Cards With Dimension: Embellishments...

Happy Tuesday, and thank you for stopping in today! When I first began to create cards, I was more of a scrapbooker and hadn’t really dabbled in stamping all that much. This meant that I started to see my scrapbooking products in a whole new light…on cards! My style was very layered, and I loved to use embellishments! Embellishments were my absolute favorite thing. They added that touch of detail to my cards, a slight bit of dimension and extra interest that I didn’t feel a flat card could offer as well as an embellished card. My style is still very layered, and I love to use embellishments, but I like my cards to be clean looking as well, with a bit of white space.

Embellishments I love to use include, but aren’t limited to, chipboard elements, tags, rub-ons, sequins, ribbons, brads, rainstones, enamel dots, twine, etc.

For today’s card, I found a Heidi Swapp Washi Tape booklet in my stash that I hadn’t used yet, a Crate Paper tag and rub-ons, some Heidi Swapp chipboard pieces, enamel dots, and twine. I chose some of my favorite washi tapes from the booklet and attached them to a piece of white cardstock, then trimmed it down and rounded the corners. I added a “love you” rub-on to the tag. I stamped “Friend” on the card in Stormy Seas ink by Papertrey Ink from the Bitty Bouquets stamp set and “just thinking of you” with the Mat Stack 2 Collection stamps. I used a little hole punch to punch little notches for the twine. This way the twine will stay put while wrapped around the front piece.

When mixing embellishments, here are some tips: look for colors that complement each other (mix at least three for more interest!) and use different sizes of items – something small, something medium, and something larger in scale. Here the washi tapes add pattern and scale. The tag is the large item, the patterns are medium, and the enamel dots and text are small. It gives the eye so much detail to see! The black twine adds contrast to the lighter colors, which also keeps it interesting. Different shapes are good as well; see how the roundness of the enamel dots give the card softness from all of the hard edges?

Balancing the colors around the card in a triangle will also help you achieve success with embellishments. I have the aqua color spread around the card with the dots and washi tape. And I also have a triangle of black by using twine, tape, and sentiments in black.

If you are interested in learning more about my style of card making, I have an online class that I recently filmed here in Denver with Craftsy.com called Cards With Dimension: Lovely Layers, Textures and Embellishments. I have seven video chapters on adding dimension to cards, and working with embellishments is just one of the chapters, with three lessons in each chapter! Since March is National Craft Month, they are hosting a fun promotion for the next two weeks. Everyone who is new to purchasing a Craftsy class right now will be entered to win a $1,000 to donate to your favorite crafty charity. If you’ve been thinking of trying an online card class, now is a great time to give it a try! AND…as a special blog reader, I get to offer you 50% off! Click the link above!

If you'd like to try one of the other paper craft classes at a discount, you can view them HERE. Have a crafty, creative day!

Danielle

November kits at Gossamer Blue...

The Gossamer Blue kits for November are now available, and they are a beautiful mix of Heidi Swapp's new September Skies line, Maggie Holmes' new Open Book collection, special one-of-a-kind pieces by Gossamer Blue and more! I'll show you a few things I made with the kits...

This first card is made with the November main kit only. I did add some seam binding from my stash to string up the tags, then cut out the word with a die by Papertrey Ink called Wonderful Words: Congrats from one of the papers in the main kit. The background is cut with a Card Base-ics #2 die by Papertrey Ink.
The next few cards were made with a mixture of the November kits. Papers are from the main kit. The banner is from the Ephemera pack and the rub on is from the Open Book rub ons!

On this one, I really liked the floral paper in the main kit, but didn't want to cut it up into little pieces. Then you can't see all of the pretty colors and patterns in it! This paper was pretty just as is! So I decided to keep a whole panel of it, and just die cut a butterfly from the paper, then placed it back in and just popped up the wings with foam adhesive.

Last, but not least, a really quick card set, which was inspired by the logo on the Maggie Holmes Open Book packaging! Notice the double ended banners? I trimmed my paper to resemble the banners in her logo and placed them a little off-kilter, so you could see all of the pretty colors and patterns stacked on top of each other.

The papers I used here were all from the main kit, then I used the pre-made banners and the stamp set by Heidi Swapp from one of the add-ons! The butterflies were cut with the Beautiful Butterflies dies by Papertrey Ink.

