Random Stamp Set Challenge

This week I sat down to do my card and no ideas were coming to me.  I needed an idea and quick!  So, I went to my stamps and without looking at them, I randomly pulled out a stamp set.  I grabbed Papertrey Ink’s Signature Series: Butterfly.  OK, I can work with this…the creativity started to pour through me.  I quickly picked out a yellow, orange, and pink (summer colors of course!) color scheme and got to work. Ten minutes later, I had this. 

I randomly stamped the main butterfly image in my three colors onto a piece of cream cardstock and then did some die cuts. The banner die and the small doily are from Papertrey Ink, the flourish die is from My Favorite Things and the label that I stamped my sentiment on is from Tim Holtz. I love layering die cuts to create a focal point.  To finish it off, I stuck in some colored pins.  Looking at it now, I think I would add in some ribbon loops…hate it when I think of a great idea after the card is done…ugh!  But at least I have a lovely card that can be used in a jiff when I need it!

 

Hope you all are enjoying your summer and getting in some crafty time!

Cake Challenge #3–The Reveal!

 

Well today is the day!  We finally get to see the end results of our cake challenge using our eBossers by Craftwell and Photo Frost Sheets.  Before we do that though, I wanted to share with you something else that my “cake” friend Jennifer Carreno and I did…

We did some rolling!  The Photo Frost sheets are delicate when they are fresh out of the packaging, so we had to take some care with it.  Here you can see Jennifer using the end of a beater to help her roll the Photo Frost.  We also discovered that rolling it as it was coming out of the die, seems to work best with these flowers.

We were so glad that these flowers rolled as well as they did because our entire focal point needed to be rolled.  Have you guessed what it is yet?

Well if you guessed jewelry….you’re right!

Jennifer in addition to be a cake master is also a Premier Designs representative so the idea of combining her two loves into one was just something we had to do.  It also helped that I had the Beautiful Beads die from Papertrey Ink to cut the beads with.

Do you see that little white cup with the small paint brush sticking out of it.  That is the vanilla extract that I told you about last week and we used that to make sure that the ends of the beads stuck well.  In other words, it was our glue for this project.

 

And here it is…the entire cake all done!

 

One more tip for you…you may have noticed in my previous posts that the black fondant appeared to have a white powdery substance on it….that was powdered sugar!  In the picture above you will see that the black fondant is now gorgeous and shiny.  Jennifer did that with a steamer.  That is yet another thing I would not have thought of.

 

I want to once again thank Jennifer for helping me with this project.  I learned so much!  In fact, if we had to do this again, I think I could manage it on my own.  The Photo Frost is easy to work with and you know that I love working with my eBosser, so that is easy peasy.  Jennifer also loved working with the Photo Frost and the eBosser!  She is already thinking of ways of using both in her cakes.  Thanks again Jennifer!

Special eBosser Offer & a Blog Hop!

Welcome to a very special blog hop!  Today and today only Craftwell is offering a special on the eBosser!  To order and take advantage of these savings, click HERE or on the picture in my sidebar.

If you have come here from MountainsideBride.com you are in the right place!  If you have stumbled upon the blog hop, be sure to start at the beginning at SewCalGal. 

Now, on to some inspiration!  For my project, I decided to do a little experimenting.  To start with I grabbed one of my Craftwell embossing folders and spritzed the inside with some spray inks in yellow, blue and purple.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect and there was no rhyme or reason to why I selected these colors, but from here I added a piece of watercolor paper that was lightly spritzed with some water.

Now, I have to tell you after seeing how the ink spread after I closed the folder made me a little nervous.  Did I really dare to put this into my eBosser?  I had doubts, but I am a crafting rebel and decided to go for it.  Here is what the folder looked like after running it through my eBosser.

To make sure that none of the ink got into my eBosser, I took a paper towel and stuck it in the eBosser opening and wiped all four sides down and did not come up with any ink.  The platforms seem to protect the eBosser.  Even though things went great, I think next time I may put a paper towel in the eBosser behind the paper to help sop up the leftover ink.

Above is the paper once it was removed.  As you can see there are some dark areas along the edges where it soaked up more ink.  This can be avoided by working faster than I did.  In my case, I had purposely used a piece of paper that was larger than what I needed so I was able to trim these areas off.  In general I usually do this with these spray inks just so that I can pick the area that I find the most interesting.

