JUNE BRIDE

Ah, the beautiful month of June -- and June brides! 

Here is a dimensional card I created for a wedding we are attending this weekend. Talk about FRAMELITS TO THE RESCUE! I used three different sets of Framelits to make this card: Hearts A Flutter, the Ovals Collection and Apothecary Accents.

Do you see the Basic Pearl on the heart surrounded by what appears to be a white circle? 

It has a purpose. I joined two identical hearts together with an eyelet and set the pearl inside the eyelet to give it a more finished look. 

Since it's not readily evident, I plan on including a little note telling the bride and groom that the top heart swivels away from the stationary bottom heart. Two hearts become one. See?

I am also submitting this card to this week's Paper Players challenge #198, which is for a wedding card.

http://www.thepaperplayers.blogspot.com/2014/06/challenge-198-sandys-theme-challenge.html

To Brian and Amanda: Happy Wedding, Happy Life!

Blissful

Smiles.

GRUNGY GOOSE

I had so much fun creating my Grungy Goose card! Pure pleasure from start to finish.

As soon as I saw the sketch for the latest Freshly Made Sketches challenge, I knew EXACTLY what I was going to set out to do. And I did it.

Don't you just love this majestic goose from the Wetlands stamp set? I surely do! I stamped him on Naturals Ivory in Early Espresso and VersaMark, then embossed him with clear embossing powder. I then cut him out, leaving just a whisker of white margin outside the embossed edges.

His little background tag is made from Always Artichoke and my favorite from the Chalk Talk Framelits. The tag was embossed inside the Houndstooth embossing folder. 

Then I dragged out a couple more of my favorite stamp sets: Gorgeous Grunge and Off the Grid (so sad it's retired!), adding some grungy effects to the tag and the Naturals Ivory card base with Always Artichoke and Early Espresso, some of it stamped off first, some of it full strength. 

I then utilized a very personal tool, one that I am very attached to: my fingernail. I used my fingernail to rough up the edges of the card. To add to the grunge, I sponged the edges and into the card itself with Early Espresso. 

I knew I wanted to use a brown button on the top of the tag. So I grabbed my jar of brown buttons. Sigh. Starting to go through the vast assortment, I tried several as possibilities. Until I got to this gorgeous grungy antique button! Perfection personified! I used a snippet of the Artichoke Denim Ribbon (retired), wound a length of Linen Thread around the base of it, then threaded it through the button holes, and tied it in a knot. The completed embellishment was adhered to the tag with a couple of Glue Dots.

I mean, REALLY, isn't that button PERFECT?!?

I had purposely left the space at the bottom of the card less cluttered with the intention of adding a sentiment. "Happy Father's Day" was the natural option for this card. But, I was so pleased with the way it turned out, sort of a little piece of artwork, that I opted for no sentiment. You can always stamp something appropriate inside the card.

Here is the sketch my Grungy Goose card is based upon:

https://mail.google.com/mail/#inbox/146440410d0723c5

So, share with us: Do you participate in any challenges? Once in awhile or on a regular basis? Which challenges are your favorites? Do they really help get your creative juices boiling?

Grungy

Smiles.

MESSIN' UP THE PUMPKIN

May's Paper Pumpkin is a GUY KIT. That's great. Sometimes it's tough to come up with a good male card.

The guys focused on in the kit are "Bro", "Dad" and "Son". And you have the options to send these guys either a birthday greeting or Father's Day wishes.

Well, my "Bro"-in-law was celebrating a birthday, and I wanted to make him a birthday card. When I saw this month's kit, it was ideal, so I went to work.

Since I don't think of him as "Bro", and he's definitely NOT my son OR my dad,  I opted to not use the little tags that were featured on the sample cards.

This kit is especially easy, and pretty much all the work is done for you. So, I set out to recreate this card, without the tag:

As you all know about me, it is pretty unusual for me to recreate a card as it is meant to be. Well, BEING ME, it turned out that I didn't after all.

Getting started:

I peeled the blue and green tags from their sheets, and placed them "just so" on the card base. The kit comes with a darling little Marina Mist Stampin' Spot. So, I stamped "Happy Birthday" on the precut dot-edged banner piece. Oh no! I did a lousy job of stamping. Now what?? 

Since the kit contained just the right number of pieces to create six cards, I was very hesitant to throw away my ruined piece. And I couldn't just flip it over and re-stamp it, because the other side was a plain white. 