Please do check out the Gossamer Blue kits, they are so pretty! And there is nothing to lose - if you decide to stop your subscription to the kits, there is no cancellation fee. I just think the kits at Gossamer Blue are beautiful and so inspiring! I would have liked to make a TON more, if only my time would allow this month. Can't wait to tell you about my next venture I'm currently working on, but I'm busy, busy trying to get it all accomplished...what a month! I'll have a card tutorial coming on November 11th made with these kits also. Thank you for reading and taking the time to stop by, sweet friends... xo

Prima/Pink Paislee #watercolorfun week...

Hi, everyone! Prima and Pink Paislee have teamed up this week for a fun "Watercolor Inspiration Week". Today is the last day and was my turn to post, but there's also more to see over at the Prima blog as well. They'll be posting their projects today and Monday!

When I opened the box of Prima goodies, I couldn't believe my eyes! Such fun products to work with, and they blended amazingly with our products, especially the Color Wash line. Prima sent lots of things that could be colored too...resin pieces, canvas borders, canvas shapes, chipboard, etc. I thought I was going to make cards at first, but then this layout happened to evolve as I was playing around with everything!

A layout with no photos? YES! Every layout doesn't have to be full of pictures to express what you are feeling. Journaling is important too. Right now I am feeling so grateful for everything in my life, so happy. I wanted to journal about getting older and how my views of life are changing. I just love how it turned out. The journaling reads,

"All of my happiest moments have been with family and those I love-

dear friends I grew up with, getting married, having my girls, 

and watching them grow and experience the world.

Seeing things through their eyes keeps me young, happy, alive...

What I am discovering as I grow older is that happiness is love-

giving and appreciating life and those around me. Seeing joy in those I love. Danielle"

It looks kinda artsy, doesn't it? But to be honest, I really didn't do much to make it look this way. The 12x12" background paper started out like this.

It's from the 12x12" Color Wash paper pad by Pink Paislee. The only mist splashes I added were the dark blue spots, made with Heidi Swapp's new Navy Color Shine. (After I added all of the other elements. To make the splashes, I unscrewed the cap and pulled out the tube, then just flicked the end of the tube with my finger onto the page.)

The canvas butterflies and banner by Prima started out like this...

I used some Heidi Swapp Color Shine on them, and when you spray them, a design magically appears! How cool is that!! This is new Color Shine in Blush. Love it.

I also did the same thing with the Canvas Borders by Prima...

And the resin (I went crazy with the pink!)...

I stitched on Pink Paislee’s Color Wash Watercolor Tags and added some of the Color Wash Chipboard Title Stickers. Love how the chipboard is multicolored, so I didn’t do anything to that. Just stuck it on – it’s self adhesive! I left the tails from the stitching on the tags. The canvas banner is misted with Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Navy.

On the top, I added a Prima flower, pearls and a canvas banner of theirs that I stenciled on to fill in that upper corner.

Stop by our Facebook page for a giveaway. Here is Prima's Facebook page for their giveaway, and Prima's blog for lots more inspiration!

Heidi Swapp's Sugar Chic and Color Magic.

Well, hello again! I have some layouts today made with Heidi Swapp's new Sugar Chic line with a bit of her new Color Magic line mixed in! These layouts will be on TV in the UK soon, so for all of you in that area, be on the lookout for that. You won't want to miss grabbing these new Heidi Swapp products!

Here I've used Heidi's new Sugar Chic line of papers, Banners, Bow Ties, Stix, Buzz Words and the Color Magic Alpha ("you"). I wanted the YOU to blend in to the background and let the other cute words shine on the page, so I colored the YOU letters with a black marker. The letters actually resist whatever medium you put on them. So fun! The bow ties were perfect with these pictures of Kati and her big bows.

I've always been a big fan of Heidi's products, even back when I first started scrapbooking - remember the "ghost shapes" and pink chipboard hearts?? I may or may not still have one or two of these in my stash. Ahem. Don't judge! :)

I think this next one is my favorite... I was inspired by the Buzz Word "drama", because I thought I could easily make a page about all the drama that happens in our household - with three girls, well four if you count the dog. lol ((Can't wait for the teenage years! :))

I started with a white cardstock background and arranged the 6x6" floral paper with strips of the black for contrast and the photos over the top. Then I wanted to add all of the fun patterns, so I started punching circles of the different patterned papers.

