Day Five of the We Love Dawn Blog Hop

I am doing a very quick post for today's card and the Blog Hop in support of Dawn McVey.  These are all things I have used recently and I did do any new techniques.  I had several elements leftover from Day 1 of this hop (Spruce & Sprigs) and I wanted to try to come up with an arrangement that would use them. I also wanted to combine Pinefeather Cardstock with Hawaiian Shores because I've seen that combination on another site and thought it was really lovely and somewhat unexpected!

I started by die cutting a stitched rectangle panel from the Pinefeather Bitty Big Plaid and then attached that to a top folding Stamper's Select White Card Base and then cut a smaller stitched rectangle from Hawaiian Shores Cardstock and adhered that on top of the Plaid.  Next I die cut three of the berry wreaths from Pinefeather Cardstock and adhered them, but offset from each other to make the wreath appear fuller.  Then I simply placed my elements into a pleasing arrangement and placed Press N Seal over the top to keep the arrangement in place. When you pick up the Press N Seal, the arrangement stays in place. Simply flip it over and apply liquid adhesive (Ranger Multi Medium Matte) to all the parts that are visible.

When you flip it back, you can move the piece of Press N Seal (including the arrangement) around to determine best placement for your greenery. Laurie Willison (Soapbox Creations) came up with this little trick and it's fabulous. Here's a link to one of her posts where she has some videos linked up.  I set a couple of acrylic blocks on top of my arrangement while I let the bottom layers of greens attach.  After a couple of minutes I removed the blocks and the Press N Seal and then added Ranger Multi Medium Matte to any of the pieces that were still loose and tucked them in one at a time to be sure everything was attached and secure.  The banner is one from Wine Bottle Tag II and is stamped with a sentiment from Vintage Ornaments II.

This was a perfect solution to use those extra elements in a card.  I only have one little branch left and I stamped it kind of wonky, so it can go in the garbage can.  This would be a great card for anyone who loves a bright pop of color.

Thank you for stopping by today.  There are just two more days left in the We Love Dawn Blog Hop and I plan to have something for each day.  Be sure to come back and to check out all of the gorgeous cards in the Link-Up over at Papertrey.

Day Four of the We Love Dawn Blog Hop

For Day Four of the Official We Love Dawn Blog Hop, I am using two of Dawn's Stamp Sets and another one that is also Papertrey Ink.  This card is also for The Paper Players Challenge, Holiday Pines, which you can find here.  I think it was last year that the Holiday Greens Borders Stamp Set  was released.  There is also Holiday Greens and both sets have the coordinating dies found here and here.  I happen to love this row of pine branches and I used it a lot last year.  This is my first time using it this year but with the companion die, it is so easy to create a row of pine across the top of a vertical or horizontal card.

I was going for a Rustic look, so I decided to use a sheet of the wood grain patterned paper pack that I picked up last time I was in Dallas visiting my daughter and my grand kids. Since I was planning to use Pinefeather Cardstock for my greens I chose this wood grain with the green tint to it.  There are several different shades in this paper pad, from grey to brown and a lot of colors in between.  The sheets in this paper pad are 5.5 inches wide by 7.5 inches tall and since I wanted to be able to get two cards out of one sheet, I cut the sheet in half, then put it into my stitched rectangle die which just put the stitch line on it but didn't actually cut anything.  The Pine Border was tall enough to cover the rest of the card panel so that I could get two cards out of it. I attached the wood grain panel with tape runner. 

I needed to heat emboss my sentiment before I could move on to the rest of my card so I chose this greeting from Dawn's A Thrill of Hope Stamp Set.  I think it's a bit hard to read here but it says, "Season Greetings to you and those you love.  May joy dance around you like snowflakes from above."

Today I used the same technique for the pine branch border that I did for yesterday's card which was to stamp, heat emboss and repeat until I had 4 layers.  Let me just say, it took four tries today before I got one right.  Since the border stamp is a bit wider than the background it was very tricky to get it lined up in the exact same place. I didn't have the corner to use in my Misti as I usually do, so my first three attempts were unsuccessful.  Once I had the heat embossing finished, I die cut it using the coordinating die.  I used 3D Foam Tape to mount that to my card base which then covered the rest of the card front.  The ornament is What The Doodle Ornament that was colored previously.

And another card using the leftovers from the wood grain paper.  I used Limitless Layers 2¼" Squares for the gold foil frame and the insert from the same set to die cut the greeting.  I'm sorry you can't really see the gold frame.  As you know, it's hard to photograph. 

