March Stamping Class Projects

My stamping group met on Friday night for a fun-filled evening of card making and some wonderful treats from Marilyn and Michelle!

Our first card was a new technique for the group–a skirt fold or other tutorials refer to it as a drapery fold.

I had been seeing this technique used on a few cards on Pinterest and thought it was delightful! I consulted a tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers as well as one on by Song of My Heart Stampers and used their info to produce the card in my blog post, Fancy Fold Botanicals For Stampin' Royalty. For stamping class, I needed to modify the technique so that we could use paper from a 6 x 6" paper stack.

We started with a piece of 3 x 6" paper from the Love Blossoms DSP. It was scored at 2, 2.25, 3.25, 3.5, 4.5 and 4.75." A pencil mark was placed at 1.25" from the top right corner and another mark was placed at the bottom at the first 2" score line.

A trimmer was used to trim diagonally from the 2" score line to the 1.25" mark. The paper was then folded, accordion-style, starting with a valley fold at the 2" score line. This produced the "skirt" pleats. It was necessary to trim off .25" from the right end for the folded piece to fit exactly on a 4.25 x 5.5" matte.

Because there wasn't as long a piece of paper to work with as in the tutorials I referred to for this technique, the amount of patterned paper showing from the opposite side was not a lot, but the technique was still effective.

We applied liquid glue to the back of the pleats and then used a sponge and Early Espresso to add detail to the top of the pleat folds. The top pleats were then glued in place.

Using the MISTI, the sentiment from the Help Me Grow Stamp Set was stamped with Rose Red ink onto the bottom right corner of a 4.25 x 5.5" Blushing Bride matte, after finding the correct position with the pleated panel.

The top 3.5" of the matte was then embossed using the Decorative Dots Embossing Folder. A sponge was used to apply Blushing Bride ink to the raised dots. The matte was then adhered to the Blushing Bride card base using Fast Fuse Adhesive.

A .75" strip of Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper was adhered to the top of the pleated panel using Fast Fuse Adhesive, offsetting it about 1/8" above the panel. Dimensionals were then used to adhere the pleated panel to the matte.

The Big Shot and Magnetic Platform were used with the Botanical Builders Framelits to die cut the flower, leaves and fern from Garden Green and Rose Red card stock. Early Espresso was sponged on the edges of each and then the McGill Paper Blossom Tool Kit was used to shape the die cuts.

Placement on top of the Dazzling Diamonds strip was determined and then the leaves and fern were glued in place using both Fast Fuse and the Fine Tip Glue Pen.

A "thread nest" was made with Linen Thread and adhered with Glue Dots and then the flower was adhered with a Dimensional. An Iced Rhinestone was added to the flower centre to complete the card.

Our second card was a sympathy card created with the Rose Garden Thinlits Die.

The design for this card has appeared several times on pinterest in several color variations. It makes for a very striking card. However, nowhere could I find a tutorial as to how this card was made! Looking at the photos, it just was not immediately evident to me how the card was made. Because of this, I decided that I was going to work with the die to figure out how the card was made so we could make it in class! Hopefully, this will help someone else who is trying to make this card.

We started by using a 3.5 x 4.75" Sahara Sand matte and positioned the die on the matte so it hung off both the top and the bottom right by a little bit. We used a dryer sheet under the card stock to make it easy to separate the die cut from the pieces and we saved the right side of the matte from which the rose was cut.

Using a 3.5 x 4.75" matte of Blackberry Bliss, the retained piece of Sahara Sand was glued in place using liquid glue. The Fine Tip Glue Pen was used to apply glue to the die cut rose and then it was carefully laid in place on the Blackberry Bliss matte, placing the two largest petals of the rose die cut in place first. By doing this, the other edges of the die cut fall into place naturally, making it very easy to get the rose into place next to the Sahara Sand card stock piece. A piece of scrap paper was placed over the die cut allowing the die cut to be smoothed over with a hand to ensure it was properly adhered.

The sentiment was stamped on a scrap of Sahara Sand using Blackberry Bliss and then die cut. The edges were inked with a sponge and then the sentiment was adhered to the card front using Dimensionals.

The edges of a 4 x 5.25" matte from the now retired Painted Blooms DSP was inked with Blackberry Bliss and adhered to a Sahara Sand card base using Fast Fuse Adhesive. The matte with the die cut rose was adhered to the DSP matte using Dimensionals.

The second sentiment was stamped inside the card using Blackberry Bliss to complete the card.

I'm pleased with both these cards from class! Using the Stampin' Up dies can so quickly produce a stunning card!

Creative Blog Hop

Today I am excited to share with you because I was asked to take part in a Creative Blog Hop! Michelle Long, a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator from Oregon, invited me to participate. You will definitely want to check out her post for the hop as she designed a lovely group of items!

