Category: Texture

Categories
Fun Fold Designer Series Paper General Heat Embossing Ribbon Texture

Send a Card that Gets to the Point!

Gray card with teal and white patterned paper, a satin ribbon accent, and a detailed pink flower with the greeting "hello".
Learn how to create an easy fun fold and do some heat embossing!
Gray card with teal and white patterned paper, a satin ribbon accent, and a detailed pink flower with the greeting "hello".
Triangle Point Belly Band Card

Hello! Let’s get right to the “point” – this week on my Facebook Live Class, I taught how to create this Triangle Point Belly Band card. It’s an easy fun fold that closes with two points and a belly band. I CASEd the fold from Jackie Bolhuis over at Klompen Stampers, and I think it’s a lot of fun!

To start, it’s just an easy 5 ½” x 11” piece of cardstock – so it does use more cardstock than a regular card base of 5 ½” x 8 ½”. But I promise it’s worth it! You’ll score at 3 ½” from each end. Then, make a few cuts with your Paper Trimmer. Boom! You’ve got the foundation of a neat card.

When we’re talking fun folds, I always say that a non-crafter needs to be able to open it without an engineering degree – and I never want the inside writing to be visible on the outside of the card. This fold fits the bill completely.

I used the beautiful Delicate Desert Designer Series Paper for this project. I really like that I was able to incorporate THREE different patterns! Sometimes you can only use 1-2 patterns before it feels too busy.

The Delicate Desert DSP features Petal Pink, Calypso Coral, Cajun Craze, Pale Papaya, Soft Succulent, and Gray Granite. Individually, some of these colors don’t appear in my crafting very often. But somehow, Stampin’ Up! has put them together and created something wonderful! The patterns are full of texture, and several patterns remind me of textiles you’d find in the American Southwest.

I took inspiration for my project’s colors from the Designer Series Paper itself and used Gray Granite, a color that I tend to struggle to use. I think that, since it has both gray and brown undertones, I’m never sure what colors will mesh well. With the Soft Succulent in the Designer Series Paper, it’s gorgeous! And of course, I had to incorporate a pop of pink!

As far as techniques in this card, I did a simple heat-embossed sentiment. For the flower, I don’t know what you’d call the technique, but I used my Stamparatus and stamped in Gray Granite – it is a light enough color that it allowed me to see the image to color but not really stand out. After coloring with my Stampin’ Blends to get some variations in the depth of color, I stamped the image again in Versamark ink and heat embossed with Black Embossing Powder.

The inside of a card showing the pointed flaps, a green background with a rectangle of white for writing and accented with a piece of the pattern from the card front.

The fonts in the Irresistible Blooms stamp set are so lovely! And the line images for the flowers are seriously so gorgeous. I have used this stamp set A TON since they released it to demonstrators back in February, and there are still so many projects I want to CASE or design on my own!

If you haven’t gotten Irresistible Blooms for yourself yet, I can’t recommend it enough. And when the dies come back in stock in a couple of weeks, you’ll want to grab those, too – they cut out the stamp images, and there are also a couple of detailed dies that are “irresistible”! I think the beaded curtain piece (at least, that’s what I’m calling it) is my favorite, but the circle window with beading is really great too.

Do you struggle with card design inspiration? Or just enjoy watching others create to find some ideas for your own crafting? I’d love to have you follow me over on YouTube. Click this link to watch the video for this week’s project, and be sure to subscribe to my channel while you’re there! Thanks for stopping by my blog today. I’ll be back soon with more design inspo for your crafting!

Categories
Designer Series Paper Die Cutting Project layers Texture

Check out 3 “Irresistible” projects to send to friends today!

three images using flowers, gorgeous fonts, and fun colors.
The Hello, Irresistible collection projects I made on Facebook Live this week.

Have you checked out the new Online Exclusives from Stampin’ Up!? One of my favorites is the “Hello, Irresistible” collection – it has stamps and dies along with coordinating Designer Series Paper and Loose Frosted Dots. <swoon> I have teamed up with two amazing demonstrators, Stampin’ With Leah and Life Is Good, Stamp On to host a Stamp Camp on April 1 using this beautiful collection – make sure you are registered by March 11! To show even more about WHY you need this collection, I decided to use it for this week’s Facebook Live. I created three cards that I think you’re going to love!

A peek at some of the new products Stampin’ Up! released this week. The pictures on the left are items in the Hello, Irresistible collection!

First, I designed this soft, sweet card. I think the Soft Sea Foam and Petal Pink combo is gorgeous, and the delicate leaf dies and the “beaded curtain” die add so much texture. As usual, the splatter stamp is one of my favorites from the set – I used it here to make the background less flat without distracting from the beautiful flowers and sentiment. I love how easy it is to build a bouquet with the stamped images and die cuts! The toughest part of this card is getting your Stampin’ Cut & Emboss machine to cooperate on camera with the beaded curtain die – since I didn’t want to cut it out entirely (as it was designed), I had to be very careful with placing the die and cardstock on the cutting plates. See the video for details.

