Stamps & Stretchy Pants

Hello friends! Welcome to a new year and new projects and inspiration! So excited to have you joining us every Saturday for 2021. Wishing you and your family all the best as we kick off 2021 with a renewed spirit and intention. My theme for 2021 is Make it Happen. I have big goals to accomplish this year!

Our first weekly theme is FAVORITE NEW PRODUCT! I have to say, it was almost hard to pick because there are just so many fabulous items in the new January to June Catalogue (or the JJ catty as some are calling it!).

I landed on the Fine Art Floral Suite. Florals just have so much potential as you can use them on every single theme in one way or another. I wanted to kick off my first project share in the Create with Connie & Mary Hop with a great gift or home decor idea using this suite.

I can often find these rustic frames with the built in clip at Homesense. I snatch them up whenever I can find them! They are perfect for embellishing with your favorite stamps!

I started with a large base of DSP from the Fine Art Floral collection and layered on a mat of Poppy Parade. I stamped the flowers from the Art Gallery stamp set in two colors for each flower. The large bloom is actually designed to work this way as there are two separate stamps. The cluster of blooms is only a single stamp with one extra stamp for layering. I decided to use a marker to tap on a darker color.

I used the colors in the DSP to guide the colors I used for the flowers. The flowers in this DSP were actually hand painted on a canvas! I love this paper especially the sheets that look like paint smeared on canvas, so I chose that piece to stamp my sentiment “You Make the World...” in Versamark with Gold Embossing Powder.

The sentiment is from the Beautiful World stamp set in the Annual Catalogue.

I added some Wink of Stella on top of the flowers for a little shimmer!

The Art Gallery stamp set only has one stem image so I stamped it in Old Olive ink on the same color card stock and then cut it apart to look more like leaves. The Fine Art Floral ribbon was also perfect to layer behind sentiment (cut with Stitched Circle Dies) to continue the gold theme on this project.

I stamped “You are Lovely” in Old Olive Ink on the coordinating card stock and cut it with a die from the Floral Gallery Dies. I added a couple more flowers underneath the sentiment.

After I took this picture I thought…it needs something! So I went back and cut the word “friend” in Gold Foil paper using the Well Written Dies (see the first picture to notice the addition!).

I was so happy to give this gift to my friend Tammy. We met on the Alaskan Incentive Trip and have kept in touch ever since. This is a picture of us on the Greek Isles Incentive Trip in the infamous Hospitality Room. I absolutely LOVED this trip and am keeping every body part of mine crossed that we can see each other again in Maui this spring!

I can’t wait to see the other members of the Design Team are sharing a their favorite new products. You can go BACK to see what Melissa has designed and NEXT to see what Connie has created! Please feel free to shop with me if you live in Canada! All of these new and amazing products will be available on January 5th. If you live in Canada you can shop my Online Store or use my Hostess Code at any time!

Hello friends! Have you seen the new card trend that is circulating around? This design style is called “slimline’ and there are several size and dimension variations. I designed this ‘slimline’ card to showcase the In the Pines Bundle from the Handmade for You catalogue.

I absolutely LOVE the color palette on this card. It isn’t what you would call traditional in the holiday color scheme sense, but I love the soft colors and the idea of the trees transitioning from fall into winter colors.

I started with Calypso Coral, then Pumpkin Pie and moved into the blue green family of colors with Pool Party, Coastal Cabana and finally Just Jade which is also the base color of this card.

I stamped the outline of each tree in full strength ink and the ‘filler’ of the tree I stamped ‘off’ on my scratch pad so the ink was a tone lighter.

I wanted a snow drift so I used the curved snow drift die from the Pine Wood Dies and added some embossing paste on top to give it some texture and to help it mimic snow. I actually know a lot about snow because where I live, we have snow for at least 5 months of the year! Haha! Unofficial expert over here!

The base of my card is 7 x 8 1/2 and on the 7 inch side you are going to score at 3 1/2. There are several size variations to this card style so there is lots of room to play around and have fun. The Whisper White layer is 2 3/4 x 7 3/4 .

Naturally a card of this size needs a custom envelop too! I stamped the trees on the left corner and did a little marker spritzing. And on the inside flap, I added a piece of silver foil paper to play off of the silver Merry on the front of the card.

The create both this card and envelop you will need a full sheet of card stock to start. So just keep that in mind if you are planning to offer the slimline card as a class.

To create the envelop score your 8 1/2 x 11 on the 8 1/2 (vertical side) at 2 1/2 and 6 1/2. Rotate and on the long (horizontal) side score at 1 1/2 and 10 1/2. Now you want to trim away the 4 little side pieces as shown in the photo below. I then rounded the panels at the top and bottom using the Detailed Trio punch. It can round your edges, punch out a little flower detail as shown and small oval hole perfect to turn your project into a tag!

I cut the word ‘Merry’ using the Playful Alphabet dies with Silver Foil paper and the Foam Adhesive Sheets. ‘Wishes’ is cut from Calypso Coral card stock using the Well Written dies. I added on some fun bling using the Holiday Rhinestone Basic Jewels and the Champagne Rhinestones. And a little strip of the In Color 6x6 Designer Paper on the left edge helps ground the card and the wood grain pattern plays off of the trees.

I hope you are excited to give this card style a try! I absolutely LOVE it!