Saturday was my day off so I had all day to play and create for this post. I chose to work with watercolor again; I am really enjoying the many different techniques available to produce watercolor effects with ink.

I started by selecting a piece of watercolor paper. I used washi tape to tape it down on my craft mat so it would not curl up as it got wet.

I wet the paper with clean water using a large, flat brush. I then dipped my Aqua Painter in either Blackberry Bliss or Old Olive ink refills and dropped ink or painted portions of the paper.

As I went, I blotted or added more ink to areas, depending on how it looked to me. I also spritzed water on it using my Stampin Spritzer. It definitely did not look the way I had planned it! However, I grew to like it more and more as I continued the process.

Finally, I decided I had laid down enough color so I used my heat tool to dry it before continuing.
I wanted to add a few water spots so I picked up some clean water with my hand and flicked it onto the paper. I let it sink in for a bit and then blotted it with a paper towel. I repeated this a couple of times until I was pleased with the effect.

I then flicked some ink drops of both Blackberry Bliss and Old Olive onto the paper for added interest. I dried the paper using my heat tool and then trimmed it to 4 1/8 x 5 1/8", preserving some of the un-inked portions of the watercolor paper.

I cut pieces of Blackberry Bliss and Old Olive ribbons and adhered them with Sticky Strip to the back of the paper, both in a vertical and a horizontal format. I then wove the strips where they met and then adhered the remaining ribbon ends.

I used the Pansy Punch to cut a flower from Rich Razzleberry and inked the edges with Blackberry Bliss. I cut two additional flowers using the Petite Petals Punch, inking them as well. I also punched a flower from Mambo Melon and inked the edges with (you guessed it!) Blackberry Bliss. I used a punch from the now retired Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack to punch tiny flowers from Mambo Melon and Blackberry Bliss.

I used my Paper Blossom Tool Kit to shape each flower to make it more realistic. This set has been invaluable to me over the years and is always in my basic tool kit for card making. I adhered the parts of each flower using Crystal Effects.

I used the Bird Builder Punch to provide some greenery for the flowers, using the leaves and the bird wing to act as leaves. These were punched from Old Olive and inked with Mossy Meadow. They were also shaped with my Paper Blossom Tool Kit.

I attached the larger flower to the watercolor panel using a Dimensional and the smaller flowers were adhered with Crystal Effects. I also adhered the little leaves with Crystal Effects.

I added a rhinestone to the centre of each flower. To finish off the panel, I unravelled the gold thread from the Gold Bakers Twine and kind of shaped it into a pleasing shape. It was adhered in places with a little Crystal Effects.

The watercolor panel was adhered to an Old Olive 4 1/2 x 5 1/2" matte that had been inked loosely with Mossy Meadow.

I used Black Stazon Ink to ink the sentiment from Painted Petals on the 5 x 7" Mambo Melon card base and then adhered the rest of the card to it using Dimensionals.

To coordinate with my card I created a treat bag from the Painted Petals Designer paper, cut with the Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Dies. I assembled the bag quickly using Fuse Fast adhesive.

I used the Banners Dies to cut a banner from Old Olive and embossed it using the Designer Dots embossing folder. I inked it with Mossy Meadow.

Using Mambo Melon card stock, I cut the For You using one of the pieces from the Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Dies. I cut it three times and adhered the layers together to make thick letters. I adhered these to the banner using Crystal Effects.

I created another flower, using Mambo Melon and Blackberry card stocks and adhered it to the banner using a Dimensional. I then attached the banner to the treat bag using a clothespin.

As part of this Creative Blog Hop, I need to answer a few questions.

1. What are you working on?

In the next few days, I will be designing some Valentine treats for my Granddaughter, Raine, as well as planning my projects for the March session of my stamping group.

2. How does your style differ from others in your genre?

I'm not sure that my style differs from others but I do tend to use bold, dramatic color combinations and I tend to favor texture in the form of embossing, burlap, ribbons, etc. I like to try a number of different styles in card making rather than sticking with one particular style. At the present time, I am enjoying experimenting with watercolor techniques.

3. Why do you create what you do?

I enjoy the creative process and love to share it with others! What could be more fun than playing with color and paper and ribbons and ink and glitter? :)

4. How does your creative process work?

My creative process can be sparked in various ways. Sometimes (quite often in fact!) I am inspired by a particular color scheme and I create a project based on it. Other times, I may be project driven in that I may have to create a particular type of card–birthday, thank you, sympathy, etc. Still other times I start with a particular technique I want to learn and combine that with a pleasing color scheme to design a specific project.

I nominate Carrie Rhoades who will be posting projects on her own blog on February 16. I found Carrie through Pinterest. She has some amazing projects on her blog! In particular, I love the flowers she has created using the Bouquet Bigz L Die to adorn some of her projects so be sure to browse back through her posts to see these!

Be sure to visit Carrie on February 16 to view her special projects!

Thanks for visiting today!

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog