Create with Connie and Mary-Evergreen!

Hello friends! This week our theme is EVERGREEN or ‘all the greens’… I am happy to say that I did use three greens on my project including one of our new upcoming In Colors!

This week I wanted to create a scrapbooking page to feature some of my favorite greens and my favorite subject, my adorable Frenchie Hawkins. Wherever I go he is close by my side, whether its laying under my craft table or staring at me while I am in the bathroom (dog lovers get this, in fact it’s not even weird anymore!!). I recently got some cute pictures of him that I wanted to scrapbook.

This scrapbook page is a mashup of January to June Catty products and brand NEW stuff being released in the Annual Catalogue in May! So exciting! I love all of the little details I was able to incorporate into my page.

I always try to incorporate some background stamping and I chose one of the dandelion images from the Garden Wishes stamp set. The image is stamped in Mossy Meadow to create that tone on tone stamping as that is the color of my 12 x 12 card stock.

I also chose two of the patterns from the Dandy Garden 6x6 Stack to add a little pattern to my layout.

I always like to add little areas of interest to my scrapbook pages. I added a small piece of the new Open Weave Evening Evergreen ribbon underneath my photo with the word “Handsome” trimmed from a sentiment in the Handsomely Suited stamp set.

A few die cut shapes from the Dandy Wishes Dies add some fun texture and I even die cut one from the new Evening Evergreen In Color. I added a cute little Bumblebee trinket too (coming out in the new Annual Catty).

I decided to add in some grey tones to this page too as to me Mossy Meadow has a grey base and they pair so well together. I ran a strip of the Basic Grey card stock through the Pinewood Planks 3D (at an angle for a twist) and added an Old Olive scallop edge from the Scalloped Contours dies (also new and upcoming!!).

The sentiment “Love You Much” is from another new set called Pansy Patch. I love the mix of fonts in this short sentiment. I added a bit of grey twine from the Well Suited Suite behind the sentiment and stamped it in Old Olive ink on a bitty piece of Old Olive card stock.

I isolated the word “True Friend” using my Basic Grey Stampin’ Write marker from the Garden Wishes set

I am a sucker for a great ribbon and I was so happy to see this awesome Smokey Slate Textured Ribbon in the upcoming Annual Catalogue. And I couldn’t resist adding one of the little Ladybug Trinkets onto the page. The second photo is also matted with Smokey Slate to bring in another grey tone to the page.

This little area is my favorite on the page! I cut several of the dandelion shapes from the Dandy Wishes Dies in Evening Evergreen, Mossy Meadow, Old Olive and Bumblebee (to carry that yellow across the page). I let the stems hang off the page and trimmed away the excess. And I had to add another cute Ladybug Trinket! It was really easy to assemble these shapes using my Tombow glue! Definitely a craft room must have!

If you want some more green inspiration, check out my blog post from Friday (yesterday). I created an amazing card featuring the new upcoming Evening Evergreen color.

I hope this page inspires you to use some of your favorite greens in your Stampin’ collection! I love that we have 11 different green tones to choose from. Isn’t that AMAZING?

I can’t wait to see what the other members of the Design Team have created this week and to see what green shades they really love! You can hit BACK to see what Melissa has designed and NEXT to see what Connie has created for us. And as always—please feel free to leave a comment!

Beauty of Friendship

I love this time of year, it actually might be a little bit more exciting for Christmas! Not as much holiday stress and all of the presents are for ME! Hahaha! I love new catalogue time and luckily as a Stampin’ Up! lover it happens several times a year with our Annual and Mini Catty publications.

We also get a batch of 5 new In Colors being released and I really think SU knocked it out of the park this time with the 2021-2023 collection. I wanted to make a card with the luscious Evening Evergreen for a swap I am participating in with my team.

There is only ONE thing on this card that isn’t NEW…can you spot it?

As I mentioned, the base of this card is Evening Evergreen which is such a nice rich green that really fills a gap in our current color offerings.

The strip of leaf DSP is actually from the new HOSTESS DSP, Pattern Party, stack that will be available. Can we get a “HECK YES” for having this as an option? I really think this will be something our hostesses will not be able to pass up! In this amazing paper stack, one side is black and white prints and the other is bright and colorful designs. The best of both worlds!

