Blossom Workshop

The Blossom Workshop on the Go comes with all the materials to make 15 cards.

It includes 15 card bases and envelopes, Blossom B&T papers, an exclusive stamp set, Glacier, Pear and Lagoon solid papers, thick Lagoon twine,  and a set of Caribbean sequins. Of course I had scraps left over and wanted to use them all. That's just my personal challenge. If I've gone to all the trouble to gather coordinating papers and embellishments,  why not use them while they are out?

Card 2 uses the adorable popsicle stamps. One is stamped in Pear and the other in Smoothie. I tried embossing the Smoothie popsicle as you see in the picture, however it didn't come out quite like I wanted. I stamped it then very quickly added Clear CTMH embossing powder. Hey - sometimes it works! But it was a bit uneven, so the other 4 cards do not have embossed popsicles. (I did place an order for the mini pigment inks just because of this failure). Many times I would like to make the ink color stand out instead of an embossing powder. You can do that with a pigment ink and clear embossing powder, but the dye inks just dry too quickly to emboss well. To ensure even placement of the sentiment, I laid the cut strip and the layered embossed stamping on the patterned paper, then stamped the sentiments using Versamark ink. I removed the layers and heat embossed in Black. This subtle blue pattern is the back of the flowery Blossom paper. From there I started assembly. The strip of Lagoon has a small strip of Blossom floral on top with the Lagoon twine on the side. I used 2-way glue to attach the twine and simply snipped the ends at the edge of the paper. I attached the popsicles layered with Pear and then a few Caribbean sequins to finish the card.

The individual cards were fun because the entire set of cards uses every single stamp in the included stamp set. I liked the cards themselves this time but I also changed up the designs on each one just a little bit and made them my own. I followed the cutting guide and started assembly. 

For the first card, I dry embossed the craft layer with the leaf embossing folder to add texture. The main image is leaves stamped in Pear and the flowers stamped with Smoothie. The little circle and flowers centers are added in black. That image is layered on Pear. The main items I changed on this card were the dry embossing and adding the tab for the sentiment. I didn't like where it was positioned on the example, so I selected some Flaxen paper,  cut the tab with my Cricut, and added the sentiment in Black. The rainbow stripe is one of the "zip strips" on the Blossom paper. I love the colors in this strip! I found myself hoarding it! I only used just enough under the main image layer to reach each side of the card. (It doesn't extend under the image layer). That came in handy so I could use more in my extra cards! I added twine and sequins to complete the card. 

I changed the third card too. I dry-embossed the white layer with the CTMH Dots embossing folder and added glitter glue to the candle flames for a pop of bling. The main image was stamped in steps. It was a little difficult to get the tiny dotted line stamp to line up straight on my acrylic block. The trick I've found is that it's easiest if you attach one end of a wiggly stamp and let it drop on its own and it will want to lay in its original shape. If you don't push them they won't come out crooked. The stamp is made in a certain shape so the acrylic will want to "find" it's original shape. By holding one end and allowing it to fall as it was made, it will be straighter on the block. You can always hold the block in a position to stamp a straight line, but the stamp itself needs to be straight. Once I had the 2 stamped lines on the paper it was easy to add the words in Black and Smoothie and stars in Honey so that they filled the space nicely. I layered the images in kraft and started the strips. The bottom 2 strips are both sides of Blossom. The top 2 are made from White Daisy and the included washi tape stamps in Pear and Smoothie.  The strips don't extend all the way under the main image - they are just small pieces of white with torn edges.  Because there were five cards I made all the little strips, tore the edges, then stamped them all at the same time and had them ready for assembly. I learned that stamping across the torn edge produced a realistic washi tape-type piece. Fun! For final assembly, I added some Caribbean sequins and a Lagoon twine bow. On this card, I glued the bow to match the guide, but it looked too contrived for me, so I just let the other bows fall naturally.

After having fun making 15 cards with this WOTG,  I had a lot of scraps!!! This is when my creativity really kicked in! I started using the Blossom Complements as part of the next set of cards. I loved them on my journaling box (see prior post) and wanted to use more of them. 

My first extra card was a bit forced. I tried weaving some of the excess strips, inspired by Pinterest.  I cut a small label using the Artiste cartridge and used my Operation Smile stamps from the Seasonal Expressions 1 catalog to add "SO fabulous", and inked the edges in Lagoon. "You Are" is stamped in Pear on a Pear scrap. The flowers and leaves from Shower Flowers  match Blossom perfectly. I stamped a few in various colors and fussy-cut them. Fussy cutting the leaves was time-consuming, so I also cut a few sets of leaves in Pear from Artiste to add around the flowers on my next cards.

Timberline Scrapping

In January, I attended a week-end crop and managed to make several pages for my personal scrapbook of our property in the country.

I used the retired Timberline papers and embellishments.  It doesn't seem fair to show them off when they're not available anymore. I do more cardmaking than I do scrapbooking. But I also want to showcase the versatility of the CTMH papers and MyStickease elements, no matter the paper pattern.