I grabbed a scrap piece of Very Vanilla from my stash and stamped my sentiment once again. Whew. Good stamping job, Linda! The sentiment was then cut out with one of the Chalk Talk Framelits and the Big Shot. I finished off this piece by sponging Marina Mist around the edges. Stampin' Dimensionals popped it up just right so no one will ever know this was not what I intended. :>)

I must admit that I so loved the Candy Dots that came in the kit that I was bit stingy with them. I ended up using only three on my card compared to the four they used. That means I have an extra six to play with on a future project!

If you'll take notice of the one other mess-up I made: 

Remember (and this is what I get for not following directions), I adhered my blue and green tags first thing? Well, not good. Not good at all. I was supposed to have wound the Baker's Twine around the two tags BEFORE I adhered it to my card base. Uh oh. How to rectify this dire situation?

OK. Got it.

To mimic the banner with the sentiment, I got out my Bitty Banners Framelits and cut a smaller version from Very Vanilla cardstock. I then wrapped the Baker's Twine around that, sans the little label, and attached it to the top of the tags with two Stampin' Dimensionals. 

To balance the composition, I added one Candy Dot to the point of the green tag.

If I may say so myself, I think I turned my messes into happy accidents. What do you think?

Have you had the experience of cleaning up after yourself like I just did in this project? Were you satisfied with the end result? Did you turn a mess into a happy accident? 

Messy

Smiles.

SHIMMERY BLENDED BLOOM

As you already know -- and the catalog hasn't even gone into effect yet! -- I'm in love with the new stamp from Stampin' Up! called Blended Bloom.

In my previous post, I use the stamped image in my favorite way: fussy cutting and in layers.

B U T . . . 

Do you remember from a few years ago the beautiful set, Fifth Avenue Floral? And how it was the perfect set for everyone to jump on the "floating reinkers" technique bandwagon? Well, I discovered that Blended Bloom is a perfect updated version for this same technique:

What do you think? Mmmm. 

And, by using the Stampin' Up! Shimmery White paper to create the flower, you can actually SEE the shimmers:

In creating my gatefold card, I wanted some texture on the two panels. I didn't want anything too uniform in design, just a bit of random texture. I decided . . . 

Just to hearken back to the very popular original set used for the technique, I used the Fifth Avenue Floral embossing folder. It gave just the right amount of flow without being too rigid. I also gently sponged color across the raised portions of the embossing to highlight it a bit more.

In adding a center to my flower, I originally made one from a traditional yellow. I embossed the flower center in white, then carefully cut it out. When I placed it onto the flower, it seemed weak and insipid. I actually hated it. 

I wanted something with a bit more zip, more power, more PERSONALITY. I finally hit upon an old piece of Bravo Burgundy. It turned out to be the perfect choice.

For any of you who have made gatefold cards, you are keenly aware that they don't really cooperate all that well in posing for a photograph. Those gates flop open, and you can't get the full effect of the whole card. At least, that's the way I feel.

So, by using a bit of removable adhesive, I was able to keep the gates closed long enough to get a pretty good picture of the card front:

Shimmery

Smiles.

LAYERED BLENDED BLOOM

We are so lucky as Stampin' Up! demonstrators. We get sneak peeks of new and upcoming products. Besides that, we get the opportunity to purchase some of these products before they are available to the public. 

I purchased only a few things ahead of time, but NUMBER ONE on my list was this beautiful floral stamp, Blended Bloom. It can be found on page 167 of the new INSPIRE CREATE SHARE catalog that goes live on June 2.

Since Stampin' Up! released their new alcohol-based markers, Blendabilities, this image is ideal for use with those markers. Being me, however, I immediately saw this image in terms of LAYERS! 

I went through my Designer Series Paper, trying to find just the right paper to use for my layered flower. A few papers seemed to be possibilities, but . . . when I came across this orangey (actually Calypso Coral) paper, I immediately knew this was the one. It is from the Epic Day This and That DSP (page 154 of the current catalog -- ready to RETIRE!)

I stamped the image three times on the DSP. Arbitrarily separating the petals into three layers, I set to cutting them out. The center was stamped separately onto an old old piece of DSP I still had lying around. It was fun cutting around all those tiny little protrusions!

I actually used four stamp sets to create this card: Blended Bloom, Truly Grateful (page 152 of the upcoming catalog), Gorgeous Grunge (page 165 of the upcoming catalog), and Happy Day (page 30 of the current catalog), which is retiring. Boo hoo!!

A larger piece of the same DSP I used for the flower was layered in as the backdrop on the card base, which was Naturals Ivory. 

Here is a closer look at the layers that make up my Blended Bloom.

I am submitting this card for the current Paper Players challenge: 

http://thepaperplayers.blogspot.com/2014/05/challenge-196-anns-clean-and-simple.html

Bloomin'

Smiles.