Stamps & Stretchy Pants

Hello friends! I am so thankful you are checking in today and I apologize for being MIA over the summer! I just don’t know where the days have gone! Life has been busy and now its September and back into the routine of school and all that fun stuff.

I can’t tell you how much I love this color combo! And it is one that I don’t think I have ever put together myself. I think its because Blackberry Bliss is not one of my go to colors, but paired with Fresh Freesia and Pale Papaya it just shines on this project!

This month Stampin’ Up! has a fun promotion on called Perfect Partners and one of my FAVORITE stamp sets, Fresh Cut Flowers, from the Annual Catalogue now has coordinating dies available this month only! Go check out my Instagram feed (@stampwithbrenda) to see how many times I have shared this stamp set!

These new dies to accompany the Fresh Cut Flowers stamp set are called the Fresh Cut Stems Dies!

I decided to use Blackberry Bliss as the base for this card and use a layer of Fresh Freesia to compliment it. I love the unique edge die included in this new set. I added a bit of Designer Series Paper from the Butterfly Kisses collection along the left side and stamped the large floral image in Fresh Freesia ink along the side as the base image.

I stamped the image again in Momento ink on some Basic White and then used the “Lazy Watercoloring” technique to color in the flowers in Blackberry Bliss and Pale Papaya. The key to this look is to not color all the way to the edges and layer on the color.

I then trimmed by hand all of the flowers and use them to decorate behind and around the sentiment.

The sentiment is from the Hello Harvest stamp set and cut with the coordinating Rustic Pumpkin Dies. What I love about the Fresh Cut Flowers stamp set is that it doesn’t include any sentiments. So the sky is the limit with what you can pair up with this stamp set.

I also did a little lazy watercoloring on the banner too with Pale Papaya. I love the soft wash of color.

The Fresh Cut Stems dies also include fun little sprigs and little florals that I added to the card to create a soft little bouquet. I added a few of the In Color Opal rounds as you always need something sparkly right?

Now because this card is on such a dark base, I felt like I also needed to stamp the inside as well so that it makes writing your greeting so much easier.

I stamped one of the smaller images from the stamp set on the right of the inside base, which is just Basic White. After I colored them with Blackberry Bliss and Pale Papaya, I flicked my Water Painter across the base.

I love to stamp the inside because its an unexpected surprise!

I hope you are as thrilled as I am with this card. I loved it so much I decided my monthly Stamping groups are going to make it too and practice their hand at lazy watercoloring!

I am so excited to see what the rest of the Color Fusers Team has created this month, I am always so amazed at the creativity and variety of the blog hop—-so please make sure you hop all the way around! Please comment or go give my project a like on Instagram (@stampwithbrenda).

Up NEXT on the Hop is the infectious Bonnie O’ Neill and if you want to be a rebel and go backwards, then you will be going to back to see Tami Hewlett. Tami is one of my fellow Artisan Design Team members, we have been on the team for 2 terms together and she is beyond talented!

If you are interested in details regarding my monthly Stamping Group or wish to support my love of stamping you can message me or click on any image below to shop directly with my store! I appreciate all of your support!

Hello all of my friends! I am so happy you are here to spend Seven Days of Scrapbooking with me! Some of my crafty friends and I were talking about my A Card a Day in May Challenge and got on the topic of scrapbooking and how fun that would be to make a page a day! Well I don’t have the luxury of that amount of creative time but we thought that Seven days could be manageable! So make sure to follow my Seven Days of Scrapbooking on Instagram and here on my blog!

I also have a Scrapbooking Gallery that you are welcome to enjoy!

My first page to share with you just makes me so happy! I love the colors of the page and the picture is one of myself and my kids at our local zoo. Memory keeping is honestly the best thing I have ever prioritized in my life. I would rather make scrapbook pages than cards and I truly cherish my many many many albums I have created over the years.

The most important things we have in life are the people we have and the memories we make together.

I miss this fun age of my kiddos! Time goes too quickly and with my son graduating on Friday, I am definitely feeling all the feels!

The base of this page is Pool Party (one of my fav colors) and I used our new Hostess Designer Series Paper—Design a Daydream to guide the color palette.

I stamped some flowers from the Fresh Cut Flowers stamp set in the background (do not overlook this stamp set in the new Annual Catalogue) in Pool Party ink so it was a subtle detail to flank my photo. I have noticed that I tend to use 5x7 photos the most frequently in my designs. So I am going to challenge myself during this Seven Days of Scrapbooking to break free from that.

The rest of my design is a mash up of the Sweetest Cherries and Sending Smiles stamp sets.

The little teeny hearts are from the Teacup Dies and the adorable Heart Pearls!

I tend to create what I called ‘Vignettes’ to support my photos. After all, my picture is truly the most important thing on my page and I rarely create a page without a photo! My photo completely guides my design process.

So for this page at the bottom right I decided to create the sentiment “Life is Sweet with you in it” from the Sweetest Cherries stamp set. In fact when I am picking stamp sets to purchase I do look at them through the lense of scrapbooking and how I can incorporate them into page design.

The ‘Life is” portion of my sentiment is die cut using the Teacup Dies. I also stamped the floral image from Fresh Cut Flowers onto the circle (cut from the Stylish Shapes Dies) to tie in the imagery with the background of my page. This is a subtle way to take away the ‘whiteness’ of the Basic White circle as well.

Because this picture was taken during the summertime I also wanted to add some greenery so I reached for the Forever Flouring Dies to cut some shapes in Old Olive and the Vellum Layering Designs.

At the top left corner of my page this little ‘vignette’ also includes the Forever Flourishing Dies along with the new Natural Finish Ribbon and sentiment from the Sending Smiles Bundle.

Both vignette areas have elements that repeat for connection and a cohesive feeling on the page.

I hope the Seven Days of Scrapbooking encourages and inspires you to make some pages for yourself! And if you live in the YEG area, I teach tons of scrapbooking classes each month. Please message me if you are interested in getting started or joining in the fun!

If you need any supplies, please consider shopping with me so I can continue to do what I love!

Check back tomorrow to see another scrapbook page!