A Paper Pumpkin Thing - August 2017 Kit

Hello Everybody! Welcome to this month's A Paper Pumpkin Thing blog hop featuring the August 2017 kit. Today I'm hopping with an amazing group of talented artists and we've all designed some fun alternative cards and projects using this month's Paper Pumpkin kit. When you get to the bottom of my blog just click on the next button to head on over to the next blogger.

If you follow my blog then you may have realized that I've been MIA for the last couple of weeks. I've been off on an amazing vacation with my family in Belize. Gasp! I know. I'm so lucky. It gets even better though because my family is Belizean and I have tons of family there to visit every year including my Granny who will be turning 90 this year. It's the perfect way to mix family with vacation and we make the trip every year. Here's a pic I took at sunset on my family's farm... pretty amazing!

Ok, ok, I know you're not here to hear all about my vacation so now onto the Paper Pumpkin Alternatives! This month's kit is so amazing and I really had fun putting this card together. I cut the center out of one of the card bases that came with the kit and added it to a Berry Burst card base. The stamps, the oval, the tag, the twine, the adorable little flowers... They ALL came in the kit!

I heat embossed the sentiment in white on Berry Burst. I also sponged the edges of the oval background piece in Pool Party then splattered it with Night of Navy ink. An edge of doubled up doily, some silver metallic twine and rhinestones and BAM! My card was finished.

I've also made a project to share today. It's a treat wrap that holds a little bon-bon. There are so many pieces and fun layers on this project! Thank you Stampin' Up! for all of the gorgeous leaf stickers (different shapes, sizes and colors) and ribbon and twine. Again I've cut a strip from a card base included in the kit and adhered it to a background of Night of Navy. 

I used a new punch (Starburst Punch coming out on September 1st) to punch out a Pool Party background piece. I added a Gold Foil Doily and some gold metallic thread on top of that. The sentiment is stamped on a left over piece of card base from when I made my card. It's hard to tell but the sentiment and Calypso Coral flowers have a bit of Clear Wink of Stella to give them some shimmer.

Here's a last look at my projects before I send you off to the next blog.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I hope you enjoyed my projects and I gotta say that I've missed being here. Back soon-I promise!

Have an amazing day!

Maria.

And now you are on your way to the fabulous Sara Levin! Enjoy!

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Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited (possibly way too enthusiastic... No! That's not possible!) Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Hello!

Hi everybody!

I'm sorry I've been MIA this week but I'm off on a great adventure! I'll share more about that later. For now I I wanted to stop by to say Hello! And, to share a quick card with you.

Here's a close up of the layers.

Guess what? Today I'm blogging from my phone and it keeps closing my post down and deleting it before I can finish it. So, after three or four tries... I'm outta here! I hope you are having an amazing day!

I'll be back soon and if you have any questions about this card please leave me a comment. I'll get back to you asap.

Have a great one!

Maria.

Creating Kindness Blog Hop: Texture

Hello and welcome to this month's Creating Kindness (Around the World) Blog and Video hop (yes, we really have a video hop on YouTube)! If this is your first time to my blog, my name is Maria Willis, and I'm a Stampin' Up Demonstrator from a small mountain town called Boulder Creek, CA in the United States. I'm so glad to have you here. Today our theme is "Texture" and our design team has done our best to bring you some creative ways of adding texture to your own crafting projects.

For my card I decided to use Stampin' Ups! new Embossing Paste. It's great for adding texture to any project. I decided to keep my card simple to let the medallion pattern and vibrant colors take the spotlight. On this card I used a color combination of Daffodil Delight and Bermuda Bay. 

I used Basic Black cardstock in hopes of having the colors boldly pop off of the page and I like the way it turned out. After applying the paste and letting it dry I used sponge daubers  to apply color. The sponge daubers allowed me to apply the color lightly or heavily as I pleased. It also turns out that black is a good color to use as a background for this embossing paste as it provides a very forgiving background.

