Summer Forest Scenery Card

Hi, glad you're back today.  I've been looking out my windows and seeing lots of trees and plants in many various colors and shades of green and it reminded me of the gorgeous Beauty of the Earth Designer Series Paper.  So this is just a quick card to share some of that wonderful greenery with you in the form of a card.  I think you can get a real good idea of what I enjoy looking at everyday when you look at this card.

Can you just see the multitude of colors on these leaves?  Just like outside, but these have a slightly darker fall-ish look to them.  One of the very first stamp and die bundles I purchased when the 2021-2022 Annual Catalog came out last May was the great Inspired Thoughts Bundle. For this card I'm not using the stamps, but the die set has a really awesome row of trees with bare branches and several different leafy-greenery tree leaves.  Then to coordinate with these dies is the Beauty of Friendship Bundle with more trees and leaves to create with.  Again truly gorgeous.  Then when you add in the Beauty of the Earth designer Series Paper.  It's all an absolute Wow!  All these items work so well together it's so easy to use a little of this and a bit of that and bring it all together.

The card starts with a base of neutral Crumb Cake cardstock cut at 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", scored and folded in half.  Next I cut a layer of Evening Evergreen cardstock cut at 5 1/4" x 4", but didn't attach it.  This is what I would build my card on and then layer to the card front when it was all trimmed up and ready.

Across the lower part of the card, I wanted a row of trees from the Beauty of the Earth Designer Series Paper.  One of the prints is just row after row of trees, so I cut off one of the rows to fit the card front.  The strip ended up being 1 1/4" wide by 5 1/4" long.  This was attached with adhesive.

I wanted to use the row of trees die, but knew most of it wouldn't fit.  Using the Inspiring Canopy dies, I only cut the 2 trees on the right end from Early Espresso cardstock.  This way I could place where needed and trim off any extra.  I also die-cut the leaves from one of the prints that matched the strip on the bottom part of the card.  This die has such wonderful texture to it that nothing else was needed to make it beautiful.  Both the trees and the leaves were attached to the card front using Multi Purpose Liquid Glue.

Next up is the sentiment.  The Beauty of Friendship Bundle has six sentiment stamps and two label dies to match.  I chose to use the 'Thinking of You' stamp and coordinating die.  I can always use more of these type of cards!  The label was cut from Basic White cardstock and the sentiment was stamped with the Evening Evergreen ink.  The end of the label was tucked under the leaves on the tree and attached with adhesive. 

The card front we've been building was now attached to the folded Crumb Cake base.  I used adhesive to keep it flatter.  (The Post Office is getting rich from all the extra postage I've been paying on those 'bulky' cards I've been sending!) 

The card needed something else, but I wasn't crazy about rhinestones or sequins.  Then tried adding Twine and ribbon, but nothing was fitting with what I wanted.  After thinking on it awhile, I remembered that the Beautiful Trees dies had two bird dies.  Yes!  To keep it subtle, I decided to cut them from Crumb Cake cardstock.  They didn't have eyes, so I just used a Basic Black marker to color in an eye for each of them.  They were attached to the card front with Dimensionals.  There you have it.  I just love it when the Designer Paper seems to do all the work for you.  This is a perfect card for a gentleman who's not into all that frou-frou stuff!  Or any of those nature lovers out there!

Here it is a new month, so of course there's a new host code for the month.  If you're planning on ordering any of the items you see me use here or anything else in the current catalogs, please use the host code shown here.  I'd be much obliged if you did.  And don't forget you still have almost the whole month of September left to cash in on the Sale-a-bration goodies offered.  They'll be available until September 30th unless they are sold out sooner.   

Thank you to all my wonderful friends who are still hanging out here with me.  As I write this I'm in Michigan for the week.  Hopefully I'll be seeing many of you in the next few days.  I can't express how much I miss seeing you all on a regular basis, having fun, and stamping together.  This blog is the closest I can come to that right now.  That's why I love it when you leave me a comment so I know you're out there!  Take care and keep on stamping and creating!

Hugs,

Sharon

Alcohol Inks on Vellum

 Hey there!  Glad you stopped by.  Have you tried the technique that uses the Stampin'Up! Blends Markers on vellum to make awesome alcohol ink backgrounds?  I was a little leery about trying it, but it was lots of fun.  Kind of messy, but fun anyway!  I have to admit, the first one I tried ended up in the trash.  I spritzed way too much alcohol on the vellum and everything blended into nothingness and the vellum curled up too much to get it flat ever again!  There are wonderful videos out on You Tube that show in detail how it is done.  Not everyone does it the same, so it's interesting to get ideas from several people.  And no matter how you do it, no two finished vellum pieces will ever be identical.  You can look at that as being a creative plus, or it can drive you right up the wall if you want to do multiple cards the same - it just can't happen!

After playing around some, I thought I'd try a background with blues on half and greens on the other half.  So this is it.

I started with a piece of cardstock vellum which is quite thick and SU! sells it.  I used Stampin' Blends in these colors for the greens - Old Olive, Mossy Meadow, and Shaded Spruce.  For the blue colors -  Balmy Blue, Pool Party, Bermuda Bay.  These were all the darker Blends.  

Scribble each of the colors in sections close to each other, but I didn't go over other colors.  I kept them barely separate.  After the colors were scribbled on, spritz with 90% Isopropyl Alcohol.  Don't over saturate like I did the first time!  

I used a Water Painter dipped in more alcohol to dab around in the separate colors to move them and get that awesome alcohol ink look.  I love how the colors moved and changed.  It's just like magic.  Thought it was interesting that the Shaded Spruce in the green area started looking like Bermuda Bay!  

After I liked how it looked, it was set aside to dry a bit.   This is when I realized the Inspiring Canopy dies would work perfectly here.  The trees were die-cut from Early Espresso cardstock and set aside.

When the vellum was dry, I flicked on some marker colors.  I used Pool Party and Bermuda Bay on the sky, and Old Olive and Mossy Meadow on the land areas.   After this I flicked Wink of Stella onto the vellum.  I got very impatient waiting for the Wink of Stella to dry, even used a heat tool to hurry it along.  I stayed sort of sticky.  Hmmm, what about some Gold Leafing???  I played around with that some and found there were some areas that it really stuck on nicely, some areas not so great.  So I've got this lovely designed alcohol vellum background with little speckles and some bigger blobs of brilliant gold - I love it!  What a happy outcome!

The vellum was attached to a Basic White layer using Adhesive Sheets.  This helps to keep the vellum layer nice and flat. The die-cut trees were attached at this time.  The Basic White layer was attached to Bermuda Bay cardstock with adhesive.  Linen Thread was wrapped three times around and then tied in a knot.  Then it was attached to the folded Early Espresso folded cardstock base using Dimensionals.  The last thing to do was cut Basic white cardstock to go inside the card.  I added 1/2" strips of Bermuda Bay cardstock to each side of the white layer inside to give it more color and interest inside the card.

Hope you can see how pretty the alcohol ink looks.  And I just love the bits of  gold leafing on it.  I've got to admit I was kind of scared to try this technique, but I reminded myself - it's only paper!  If you don't like it, pitch it and try again.  I'll have more ideas to share with you soon using more pieces I've already made.  They're much more colorful and I'm trying to figure out what to do with them!  *grins*

If you're planning on placing an order this month, please consider using the Host Code for this month.  Thank you to all you wonderful ladies that are ordering.  I appreciate you so much!

Thanks for stopping and I sure hope you give this technique a try.  It's a real winner and so much fun!

Happy creating!  It's good for the soul.

Many hugs,

Sharon