Good Morning Fellow Stampers ~
Happy Monday! Ready to kick off the week? I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend. Fall has finally kicked in here in Colorado - and it was truly a gorgeous weekend! Cooler temps, a change in the air, and my honey and I headed to the high country on Saturday and did some "leaf peeping." Yes, the Aspen trees are shimmering and quaking and the leaves are turning fast. It was really quite gorgeous. We drove Guanella Pass; and lunched in Georgetown. It was a gorgeous day!! A few more warmer days this week, and then it is supposed to turn really cool for next weekend and the official start of Fall on the calendar. Whoo Hooo -- I've already purchased my Apple Cider; I'm all set!!! LOL 😄
I've been busy trying to work some catch up around here at DDS Studios. With so much distraction and stress with my job this year, I'm afraid I've not had the energy or focus to keep up with things the way I should have. But with some much needed rest recently, I think we're starting to turn a corner. So yesterday I spent all day in the Studio and what fun we had whipping up a swap card that really turned out lovely. And I'm very excited to showcase our new Acetate Box and show you just how perfect a gift you can make of a set of cards!!
Today's basic design was inspired by one of my favorite demonstrators - Rachel Tessman - but then, as you all know, the end result is a "Wendy card" as my stampers affectionately call it; a stepped version with lots of details and layers that make it just luscious and fun. I am once again dipping into my favorite suite of products from the Holiday catalog - the Painted Autumn Suite. I needed to make a small batch of cards for a card swap I'm participating in; and then I really needed a bunch more to send out for some other things, so I whipped up 12 of these cards in about 3 1/2 hours yesterday. It takes a little time to add all those details 😉
This pretty little card is cut from Very Vanilla cardstock and uses this wonderful variegated striped pattern out of the Painted Autumn Designer Series Paper Stack. I used Garden Green with the Lemon Lime Twist for the first time. I am not sure I would have naturally gravitated to combining these two greens; but the variegated paper takes you naturally in that direction. So my "pop" layering and ink color to this card is Garden Green; and the lovely accent is Lemon Lime Twist. The designer series paper is cut 3" x 5-1/2"; and then a mat piece of Garden Green is cut 3-1/4" x 5-1/2". That layering has been wrapped with the 1/4" Lemon Lime Twist Ombre Ribbon before being adhered to the card base front.
When you're creating a large number of the same card design, you really want to set up an assembly-line style of putting together your components. Here you can see that I had already stamped and cut all the sentiments, the flower and assembled the oval matting pieces, punched all my leaves, and assembled all the layers for the fronts of the cards. I was just starting to put on the leaves to the back of the small oval sentiments and attach these to the right-hand side of the larger oval. By working in this fashion, you can put together a lot of cards really quickly. I wanted to take a moment and point out the larger oval in the top of the picture. I created a "leafy" background look for behind my smaller oval by using the detailed image of the sunflower from the Painted Harvest stamp set. I first stamped it in Garden Green; and then offset it slightly and stamped again in Lemon Lime Twist.
The effect behind the punched leaves is quite lovely as you can see in this picture. I emulated the variegated look in the designer paper throughout all my stamping; including the sentiment. Stamped first in Garden Green, I then overlaid and offset just slightly and stamped the sentiment in Lemon Lime Twist. This is easy to do with this stamp set as it is a photopolymer stamp set. You can see right through to align your images any way you want. You'll note I used our lovely Stitched Shapes Framelits to cut today's ovals; and used a Scallop Oval from the Layering Ovals Framelits to mat the larger oval circle. [The largest Stitched Oval for the flower stamping; the 3rd largest for the sentiment - note how perfectly the "t" in "thankful" aligns to the curve of the oval!! This is Stampin' Up! coordination at absolute perfection!!]
I stamped the detailed image of the leaf in Garden Green ink onto Garden Green cardstock and then punched it out with the new Leaf Punch; then I punched multiple leaves from Vellum cardstock. Each layered piece has 2 Vellum leaves on it. Add SNAIL to the back of your little oval sentiment and then adhere the leaves and lay in some Silver Metallic Thread. You lay this in an offset to the right of the larger oval; then the whole piece is popped with dimensionals on the card front. [A Little Technique Tip: The smaller oval may seem "squirrely" and like it won't hold with all that SNAIL and pieces attached to the back; add a few glue dots in strategic spots and it will hold solid like a charm!!]
Once I had all that in place, I tied a "faux bow" just to the right of the focal point; and added some pretty little pearls - and this card front is complete. How pretty!!! [Note how the oval focal point sits just to the left side of the card and the faux bow balances everything out.]
No card is finished without a proper inside!! LOL This card has a Garden Green layer with a Very Vanilla overlay; and a 1/2" strip of the leaf pattern from the Painted Autumn designer series paper. I chose this to carry the leafy theme into the inside of the card. Now we are ready to write our little note to a friend.
But wait!! There's more! LOL I was so excited when I saw that Stampin' Up! had introduced the Acetate Card Boxes in the Holiday Occasions Catalog [page 13]. It's so nice to finally have our own version of this "gift box" and what a fabulous way to package up a set of cards to give as a gift. These four cards and coordinated envelopes fit perfectly and snuggly inside this box. I wrapped a strip of the matching DSP as a "belly band" around the box and layered a Lemon Lime Twist Ombre ribbon bow over it. I let the cards shine through; but you could also cover the box with a designer paper of your choice, and hide the goodies inside if you wanted!! There are so many wonderful ways to use this box.
Here's a slightly different view so you can see the cards inside.
I am so excited with today's card set. I hope you feel inspired too!! I love the fresh green feel. There are so many ways to use the Painted Autumn Suite. It isn't just for Fall you know!! LOL As always, if you have any questions about any of my designs, or need help with Stampin' Up!, don't hesitate to contact me - I'm only an email away! [[email protected]] Hugs to all of you have -- have a great Monday!!
Until Next Time . . .
