3.19.2014

Watercolor Wednesday

Since spring won't make up its mind to stick around; I've been pretending that it's really spring with all of my cards lately! Living in the Midwest my entire life, I should be used to crazy weather; however, my patience is wearing thin this year!

Today we are celebrating Watercolor Wednesday at SSINK.


I knew I wanted my flowers to have bold, vibrant colors, so I chose Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry, and Daffodil Delight from the Brights Collection to color the main portion of the petals. I wanted to offset the color on each layer with something lighter, so I grabbed Pink Pirouette, Wisteria Wonder, and So Saffron from the Subtles Collection. The center of each flower is colored in using Baked Brown Sugar.

For best results when watercoloring with our fabulous Stampin' Up! products; well you should really use our watercolor paper, but since I didn't have any on hand, I used Whisper White. I stamped my flower images with Staz-On ink. It dries quickly, and won't bleed when using the Blender Pen with your other inks. With the ink pad closed, I gently pushed on the middle of the pad to create a "puddle" of ink on the inside of the lid. I used my Blender Pen to pick up ink from this puddle. Have you used our Blender Pens before? They are great! They come in a pack of 3, however I only used one last night for all those different colors. Once you are done with one color, you scribble on a piece of scratch paper until the output is clear again, and then you can start using it with another color.

To assemble my card, I decided on Pistachio Pudding for the base. Such a great spring color! I used a piece of the Watercolor Wonder DSP that I had printed from MDS for my card last week. I thought about using some washi tape as well, but when I started placing everything on the card, I liked the simplicity of this design and I really wanted my flowers to stand out. I stamped the "friends" sentiment directly on to the DSP. Now I can send this spring-y note card to a friend I haven't spoken to in awhile.

One last thing, if you are using the Staz-On ink, I highly recommend that you get the Staz-On cleaner. I didn't invest in it for many years, and I have many stained stamps to prove it. You cannot tell on this flower image that I ever stamped it with black ink!


3.18.2014

Envelope Punch Board

While I have used the Envelope Punch Board on many of my cards and projects, I hadn't used it to make an actual envelope yet. Well as of last night, that changed. Wow! It was so easy and quick!

I took the card that I made for the hop last Thursday to work to give to a girl in another office who is having some major health issues. However, since the flowers hung over the edge of the card, it wouldn't fit in our envelopes. So I took another piece of Designer Series Paper from the same package that I used on the card, and made one.


I sealed the bottom flap with Sticky Strip, and put little pieces of Sticky Strip on the top flap so it will stay sealed in the mail, but she'll still be able to tear it open when she receives it.

If you haven't gotten this fabulous tool yet, I highly recommend it! Click on the image below and you can purchase the punch board directly from my online store!


3.17.2014

Spring Layout


Today we've got a layout sketch challenge at SSINK. If it INKspires you; we'd love for you to play along!


At first when I saw this sketch, I was a little intimidated. I couldn't figure out what pictures I wanted to use with it. However, I was lucky enough to spend an entire day working on sorting pictures and playing in MDS last weekend, so I was able to create this. Once I started sorting pictures, I knew my landscape pictures from Rolling Hills would work perfectly.


I may have mentioned a time or two how much I love My Digital Studio. Since it's release in 2009, Stampin' Up! has continued to update and improve it. I love all the functionality and playing around to find new things I can do with it. I wanted to share a brief tutorial with you on how I was able to line up the flower "punch" in the background, and also fill it with one of my pictures.


As you can see at the bottom of the picture above, if you're working on a photo book, the first two pages are your front and back cover. That means that page number "one" will stand alone in your book; two and three will be a spread, etc. If you want to work on your spread pages side by side so you'll know what it will look like when printed, choose one of the pages you're working on, go to View in the top menu bar, and choose Page Spreads. This is what your work area will now look like:


In order to span an image across both pages, you first want to start by putting it on one page and sizing it to roughly your desired size.


Next, you'll want to right click on the image and choose Span Pages at the bottom of the list.


It will now look like this:


Do you see the buttons in the middle of the right hand column under Punches? The ones that say "color fill, match color, paper fill, photo fill." This is where you'll go to fill your punch shape with one of your pictures. Just click on photo fill, a box will pop up where you can view your folders with your photos in them; you can choose your photo, and Voila!

I hope you love MDS as much as I do! I'm always happy to answer any questions you may have about it. If you haven't already, make sure to stop by Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration to see what the other designers have created as well!

3.12.2014

Hopping For Spring!


Thank you so much for joining us for our March Stylin' Stampin' Squad Blog Hop! Temperatures are on the rise and there is just one short week until the official first day of Spring!  We are all so ready to put away our snowflakes and break out the flowers in our craft rooms!  Stampin' Up! has so many options for Spring-time flowers and we are showing you just a few of those today!

As you hop along, please be sure to comment and show some love on every blog! We are always excited to hear from our followers! You should have just left stop number (insert number here) on the Stylin’ Stampin’ Squad blog hop – (insert name of hopper and blog name here). If so, you are in the right spot. If a link doesn’t work or you get off track, you will find the full blog hop lineup below.
I knew that I wanted to use the Flower Shop Bundle and Gingham Garden Designer Series Paper for my card today. My color inspiration came from the Gingham Garden DSP. 



Growing up I was drawn to gingham fabrics, so when this DSP was released last spring, I fell in love. Since there were so many elements on my card, I wanted to stay within a 3-color scheme; but felt it need a pop of color. Melon Mambo gingham to the rescue! 

My favorite elements on this card are the Decorative Dots embossing, and the Daffodil Delight frame. While the Decorative Dots aren't incredibly obvious on the Night of Navy, it gave just the right amount of added dimension. For the frame, I cut the Pear Pizzazz with the #6 Square Framelit (if you count up, starting with #1 as the smallest). Then I cut the Daffodil Delight with # 3 and #6 at the same time. They are attached with Stampin' Dimensionals to really give the frame illusion. 

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope spring is in the air where you are (and without allergies) and you start seeing some spring flowers popping up around you! Let's click the Next button and head on over to see Bree's fabulous spring creation. 


http://craft-somniamomma.blogspot.com/2014/03/stylin-stampin-squad-blooming-blog-hop.html



Blog Hop Participants


  1. Dawn S. of Dawn's Creative Chalet
  2. Pam S. of Stampin' in the Sun
  3. Diana E. of Stampin' Fun with Diana
  4. Cynthia R. of Ink-A-Doodle Creations
  5. Erica B. of Stamping Starlette
  6. Anastasia R. of Stampin' Blondie
  7. Darcy J. of DJ's Stampin' Place
  8. Bree R. of Craft-Somnia
  9. Heidi B. of Stuck on Stampin'
  10. Shellie G. of Craft Smashup
  11. Kim R. of Stamping with Kim
  12. Jennifer C. of Happy 2 Scrap 4 Life
  13. Tonya B. of Stampin' with Tonya
  14. Donna S. of Organized Chaos
  15. Jamie H. of Unique Ink
  16. Darla R. & Nancy K. of Stampin with Darla and Sisters
  17. Kathy P. of Katrina P's Creative Corner