"COMING HOME" HELLO

 

Every once in a while, I find myself really pleased with the way a card has come together.  This is one of those cards.

It's colorful and has layers, dimension, texture, glimmer, and bling.

The Whisper White cardstock was sponged with Pool Party ink and then embossed with one of the Wrapped in Texture embossing folders.  The snowy hillside was die-cut with one of the Home Together dies and brushed with the Clear Wink of Stella brush.  From Crumb Cake cardstock, I stamped the house image and then colored it with Stampin' Blends markers, and it was adhered with Stampin' Dimensionals.  The sentiment (from Life is Beautiful stamp set) was stamped on Crumb Cake cardstock using Real Red ink.  A piece of Linen Thread was wrapped around the sentiment strip and tied in a bow before adhering it to a strip of Pretty Peacock Scalloped Linen Ribbon, which was adhered to the Whisper White layer.  A strip of Pool Party cardstock was embossed with the Winter Snow embossing folder prior to adhering it to the Soft Sea Foam card.  After the Pretty Peacock layer was embossed with one of the Greenery embossing folders, it was adhered to the card front.  The Whisper White layer was then adhered to the Pretty Peacock cardstock, and then the Holiday Rhinestone Basic Jewels were put in place.

It's a neat card, huh?

FROSTY POINSETTIA

 

Purple is a color that you don't normally associate with Christmas and, in some parts of the world, frost and cold are also non-existent during this holiday.  I don't think poinsettias are ever purple, but I really like the look of this one.  

That gorgeous designer paper is from Stampin' Up!'s Feels Like Frost collection that was carried over from last year.  Isn't it just gorgeous?  My poinsettia petals were cut from Highland Heather cardstock using the Poinsettia dies, and I used a Sponge Dauber to lightly add Whisper White Craft ink to give them a soft velvety appearance.

A couple of things worth noting . . . see the silver foil strip of paper under the sentiment?  All of the papers in the Feels Like Frost collection have a gorgeous photographic image on one side and hand-drawn designs with silver foil on the other side.  That shiny foil strip was cut from one of the gorgeous papers specifically to tuck beneath the sentiment (which is from the Poinsettia Petals stamp set)--just a pretty little detail for the recipient to discover.  Another fun detail are the glimmery die-cut sprigs.  They were die-cut from retired glimmer paper, and the purple one was colored with a Highland Heather Stampin' Blends marker.  It's too bad that Stampin' Up! no longer carries white or silver glimmer paper because it colors beautifully with Stampin' Blends.

I've always thought of blues when I think "frosty", but this pretty paper will now have me also thinking of purple.  What do you think?  Do you like the purple poinsettia?

ONLINE EXTRAVAGANZA . . . GET READY!!!

 

Tuesday, November 24th, is the big day when select products from Stampin' Up!'s annual catalog will be 10% off.  Following is a list of the products excluded from the sale:

CLICK HERE TO SHOP WITH ME

Considering how many awesome products are in the annual catalog, the list of exclusions doesn't seem all that long.

MAKE YOUR LIST and be ready to SHOP EARLY because some products will sell out!

I would appreciate it very much if you use my current host code:  PNPYP2X2.

JOSEPH'S COAT TECHNIQUE . . . FALL THANK YOU CARDS

 

Many years ago, I declared that the Joseph's Coat technique was dead (to me) and that I would never, ever try it again.  Oh, the number of failed or inconsistent attempts that ended in aggravation!  I still don't know why I was unsuccessful all of those times, but a birthday card that I received recently from my sweet friend, Laura, prompted me to try Joseph's Coat one more time.  Following is a photo of Laura's card:

Isn't it gorgeous???  

Now, Joseph's Coat of yesteryear always finished with a layer of black ink, and I LOVED that Laura had used Shaded Spruce instead!  I also loved the prism foil paper that she used for accents on the card, and I'm surprised that I managed to capture some of that beautiful essence in the photo.