Last, I decided to add a strip of the Color Magic paper at the top, so I used a Harvest Gold ink pad by Papertrey Ink and brushed it over the chevron resist paper to create an "ombre" effect. Wondering what "ombre" means? Check out the Pink Paislee blog - we are doing an "ombre" theme all this week. :)

For more Heidi Swapp inspiration, be sure to visit her blog: www.heidiswapp.com/blog  The Pink Paislee team contributes to her blog from time to time, so there are lots of ideas there! Have a great day!

Hi everyone! As you might have heard, Pink Paislee is the manufacturer for Heidi Swapp's new Sugar Chic, Memory File, Color Magic, No Limits and Day Glo lines. Click HERE to see Heidi's new product catalog and all of the new fun stuff! She always has unique and exciting ideas!

As a Pink Paislee design team member, we are also working with Heidi's new products on occasion! On the Heidi Swapp blog, we are focusing on 3 of her new items:

1. the Day Glo Tapes,
2. the Trimmings,
3. and the Instaframes.

Since I haven't done a layout about Facebook yet, I thought it would be fun to use these Colorful Instaframes to hold some of my recent Facebook statuses. I added the tab stickers to the bottom and some of the rub on sayings. "Fabulous" is a also in the new Memory File Clear Stamps. The little chat stick is fun too, huh? That is from the Sugar Chic - Stix.

You can see I used the new Trimmings (yellow chevron border) on the side of my layout as a border to "hold" all the goodies, so they are not appearing to "float" on my page and are grounded a bit. The green Day Glo tape worked awesome for attaching the Trimmings. The yellow tape is layered over the Pink Paislee Wood Shop alphas. ((Oh, this tape would be fun for a "boo boo" layout as a band-aid! Ha))

I also used some Day Glo Tape at the top of my layout for a little bit of color! (orange, green and yellow)

Aren't these Instaframes cute! The Wood Shop alphas were painted with a turquoise paint from the craft supply store, and I threw in some older Sweetness alphas by Pink Paislee also for the title work. Stop over to Heidi's blog to see two other projects (cards and a mini album) also using the new DayGlo Tapes, Instagrams and Trimmings. xo.

Facebook Status layout supplies used:

Stamps: Memory File Clear Stamps by Heidi Swapp

Ink: True Black by Papertrey Ink

Paper: Sugar Chic - Remember by Heidi Swapp

Other: Trimmings: Sunshine, Memory File Color Instagrams, Day Glo Tapes, Sugar Chic - Stix all by Heidi Swapp. Pink Paislee’s Wood Chip Alpha, Pink Paislee’s Sweetness Alpha, Pink Paislee twine, acrylic paint- FolkArt Turquoise.

If you are a technique person like I am, and love to try new things, you will definitely want to check out a new book by Vicki Boutin called Creative Foundations. There are 40 step-by-step demonstrations for easy, fun, messy, funky, innovative and customizable techniques. I was honored when Vicki asked me to participate in her book!

When you flip through the pages, you'll be amazed at Vicki's work. And truly, I'm not just saying that. Her layouts in the book are simply stunning. I talked to Vicki on the phone the other day, and she said the book was a blast to do because she is very much a technique girl, something I didn't realize about her! :)

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Today a few of the gals who had work in the book are doing a blog hop to show you a few of the fun techniques! I decided to make a new card with 2 of the techniques that I was NOT assigned to in the book: working with gesso and making pleated beaded ribbons. It's inspiring to try new things, right!

You can use gesso or dimensional paste for this technique, just take a credit card and scrape it over your project. Let dry and add embellishments over the top! Would be a fun technique for a layout also to add dimension and interest without a lot of bulk. The second thing I tried from the book was the adding beads to ribbon. I'm a big ribbon fan, so I used a needle and thread with a running stitch. Every so often, I added a bead and pulled the string tight to gather the ribbon!

I used lots of Heidi Swapp's new items here, new papers, file tabs, fun sticker words, rub ons and fabric stars! Ribbon and beads were older items from my stash.

Would you like to win a copy of this book? All you have to do is visit the participating designers' blogs in order and find a word next to each name to spell out a sentence. Then go to Vicki's blog and leave her a note with what the sentence says!

 

Vicki Boutin

Rhonna Farrer

Linda Albrecht

Kelly Goree

Bethany Kartchner

(me) My word is "OF".

Wendy Vecchi

Melissa Phillips

Back to Vicki

Thank you for stopping by and good luck!