Create with Connie and Mary--Pastel Techniques

Hello friends! I am really excited to share a pastel technique with you today. As well this is my final blog post as a Designer for the Create with Connie and Mary Blog Hop. I have really enjoyed participating in these weekly challenges for the past year + and have learned so much! I have appreciated the comments and encouragement along the way. I will be continuing to share here and on my Instagram so I hope you will continue to follow along with me on my creative journey!

Have you played with our new Stampin’ Pastels yet? I have made so many fun things with them! I have been stamping long enough that I remember way way back when Stampin’ Up! had them in the annual catalogue. So I was able to draw on a few of those long forgotten techniques plus play around and experiment with some new ones as these pastels are different than what we offered in the past.

TOP TIP: In order to get the ‘chalk’ off of the pastel, use the scraper tool attachment of the Pick a Tool to scrape the coating from the outside of the pastel. If you were to open your package and rub your finger over the chalk, you would notice nothing would be on your finger. However, after you scrape the chalk it will easily rub off on your finger!

Along with using the new pastels I wanted to use another new product we have which are the Plenty of Patterns Decorative Masks. I love masks because you can use them with so many other products we sell. Embossing Paste, Blending Brushes, Finger Daubers, Spritzers and the list can go on!

I started by selecting my Decorative Mask and pastel color. For this project I used the pastel that looks like Coastal Cabana.

I placed my mask over top of my Basic White card stock and simply rubbed my chalk over top of the mask.

The ridges from the mask will help shave or release the chalk from the stick.

I removed the mask and with gentle pressure you can remove the excess chalk with your Blending Brush. You do not want to press too hard to lose the design from the Decorative Mask.

I really love this technique as its quite simple but creates a really wonderful background for your project.

To embellish and decorate the rest of my card I used the Flowers of Friendship Bundle. I stamped the flowers with Momento Black Ink and then I colored them with a Water Painter. I applied the tip of my Water Painter DIRECT to my pastel and colored! It is another fun way to use this product. And using a Water Painter gives the finished look a ‘watercolor’ feel which I love!

I hope you will add the Pastels to your next order as they are inexpensive and so fun to experiment with! I will continue to share projects with the Pastels over the summer so keep checking back in!

To continue on with the Hop you can go BACK to see what Melissa made this week or NEXT to see what Connie has designed. Please feel free to leave a comment or use my Host Code if you are inspired and live in Canada!

Create with Connie and Mary--Textures and Ribbon!

Hi friends! I was really excited about this Design Team challenge and had an idea immediately. Sometimes I have to stew on things for a while but not this time! Textures and ribbon can add something really special to your projects which is why I almost always use ribbon and find a way to incorporate texture into all of my projects.

My favorite ribbon in the new catalogue at the moment is the Highland Heather Grosgrain Ribbon. It is a great width and has some built in sparkle to it which I love. I have also been playing and experimenting with the new Pastel Chalks so I wanted to find a way to incorporate those into my project as well.

Let’s talk about the texture created on the background first. I used one of the new masks from the Plenty of Patterns collection. I placed it on top of my Highland Heather card stock layer and just held it in place with my finger tips. I scraped some chalk onto a large block using my Take a Pick Tool spatula edge (spare those scissors, this tool works perfect) and once I had a little pile I used my Blending Brush to pick it up and brush it all over the stencil creating this awesome textured background!

Hot Tip: you will need to scrape off the film or layer that is on the chalks to actually get at the ‘chalk’ . I used the Take a Pick Tool for this as well. Then you can use a finger dauber or your blending brush to pick up some chalk.

The real highlight of this card for me though is the ribbon. I cut a rectangle from the Stitched Rectangle dies and covered it with a few strips of Stampin’ Seal+ (love it by the way). I then layered my ribbon over top to create this awesome ribbon panel. I did end up trimming away some of the die as I wanted the ribbon to be perfect. I then added some more Stampin’ Seal+ to the backside and stuck the edges down. I popped this panel up on Dimensionals.

I used the stamp set Biggest Wish as my feature set on this card. The ‘Birthday’ is stamped in Coastal Cabana and the ‘Happy’ is stamped in Polished Pink.

I hand trimmed out the word happy and added it with a couple mini dimensionals.

You may wonder where the little ribbon on the side is from and it’s a sneak peek of something coming in our holiday catty!

This little sentiment area was completed by adding a Polished PInk Loose Flower Flourish…love this new embellishment so much!

I am really happy with how this card turned out and am excited to try it with a variety of different ribbons! I can’t wait to see what the other Design Team members created this week! You can go BACK to see Melissa’s creation or NEXT to see what Connie has made. If you are inspired and need any of the products to make this at home please feel free to use my June Hostess Code (found along the right hand side of my blog!). And as always, comments are appreciated!