I added further texture and interest with die cuts using the Artbooking cartridge.

Baby Shower Samples

Little Boy Baby Shower Invitations!

This past couple of weeks I designed and created baby shower invitations with one of my friends for her daughter-in-law's baby shower. Everyone shares their adorable projects, but this time, I'd like to share with you a little bit of my process of developing a card. Despite how easy it looks, there is often quite a bit of playing with products to develop a final pleasing design. I told my friends if its not "OMG that's cute!" then I'm not happy with it.

The thinking...

• they are expecting a boy, so I was thinking trucks and cars.
• for 40 cards, having enough paper is important. I had a pack of Outdoor Denim and Pear cardstock, and a lot of the  Later Sk8r B&T paper. I decided that the Later Sk8r design is too old-ish for a newborn, so I combined it with Die Cuts with a View (DCWV) papers in the Baby Boy Stack. 
• I checked with the mom-to-be and she wanted the colors to be Navy and almost Lime Green and she was thinking cars and trucks. So we started out on the same wavelength. 
• perusing Pinterest for a couple of designs helped in my design concepts

First Sample

I had such a great time using the Later Sk8r papers and stamps last year that I thought I would start with die-cut gears using the Artiste Cricut cartridge. My first attempt used Outdoor Denim for the card enclosure and Later Sk8r paper as a pullout with a gear on top (Artiste).

I cut the Baby Boy lettering using Plantin Schoolbook, using patterned paper and backed it with White Daisy cardstock. I heat embossed a farm truck from the Fast and Furious stamp set and fussycut it.  And I used a gear cut using the Artiste cartridge.

Because I was just playing with examples, I wasn't putting the elements down especially carefully, but even if they were perfect, turns out that I didn't care for the results at all. The pullout card was not wide enough for the enclosure and if I made it any wider, it would be too tall to fit in a standard envelope. 

For my second attempt, I stamped and heat embossed the farm truck. You can see that I lightly stamped the Fast and Furious tire track under the ribbon. I used a non-CTMH sentiment,  which I am embossed with white embossing powder.  

The gears were cut from Outdoor Denim and Later Sk8r on my Cricut with the Artiste cartridge.

Again, I was not satisfied with the result.

On my third attempt, I tried to isolate another Fast and Furious truck and the tire tread in a frame by stamping on White Daisy, which I layered on Outdoor Denim. 

I cut an arrow from the Artbooking Cricut cartridge and used a steel tread dry-embossing folder on Pear backed on Outdoor Denim.  Even with the cute little gears again, I still did not like this card.  It was a "No go!"

Why was this so difficult? I needed some mojo!

Design #4 - I layered the background with the same DCWV paper. I tried stacking the cars and trucks. 

They looked pretty good with heat-embossing, but the left side of the card didn't work out. I didn't have any stamps that would fit, and the shower invitation wording was on the inside.

Try #5 - I did like the steelplate tread look. So I tried it vertically. 

I made a little tag using the Artiste Cartridge and the gear tag. The sentiment was stamped with Outdoor Denim ink and heat-embossed with detailed Clear embossing powder.

I stamped the truck and then fussy-cut it and laid it on top of large gear in Later Sk8r B&T.

Better, but still not great...maybe too frilly for a boy card.

6th Attempt

Moving along - at last I was starting to get into it. I mixed 2 of the papers from the Baby Boy Stack, and used large white ric-rack where the edges met. A large gear cut from Outdoor Denim using Artiste made a good layer.  The truck was heat-embossed on White Daisy and fussy cut.  I used Versamark ink and a non-CTMH powder.

The 7th attempt was closest....it uses a lot of the same elements, layered on Outdoor Denim, and the Boy stack paper, along with the steeltread. I finally got the tire tread in there. But I didn't like the truck embossed in that color of blue, and it didn't go well with the lime green on the bottom.

 

Thanks for looking at my "failures".  I hope it helps in understanding that an adorable card doesn't happen the first time.  For me, the development of the design is half the fun.  The non-perfect examples were part of getting to a really cute invitation design, and we made 40+ invitations shortly after.

THE NEXT POST WILL REVEAL THE FINAL DESIGN!

 

New Year of Papercrafts

Artbooking Beauty

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season with family as well as having time for some fun papercrafting.

Papercrafting fills my need for creativity.  What I love most about papercrafting is giving homemade items to my friends and family -- whether it's a homemade tag on a gift, a greeting card with my special touch, or a book of scrapbooking pages made specially for a loved one.

My BIG Christmas present this year was a Cricut Expression 2. Now I can die cut my heart out...and use my exclusive CTMH Cricut Cartridges to their full extent for projects like the mini-book shown. The sweet hugs mini-book uses the newest cartridge, Artbooking. I have yet to explore the vast possibilities in the 700+ images available.

Thank you for letting me share my love of stamping with you through Close to My Heart projects this past year, and I hope you will share your projects with me here or on my Facebook page.

Happy crafting in this new year!
-- Dawn