What you cannot see in my photos is how sparkly these cards are in real life. After sponging them with color I painted them with Clear Wink of Stella. They are so sparkly and pretty! If you're interested in seeing what they look like when the Wink of Stella catches the light I hope you'll check out my video.  In my video I've got some tips for keeping your background and edges clean as well as how to care for your embossing paste tools. I also show the full process of how to make these cards with measurements included and helpful tips along the way.  Here's a link to the tutorial video:

If you watched the video you saw that the card I featured today is actually the second card  that I made using this technique. The first card was more of an experiment that started with spritzing color onto the embossing paste (it worked but the color faded over the course of the week). Once I realized that the color was going to fade with the spritzing technique I decided to try with sponge daubers and I was able to get much more saturated color with this technique. The Clear Wink of Stella is a fun addition but not just because it sparkles. In the video you can see that the solution in the Wink of Stella helps to drag the ink color around blending the colors seamlessly.  Here's a look at both of the cards. My original card was done with Lemon Lime Twist and Island Indigo inks.   The colors aren't all that different but the Daffodil Delight and Bermuda Bay card is a lot more vibrant.

If you're interested in creating texture on a project without using embossing paste then check out my post from yesterday. Here's a link and a sneak peek... just click HERE.

That's it for today folks! I hope you'll keep on hopping along with us to see the amazing ideas the rest of the design team has to share. Next you'll be heading over to Satomi Wellard in Japan!

Thanks for stopping by and have an amazing day! 

Maria.

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Let me know if you have any questions!

Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited (possibly way too enthusiastic... No! That's not possible!) Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Bee

Hey everybody and happy Wednesday. Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Today I'm sharing a card that I made forever ago...February I think. Anyways, I made it for my On Stage Display board and still haven't gotten around to sharing it. Believe it or not there are still a few more after this one. The cool thing is that almost everything on this card is current. I was going for texture when I made this and ended up incorporating quite a few techniques in the process.

When I started this card I knew I wanted to use this bee. The rest of the card sort of unfolded from there. In this pic you can see how many different layers of interest there are. The card base has splatters, stamping, DSP, gold foil stickers and black pearls. 

The card face is glossy cardstock that has been treated with an embossed wax paper resist technique, sponged, dry embossed with the 3D Hexagon embossing folder, heat embossed with a stamped image from Gorgeous Grunge (retired but easily replaced by other stamp sets), smeared with versa mark and embossed for a faux metal look in silver, gold and copper. 

Then the card face was layered on a mat of Basic Black and wrapped with Venetian Crochet Trim and Linen Thread. 

The bee was placed to look as if it were ready to take flight from it's textured hive.

There's a lot going on here but I think (hope!) it all goes together for a fun look. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that I sponged the the sentiment banner as well. Do you see the yellow "honey comb" at the base of the card face? That's the embossed wax paper resist. To get that look you dry emboss a piece of wax paper in an embossing folder. I used the Hexagon folder. Then you iron the wax paper onto your glossy paper (make sure to put a piece of paper between the wax paper and your iron). After the wax pattern is transferred you sponge over it with ink to reveal the pattern. On this card I sponged over the wax with Daffodil Delight.

This card was really fun to make. It was a bit time consuming but for me it's worth it when you can see all of these different layers of technique and paper and ribbon and twine and texture come to together to make something interesting. 

I think I'll try to make another card like this soon. It's fun to just modge podge a bunch of ideas together to see how it will turn out.

If you like texture then please come back tomorrow. Tomorrow the Creating Kindness Blog and Video Hop goes live and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the team has created.

Thanks for stopping by. See you soon!
Maria.

PS: Please feel free to ask if you have any questions or need help with anything.

Need more stamps now? Never fear! I've got you covered!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Want a great discount on Stampin' Up! Products and to have a fun new stamping family? Join me on this fun adventure! I can't wait to be your super excited (possibly way too enthusiastic... No! That's not possible!) Stampin' Up! side kick and support lady! In case you didn't know, you can join Stampin' Up! just for the discount and never sell a single product. If you want to know the details just let me know. If you're looking for a discount on your favorite hobby (stamping and paper crafting with Stampin' Up! products) and want to earn money doing it... let me know! I'd love to talk with you whatever your interest might be! If you want to see a little more info go ahead and click the button below. Looking forward to hearing from you!