Saturday, March 31, 2012

Retreat Project and Much Gratitude


 Hello! I wanted to show you this mixed media project taught to us at the Spellbinders™  Retreat last week, by the fabulous Donna Salazer. Donna has her own line of Spellbinders Die Templates, which we used on this project.

I especially loved using Bitty Blossoms to create these gorgeous dimensional flowers. This was such a fun class!

Julianna Hudgins also taught a wonderful class on how to make wire beads and pendants, featuring Artistic Wire and Beadalon. I was so into this class I gave myself a blister on my thumb, from gripping the wire too tight. Now every time I notice the blister, I wind up with that Dire Straights song stuck in my head. (I wonder how many of you will pick up on that reference :-)  Julianna, in addition to being an amazing jewelry artist, also has her own designer line of Spellbinders Die Templates.

Jen Cushman introduced us to the most amazing product, called Ice Resin and taught a great class in how to use it. I'm so excited about this, I already ordered another jar!

The owner of EtchAll, Barbee Bosler also came and taught us a class in how to etch glass. There are so many great ways to incorporate this technique into paper crafting and gift ideas!

We were so lucky to get to attend all these classes!

Now for the gratitude part of this post. I just had to share a few photos of all the wonderful goodies we received at retreat. Stacy and Jeff Caron are the most amazing people and so very generous and thoughtful. They and everyone at Spellbinders went out of their way to welcome us and they all taught us so much. I am so grateful to Spellbinders for making this a dream come true!

Check out some of the fun goodies given to us from Spellbinders Cross Promotional Partners and Preferred Partners!

And more goodies...

And still more! Sorry about the glare in the photos. I snapped these photos at my kitchen table late at night. I think there might be a lifetime supply of some of these items. I've set myself a goal of using supplies of each and every company that sent us product, to feature on my blog. I think it might take all year! LOL. 

In the meantime, I want to say thank you to all the generous companies listed below. If I've missed anyone, I apologize. There is just so much to sort through!



Thanks for stopping by today. I will be back with a new card tutorial as soon as I get my photos edited, hopefully Monday morning. I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! 
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Friday, March 30, 2012

Purple Butterfly Box - Tutorial

Hello and happy Friday! Today I am sharing a project I made for the Spellbinders™ design team retreat. We all made small gifts to exchange with one another and this is what I came up with. I filled each box with some candies. 

 To begin, I cut a piece of Pure Luxury Lovely Lavender card stock to 7 ¼
 by 7 ½ inches. On the 7 ¼ side, I scored at 1 ¼, 3, 4 ¼ and 6 inches. 

Next, I rotated the card stock and scored at ½, 1 ¾, 5 ¾
and 7 inches on the 7 ½ side. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my Scor-Pal? They were one of the fabulous companies to send product to the Spellbinders retreat and they were so generous to us!

After scoring, I trimmed away the parts shown in the photo and cut slots for the side flaps.

I used a corner rounder to round the little side tabs.

Then for the front flap, I fed it into my Spellbinders Grand Labels 23 Nestablities die template (2nd smallest die template). Then I used blue painter tape to hold the paper in position in the die, then made my sandwich. I fed the sandwich into my Grand Calibur® Die Cutting Machine, just far enough to cut the front edge, then backed it back out. 

I sponged Memento Grape Jelly ink around the edges of the top/front flap.

Then folded the sides in, adhering with Scor-Tape, to form my box.

I held the front flap closed and pierced a hole for the brad.

After inserting the brad, the flap tucks right behind the brad and holds the box closed. I found that small brads don't work very well for this, so I picked up some large brads from Michaels.

 To decorate the box, I cut some Pure Luxury White card stock with the largest in a regular Labels 23 set. Then sponged Memento Grape Jelly ink while still in the die template.

To get the scoring just right, I held the cut piece in place, then used a pencil to make a light mark where I wanted the score line. I did this for each fold. There is a small amount that extends past the back of the box, which I just trimmed off.

Here you can see it after I scored and trimmed. I had forgotten to add some background stamping, so I added that. I used the small branch from Hope Grows and stamped with Memento Grape Jelly, ghost stamping before re-inking for added depth.

Here is the box after adhering the background.

Next I stamped the butterfly, from Warm With Love, using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I used Copics to color, starting with B26.

Added B23.

Added V06.

Added V04.

Added V01.

Then filled in with V000. After coloring, I cut out the butterfly.

The sentiment is from Whimsical Spring and stamped on a piece of white card stock, cut using Spellbinders Labels 4. I adhered with Pop Dots.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a great weekend!


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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Wild Savannah Tutorial

Hello! I'm back from the Spellbinders™ retreat and what an amazing experience it was. I'm still giddy. We learned so much and were given so many wonderful products and supplies by the fabulous cross promotion companies that work with Spellbinders. They treated us like royalty spoiling us with surprises, classes and so many dies I don't know which to use first. I will always treasure the friendships I made there. I used a few of those products on my card today, along with images from my new rubber stamp set, Wild About You.

To begin, I stamped the giraffe with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored in with my E51 Copic marker.

Added some shading with E33.

Then a little more shading with E35.

I used E37 to fill in the spots. After coloring, I cut out the image.

Next, I stamped the giraffe with Memento Tuxedo Black in and used E00 and E53 to do a bit of shading. After coloring, I cut out this image, too.

For the background, I cut a piece of Pure Luxury Ivory to 4 1/2 by 3 inches and sponged Memento Desert Sand ink.

Sponged lightly with Memento Rich Cocoa.

Next, I used sticky notes to mask the top and sponged more Memento Rich Cocoa, keeping it darker at the top and fading toward the bottom.

I stamped the small grass using Memento Rich Cocoa.

 Stamped the tree with Memento Rich Cocoa.

I used W5 Copic to add a shadow behind the tree.

Next I used my Grand Calibur® Die Cutting Machine to cut a piece of Graphic 45 designer paper, from the Tropical Travelogue collection. Graphic 45 is one of the wonderful companies that generously supplied product to the whole team. I love this zebra print! I used the third smallest die template from LF-190 Grand Labels 4 to cut the paper and sponged lightly around the edges with Memento Rich Cocoa while still in the die.

I wanted a narrow frame of Pure Luxury Chocolate Brown around my pattern paper, so I trimmed along the sponged line on my paper.

Next I cut some little branches out of Pure Luxury Chocolate Brown, using S4-328 Foliage. Here I got to use another awesome present to the design team, from Xyron! This nifty little machine is called Create A Sticker and it is so cool for adding adhesive to small, delicate pieces. You just feed the little brach into the top of the X.

Then at the bottom of the X you pull on the tape and out comes your piece. You tear it off, lift the top plastic away and it is ready to peal off and stick on your project. It was supper easy and the adhesive covered the entire branch.

Here is another look at the card. The finished card size is 8 by 5 1/2 inches and card base is Pure Luxury Kraft. The zebra is adhered directly on the background and the giraffe is popped up with Pop Dots. The sentiment was stamped on Pure Luxury Ivory and also adhered with Pop Dots.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope your day is wonderful!


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