There are still three more days in this hop so I will have more projects for you this week. Be sure to stop back by later in the week to check out all of the finished projects. Thanks for stopping today.

Day 3 of the Official We Love Dawn Blog Hop

It's Day 3 of our We Love Dawn Blog Hop!  It is my intention, although I'm not making any promises, to have at least one card each day of the week long hop. Today's card features a favorite stamp set created by Dawn called Give Thanks.  As a Kansas girl myself, the simple wheat stalks and the sentiment really speak to me. Dawn lives in Johnson County Kansas and I grew up there. I moved to Northeast Kansas not long before my 16th Birthday.  I lived in a very small town in an area that is predominantly farming related.  Although my Brother-In-Law farms, he doesn't plant wheat.  However, you can still see lots of it in Kansas, and particularly in Western Kansas. When I was a senior in High School, several of the guys in my class had been on Wheat Harvest and that was my introduction into that. My husband's twin brother even delayed college for a semester because he was away for wheat harvest somewhere in Western Kansas. Since Kansas is the largest producer of Wheat in the world, it's a symbol that represents home to me (and I'm sure it does to Dawn as well) so I have loved this set since it came out a year or two ago.

For my card, I had found some really pretty watercolor paper at Hobby Lobby with all this gold embossing on many of the sheets that looks like paint splatter and I thought of it right away when I pulled out this stamp set to make a card.  The thing is, while I liked the basic design and style of the paper, I didn't feel like the colors were intense enough for a "Dawn Card", so I did something that I like to pull out and use once in a while; I pulled out some of my color sprays.  I like to make my own using shimmer mist or glimmer mist of some kind and reinkers and I now have the rainbow spectrum.  I use a ton of Shimmer Mist and every time I empty a bottle, I set it aside because they have great nozzles and spray a very fine mist. So while I had Coral and Pink sprays that were already made, I needed to make a yellow color spray. I don't like all colors of yellow, but I do have a lot of affection for a warm kind of Tuscan yellow.  I made this using Summer Sunrise Reinker from Papertrey.  I didn't change the location of the three colors on the paper at all, I just intensified each color with a color spray that was more saturated and vibrant. A tip for you here: be sure to spray a few times on a scrap piece of paper to get the solution up into the nozzle so that it sprays correctly.  Those first few burst on a spray that hasn't been used recently will be pretty unpredictable in how they come out of the nozzle. And you'll need to let the paper dry thoroughly before you die cut it or heat emboss it.

Once that was dry, I die cut the heart shape using some Little B Stitched Heart Dies.  I cut one from the watercolor paper and one from heavy white cardstock. Once I had the cardstock cut, I laid the heart die cut into the white negative and put some post it tape on the back to keep it from moving.  That way I could line it up in the MISTI.  I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed using Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  With all the gold on the watercolor paper, I felt like the sentiment kind of got lost so I used a technique that Jennifer McGuire posted in a YouTube Video yesterday; triple or quadruple heat embossing.  This worked so well that I wish I had known about it before, but I will definitely use it again.  The secret to doing this and having it come out well, is stamping lightly each time. I used my powder tool, stamped it again, heat set that layer, put it back in my MISTI and did it again. Use your powder tool between each layer.  The heart and wheat stems on this card were done three times.  I also found that when I had embossed the wheat stalks three times, it made it very easy to get the die lined up for cutting. I stamped and cut those from the negative pieces of the heart to keep that same texture in the paper.

I cut a stitched rectangle from Gold Foiled Cardstock, and a slightly smaller one from more of the watercolor paper for the background panel and adhered those to a Melon Berry top folding card base.  I die cut a piece of fun foam in the heart shape one size down from the other to give it stability from behind. I arranged the wheat stalks and the acorns to the left of the sentiment and adhered them with Ranger Multi Medium Matte and finished off with some sparkle cognac sequins that I got a few years back from Cartwright's Sequins.

I hope you've been enjoying all the cards along the hop.  I'm ready to go check out the newly added ones that have been created.  Thanks again to Nichole for hosting the Link-Up at the Papertrey Ink Blog this week.

I forgot to say that I am linking this card up at the Double D Challenges who has a theme this time around of "Feeling Fallish". 

Another "We Love Dawn Blog Hop" Encouragement Card

I have another card to share over at the Papertrey Ink Official We Love You Dawn Blog Hop in honor of Dawn McVey who received a small intestine transplant early last Sunday!  She's had major health issues over the last few years and this has the potential to change her life.  Can you even imagine not being able to eat while still cooking for your man every night?  Anyway, she has a recovery period of 4 - 6 months and must live within 30 minutes of the hospital where she received the transplant for the next several months.  So we are continuing to honor her with a Blog Hop all week long.  Be sure to link up a project using Stamps and Dies designed by Dawn to participate, but you can enter as many projects as you wish.  They do have to be separate Blog Posts for it to work and let you put another link in.

