Craftwell Joins Forces with Teresa Collins!

 

Craftwell and Teresa Collins have just announced that they are working together to create some new and exciting Teresa Collins designs to work with Craftwell products like the eBosser!

Read the whole announcement HERE!

Circles, Circles, and More Circles

Last week, I used the chandelier stamp from the Love Letters stamp set by Crafter’s Companion in a way that is unlike it’s original intent.  I had so much fun creating in that “out of the box” way, that I decided to challenge myself to use that exact same stamp again and in another way.  As I was looking at my Crafter’s Companion supplies, I was inspired by their Die’sire Embossing Folder called Grande Dots.  The large dots on the embossing folder, made me want to create a card with a circle theme.  So, I started with the focal point.  I decided to stamp the chandeliers in a circle.  To make it even more interesting, I decided to color directly on the stamps with my Distress Markers and stamped them around in a circle.

For the bottom layer, I stamped around a cardstock circle with the “stem” of the chandelier facing outward and for the top layer, I stamped where the stems connected in the middle.  I colored the stamp using one color palette for two impressions and then changed up the color palette.  I stamped all of this onto Specialty Stamping Paper and then after dried all the stamped images with my heat tool and then applied some Pumice Stone ink on top and flicked a little water to get those lighter spots.  After I was done with these, I cut them out with different sizes of circle dies in my trusty eBosser.  A little foam adhesive and some more circles made the perfect centerpiece for my sentiment from the Party with Bamboo stamp set also by Crafter’s Companion.

I of course had to use the Die’sire Embossing folder that inspired the circles, so I grabbed a piece of Core’dinations cardstock in purple.  Decided on purple since it was the only color of the rainbow that I did not use in my stamping.  Running these embossing folders through the eBosser is so easy.  They are 8” square which means you can run the embossing folder in either direction in the eBosser! Love that!  After embossing, I decided to highlight the embossing by sanding it which is one of the advantages to the Core’dinations cardstock.  It really brings out the embossing and completes the distressed look.

Crafty Fun with Crafter’s Companion

Can you believe that it is May already?  Since it is May, that means that we have a new sponsor that we are highlighting this month and this month we have….Crafter’s Companion!  For my card today, I used their Love Letters stamp set and one of their brand new Die’sire Embossing Folder. 

 

I have to tell you that on the day that I sat down to do this card, nothing seems to be speaking to me.  So, when that happens, I push myself to think outside the box and to look at alternative things that I can do with the supplies on hand.

To get started, I grabbed a piece of watercolor paper and started spritizing it with all sorts of spray inks in shades of yellow, orange, and green.  Once that was all dry, I tapped the paper in some of the pooled ink that was sitting on my non stick craft sheet and dried those too to get a splotchy effect.  Then I started stamping.

Do you see this stamping that I did….well that was with a chandelier stamp from the Love Letters stamp set.  I did some generational stamping by inking once for every 3 times that I stamped and created these kind of crazy borders that make me think of the ikat trend happening right now.

 

After stamping both of the border, I took my Regal Damask embossing folder and inked it up with some Olive ink and ran it through my eBosser.  The achieved look is very subtle, but really adds some dimension at the same time.

 

Since this background that I created was so unique, I did not want to put a lot of top of it, so I added a small label die and added the sentiment from the Love Letters stamp set with a few black rhinestones and I was done.

 

Even though this card did not come easy for me, I have to say that I love it and can definitely see myself making this again switching up the colors and having so much fun doing it!

Craftwell’s Cake Inspired Challenge

 

This month, Craftwell asked the Design Team to create a card inspired by a cake.  So I took to Pinterest to pick my cake!

I picked this cake because of the ombre effect.  This is definitely a new trend and I love it, so I had to duplicate it.

To create the ombre on my card, I started with a piece of watercolor paper and my Distress Ink re-inker in Picked Raspberry.  I started at the top with a water brush and worked my way down to get the bright pink at the top all the way down to the pink washed out at the bottom.  I then decided to use a similar effect on the flowers that were cut from book print using the Tim Holtz Tattered Flowers die.  I got a good amount of re-inker on my water brush and I started to with the bottom layer.  Without re dipping my water brush I worked my way all the way to the top layer.  I stamped the sentiment onto the watercolored panel and then embossed it with a Sizzix embossing folder.  I really like the contrast between the subtle modern texture on the panel versus the more vintage look of the flower.