Second, I created this beautiful project. Based on a layout I CASEd from Ange McKay, the North Shore Stamper, I used the Soft Sea Foam leaf pattern of Designer Series Paper for the background, added a splash of color with the Flirty Flamingo mat, and layered on the Flirty Flamingo and Daffodil Delight floating flowers pattern. A banner with a sweet sentiment, a bright Flirty Flamingo flower, and five Frosted Dots create a lovely but relatively simple project.

Finally, I just had to share this awesome fun fold. I CASEd it from a project my upline, Erica Cerwin over at Pink Buckaroo Designs, did with us for a training in January. While it has a lot of pieces and can stand on its own, it folds down to fit into a regular envelope. So, with a little extra postage, you can totally mail this knock-out card to someone special! For the sample in the photographs, I used the Enjoy the Journey Designer Series Paper. Generally speaking, I prefer brighter colors for my projects. However, the color combo for the Hello, Irresistible DSP is gorgeous, so I had to make this card again using the color palette from the new DSP. Check out the video for the final result!

I hope you love the projects I shared this week! I would love it if you registered for my Stamp Camp – you can get all the details and register here. And let me know if you have any questions or fun ideas for using the Hello, Irresistible collection in your own crafting!

Categories
Ribbon embellishment Texture Twine

Using Stampin’ Up! Ribbons in Your Paper Crafting: Add Textures You Itch To Run Your Fingers Across

Ribbons wrapped around kraft tags
These ribbons are different widths and textures so your project can be tailored to your vision.

Ribbon is an easy way to take your project beyond “just a card.”  Stampin’ Up!, which is known for its color coordination, carries ribbons that match the ink/cardstock colors! Being able to decorate a project with a coordinating ribbon gives your project a polished look when it’s complete.

Ribbons wrapped around kraft tags
Stampin’ Up! ribbons are different widths and textures so your project can be tailored to your vision.

Stampin’ Up! ribbons are available in many colors, as I mentioned. There are also many different materials, textures, and styles, so you always have a ribbon for your needs.

I find the Linen Thread and Baker’s Twines to be the easiest ribbons to work with. Tying a bow is very similar to tying your shoes, so you won’t feel like you’re having to learn a new skill just to decorate your card. Whether you tie a bow directly off the bolt of twine and attach it with a glue dot, or you wrap it around a panel of cardstock first, your bow is guaranteed to look great without a lot of fuss.

I have a couple more options for tying bows with twine. First, you can double the length of twine before tying, resulting in a double bow. Second, you can wrap your twine around a panel of cardstock several times before tying the bow. Both options add a lot of texture without adding much weight or thickness to your project.

Twine is also a great way to secure certain embellishments (like leaf or jingle bell trinkets) to a project. Simply thread the twine through the eye of the trinket before tying a bow or knot to secure it to the project.

One last idea: wrap twine around your fingers 3-4 times, secure the coil to your project with a couple of glue dots, and add a label over part of the coil. This looks fancy and doesn’t require any tying!

Christmas Greetings card with red Designer Series Paper, three pine trees, and gold twine coiled behind sentiment banner
Gold trim coiled on card and secured under sentiment banner.

Now to ribbons. There are probably as many ways to tie bows as there are crafters! No matter your method, you will want to practice tying a few bows before tying one on a project. Loosen and tighten the loops until they are the desired size, both loops are equal, and the loops and tails sit on the project the way you want. For extra security, you can secure the completed bow with a glue dot if desired. One other tip: use a pair of reverse tweezers to hold the first knot tight while you tie the loops to your satisfaction.

In this short video, I show how to use reverse tweezers as an extra set of hands when tying a bow.

Now to some ideas that don’t use bows.

  • Wrap a piece of ribbon around a panel of cardstock, securing ends on the back side with glue dots or scotch tape – this adds ribbon but doesn’t add bulk to your project
  • Wrap ribbon around a panel of cardstock, tying in a knot – this method can be useful for masculine cards
  • After determining where you want ribbon on your project, put down a couple of glue dots or a bit of adhesive runner, lay ribbon on top in a “z” pattern, and add a sentiment strip or label on top of the ribbon. This method gives a different look and adds less bulk than a bow
  • Wide ribbon can be cut lengthwise and left with threads hanging to give a shabby chic effect
  • Some ribbon can be deconstructed entirely, leaving just threads to be tied into a bow or knot
  • Certain ribbons gather nicely to create a ruffle on your project – use adhesive runner and glue dots to secure this completely

Finally, to make sure that your project looks polished, trim the ends of your ribbon: for wider ribbon, either flag the ends or cut at an angle; narrow ribbon looks best with ends cut at an angle.

I hope you’ve found some of these ideas inspiring! Make sure to check out this article for other crafting ideas you can incorporate in your projects.