ROSY CELEBRATION

In honor of New Year's Eve and the upcoming Rose Parade, 

I thought I would feature this Rosy Celebration card.

Even though the card may look fairly complicated to create, it is really quite easy. 

Keep reading, and you will find a complete tutorial on how to do it.

I love the crispness of the white lines against the Berry Burst background.

Ready? Here we go!

SUPPLIES:

Fresh Fig cardstock

Whisper White cardstock

Birthday Bright stamp set

Berry Burst ink

Fresh Fig ink

Big Shot

Rose Garden Thinlits

Stamping sponges

Silicone Craft Sheet

Paper Snips

Green Glue

Stampin' Dimensionals

INSTRUCTIONS:

Fold a 4 1/4" x 11" piece of Whisper White cardstock in half, creasing it well with a bone folder.

Using two of the new In Colors, Berry Burst and Fresh Fig, sponge the colors onto a 3 3/4" x 5" piece of Whisper White cardstock. Be super careful with the Fresh Fig, as this is a very dark and intense color. You can always add more.

Working on the Silicone Sheet with the gluing saves lots of frustration. Another way of adding glue to these delicate thin pieces, besides dropping glue directly from the bottle, would be to squirt a little puddle of the green glue onto the Silicone Sheet. Then, gently picking up some of the glue with a piece of sponge (dedicated to glue work), carefully sponge the glue to the backs of the diecut pieces and stick in place. The glue will not adhere to the Silicone Sheet. It is really a great tool to keep on hand.

Start out with one large rose and two smaller roses die cut from Whisper White cardstock, using the Rose Garden Thinlits. Arrange the roses over the sponged piece, not letting the pieces touch at all. Have a few extra of the roses that you can cut apart for this next step. Add pieces of the die cuts to the edges to fill up the space. Simply trim off any pieces that extend beyond the edges. You can even reuse the pieces that are cut off in another spot. They don't need to be complete roses, just give the impression of them.

Once you are satisfied with your glued-on rosy arrangement, adhere this to a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of Fresh Fig cardstock. Then attach this piece to the card base.

On a scrap of Whisper White cardstock, stamp the banner in Fresh Fig and the word in Berry Burst. Use the appropriate Framelit to cut it out. Itt can also be fussy cut. Attach the sentiment to any spot on your card with Stampin' Dimensionals that maybe isn't perfect. Or anywhere you want.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Stay safe when you celebrate!

Rosy

Smiles.

SNOWMAN ORNAMENT

Each and every Christmas since my precious granddaughter, Stella, was born in 2007, I have made her an ornament for Christmas. Hopefully her mom and dad will save all these handmade treasures for her for when she is older and has a Christmas tree of her own.

Well, in February of this year of 2017, we welcomed our second grandchild, Enzo, into our family.

That means I now have TWO ornaments to make each year. 

This year it was a bit hairy since I fell down the steps just four weeks before Christmas and was laid up awhile. I hadn't had a chance to create these precious ornaments before the big tumble. So I was stressing it big time.

About a week before Christmas I ventured down those same stairs to finally make the annual ornaments. I must admit that I had a real blast making them. And it was so wonderful to be back to crafting again!

Below is the ornament that Stella and Enzo have to add to their trees for Christmas 2017.

I know it doesn't show up in the photo, but I added to the embossed snowflakes a little bling in dots of Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue (Green Glue to me!) covered with Dazzling Diamonds Glitter, and clear Wink of Stella on the cute little snowman. I also used a white gel pen to add the white dots around the scalloped circle.

Stella really liked her snowman ornament. Enzo, at just ten months, liked it enough to have it head directly into his mouth. As everything does. We rescued it in time though. 

I hope you and your families had a wonderful and safe Christmas. If you live in the Midwest, try to stay warm. It is CHIL-LY here today and it is predicted to continue. Brrr. 'Tis the season I guess.

Snowglobe

Smiles.

JOY

I just wanted to take this opportunity to

wish YOU AND YOURS

Joyful

Smiles.

RUDOLPH CANDY CANE POUCH

Hey, at this time of the year, EVERYone loves candy canes! Right? Wrong. I hate 'em. But they are cute. I will give them that.

Thanks to Pootles and her crazy adorable idea, I have discovered a cute way to present these infamous candy canes in a little decorative pouch. Actually, I just got the basic idea and the tutorial for punching and folding the pouch itself. The reindeer part is mine.

