Autumn Chrysanthemum

Hello again! I'm thinking I'm on a roll at the moment! Three times in less than a week! The card I have for you today is using a new stamp set in the Holiday catalog that came out Sept 1st. It's called Painted Harvest, it actually has a whole suite, but I just got the stamp set and the Designer Series Paper (DSP). My Mum and Nan used to love to garden and we always had some kind of flowers throughout the year beginning with Snowdrops in January and continuing on to the beautiful Chrysanthemums in the fall. Consequently, I was dying to try my hand in trying to duplicate a chrysanthemum with this set. It's a two-step stamp, and after trying out several inks, I decided to use Crushed Curry and Cajun Craze for the flower and Pear Pizzaz and Old Olive for the leaves. For the center of the flower I used Soft Suede and Crushed Curry for the little dots, so cute! The flowers also were brushed with Wink of Stella, but I'm not sure that you can see it in the picture. The set also has this darling little acorn, I couldn't resist stamping a couple of those too! These were stamped using Crumb Cake and Soft Suede. I used Very Vanilla for my stamping mat, then mounted this, using dimensionals, onto a mat of gold glimmer paper. My card base is Cajun Craze. This is one of the many reasons I love Stampin Up, everything matches, you don't spend valuable time trying to match inks with paper etc. and the finished product looks so good! I was very pleased with the outcome of the 'Chrysanthemums', it brought me back to my childhood, I could almost smell them, that beautiful autumn, deep woodsy smell they have! I hope you like my card as much as I do and if you would like to purchase any of the items I have used, I would love to have you as my customer. My Stampin Up website is at the top right of this post. Similarly, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to shoot me an email, address at top right also, or feel free to comment on this post. Til next time.......

Colorful Seasons.........again!

Here I am again! Didn't quite make my promise of 'the next day', but at least it wasn't two months! LOL! So these two cards I made using the Colorful Seasons stamp set again and the accompanying  Seasonal Layers Thinlets. A while ago I saw a fellow Demonstrator (unfortunately, I don't remember her name) demonstrating a card with an acetate window in the front. So I decided I'd give it a try, I experimented on two cards before these two just to give myself a little practice. I decided as an extra step I would emboss on the acetate! Now I'll warn you, if you want to emboss on acetate you will have to get 'Heat Resistant Acetate', I got mine on Amazon.  I sandwiched the acetate between the card base (thick very vanilla) and the DSP. The first card I used the Wood Textures DSP, the mat on the inside as well as the outside mats. The leaves on the acetate are embossed using the copper embossing powder and the finely detailed leaf stamp. Gorgeous, I love it! On the left hand front mat I cut out a copper leaf using the finely detailed leaf thinlet, it's so beautiful, I just want to keep cutting them out and using them on something.....anything! I cut two of the smaller leaves using gold shimmer paper and placed them above and below the center leaf. On the inside mat I stamped the branches and small leaf from the stamp set. A couple of days ago I was experimenting, using watercolor paper and various inks to make a mat I could use to cut out anything 'Autumny'! I was quite pleased with the result, hence the two leaves placed on the branch on the inside mat. So, this is the first card, the front and the inside left and right.

Front

left inside front

right inside front

Now the next card is my absolute favorite, I felt with my first card, the copper embossing wasn't shown off enough as the DSP was kinda 'busy'! So this card, I embossed using gold embossing powder on the acetate and the left front of the card! On the inside I sponged the width of the acetate with Crushed Curry and Peekaboo Peach and then stamped the branches and leaves from the Colorful Seasons stamps. The card base is, again, thick Very Vanilla. To finish it off I used some of the glitter enamel dots in Crushed Curry.

Front

Inside

That's it for me today, as always, if you would like to purchase any of the items I have used or if you have any questions at all, I would be more than happy to help you. The links to my Stampin' Up store and my email are at the top right of this post! You can also leave me a comment, I love to read them, they give me a ton of encouragement to continue doing what I love to do! Thank you all so much, I hope you like these two cards.

Colorful Seasons - Autumn!

It's been a while since I last blogged! As much as I try and blog more often, life happens and my blog doesn't! LOL! I will attempt to blog at least once a week if possible, that doesn't seem to daunting!
Lately, I have been totally obsessed with the Colorful Seasons stamp set. This set was in the annual catalog that came out on June 1st. I made quite a few cards during the summer with the flowers and now that Autumn is here, I have been using the leaves.  I love the colors of fall - the reds, the yellows and different shades of each, I love to sponge and create different combinations for the leaves. My first two cards I tried the 'baby-wipe' technique. Using my re-inkers, I put two drops each of Tranquil Tide, Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, Lemon Lime Twist and Rich Razzleberry on to the baby-wipe. Then you can use this like an ink pad, putting your stamp into various parts to get the different hues to come through. I layered it onto a mat of Lemon Lime Twist, wrapped some 1/4" copper trim around the bottom and glued it to a Tranquil Tide card base. I wasn't really bowled over by this one, I thought it was a little too 'busy', I've never seen leaves with that many hues, but it was a good experience. I went back to the drawing board, so to speak, and this time I used three colors only, Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze and Rich Razzleberry. I stamped the leaves onto a piece of Color Theory DSP in Crushed Curry. It has a marbled effect and it's my favorite in the pack! I matted it onto a piece of Crushed Curry card stock and then onto a Cajun Craze card base. I put some Crushed Curry glitter enamel dots onto the front. I liked this one so much better! Now in addition to stamping with the 'baby-wipe ink', I embossed the leaves as well! These stamps are photopolymer, therefore very easy to see through and place directly on top of your previous stamping. When the leaves had dried from the inking, I re-stamped over them with Versamark and heat embossed using clear embossing powder, this gave a really nice wet look to the leaves, much like you would see after a frost in the autumn. On the second card, I even embossed a second time on the smaller leaves using glitter! I was really happy with how this one turned out. 

I have a couple of other cards that I made today, using the same stamp set and accompanying thinlets, to show you, but I will do that tomorrow as it's now getting late in the day. If you would like to purchase any of the items listed just click on the link at the top right corner of this page. If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them, drop me a line, my email is also at the top right side of this post or leave a comment below. Thank you for taking the time to look, I hope you like my cards!