An April Anniversary…

Hello and Welcome! 

Hope it is beautiful where you are. We can almost see green grass here in lower Michigan. Really looking forward to spring this year. Beat you are too.

Anyway, please, relax for a while and take a look at this new flower die!

The Card:   Our youngest daughter and her husband will be celebrating their 8^th Anniversary in a few days. For this event, Jim and I sort-of put out heads together to create their special event card. (Jim picked out the background teal/green cardstock color.)

The Materials:   

The die:  This is a new one from Susan’s Garden called English Rose. I must honestly admit that I am impressed with the variety of die shapes with this set. Fun to work with.

Foamiran: Whimsy Stamps carries all 19 colors of this fantastic 0.6mm foam. or approximately 0.02” thick. I used both Yellow and Lemon Chiffon for the rose and Dark Green for the leaves.

Accent colors: The rose was accented with Color Box’s Apricot ink while the leaves were accented with Gina K’s Dark Sage.

Chipboard: Wow. To again be honest, I’m not sure where I purchased this beauty. It was made by a company called Laserowe - Love, Passion & Laser Art. It has the etched heart design with roses on a lattice work background.

Papers: From my stash mostly – a pearled teal/green and a rather flat pale yellow.

It has been my pleasure visiting together – please stop by again. We always have the coffee pot on.

For now,

May God Continue to Watch Over You and Yours.

P.S. Extra Ideas for this rose:

In Style…

Thank you for taking time to stop by today. Gee, this week has been a busy crafting week for me. I have to admit that I have really been having fun, especially with this card. It is for a young lady who loves to dressed-up. So, wanting to follow through with that idea, I decided to show a few stylishly dressed ladies…older styles and new.

Wish I could say who designed the two older styled stamps (I have had them for years) but the lady in the middle is from the Stampin’ Up’s the Beautiful You collection.

Using a Memento’s Gray Flannel ink, I stamped the images on Gina K’s Layering White card stock. To create more line emphasis, I heat set Ranger’s Fine Clear embossing powder.  To add the coloration, I used alcohol-based pens from Chameleon Pens: NUOO – Nude, YO3 – Warm Sunset, PK3 – Bubble Gun, and BG1 – Lagoon.  For the dresses, I infused the colors for a 2-3 second count – love how they blended.

I used Elisabeth Crafts’ Dashing Rectangle dies to cut the ladies and several layers of black cardstock. Wanting this project to have a little punch, I selected Elizabeth Crafts Time for Teal Soft Finish cardstock for the card base.

Again, thank you for stopping by today. I need to get back to my craft room as I have some new equipment scheduled to arrive in the next few days and I need to make more workable room.

Till later,

Have a Happy Easter and

May God Bless You and Yours

The Same but Different…

Those of you who know me, know how I love creating dimensional flowers. But I have to be honest with you. In the beginning, I did not think I would ever be able to create anything that looked even close to a flower. I watched and studied the videos and tried to determine what I would need to make it work with just one hand. After searching on line, I ordered a few dies from Susan’s Garden (from Sizzix and Elizabeth Crafts) and Heartfelt Creations. I struggled and tossed out probably my first 2 dozen attempts. I do not like feeling defeated.

This quest for creating was about the same time I discovered the advantages of the alcohol- based Chameleon Pens.  In their August 2016 Newsletter, they featured an article by flower designer, Susan Tierney Cockburn (Susan’s Garden). That article really impressed me beyond anything.  I cannot explain why but it did. My flowers were becoming my passion.

I am still excited to create flowers from quality papers. However, a year ago, I discover the art of 0.6mm foamiran. I fell in love with that little softer and more realistic creation. There are actually times the foamiran feels like a real petal. Like the paper, the foam accepts a variety of coloration mediums. The shaping process is a little different but the assembly is similar. 

For me, I have found that I need the various metal dies to create the petals. I tried to master hand cutting but I will not go there!  I now have a nice collection of name brand dies and unbranded dies. Because of my physical situation, it is easier for me to work with the medium to larger designed dies.

The flowers shown on the two cards in this article, were actually cut with the same larger 4pc die set. I used white and an ivory colored 0.6mm foamiran for each then blended sage on the one’s petals and teal on the other.

If you would like more instruction regarding the process, just leave a message and I’ll send you more detail.

Well, it is almost time for Easter, so I had better get going and creating!

Till later my friend,

May God Bless You and Yours.