A Sister Collaberation

 Hi everyone!  I had a wonderful week in North Carolina, spending lots of time with family.  That also means I spent some time stamping with my sister Connie.  What fun that was!  I had taken a few cards I had finished to share with her, and also an idea I was playing with but just couldn't get it to work right.  It really needed another set of eyes to come up with a plan.  She gave me some great ideas.  We played around and got that second card made in no time at all.  First I'll share the card I made at home, and we'll just go on from there.

The idea for the cards was to make a detailed die-cut, then  color the die-cut on top of another piece of white cardstock using sponges or blending brushes.  This gives you two main focus pieces for making two cards.  Sort of a two-fer.  I decided to use the floral image from Artistic Dies for my die-cut piece.  Then I colored this with Blending Brushes and these inks - Fresh Freesia, Highland Heather, Polished Pink, Mint Macaron, and Soft Succulent.  On the little swirly flowers I used a Sponge Dauber and Daffodil Delight ink.  I was surprised how heavier and darker the color was when using the Sponge Dauber, even though I tried to keep it very light.

I die-cut a Basic White layer for the front of the card using the largest die in the Ornate Layers die set.  It has such a pretty eyelet-looking edge to it and I tend to use it often.

I wrapped the sheer dotted ribbon around the Basic White layer before it was attached to the folded Soft Seafoam cardstock base using just adhesive.

Using the Silicone Craft Sheet, the die-cut image was laid face down and lightly sponged with Multi Purpose Liquid Glue.  The it was attached to the card front with part of it over the ribbon.  I held this in place a minute or so to make sure it held.

The sentiment s from the All Squared Away set.  It was stamped on a 1/2" strip of Basic White using Soft Succulent ink.  Then the end was punched with the Banners Pick A Punch.  It was attached to the card front using adhesive.   Then a  3" piece of the ribbon was made into a very loose knot and attached using Mini Glue Dots over the top edge of the sentiment banner.  That's all there is to this pretty card.  Now on to the piece of Basic White that was under the die-cut when coloring.

This piece really gave me a run for my money.  Nothing I tried really made it stand out.  Then my smart sis said, "Why don't you cut it out?"  Duh, why didn't I think of that?  After cutting it out leaving an edge all around the image, we tried different colors of cardstock for the base.  We decided on Mint Macaron - not too light, but not too dark either.  But we didn't attach it just yet.  Still too many variables to decide on!

She had some pretty sprays of gold berries from a SU! laser-cut sheet that she was willing to share with me.  We cut some apart and tucked them in under the main image to get an idea if that would work.  Then for the sentiment...

We thought the gold embossing on the vellum looked the nicest.  You can definitely read the sentiment, but it doesn't cover up the pretty floral design.   We used one of her non-Stampin'Up! sentiments because it fit perfectly.

After laying it all out, we decided it still needed something else.  We gave it a healthy spritz or two of gold shimmer paint mixed with alcohol.  That tied all the gold elements in together.  Then it was just a matter of putting the main image on with Dimensionals, and tucking in the gold berries under and around it.  The banner has touches of adhesive underneath the gold-embossed lettering.  That was it.  A truly joint effort on our part.  It surely reminds me how much fun it is stamping with others, be they family or friends.  The great ideas just flow better when you're having fun together!

If you're still planning on placing an order before the end of June, place use the Host Code shown here.  I truly appreciate all your orders.

Hope you're enjoying your summer as much as I am!   I picked my first blueberries and made the yummiest muffins!  We didn't even know we had blueberries, and what a sweet surprise that was!!  Hope there are more coming as I was online looking up some recipes for those luscious blueberries.  Can't wait!

Happy stamping and creating your masterpieces!

Sharon

Fun with Dies and Embossing

 Hi there! So glad you stopped by today.  I was fooling around with my Artistic Dies and had cut out the open-work branch of leaves die for another project I was making.  That left me with the 'negative' of the leaves as scrap.  Now, I really have a hard time throwing away paper (or anything else for that matter) that I think I can find a use for.  Just ask my hubby, he'll be glad to tell you all about that problem I have!  ;)  Anyway, this piece was sitting on my table letting me know I shouldn't ignore it.  So here it is - repurposed into a cute card.

I had just read on a blog about putting the negative piece onto a card front then embossing the whole thing.  So that's what I did here.  I embossed it with the Tasteful Textile 3D Embossing Folder.  I ended up trimming off an inch from the open edge afterwards and will probably use that somewhere soon.  I was surprised after embossing.  I thought at least a little of the embossing would be inside the leaves, but I was wrong - it didn't show up at all!  And what was even more interesting, it didn't show up on the backside of the flap or inside of the card - whatever you want to call it.  It left a plain leafy impression only.  I had thought to put a layer of the cute You're A Peach Designer Paper on the inside left to make it a little different than the usual card.  But I decided that I liked the very subtle non-impression from the embossing folder and would leave it blank.

Can you see it here?  It's more of a tactile feature of this card rather a visual one.  But I really like it and will now have to incorporate something like this again, maybe as more of a focal point.  Don't you love when you get a wonderful unintended consequence?  Too bad all of life can't be this way!

At this point, I moved to the inside of the card.  There is the layer of the You're A Peach Designer Series Paper inside the card, that's 4" x 5 1/4".  Since I had trimmed off 1" from the front flap to show off the DSP, I needed to figure out the size and position of the Basic White cardstock layer inside the card for writing on.  I used a piece about 2 1/2" x 3 3/4".  When this was attached to the inside of the card, I off-set it so it wouldn't show when the card is closed.

Back to the front of the card again.  I thought butterflies or dragonflies would be a good accent.  I ended up with the butterflies because the size fit better.  The Brilliant Wings die set was used to cut one filigree butterfly and two smaller solid butterflies from Balmy Blue cardstock to match the teensy flowers on the DSP.  

The filigree-style butterfly is attached with a skinny strip from the edge of a sheet of Mini Dimensionals placed just under the body.  The two smaller butterflies are attached using Mini Glue Dots.

The sentiment comes from the Beauty of Friendship stamp set.  I just wanted a tiny sentiment in the corner and this one worked out fine.  It's stamped with Old Olive ink on a Basic White strip of cardstock, then just trimmed down with Paper Snips.  It's popped up on the card with Mini Dimensionals. 

After looking at several different types of bling to enhance this card, the clean and simple look seemed the best for the overall design of it.  Thus, it is naked of bling.  Oh my!  So that's it for this pretty card.  It's simple, but not too simple in design.  Hope you give this layered embossing a try.  It's quite nice in person when you can really see the embossed look and touch it too. 

If you're planning on ordering this month, please use the Host Code shown to the left.  I would greatly appreciate it.  I do appreciate all of my customers and have fun mailing out cards and/or little goodies each month.  Will I be sending you something special for this month?  I hope so!

Happy stamping and stay cool,

Sharon