Hello there! I am here today with a blog post and project for the monthly
Show & Share event held by Virginia Lu of the
Yes, Virginia Blog. As I was sitting down yesterday to stamp one of my all-time favorite stamp sets, I remembered what it is that I love so much about card making. I'll go into that a little more as we get into today's post but one of the nice things about this is that we can use any brand or combination of brands that we have. I have multiple brands of products, so I love this. I'll also be entering this card in the Papertrey Ink Win-It Wednesday Challenge.
Way back on June 25th of last year, I was accepted into the Altenew Educator Certification Program. I completed that program in January and I am a fully Certified Altenew Educator now. I learned so much during my class time; many new techniques and many techniques that I knew of, but hadn't ever tried. It was a lot of fun. But as I sat working on this card yesterday, I realized what it is that's been missing lately.
Sometimes, I need or want to put a bunch of cards together for one of my Sisters-In-Law or all of them as is the case at Christmas. But what I most enjoy is putting together one card that has multiple techniques making it a one of a kind work of art from my heart to someone else's. I also really miss that I haven't had time lately to focus as much on that and, not much time to write blog posts. Between moving, classes and getting situated with all of my new doctors, I just haven't had as much time to focus on that. I've missed it and I want to get back to that by participating in Challenges at all of my favorite companies and get back to my blog. Today's post is the start of that.
We're pretty much settled into our new house except for the garage which continues to remain full of boxes that need to be unpacked and more things donated that we are not using. This house is quite a bit smaller with a lot less closet space, so even though we donated or auctioned off lots of stuff before the move, we still need to do more. There are a few kitchen things that I haven't found yet, but probably most everything else can be donated.
I made a card for my daughter and son-in-law last week and have already mailed it, but today is their wedding anniversary and I know it didn't have time to arrive yet because I didn't get it to the mailbox until Friday. I could have driven it there faster! Since we were supposed to go to their house this morning to stay with the grands while they went to Anniversary Brunch, I got up early and assembled a card with the things I had already die cut and stamped to pull a quick card together so that I could hand it to them on their way out the door. The weather is pretty crummy in North Texas today, so they canceled. That means I had time to photograph my card to share with all of you.
This card is the one that I already mailed. You might have seen it on my Instagram Account, found
here. This was a large square card about 6.5 x 6.5 and I featured the Altenew Mega Alphabet dies after covering some cardstock with the Gilded Ombre Washi Tape to die cut my letters from. Then I created a bloom and leaves using the leftovers of the covered cardstock with Altenew Garden Picks and Rose Flurries 3D Dies. The little embossed heart is a die I've had for many years. The gilded washi tapes from Altenew are just stunning!
Anyhow, let's get on with today's project! Since I was going to have things out to make a spring card, I decided to die cut enough elements to stamp extra florals. This is probably my all-time favorite Spring floral, Tulip Time from Papertrey Ink. This design is from Betsy Veldman and is always worth the effort it takes to stamp all of the layers. I made 4 sets in all; two in different pinks, one in corals and one in purples. My daughter really loves Coral, so I decided to create a new card from that set of blooms.
For the tulip bloom colors, I chose the Altenew Red Cosmos Ink Cube family stamping the first layer in Frosty Pink, the 2nd layer in Coral Berry and the 3rd layer in Ruby Red. I love Altenew Inks and the Ruby Red is a true representation of the color a Ruby should be. I worked for a jewelry store when we lived in Topeka and Rubies should be deep brilliant red, not pink. That said, Rubies of that quality can cost far more than diamonds so the lesser quality is typically what you see in the retail market. Rubies can also have inclusions like diamonds, so the quality of the stone itself also makes them more expensive in some cases.
For the foliage, I used my favorite combination of greens from Papertrey Ink, Vintage Jadeite and New Leaf. If I would have needed more than two colors I would have chosen one of the Altenew green collections.
My top folding card base is made from Cougar Digital White Super Smooth 110# cardstock. I love this cardstock so much, even more than Neenah Solar White 110#. It is smoother and less expensive than the Neenah as well. I normally use Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select White for my cardbase, but this time I decided to use all the same product. Most of the time I stamp my images on the Cougar Digital White and then make my card base from the Papertrey Ink 110# white. It is so smooth that the ink just evens out beautifully! After the ink on the tulips had dried, I hit them with a layer of Iridescent Gold Shimmer Mist and some Clear Sparkle Shimmer Mist. This tends to make the paper curl a bit which is what gives the images that slightly rounded appearance.
I cut a 4.25 x 5.5-inch piece of Berry Sorbet Cardstock from one of my Stitched Rectangle Dies and then ran it through my machine with an embossing folder. I'm sorry I don't know the name and there's not one on it. It was actually too wide to fit through my Cuttlebug, so my husband cut one side off of it for me. That was about 3 years ago and I didn't have my Gemini back then. Once I had that done, going direct to paper (DTP), I gently ran a Delicata Golden Glitz ink pad all along the surface of the cardstock to put some gold sheen on the raised areas. This is my background panel. I was going to use some Nuvo Embellishment Mousse, but mine was completely dried out so I couldn't use it until I have time to revive it with some water. I also hit it with some of my favorite Iridescent Gold Shimmer Mist and set it aside to dry while I worked on the foreground panel. I die cut the Shape Shifters Oval #2 from Papertrey Ink. I really love this die and the edge is one I haven't seen elsewhere. I cut a piece of fun foam for the back of the background panel to give it a bit of dimension and glued that down with Gina K Designs Connect Glue. I love adhering fun foam with this because tape runner just doesn't work very well on foam. I attached that to the card base. Next, I used the same Delicata Ink to go all around the edge of the oval die cut and adhered it to the background panel with some foam tape.
Using connect glue, I adhered the stems of the tulips together how I wanted to arrange them. This allows me to keep my arrangement intact but I can tuck some narrow pieces of foam tape behind the blooms for dimension. I just use kind of a skinny strip vertically down the center of the blooms so that they keep that rounded appearance.
The banner is from the Papertrey Ink Paper Clippings: Happy Birthday Dies and it stays on my desk pretty much all of the time. I used the Papertrey Ink - Inspired: Love Die for the word. By putting Foam Tape on the center 2/3rds of the banner, it gives the appearance of being slightly rounded instead of flat. All in all, this card is loaded with texture, dimension, sparkle, and shine. I considered adding a few jewels or sequins, but I felt they detracted rather than enhanced the card so I left them off.
This is my project for today. We've had a lot of really grey days this winter in Texas and I was ready to work with some bright Springtime colors. I hope you'll be able to join in with the challenge at Virginia's Blog or the Papertrey Challenge or both! Thanks for stopping by today! I appreciate that you took time out of your day to check out my post. I will soon return to linking products for you as well, but I've got some significant updating to do before that can happen.
