fresh & fun

Today’s tutorial is for a simple Luminaria. They can be created lots of different ways, but I thought I start showing an easy one, all out of one piece of cardstock. The images and the background were printed out with the new Flower Soft CD-Rom. It contains some super cute images and helps to make some quick cards and projects.

The ovals were cut with Oval Nestabilities (of course….I seem to not be able to create one project without Spellbinders products. I am truly hooked on those!). Vellum Paper was taped behind the window.

The images were cut out and taped to my box with Scor-Tape and dimensionals. Polar White Flower Soft was added to the trees and ground.

Here is a video for the visual learner:

Our annually Tutorial Holiday Blitz week is going on at SCS right now. I already missed alerting you about the first two wonderful tutorials, a scrapbook wallet tutorial written by Makeesha Byl and a Matchbook Candy holder by Theresa Momber. I am sorry about that. I was crazy busy packing up sold Stampin’ Up! products and shipping them out. Thank you all for helping me make room in my craft room for new stamps from other companies!

Today’s tutorial is written by Libby Hickson and is for a Snowglobe card. She had posted one last winter and I had asked her right there and then if she would write this for us for this year’s Holiday Blitz. How fun to see one of those on the back of the Winter Mini catalog from Stampin’ Up! earlier this year.

My card is pretty simple. The cute little polar bear and the background are from Flower Soft. Flower Soft has some cute new products coming out. Make sure you come back tomorrow to learn more about them. The sentiment is from Verve. I received it as a thank you with an order last fall. Julee is so sweet to always include a little thank you stamp with each order. It was stamped with Tuxedo Black ink on Gina K’s Pure Luxury Cardstock. It was punched out with the large oval punch from Stampin’ Up! and layered on a Black Scallop Oval Punch-out.

The patterned paper is My Mind’s Eye Merry Days of Christmas. I tied 1″ celery Satin ribbon around the snow globe bottom. I can’t help by make more of those adorable snowflakes, Sherry Cheever showed us how to make. I made a smaller version that I sponged with Faded Jeans Distress ink and sprinkled with Shard Vintage Glass Glitter. The button is from Basic Grey and was tied on with waxed linen.

I hope you have time to check out the new tutorials, let the authors know how wonderful their projects are and try them out.

Have a wonderful day! Hugs and smiles

I worked ahead this week and already made this card on Monday as my entry for the Technique Challenge, which was to create a Wiper card.

I haven’t made a square one before, so it was perfect to use the sketch with the challenge. As my main image I chose this cute stamp from JustRite’s Old Fashioned Christmas set. Frosty was stamped in Tuxedo Black Memento Ink on Gina K’s Pure Luxury White cardstock, cut out with Circle Nestabilities and colored with Copic Markers (RV13, RV14, RV17, YG01, YG03, YG05, W1, YR04, YR07) and airbrushed with Copic Marker B000. White Flower Soft was added the to the pompom on the hat.

My card base consists of two 4 1/2″ x 7 1/2″ pieces of Textured Whisper White cardstock scored at 1 1/2″ and 3″. A 3 3/4″ square of Fancy Pants Happy Holidays Patterned paper was sewn to a 4″ Black square. The three smaller patterned paper squares measure 2 5/16″ and are from the same paper pack. They two outer ones were layered on a 2 7/16″ black cardstock square, the one in the middle on a scalloped black square that had been cut with Square Nestabilities.

Melon Mambo dotted ribbon was tied around the big square layers before the smaller square were adhered. A retired felt snowflake from Stampin’ Up! with a My Mind’s Eye Brad in it’s center was added to the top right corner of the main image. Three little pink rhinestones filled the left top corner.

For the sentiment I chose another JustRite stamp from the Merry Little Christmas set. It was stamped in Tuxedo Black Memento ink directly on Fancy Pants patterned paper, punched out with a 1 1/4″ circle punch. It was layered on a 1 3/8″ black circle and adhered to the bottom left of the main image.

My wiper pop up image was a little Santa hat cut out with Spellbinders Holiday Cheer die. It was cut out twice, once out if White cardstock, once out of red/pinkish patterned paper from the Happy Holidays Paper pack. I cut the red center out, sanded it a bit and taped it to the white layer. White Flower Soft was added to the rim and pompom of that hat.