The Quilted Christmas 6" x 6" Designer Series Paper (page 5 of the Holiday Catalog) is simply perfect to create these pouches. They are exactly the right size and have great designs on both front and back -- since both sides will be visible in this project.

For the mounted deer, I used the Cookie Cutter Christmas stamp set (page 116 in the Annual Catalog) and its coordinating punch (page 208). The way I have my little guy colored, doesn't he look like the proverbial "deer in the headlights"?

Add a bright red satin-y bow to hold the candy canes together -- and you have a cute presentation.

A silver Metallic Foil Doily (page 194) makes a great backdrop for the oval created from Garden Green cardstock and the Stitched Shapes dies (page 214).

My girls created these pouches at the most recent Stamp-In.

Would you care to learn how to make these easy treats? If so, read on for the tutorial.

SUPPLIES:

Cookie Cutter Christmas stamp set (page 116)

Quilted Christmas 6" x 6" Designer Series Paper

Garden Green cardstock

Real Red cardstock

Whisper White cardstock

Black ink

Big Shot

Stitched Shapes Framelits

Cookie Cutter Builder Punch

Envelope Punch Board

Silver Foil Doily

Colored Pencils

Paper Snips

Red Ribbon

Candy Canes

Stampin' Dimensionals

Tear and Tape

DIRECTIONS:

Choose one piece of the 6" x 6" paper from the Quilted Christmas DSP.

With the Envelope Punch Board, punch and score the DSP at 2 1/2". Rotate it a quarter turn, and lining the arrow up with the previous score line, punch and score again. Do this one more time. BUT, on the fourth rotation, ONLY PUNCH -- DO NOT SCORE! Round this last corner.

Fold on the score lines, but not too crisp. As Pootles advises, you want it to be pouch-like. Fold the bottom triangle up, then the left-hand triangle over that. Put a strip of Tear and Tape along the bottom diagonal of the right-hand flap, and press down to seal the pouch closed.

On Whisper White cardstock, stamp the reindeer head in black ink. Use colored pencils to color him. On a scrap of Real Red cardstock, stamp just the nose. Cut the nose out and adhere it over the first nose. Use the Cookie Cutter Builder Punch to cut Rudolph out.

From Garden Green cardstock, cut an oval with the Stitched Shapes Framelits set. Mount the deer onto the oval. Glue the finished oval to the center of one of the silver metallic doilies. Attach this with a few Stampin' Dimensionals to the pouch front.

Tie two candy canes together back-to-back with a red ribbon tied in a gorgeous bow.

Insert the candy canes into the pouch.

Peppermint

Smiles.

STAINED GLASS POINSETTIA

 As long as I've been on something of a vellum kick lately, I might as well bore you with one more vellum technique, as well as an additional way of attaching vellum to a card.

To do the Stained Glass technique, first stamp your image on vellum with VersaMark ink.

The next step is to choose an embossing color for your creation. I chose gold. So, go ahead and emboss your stamped image in your chosen embossing powder. Once it has cooled, tip the embossed side downwards and get to work with Stampin' Write Markers. You can also do this with other media, such as colored pencils, but the results will be more ethereal. While coloring within the upside down embossed lines, you don't need to be particularly careful. I used three shades of red/coral on the flower and three greens on the leaves. Oh, yeah. Also a few yellows/oranges on the little centers.

After finishing the coloring on my poinsettia, I realized I should have left more pronounced white splotches so they would have shown up better in my final card.

The photo below shows my work in progress.

Once your coloring is finished on the back side, let it sit awhile to dry. As always, when working on vellum, ink tends to sit and not dry too readily. You can hit it with the heat tool, but you do risk some warping with the addition of the heat.

A close-up of my poinsettia shown from the correct side:

Tilt the card towards the light 

and you pick up the incredible richness of gold embossing:

To continue on in the gold embossing on vellum, I did the sentiment on a strip of vellum in the same manner. To attach this strip, I applied a few glue dots to the back of it right behind the letters to disguise the adhesive.

To use this vellum poinsettia in my card, I first attached it to a layer of Whisper White cardstock that was cut to about the same size. No need to be careful how this is adhered; it will be covered up.

I then adhered this layer to a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card base of Cherry Cobbler. My poinsettia layer was cut slightly smaller than the base.

To hold everything in place, I cut a window in a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" piece of Cherry Cobbler for the poinsettia to show through. Once this frame is attached to the card base around the edges, it holds everything securely and neatly in place.

Have you ever given this quietly impressive technique a try? 

Vellum

Smiles.