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BEES, HIVES & BLESSINGS OF HOME

Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday I attended the Stampin’ Up!® OnStage Online event with some of my demonstrator friends. We were able to see some of the products that are featured in the 2022 January – June Mini Catalogue and we were able to make some projects using some of them.

For a few short days during and after the event, attendees were able to pre-order a limited range of some of these new products. It is always a treat to have new products to ‘play’ with.

Today I have a card that I have made using some of the products from the Heart & Home Suite Collection. I was able to order the Blessings of Home Bundle, Heart & Home 12″x 12″ Designer Series Paper, Classic Matte Dots and 3/8″ Denim Ribbon for the Online event. Then I added the Honeybee Blooms Dies and Hive 3D Embossing Folder to my pre-order and they arrived just in time this card.

The bee and floral design from the Designer Series Paper collection was the starting point for this card. The two dominant colours in this DSP are Cinnamon Cider and Pale Papaya.I decided to make a Cinnamon Cider frame, using two of the Stitched Rectangle Dies, to surround the DSP. The frame was embossed with the Hives 3D Embossing Folder. The texture created by this embossing folder is so distinct.

Before attaching the DSP to the frame, I took a short length of Diamond Weave Ribbon and tied a loose knot around the lower right hand side.

The framed DSP was then attached to the Pale Papaya card base, using Stampin’ Dimensionals, and positioned on an angle.

I used one of the stamps, from the Blessings of Home Stamp Set, and masked off the top part of the sentiment so that only ‘together’ was stamped. This was stamped in Cinnamon Cider on Pale Papaya cardstock.

The sentiment was then cut using the smallest of the angled Tailor Made Tags Dies. I cut two more of these dies, one in each colour. Then they were embossed with the same Hives 3D Embossing Folder. With a small piece of Adhesive Sheet on the back of a scrap of Cinnamon Cider cardstock, I cut one of the reinforcement shapes.

The three Tailor Made Tags were overlapped and adhered together. For this card they were only slightly splayed. For the card I made during my Facebook Live today, I splayed them further apart to show the embossed texture more clearly.

A length of the Diamond Weave Ribbon was cut in half lengthways, folded in half and threaded through the eyelet and the ends looped through. This cut ribbon has a great frayed texture. The three overlapping tags were then added to the card front with Stampin’ Dimensionals.

The Honebee Blooms Dies includes a super cute bee die. I used this to cut one of the bees from the DSP. A Stampin’ Dimensional was placed behind the bee and attached to the card front.

The card insert has a 1/2″ strip of the DSP and I also adhered DSP to the back flap of the envelope. The card front also has some of the new Classic Matte Dots added. These dots are white, vanilla, gray and black. Each colour comes in two sizes.

Although the Pale Papaya card base is a light colour I always prefer to add a piece of Basic White or Very Vanilla cardstock as an insert. I think it gives my cards a quality finish.

This is a close up image of my Facebook Live card. You can really see the detailed texture from the Hives 3D Embossing Folder in this image. You can also see the difference when the tags are spread further apart … and the ‘texture’ of the Designer Series Paper background.

The card insert and envelope, for my second card, were stamped with one of the floral images from the Blessings of Home Stamp Set.

In this product image you can see the Hives 3D Embossing Folder and Honeyee Blooms Dies that I was able to pre-order and use for this project. I’m not sure why I forgot to add the stamp set to this product image.

I am using a new ring light for my photography and am still working through some teething issues. Hopefully, I can figure out how to lose the reflection of the rong light from shiny surfaces.

For this card there is no white in sight, but I still think that it looks pretty good! What do you think?

Until next time, happy stamping.

If you live in Australia, you can order any of the products I used to make this card by going to my online store. Just click on any of the images below.

Because some of the products I have used to make this card are not yet available to customers, I am not able to show them at this time. As soon as product images go live, I will create this section.

Product List
Paper Snips
[103579]
$17.00
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I MISSED MONDAY BUT I AM BACK TODAY

You know how life sometimes gets in the way? Well, that was my day yesterday. Nothing bad happened, it’s just that things took longer than anticipated.

The project I have for you today also took longer to make than I thought it would but I am very pleased with the end result.

The card is for this week’s Global Design Challenge #GDP318 which is a sketch challenge. If you click on the image below, it will take you over the the GDP page and you can see what the Design Team created and this week’s entries.

I decided to use the Blessings of Home Stamp Set, coordinating Flowers of Home Dies and Heart & Home Designer Series Paper. These were available to domenstrators to order for our recent OnStage @ Home event.

Just before I started taking photos of my card, my new ring light was delivered. So please be patient while I master using it to get a great light and reduce shadows.