You can find the step by step tutorial for wiper cards on Splitcoast. Here is the video for the visual learner:

Today we actually have three tutorials on Splitcoast. They all show you different ways to use Flower Soft. Rose Ann Reynolds wrote one on Flower Soft on stamped images, I wrote two:

Flower Soft Bouquet

Flower Soft on Chipboard

Check out our Product Focus page on Flower Soft in the Resource section as well. It is a cool, but slightly messy product.

My card base is a 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Basic Black cardstock folded in half,  topped first with a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Whisper White cardstock, then with a 1/4″ smaller piece of Walk in the Park Designer Paper.

The horizontal paper strip is from the same designer paper pack, which can be found in the Occasional Mini catalog from Stampin’ Up!, and measures 2 1/4″ x 3 1/4″. It has a strip of Whisper White cardstock underneath that had been punched with the Eyelet Border Punch. The top edge was paper pierced and all edges were distressed with a sanding block. The gorgeous red ribbon is from May Arts and was tied around the designer paper.

The sentiment and image stamps are from Our Craft Lounge’s Growing Gratitude set. It’s perfect for adding Flower Soft Bouquets in either the watering can image or even the flower pot.  I used Copic Markers to color the image. BV20 and BV23 for the watering can, YG03 and YG05 for the leaves and B00 to airbrush the background.

On the inside I added a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Whisper White cardstock. It was layered with a 1 1/4″ x 5 1/4″ strip of Walk in the Park Designer paper that had been slightly sanded. Between both layers is a strip of Basic Black cardstock that had been punched with the Eyelet Border punch.

The image on the small oval is also from the Growing Gratitude set. It was stamped with Tuxedo Black Memento ink and colored with Copics (R10, R11, YG03, YG05). The edges of the oval were paper pierced and Stardust Stickles was added to the flower heads.

Have a wonderful day! When you read this, we are already on our way to Germany. We arrive their in the early morning (1:40 a.m. Florida time, 7:40 a.m. German time). Let’s just say the next two days will be long and blurred together! Wish us no rain!!! That’s what the forcast calls for there.

Hugs and smiles 

I love how different Jenn’s sketch is.

Make sure to participate this weekend and post your link on Jenn’s blog.

She is giving away a Splitcoast mug of your choice!

I started with stamping my little duck from the Occasional Mini catalog Wagon Full of Fun in Tuxedo Memento ink on Neenah cardstock. I colored the bill and feet with copics and outlined the duck with W1 Copic and air brushed the sky with Copic B00.

Sunshine Flower Soft was added over the body of the duck with glue. I stamped the duck twice more, one more time on white cardstock and one time on Delicate Dots Designer Paper. I cut out the wing of the white cardstock duck, popped it up with a dimensional and added Sunshine Flower Soft over the wing as well. I cut out the bow around the ducky’s neck from the designer paper and added it to the main image with dimensionals. I added Shamrock Green Flower Soft under the ducky’s feet.

The image was layered on a basic black scallop rectangle that had been cut with Nestabilities. The edges top and side edges of the image layer were paper pierced.

The card base is a 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Basic Black cardstock folded in half. It was layered with a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Delicate Dots Designer Paper. The Designer Paper was sanded and paper pierced.

I cut one Top Note Die cut out of Basic Black cardstock, one out of retired Haiku designer paper. The Haiku paper was cut down a bit, layered on the black cut out and paper pierced around the top edges. It was taped to the center of the green designer paper with a 1 3/8″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Delicate Dots Designer Paper added over the bottom. Celery 5/8″ Grosgrain ribbon was tied around the bottom.

The sentiment is from Many Happy Returns. It was stamped in black on Whisper White cardstock, punched out with the Curly label punch and adhered to the top left of the image. The image was secured to the card base with dimensionals. I added two flowers from the Pretties kit, one with a Pumpkin Corduroy Button, one with a Flower brad in it’s center. The last flower is from Flower Fusion and has a half Pearl from the Pretties kit to top it  off.

The inside is kept pretty simple.

I started with a sanded piece of the Delicate Dots Designer Paper. It was followed by a White Top Note Die cut that had been layered first with a 1 1/4″ strip of Basic Black, then a  1 1/8″ strip of Delicate Dots DP.

To finish it off I added a felt flower from Flower Fusion with a 5/16″ Jumbo Brad in its center.

Make sure to check

Cambria Turnbow

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer

Mary Jo Albright

Lori Craig and

Sharon Harnist’s blogs for more samples.

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles