Around The World Blog Hop--April

I am so excited to be participating in this BRAND NEW international blog hop started by the amazing Angie McKenzie. Her faith in my technical skills is beyond admiration! You may also see this new blog hop being referred to as ‘aWOW Blog Hop’. We will be posting monthly on the second Wednesday of each month!

The theme for our inaugural hop is ‘Must haves for your creativity’…I thought about this quite a bit and finally settled on ‘things I can colour with’…so my project includes two colouring tools—the classic Stampin’ Write markers and the newer Stampin’ Blends.

I love the soft watercolour wash in the background of these cards and the fact that every single one is unique and special. I used the Under My Umbrella and Fable Friends stamp sets and coloured the images with Stampin’ Blends. I did add Wink of Stella on top of the flowers, its another crafty must have in my Home Studio!

The water-colour wash in the background is actually one of my favourite techniques and one that I pull out of my technique closet from time to time. Its actually a great technique to share with beginner stampers as they only need our classic Stampin’ Write markers and either water-colour or shimmery white paper. In my samples I used water color paper. I also used a cello bag as the transfer piece. You could use a window sheet as well, but a cello bag is much cheaper and chances are even a new stamper will have one of these lying around.

The first step as illustrated in the first picture is to gather all of the supplies. Stampin’ Write markers of your choice, a spritzer tool with water, a cello bag or window sheet (if using a window sheet cut it to the same size as your base), and a piece of water-colour paper or shimmery white (regular white card stock is too thin to absorb as of the moisture). You may also want to have a tissue handy to blot up any excess water.

Color each marker in a diagonal line across the cello bag.

Spritz the cello bag with water.

Press the water-colour paper onto the cello bag and let sit to for a few moments to absorb the color. When removing, have a tissue handy to soak up any loose water.

And that is it! Easy peasy and creates such a wonderful background!

Click here to visit the amazing Tricia Butts in the USA!

So Glad We Are Friends!

Hey friends! I really do appreciate you checking out m blog! I really do hope it is inspiring you to be creative! And I you haven’t been over to my Lifestyle tab, you should check it out, especially my Favourite Recipes section as I have shared a lot of my family’s favourite recipes over there! I highly recommend the Oreo Popcorn, it would be a fun snack to make with your kids!

I just wanted to share this card with you today to let you know that I am truly loving, missing and appreciating all of my friends. I cased this card right from the Idea Book & Catalogue because I was wanting to do some therapeutic colouring. I features the Fable Friends stamp set that I coloured using Stampin’ Blends. I had to use the chubby tip because the images are quite tiny and detailed.

Dino Days!

I don’t know what it is about this cute little T-Rex but wouldn’t you be happy if he came in the mail? He is just too cute! I created a bunch of these cards for my stash and thought it was fun to share, especially because they feature two products that were recently available with Sale-a-bration, and therefore might be in your craft stash!

The card features the Dino Days stamp set and no I did not use my dies to cut them out. Why? Well because I stamped his spikes on his back…and to use the dies, you actually have to stamp them separately to cut them out. Ooopsie! Luckily for me, I have TIME on my hands so I didn’t mind fussy cutting this little guy out. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from the Welcome to the Team stamp set. Both of these stamp sets are in the Idea Book & Catalogue!

I ran the Whisper White base through the Stone 3D embossing folder and covered it with a strip of the Dinoroar DSP. The Old Olive label is cut from the Stitched So Sweetly Dies, and I used the edge of the largest scalloped rectangle to cut the Gorgeous Grape scallop bit tucked under the DSP. I also added some of the popular Bermuda Bay Metallic thread to loop around this whole little panel.

The little tiny heart is punched from the Twinkle Builder Punch in the Idea Book & Catalogue.

I also stamped the inside of the card too for a little extra fun! I love the bright colours of this card and its perfect for any age or gender!

Corner Flip Card

My team participated in a Fun Fold swap this month and I decided to try the Corner Flip card! It is actually so so easy! I am really into the Tropical Oasis Suite at the moment so I used elements from the suite to embellish my card. A fun twist is to stamp the flower images on vellum with Whisper White and emboss! I hope you can make sense of my directions, if you are unsure please feel free to send me a message!

I tried to capture in photos how to make this Corner Flip card. There are a lot of Youtube videos you can search if you can’t quite figure it out. Even though I have oodles of time, I just don’t think videos will be my jam! Anyway, start with a regular card base. Measure along the top (outside in) 3.5 inches and make a little tick (picture #1). Measure down from the top (picture #2) 3.5 inches and make a tick. Then using your trimmer SCORE a line between these two ticks and fold over. Picture #3 shows you how it folds. Easy! You will then need a 4 x 6 piece of DSP. Make sure you look at both sides as you will be seeing both on the card. Take that piece of DSP and cut off 3/4 of an inch (picture #5). Set aside (it is used on the inside of the card, see below). Take the bigger DSP piece and lay it on top of the card and using the fold, crease it over the DSP (picture #7) . You will then trim along the fold line (I found my mini guillotine trimmer was awesome for this!). Fold the card base flap down and adhere. The remaining DSP triangle is then glue to this (last photo).

Birthday Gift Card Holder

I recently participated in a card swap that my upline coordinated. The theme was a birthday gift card holder. I had came across another swap I had made that was laying on my desk and it gave me the inspiration for this one, updated with new stamps and products of course! I think this style of card is called a Matchbook, I could be wrong but that is what I think of at least!

I used two of the new Sale-a-bration second release products, the So Very Vellum and Flowering Foils DSP. I actually really loved colouring the flower with my Blends. I used Purple Posey, Highland Heather (light), Soft Seafood and Pool Party (light) for the flowers. The stamp is from the Tags in Bloom Sale-a-bration stamp set that coordinates with both the Label Me Fancy and the Label Me Lovely punches.

I hope these visual instructions help you in recreating this project. It is not as complicated as it seems and is a great way to use up DSP!