The best part of black and white patterns is that they can become any color you like. I used the Blending Brushes (now back in stock, yay!) with Crushed Curry to make the leaves a golden tone. I then used my Mango Melody Dark Blend marker to just highlight the veining in the leaves.

I added a little strip of Cinnamon Cider card stock beneath this DSP strip to add in a golden brown tone to this card.

I decided to stamp a tree from the Beauty of Friendship stamp set in Evening Evergreen ink on the coordinating card stock and die cut it with the Beautiful Trees Dies. Then I added this to my layering piece of Evening Evergreen and slighting trimmed the side of the tree. Because this is such a deep green, doing this gave the card another layer of dimension.

The sentiment “You Truly Inspire Me” is from the Beauty of Friendship stamp set and I die cut the sentiment with the Scalloped Contours Dies (I am in love, I doubt they will actually get put away). The sentiment is stamped using the new Soft Succulent In Color and I gave it a little spray with my marker to help take away the white.

Behind the sentiment I layered the new Open Weave Ribbon in Evening Evergreen and some twine from the Bakers Twine Essentials Pack.

I love how this card turned out especially because it is not a color palette that I usually use! Sometimes it is good to challenge yourself!

If you live in Canada and need a catalogue please reach out to me and I will make sure to get you one!

Create with Connie and Mary--Blue Bayou!

This week the Design Team has been tasked with the theme of Blue Bayou or ‘shades of blue’. I actually love how many ‘blue’ options that Stampin’ Up! currently has available for us to craft with. Any guesses how many ‘blue’ tones we have? I will share the answer at the end of my post!

I decided to combine some of our ‘blue' colors with Smoky Slate as we have some really fantastic DSP right now that I wanted to incorporate and it blends these colors together. I also had not played with the Well Suited Suite so this design challenge felt like the perfect time to play!

I wanted this Well Suited DSP to be the stand out on this card which is why I did not make the card base ‘blue’. All of the blues in this strip of DSP have a grey base to them (in my opinion) and I wanted to pull that color in as well so that some of the fun elements would pop.

I added in another blue by using Misty Moonlight as my accent blue—you can see it along the strip of card stock tucked behind the DSP and the circle that is tucked behind the sentiment. The sentiment is also stamped in Misty Moonlight and I added the word ‘handsome’ to the sentiment by trimming this word from the large Father’s Day phrase in the stamp set. Handsome is stamped on Balmy Blue to add a little brightness to the card and play off the DSP.

I love how we can customize any of our projects by trimming specific words out and isolating them. It opens up a world of possibilities!

I added some MIsty Moonlight In Color Enamel Dots to the base after flicking my Misty Moonlight marker across the back and I used both of the Well Suited Twines and the Basic White Twine from the Snail Mail suite as well to accentuate my sentiment.

This card also has all of the components of #goodcarddesign that I have been sharing lately on my Instagram @stampwithbrenda (go give me a follow) and on my blog.

You can easily recreate this card using any of our DSP, stamp sets and embellishments. Watch for a future post with some #goodcarddesign samples!

And if you were wondering how many ‘shades of blue’ that Stampin’ Up! offers—I count 8!

I hope you have a lovely Saturday! Thank you so much for hoping by and if you want to go BACK you can see what Melissa has designed and if you click NEXT you can see what Connie has created for us!

Create with Connie and Mary-Meet the Team!

Hello friends! I have been a part of the Create with Connie and Mary Design Team for a while now and its been such a fun experience for me! I personally love the weekly creative challenges as they do get me out of my comfort zone and using up stamps and supplies that I may not have been using!

I love everything about this card, especially because it really highlights #goodcarddesign a topic that I have recently begun working on with my team to help them develop crafting confidence. I touched on this topic last week so I really encourage you to go back and read this post! You will also find several other card examples following this same "#goodcarddesign as this strawberry card.

I do believe that every good card has 5 design elements and if we create a card that uses them it is a lot easier to create future projects using the same #goodcarddesign. This allows us to save time and also show others how you can create something similar with different stamps, paper and embellishments, because that is what it’s all about right?