I chose Fresh Freesia for my card base because I knew that I wanted to use the alcohol ink and rubbing alcohol technique on some white vellum. The Fresh Freesia looks softly muted through the vellum.

I used my Dard Smoky Slate Stampin’ Blend to completely colour the vellum layer. Then I spritzed and dropped rubbing alcohol on the alcohol ink. This is the best sample of this technique I have made so far.

The Stampin’ Seal+ is perfect to attach vellum to the card base. I only used small amounts of the adhesive, positioned around the edges and in the centre, to hold it in place. The great thing is, you cannot see the adhesive.

I cut a piece of DSP and layered it, at an angle, on a piece of Basic Gray cardstock. This was then placed on the front of the card using Stampin’ Dimensionals.

I need to work on this lighting!

While I was using the alcohol ink and rubbing alcohol, I made two extra pieces of vellum and coloured one in Dark Fresh Freesia and another in Dark Smoky Slate. I cut several flower and leaf stems from this vellum using one of the dies from the Flowers of Home Dies. They were overlaid onto each other using Mini Glue Dots to hold them together, as a floral bouquet.

Lengths of Fresh Freesia Open Weave Ribbon were cut in half lengthways and looped around to create the ribbon decoration. The floral bouquet was then placed in the centre of the loops.

The sentiment was stamped in Basic Gray ink. I used my Stamparatus to do this because I wanted to stamp the sentiment a second time, using Versamark, so that I could heat emboss some Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder. This gives it a fabulous sheen. I trimmed the sentiment back so that only the ‘thank you’ remained.

I added a strip of the coloured vellum to the card insert and envelope.

The finishing touch was to add some of the Fresh Freesia In Colour Jewels to the front of the card.

I am very happy with this card and I think that it is a great card for the sketch challenge. What do you think? Do you like it?

Until next time, happy stamping.

If you live in Australia, you can order any of the products I used to make this card by going to my online store. Just click on any of the images below.

Because some of the products I have used to make this card are not yet available to customers, I am not able to show them at this time. As soon as product images go live, I will create this section.

Product List
Heat Tool
[129056]
$50.00
Paper Snips
[103579]
$17.00
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ANOTHER GLOBAL DESIGN PROJECT COLOUR CHALLENGE

This week’s challenge is #GPD317 and it is a colour challenge. Of all the GDP challenge categories, the colour challenge is definitely my favourite.

I love this colour combination! What do you think?

For my card, I decided to use the new Blessings of Home Stamp Set. This stamp set, with coordinating dies and Designer Series Paper was an early release bundle demonstrators were able to purchase for our 2021 OnStage @ Home event that was held from 11 – 13 November.

I decided to use a Misty Moonlight card base with a Basic White layer. Before securing the white layer, I wrapped a length of Mint Macaron Soft Velvet Ribbon and used Tear & Tape to fix it into place.

Then I cut a piece each of Blushing Bride and Misty Moonlight using one of the Tasteful Labels Dies. These two die cut pieces were then given some texture using the Bark 3D Embossing Folder. Then I added Stampin’ Dimensionals behind each embossed shape and positioned evenly above and below the ribbon.

I am so pleased with the way the embossed card and velvet ribbon combine to provide different textures to the card.

The floral image was stamped using Jet Black StazOn (not the Memento I mistakenly used in my product photo). Then I used my Water Painter to colour it. I decided to fussy cut, rather than die cut, the flower before popping it up onto a die cut piece of Mint Macaron card. This piece was then positioned over the other two embossed pieces.

The sentiment, from the Blessings of Home Stamp Set, was stamped in Mint Macaron and cut using the same Tasteful Labels Dies. Each end of the ‘Thank You’ label was trimmed and then positioned where you can see it.

When the water coloured image was dry, I painted Clear Wink of Stella across the flowers to add some shimmer.

I partially stamped the same floral image on the card insert and the envelope – there’s no surprise there. If you have seen any of my posts before, you will know that I never leave the inside of a card or an envelope undecorated.

I almost always add some embellishments to the front of my cards as my final step. This time I coloured some Clear Epoxy Essentials with the Dark Mint Macaron Stampin’ Blend.

During the OnStage @ Home event, we used the large floral image and I am looking forward to making more projects with this gorgeous set.

I’m so pleased with this card – lots of white space, layering and overlapping elements and such a great colour combination to use.

What do you think?

Until next time, happy stamping.

If you live in Australia, you can order any of the products I used to make this card by going to my online store. Just click on any of the images below.

Product List
Paper Snips
[103579]
$17.00