For today's card, I used a set that always reminds me of the person Dawn is because she has such a strong faith in God. This set is called New Every Morning and has several different scripture verses to choose from that are meant to be encouraging.  They were designed to fit on the bookmarks that Dawn designed, Bookmark I, Bookmark II and Bookmark III.  They can also be used on cards as I have done here.

A month or so ago, it was love at first sight for me when I saw the Bitty Big Patterned Paper in Spring Rain.  Michelle Leone had made a gorgeous card during release week last month using it and I was excited because this is the first time there has been a pastel offered.  I can hardly wait to see more!  The Bitty Big Collections are beautiful and the best thing is, they do match the cardstock perfectly.  I love Papertrey's Perfect Match Papers and Inks system and these papers are so incredible having different print on each side.  There are two plaids, two stripes and two polka dot patterns to choose from.  But for me, most of the time, I will like the stripes!  I am so anxious for the release of more colors as this is a new patterned paper line from Papertrey so they are being released 3 colors at a time each month until they are all released.  So far there are 9 colors.

I also wanted to incorporate another of Dawn's designs using To The Point: Edgers II to put a decorative edge on my paper.  These dies cut and also emboss some details into the paper when you cut it.  It is a super nice touch.  I like to die cut everything so that I have those super clean edges.  Trimmer blades can wear out and start making raggedy cuts.  I think that looks incredibly sloppy so I like to use dies and these cut just beautifully as you can see.  To get mine the way it is, I used a stitched rectangle die first to get the clean edges and then I die cut with the Edgers Die to finish that off.  The Dark Indigo Cardstock is also cut with a stitched rectangle die in a slightly larger size.  I have 3 that I use pretty consistently with each and every card and they are all different companies.  The stitching detail is my favorite and I have it in a variety of shapes, styles and sizes.  I cut the Center Style: Feminine Die from Dark Indigo Cardstock as well.



For the sentiment, I cut a stitched rectangle out of Spring Rain Cardstock from yet another set.  I keep basic shapes in one place always on my die cutting table.  This one has double stitched edges.  I laid that in my Mini MISTI and then placed the sentiment on top of it to align it to the rectangle.  To get the Dark Indigo Embossing, I stamped the verse twice in Dark Indigo Ink and then stamped it last in Versamark right over the Dark Indigo Ink and heat set it with clear embossing powder.  I learned early on when I got serious about making cards, that you must use some type of powder tool to keep the embossing clean.  Since I love Heat Embossing and use it on nearly every card, I had to learn how to do it well.  My preferred tool is a big fluffy brush with Baby Powder.  It actually works much better than a powder pouch, Embossing Magic Bag or the EK Success Powder Tool.  It's also easy to clean afterward - just wipe with a microfiber cloth and it will wipe away very easily. The double stitched rectangle fits nicely on the Center Style: Feminine Die Cut.

Because Dawn loves flowers so much, I wanted a way to include on on this card so using the leaves from another of Dawn's sets, Gran's Garden and the coordinating dies, I stamped them in New Leaf Ink and then added a little Prima Flower to it again with a little gem in the center.  Prima Flowers are just paper flowers.  I still have lots of them from my scrapbooking days.  To get the color I wanted, I mix my own color sprays using reinkers.  The Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist that I use has fantastic sprayers on the bottles, so I always keep them to make color sprays with.  I have about 8 of them at this time with different colors in them.  But I keep the colors generic, such as red, blue, green, purple.  Since I'm not using the color "straight", it wouldn't be a match to my inks anyway.  In fact, many of the reinkers I have are Stampin' Up Refills that I kept just for this purpose when I got rid of the large ink pads.  Those ink pads were just too big for me to handle and I would drop them, invariably on my card front when it was finished.  I decided to go with Papertrey Inks and I have been super happy with that choice.

Now that I've dragged this post out to be much longer than I intended, I'm going to wrap it up here.  The background panel was attached to a top folidng card base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock. The Center Style die cut was attached with a vertical piece of foam tape down the center of the die cut and then Thin 3D foam squares at the edges which gives it a slightly rounded appearance. For the floral leaves and Prima Flower I used Ranger Multi Medium Matte with Kokuyo Tape Runner for everything else.

Thank you again for stopping by today.  This was a really fast and easy card to make although I have dragged out the post for a long time.