Love that this challenge just goes to show you that inspiration can be found anywhere!

Revisiting an Older Stamp Set

 

I have several stamp sets, and one of the things that I have been doing lately is re-visiting the ones that I already own.  I especially like to play with the ones that had coordinating dies.  Just love this look and using the dies in the eBosser is just so easy, that I can’t help but want to cut things with my dies.

 

This stamp set is from Papertrey Ink and is called Button Boutique.   They made the card die and also button dies to go with the stamps.  I cut out the card from a light green cardstock and also from an olive green cardstock.  I then cut the buttons from a thin piece of chipboard to give them plenty of dimension when sitting on the card.  The largest button I also die cut from a piece of the dark orange cardstock and stamped with PTI’s Background Basics Medallion and then layered it on top of the chipboard button.  The smaller two buttons, I stamped directly onto the white chipboard. 

 

On the light green card, I purposely poorly inked up my stamp so that I could get a distressed look to the button card.  After that I had to figure out what to do for a background.  I decided to go to my old books and pulled out a page.  I cut it down to size and then used a PTI Edger die along the bottom edge.  Then I used a die that I haven’t used in a long time along the top which is the PTI Banner Borders die.  I mounted all of this to a piece of cream cardstock and then instantly wished that I picked a different color…oh well sometimes that is just how it happens.  The sentiment is also from the Button Boutique stamp set.

 

I just love how the eBosser can cut a piece of chipboard and then turn around and also cut the border die that is embossed with the polka dots without changing up the sandwich.  Amazing! 

Getting Ready Early!

 

I recently went through a bunch of my pictures and realized that I had one card that I had created for the Craftwell booth at CHA in January that I had never posted.  Fortunately it is a Father’s Day card so that means that since we are all starting to look forward to Summer time, it is perfect for me to post now.

The first step with this card was to stamp my background onto the Craftwell embossing folder (it is called Perseverance) and then quickly embossed it.  This allowed me to stamp only the debossed sections while leaving the embossed section plain.  This folder is one of those that is great to create that vintage look and you can definitely use it to emboss smaller sheets of paper and pick out which section works best for your project. After my stamping and embossing, I started to get messy and play.  I used a paint dabber and roughly smeared paint in some sections.  I did not go heavy handed with it so that the stamped areas would show through.  The created a whole different effect because once I started applying Distress inks with my ink blending tool, the paint resisted the ink.  Definitely a cool messy look.

Once I was happy with the background, I cut out the Hanging Sign and Hardware with the Tim Holtz die using Grunge paper.  I used the Rusted Metal technique on the hardware and applied Distress Inks to the sign.  The sentiment was created with my Dymo label maker.

This is one of those cards that I had a lot of fun creating and just getting messy.  What I love about doing this, is you never know what you are going to end up with!  Have a great day everyone!

Spring No Sew Scarf

 

Spring is upon us and that means it is time to brighten up everything!  That includes our clothes and accessories and that is what I did today.

This scarf is a no sew scarf that I made from a t-shirt that I had that had a stain on it.  The stain was in the part of the shirt that was not used, so it was an easy decision to get out my scissors and start cutting.  If you want instructions on making the basic scarf, this is the tutorial that I used.  In this tutorial, you see there is a part of the scarf that needs to be bound up with a piece of the hem that was cut off of the shirt.  It is on that part that I attached some felt that was cut out with my eBosser and some fabulous thin metal dies.  I used felt in shades of green and blue and I started with a pale blue and cut out a scalloped circle with a Sizzix Framelets die.  Then I cut out a green and blue felt from two different flower dies from the Beautiful Blooms die collection from Papertrey Ink.  The really fun flower on the very top of the flower is cut from a yellow green felt using My Favorite Things Loopy Bloom die.  All of the felt that I used was 100% wool felt and cut very nicely with these thin dies. 

 

Happy Spring everyone!