I used the Sweet Strawberry bundle and I am so happy its a bundle carrying forward in our new upcoming catalogue! I stamped some of the little flowers on the background using Blushing Bride ink to create that tone on tone stamping. I added three strips of Designer Series Paper from the Playing with Patterns collection. They are 3/4 x 3 each. I also like the fact that they are offset from each other too as it gives are more whimsical feeling to this project.

A Blushing Bride Scallop Circle is cut from the Layering Circles Dies. I added a white circle over top and ran it through the Greenery Embossing Folder for a little bit of texture. In between the circles I added some Basic White twine from the Snail Mail Twine Combo.

The strawberry is stamped in Poppy Parade ink and I thought the little ladybug embellishment was the perfect little touch. The strawberry stem and sentiment are stamped in Soft Seafoam ink.

I hope this project inspires you to get stamping today!

Thank you so much for checking out my blog today! I share with the Design Team every Saturday so please remember to check back in every week!

You can head back to the main Create with Connie and Mary page by clicking “Next”!

Etched in Nature--Card Inspiration for On Tour!

Yesterday my team and I participated in some virtual training provided by Stampin’ Up!. They are hosting sessions over the course of a week to demonstrators all over the world which is really exciting. As part of our event registration, we were given the stamp set Etched in Nature and I decided to use this set as part of my team’s Afterparty event that I hosted virtually.

It is always more fun to stamp together and even better when we all have the same stamp set to use. I designed 3 Make’n Takes to work on with my team. Now, I will be totally honest, this stamp set was not a style I would normally gravitate towards so it was a pretty good challenge for me to create cards that had a design and a feel that I loved. However, playing with the NEW In Colors, some ribbon and embellishments and the new Hand Penned Designer Series Paper made this a much easier project than I was anticipating!

I think these cards look fabulous as a trio and all have a really unique feel to them as individual projects. By designing them with the same color palette and using the Hand Penned DSP as the anchor, they work as a group. This stamp set doesn’t have coordinating dies or punches so I had to pull in a couple favorite options to help accentuate the design.

The base of this card is the new Pale Papaya. This is a really interesting color for me as it leans yellow and it leans orange based on the colors that you pair it with. This color is one featured in the Hand Penned DSP. I punched out a circle that highlighted the color. This swatch also allowed me to pull in coordinating colors such as the Mint Macaron and Misty Moonlight circles. Both of the card stock circles are stamped with images in Momento Ink from the Etched in Nature stamp set.

I added a die cut sprig in Basic White from the Forever Flourishing Die set to add to that natural feel. Thank You is also stamped in Momento Ink and behind the sentiment I added some of the Pale Papaya Open Weave Ribbon and Basic White Thread. A few Matte Black Dots finished off this card perfectly!

This next card is an example of #goodcarddesign and was a feature project design of our team meeting. I briefly touched on this topic on a previous blog post and I will be adding to my #goodcarddesign concept with more examples later this week—so make sure you check back if you are interested in this concept!

The base of this card is the new Soft Succulent color and its just such a warm green with a nice grey undertone to it. It definitely has a ‘neutral’ feel to it and I can imagine it pairing so well with our other 50+ colors!

I added a scallop detail in Misty Moonlight along the edge using the Peony Die and layed a strip of DSP from the Hand Penned collection. I did a bit of background stamping and stamped the sentiment out twice so I could pop up and isolate the word Happy Moments.

Between the two circles I added some of the Soft Succulent Open Weave Ribbon and some Basic White twine. A few Opal Rounds to add some glitz to this card was the perfect touch.

The final card in this trio is on a crisp Basic White card stock base. I added a middle panel that I ran through the Tasteful Textile 3D folder and added two strips of DSP from the Hand Penned Collection.

I wanted to focus on the butterflies from the stamp set on this project. Underneath the sentiment, stamped on Pale Papaya, I added a little strip of Polished Pink as scallop accent using the Stitched Be MIne Dies. The ribbon is amazing—I LOVE IT! It is the new Pale Papaya & White 1/2 Ribbon. A few In Color Jewels just finished things off perfectly!

Overall, I really really love how these cards turned out and believe that you can recreate them with ANY stamp set you might have that combines images and sentiments!