VELLUM TAG

We cardmakers are all well aware of how much of a challenge working with vellum can be. 

Its translucence is the single thing that poses the biggest problem in that almost nothing works when trying to adhere the vellum to another surface. In my experience, I have never come upon a product that doesn't show through the vellum, even adhesives that are meant specifically for use with vellum.

That's why I always welcome any tricks I come across for the adherence of this fussy component.

Recently, putting together a card from an old Stampin' Up! kit gave me just such a wonderful solution. 

The secret is the fancy-ness with baker's twine at the top of the vellum tag. Do you see that the twine was wrapped several times through the hole at the top of the tag and then finished with a bow? What a perfect way to disguise the presence of adhesive!

After adhering a striped piece of cardstock to the cardstock base, I added a glue dot to the back of the baker's twine and added the tag to the top of the card.

You can see in the photo below, when I slide the tag to the side a bit, the colorful stripes below. But, since vellum is translucent, it lets the print show through, however subtly. 

The sentiment I stamped on the gold foil edged tag is from a forever ago Sale-A-Bration stamp set. I still love it and use it quite frequently. The words speak so eloquently.

Adding a couple of Gilded Gems (page 142, Annual Catalog) to the tag echoes the gold trim of it nicely.

Do you have any vellum adhering tricks you could share with us to make our lives easier?

Vellum

Smiles.

CRISS CROSS BIRTHDAY

Once again, my card features something that I'd fussy cut from a pretty sheet of Designer Series Paper. The flower, the focal point, is the item to which I am referring.

Since the flower was soft and simplistic, I decided to create the rest of the card to follow in its footsteps. A few cardstock strips, a neat sentiment and a single piece of bling were all that was needed to complete the card.

SUPPLIES:

White cardstock

Blushing Bride cardstock

Soft Seafoam cardstock

Flowers fussy cut from retired Designer Series Paper

Peaceful Moments stamp set (page 24, Annual Catalog)

Memento Tuxedo Black Ink

Stampin' Dimensionals

Basic Rhinestone

Paper Snips

DIRECTIONS:

Fold a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of white cardstock in half, creasing it well with a bone folder.

From Soft Seafoam cardstock, cut a strip that measures 1" x 5 1/2" and another that measures 1" x 4 1/4". Then, from Blushing Bride cardstock, cut one piece that measures 1/2" x 5 1/2" and one that measures 1/2" x 4 1/4". On the card base, arrange these two strips criss crossing them as you wish, with the thinner strips towards the center, and adhere them in place.

From a piece of Designer Series Paper that features good sized flowers, fussy cut one of the flowers. (Of course, be sure to match your cardstock strips to the colors of the flowers you choose!) With Stampin' Dimensionals, add this to the intersection formed by the colored strips.

REMINDER: If your chosen DSP does not feature these two colors, change up the colors of the cardstock strips to coordinate with your flower.

Add a rhinestone to the center of the flower.

In black ink, stamp a sentiment on the lower right portion of the Soft Seafoam strip.

Fussy

Smiles.

ENZO'S UNDERWATER BIRTHDAY

Our precious grandson, Enzo, turned 5 this week. He, like so many other little boys, loves such things as sharks, dinosaurs and PJ Masks. 

He just got over COVID, and, since his mom works from home, I kept him busy several hours each workday by reading, drawing and watching "bideos". That was a technical trick I was able to set up. Finding this type of subject matter on YouTube, I had the "bideo" on the computer screen and set my iPad in front of it with the camera reversed so he could see what was on the computer. 

We spent literally hours doing this. And he was completely happy. So was I because, even though he couldn't see me, I could watch his adorable face the entire time.

With this type of subject matter in mind, I decided to make him a birthday card featuring an underwater scene. He had to imagine the sharks lurking nearby, but he seemed to have to problem with that.

I used lots of dies, embossing folders and colors to depict this underwater scene. 

It was so much fun to put together, knowing he would love it.

Since he was recovered from COVID by the time his birthday rolled around, I was told by our County Health Department that he had immunity for 90 days. Yay! His mom was hostessing a birthday party at a local pizza place, and we were invited. But several of the attendees were not vaccinated, so we opted to have our own little party for him at our house before his official one.