From here it was just a matter of finishing off the card so that the embossed inked background was the highlight of my card.  I added a strip of Papertrey Ink’s Limeade Ice cardstock stamped in their Polka Dot Basics with the matching ink.  For my sentiment, I used the Limeade Ice with their Tagged Sentiments stamp set on a white cardstock circle and backed it with a My Favorite Things Fancy Flourish die in Hibiscus Burst and then Papertrey Ink’s Ad Sense die in Smokey Shadow which was also was used to create the 5”x7” card base.

You have got to love the detailed embossing that the eBosser can get and this technique really shows it off.  Don’t run off now, because you still have plenty to see on the blog hop and your next stop is LlamaTales!  If you are lost, be sure to check out the full listing below.

If you don’t have an eBosser already….don’t miss this deal!  This is one of those crafting gems that come along and are “Must Haves”, so ORDER one today!

Be sure to check out the other wonderful sources of eBosser inspiration on the blog hop!
SewCalGal.blogspot.com  <—START HERE
MountainsideBride.com
PurplePaperParadise.blogspot.com <—YOU ARE HERE
LlamaTales.blogspot.com <—GO HERE NEXT
LawnFawn.blogspot.com
Jazmin-Rose.blogspot.com
blog.CraftwellUSA.com

Cake Challenge #2

 

Welcome back to my month long series on cake decorating using the eBosser from Craftwell & Photo Frost frosting sheets.  If you remember, my friend Jennifer Carreno who can make cake into works of art is helping me because when it comes to cake decorating, I am a complete mess….no really I mean it…disastrous.  So when we left you last week, I showed you this cake which Jennifer brought over for us to decorate.

So from here, we started to experiment with cutting and embossing the Photo Frost sheets.  We decided to start with cutting.  I decided to try to cut without adding any kind of vegetable oil or anything and see what happens…well it cuts like butter!  Getting the Photo Frost out of the die can be a bit of challenge, but once you get a small section up, it comes out easily.  A small pin or pick can help if you are having trouble.

We also decided to go ahead and try out embossing…take a look at how amazing this emobssing looks.  Jennifer was so excited to be able to add a little dimension this way!

From here, Jennifer put me to work cutting and embossing.  For example, on the cake we have some flower accents.  We decided to emboss some of the layers and leave some of the others flat. 

Jennifer used some frosting under the petals to get them to stand a little.  The above picture shows that in the top flower.  She also added a dot to the center of the flowers.  I am guessing by now, you have noticed something else in this picture….can you guess what it is?  No?  Well be sure to stop back next week…

 

Jennifer was ECSTATIC to cut out letters!  I guess that letters in the cake decorating field is tricky and a lot of people free hand them.  Jennifer had just the solution to “adhere” the letters onto the fondant…vanilla extract.  I never would have thought of that!  Here is a little peek of the letters that we cut out…

How amazing is that? 

 

Still not convinced that you can do this…well come back next week and you will see what Jennifer and I did.  If I can do this, you can do this!

Cake Challenge #1

Confession Time…this month’s challenge scared me to death!  Craftwell challenged us this month to use our eBosser along with Photo Frost sheets (this month’s sponsor) and create a cake.  Me….create a cake?  Now, I am not saying that I cannot bake a cake, because I can.  I can put frosting on a cake, but as far as decorating a cake…  Let’s just say that I have never decorated a cake that didn’t look like my kids did it.

 

So when I found out about this challenge, I asked Craftwell if it would be OK for me to bring in a cake goddess to help me with this, and I breathed a great sigh of relief when they said yes.  So to get this month long series started, I would like to introduce you to Jennifer Carreno!

Jennifer has been making and decorating cakes for quite awhile and I always find myself amazed at what she has been able to do…like this…

or how about this one…

YES…that is a life size flamingo and the body is made out of cake!  Don’t even ask me how someone would start to make something like this!

 

So, Jennifer had never used the eBosser or Photo Frost sheets before, so she was excited to try it out.  After a lot of debate between us, we decided to make a cake that showcases Jennifer’s other love…we will fill you in on that later.  We decided that we shouldn’t do anything too fancy because the whole point of this is to show how easy all of this is.  So we decided that we would work with a cake that had a relatively flat surface.  I told Jennifer to pick whatever shape she wanted to work with.  I thought she would do a simple square, rectangle, or circle….how silly of me!  Here is what she showed up to my house with on Decorating Day!

A pillow shaped cake covered one half in white and the other in black.  I was ready to dig a fork in, but we had to decorate it first.  Be sure to come back next week and I will show you where we went from here.