So this is what I did on my cards.  I sponged Pear Pizzazz, Just Jade, Garden Green, and Soft Sea Foam ink onto Whisper White cardstock.  The leaf images from Forever Fern stamp set were stamped onto the cardstock with VersaMark ink and then heat-embossed with Clear Stampin' Emboss Powder, which allowed the sponged colors to show through but also resist the Shaded Spruce ink that I sponged all over the cardstock.  It wasn't totally necessary, but I used a tissue to wipe any wet ink from the embossed images.  To restore the shine of the embossed images, I heated them again with the heat tool.  Lastly, I cut down the cardstock and adhered it to the embossed Soft Sea Foam cardstock, which was adhered to the Shaded Spruce card.  Die-cut pieces from a couple of Forever Flourishes dies were adhered around the sentiment, which consisted of beautiful cuts from the Tasteful Labels dies and sentiment from Butterfly Gala stamp set.

The foil cardstock that I used on my cards was the green from the retired Noble Peacock collection, and the sequins were actually a perfect match, although they don't look like it in the photos.

Many thanks to Laura for inspiring me to try Joseph's Coat one more time.  I loved her card so much and was pleased with my success while making these four special thank you cards.

FA LA LA . . . SIMPLE CHRISTMAS CARD

 

Have you started working on Christmas cards?  

I started earlier this year than I have in a long time (maybe ever), and it feels so good to have a selection of cards ready to mail.  Still, I enjoy making Christmas cards, so I continue to make them from time to time.  

The card that I'm sharing today has one of my favorite holiday color combos  . . . Coastal Cabana, Real Red, and Whisper White, complete with sparkle and bling.  Normally, I use Pool Party instead of Coastal Cabana, but either color keeps the card clean and makes the red pop.

Although I have new stamps and dies that I have barely used (or not used at all), this card features Into the Woods dies from last year, and "falala" is from the retired Seasonal Frame thinlits.  I used the Winter Snow embossing folder on the Whisper White cardstock, and I wish it showed up better in the photo.  The silver trim and sequins are also from the past, but I can't stop using either of them.  I absolutely LOVE the silver trim and am so glad that I bought several spools of it, although my supply is dwindling.  I think the way it curls adds so much to a project, and it's just festive.

Now that I'm ahead with my card-making, I really should start addressing and decorating envelopes.  It will be wonderful when that gets done!

EASY CHRISTMAS CARDS USING FUSSY CUT BITS FROM "TRIMMING THE TREE" DESIGNER SERIES PAPER

 

When I first started working on Christmas cards in September (or was it August), I stamped, cut, and colored a LOT of trees from the Coming Home stamp set.  A handful of the trees ended up in an old stamp case on my table, to which I continued to add unused bits.  Those unused bits consisted of houses and sentiment strips that I had cut from some of the designer papers in the Trimming the Tree collection.  I'm not one to get excited about fussy cutting, but I have to admit that cutting the houses and trees from the DSP was rather relaxing.  I used my paper trimmer to go ahead and cut the Christmas greetings, mostly because I didn't plan to use the other side of that paper, and all of the pre-cut bits were in that one stamp case--all ready to use.

The case is nearly empty after putting to use a lot of the pre-cut bits on cards such as the ones I'm sharing today.  These cards were SO fun and quick to make!  I began by laying out the greetings in the order that I wanted to use them to build my "trees", and then I cut five pieces of 4" x 5-1/4" Whisper White cardstock.  One of the embossing folders that I used on two of the cards (Cable Knit) is retired, but the other one is Winter Snow.  Once my embossed layers were ready, I began the design process by gluing the greeting strips to a 1/4" strip of Early Espresso cardstock.  As you can see from the photos, some of the greeting strip trees were topped with a Gold Glimmer star, and some were topped with one of the fussy cut houses--or both.

A torn strip of Whisper White cardstock was used to create a snowy mound at the base of my trees, and I used stamps from the Festive Post stamp set to decorate that layer using Real Red and Balmy Blue ink.  Before adhering the Whisper White layer to the Night of Navy card, I trimmed the cardstock to fit beside the Mossy Meadow Diagonal Stripe ribbon.  I played around with different arrangements for the ribbon, and my favorite was on the card above . . . straight cut ribbon adhered near the fold.

The Whisper White cardstock layer on the inside of the card was decorated with images from Season Like Christmas and Snow Front stamp sets using Real Red, Soft Sea Foam, and Soft Suede ink.

Not bad for fussy-cut bits from designer paper, huh?  And . . . as you can see in the second photo, I still have two whole sheets of the two designer papers (one with the houses, one with the greetings) that are ready to be cut up and used to make even more cards!