3.20.2014

Embellished Flower

Guess what?! I've got another flower to share with you today! Our Design Team Challenge at Stylin' Stampin' INKspiration today was to create a flower. I thought for a long time on this one and struggled with ideas because I didn't have the products I thought of using. When I finally stopped thinking so hard about it, I decided I could make a flower with ribbon.


I started playing with my Raspberry Ripple ribbon to see if I could create a decent looking flower. I discovered that the best way is to make a loop, then make the opposing loop and go around the circle like that. Did that make sense? Once I had my flower complete, I had my husband try to shove the Antique Brad through the ribbon layers. It didn't work. I had speculated that ahead of time, so I had my (retired) Crop-A-Dile out and had him use it to punch a hole in the middle while I held on to the flower. I was then able to put the brad through the hole and use it to hold the flower together. The flower did need fluffed after he squished part of it with the Crop-A-Dile.

I think this ribbon flower would also look great glued to a headband or on a wine bottle tag, if you are gifting some wine. 

It is going to be a sad day when the 2012-2014 In Colors retire at the end of May. I'm certain that Stampin' Up! will have fantastic colors for 2014-2016, but I really like these! In tribute, I used 3 of them on this card.

I had to laugh at myself. Once I was finished with this flower, I started thinking about all of the other embellishments I have that I could have used to create more flowers! Inspiration for future projects!


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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!


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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!


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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!

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