My husband and I picked him up from 4K and brought him to our house to open his gifts from us. We had a great time with him, feeling safe the whole time. 

I love spending time with this wonderful little boy, and I miss the in person stuff so much. This was a momentous time for all three of us.

Shown below, he is opening his card.

I created the inside to continue with the underwater theme by die cutting a series of waves, which I proceeded to overlap to give the impression of more of the ocean, adding a few of the weeds and the crabby guy at the bottom.

Very unsure at that point how to finish it off, I put it aside for a few days. What I finally decided to do was die cut some more waves in a white cardstock, and I tucked the edges of these waves into a couple of the blue waves. That was where I added the sentiment and our names. I think it turned out well.

The next photo shows him sitting at our house, looking fairly serious. 

I think Enzo enjoyed his little party with us, including all the boy presents we gave him. I know we both enjoyed have him with us for a brief time!

Enzo almost always has a huge smile, so I thought I'd include the photo below 

so you can see the face we usually see. 

Happy Birthday, Enzo!

Underwater

Smiles.

 

HAPPIEST FLOWERS

 Here I am again, talking about just how much I love using my Stampin' Blends on Designer Series Papers. The DSP I used for this card happened to be black and white. So I literally started from scratch in adding my colors. Which is great, because in doing that, I'm free to choose my own color scheme.

A photo of the finished card sitting atop 

a piece of the uncolored Designer Series Paper:

The black and white paper was excruciatingly busy and condensed. It took quite awhile to color in this detailed monstrosity. I wanted to keep the piece fairly warm, but added in a bit of green here and there to tone down the warmth with a little coolness.

For my Stampin' Blends, I used Dark Pumpkin Pie, Dark Flirty Flamingo, Light Calypso Coral, Light Just Jade and Dark Daffodil Delight. 

The sentiment -- isn't it cute?? -- came from the All Squared Away stamp set, found on page 117 in the Annual Catalog.

Notice my bling -- I added Gold Metallic Pearls to the center of sequins. I love the way it looks.

The label, die cut from a retired die set, featured those cute decorative slots on either side into which I threaded a cool piece of ribbon.

A super closeup of the coloring

While I love the completely black and white look, even for an entire card, I was compelled to do some detailed coloring for this card. And I'm really glad I did.

Would you have left this Designer Series Paper as it is, all black and white? Or would you have elected to have a little stress freeing time by coloring it in? Do you enjoy detailed coloring?

Happiest

Smiles.

USE YOUR DSP

Any of you who have been following my blog for awhile know that I simply love to fussy cut. Maybe some of you don't know what I mean when I say "fussy cut". It's exactly what it sounds like: very close intricate cutting. It's so satisfying and the results can be stunning.

Stampin' Up! has some wonderful DSP -- Designer Series Papers -- that are not also wonderful for the traditional use of scrapbooking, but I find them so useful in card making.

Sometimes a DSP design has very distinctive portions that are easily separated from the rest of the piece and used in a completely different way than just cutting a portion to a 4" x 5 1/4" piece as a background for a card. Or something of that sort, where you use the piece as it's meant to be used.

In my card today, that's exactly what I did. The DSP I used has been retired for ages, but I love the medallion sort of designs that I fussy cut and used as separate components on my card. They can be seen in the row along the left side.

For the rest of the card, I picked up coordinating colors that appeared in the fussy cut pieces. In this case, it was Blushing Bride, Very Vanilla and Balmy Blue. I even colored a trio of Basic Rhinestones in Balmy Blue Stampin' Blend Marker to finish it off.

The embossed Balmy Blue portion was done with an old retired embossing folder, but I love how it almost mimics the shape of the fussy cut pieces.

A couple little die cuts with a sentiment stamped in Balmy Blue, atop a folded over piece of the Very Vanilla dotted ribbon balanced the look.

Have you ever cut up a piece of Designer Series Paper to use in your cardmaking -- or even in your scrapbooking? I never regret doing this and am always always pleased with the results you can get.

If you haven't ever given this a try, why not now? There are endless possibilities!

Fussy

Smiles.