the watercolour wash background stamp with the floral outline overtop, but it seems too heavy for the rest of the card. It would have worked better being centered with a smaller sentiment I think. There are two focal points competing in this design.
I think my plan tomorrow will be to rework the card and add a little addendum to this post with the solution to this design disaster and it will be educational to see the before and after pics.

Addendum


Well, here is my addendum and the new and improved card. Do you see what I mean about duelling points of focus in the old design? The new design has the flowers front and center and the sentiment is smaller and more discreet. I took out the Pineapple Punch paper that I wasn't sold on in this combination and went with just black and red, and I did a double embossing on the Whisper White panel. It makes a huge difference! My artistic eye is happy now.

I have to confess, though, that I think this card was cursed from the first second I started it. Even with the new design, which I finally like, I was placing the flower panel on the front (on dimensionals) when I suddenly noticed it was upside down!! Sheesh! I hate to divulge all my failings and weaknesses, but it may help to give you confidence! Luckily, I hadn't placed any pressure on it yet and it was fairly easy to get it up again and turn it right side up! Cursed!!!



I should have used some of these colours! (Oh, well! I really wanted to see what Lovely Lipstick looked like.) Here are the bundles that you will be able to choose from starting Tuesday:




Which bundle will you be getting?


Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today. 




Product List
Big Shot
[143263]
$136.00

Love What You Do Stamp Set*, Lovely Lipstick cardstock*, Pineapple Punch cardstock*, Lovely Floral Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder*, Lovely Lipstick Classic Stampin' Pad*, Pineapple Punch Classic Stampin' Pad*

*New products from the 2018/19 Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue available to purchase starting June 1, 2018.

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Garden in Bloom - Retiring Beauty


One of the retiring stamp sets from the current 2017 - 18 Annual Catalogue is Garden in Bloom, a photopolymer stamp set that I used to love a lot, but which I haven't had out in over a year. I decided to give it a fitting send off and I used the card as a sample for a class I did. The cool thing about this card is that I set up that whole stamped design on the Stamparatus so that my customers could easily recreate the same design. They just had to ink up the various panels and stamp. I love the watercolour look of the images!

Here's a closer look at it:


  • The large flower and the butterfly are 3 step stamping, while the leaves and small flower are only 2 steps.
  • The first step stamped all the outlines in Memento Tuxedo Black Ink. The second step filling in all the insides with either Wisteria Wonder or Old Olive. The third step added the Elegant Eggplant areas on the butterfly and the flower. The Stamparatus made it all so much easier and eliminated the need for about 12 clear blocks, if you like to have them set up ahead of time for a class, which I always do.
  • The background Designer Series Paper is from the Coffee Break series, which is, unfortunately, all sold out now. The ribbon is the Pear Pizzazz Shimmer Ribbon.
  • The sentiment, also from the Garden in Bloom stamp set, was stamped in Old Olive and punched with the Pretty Label Punch, which will be around for another year.

I want to tell you about an awesome promotion Stampin' Up! has coming in the month of May. They know it's a long time to wait until the beginning of June to be able to order from the new Annual Catalogue, so they have made a suite of products available for an early release. You'll be able to choose 1 of 4 bundles to order during the month of May and you will earn some free product when you do! It's a beautiful suite and here's Brandy from the Head Office to tell you more and explain how the pre-order works.                
                                                                   
              


And here are the details and prices of the four bundles available on May 1:

Which bundle will you choose??

If you want to check out some beautiful work all created with the Share What You Love Suite, then head over to my Pinterest Board that I created for this suite. Just click on Pinterest Board to see.


Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today. 



Product List
Stamparatus
[146276]
$65.00