Taking a Short Break from our Blog

We're taking a short break from our blog this week, as we prepare for our Biggest Event of the year, Small Business Saturday (this is the Saturday after Thanksgiving).  We hope you'll plan on joining us if you're local!  We'll be announcing the details for all the fun and festivities next week.  So watch the blog and your emails for more information.

In the meantime, we thought we thought we'd share a few links to some wonderful and talented paper crafters.  We hope you find them inspiring! 

1.  Head over to KAY MILLER'S BLOG.  I love her wonderful and amazing use of color!  2.  MELANIA DEASY, another talented paper crafter you'll want to follow.  I love the soft, dreamy look of her projects.  3.  Finally, if you're a fan of coloring with Copic Markers, head over and visit ALICE WERTZ.  She is amazing with Copics!

We'll be back next week!!

Garland Background and Ranger Embossing Powders

I've had several of Ranger's specialty embossing powders sitting on my craft desk for some time now.  I finally found the time to use each of them in a similar project so I could compare the color variation and properties of each of the powders.  If you haven't used these before, I hope you'll find this information helpful when choosing what powder will work best for your project.

Sometimes you just have to give yourself permission to "play" and see what happens.  I was lucky this time.  While each of the powders are different, they all worked with my design.

Here's the basic card.  I created a similar version using several different embossing powders and the Garland Background stamp from Hero Arts.  The powder used for the card below was Ranger's Silver Super Fine Detail embossing powder.  I'll show a close up of each of the powders and the bottom of the post.

For each card, I used Ranger's White Super Fine Detail embossing powder to emboss the the sentiment onto vellum.  I cut the edge using the Dotted Border die from Avery Elle.  Below is a second version of the same card.  For this card I embossed the Garland background using Ranger's Silver Pearl embossing powder.

Here's a closer look at the four different powders I used.  All four powders are from Ranger Ink.

This is the Silver Pearl embossing powder.  Once embossed the image is slightly transparent so it picks up some of the color from the cardstock.  As the name states, it has a subtle pearl/silver finish.  Of all the powders, this was the most subtle.

This is the Holographic embossing powder.  Once embossed, it is completely transparent except for the holographic glitter.  It leaves a watermark effect on the paper, with the glitter on the surface.  It's very festive.

This is the Super Fine Detail Silver embossing powder.  It is very opaque, and once embossed leaves a shiny silver finish. 

I hear so much about the Liquid Platinum embossing powder.  Everyone seems to love it, and now I know why.  It too, is opaque once embossed and leaves a warm, metallic, shiny finish.  I would describe it as a color somewhere between a silver and antique gold.  It's lovely!!

Paper Smooches Holly Die

We just received the NEW Holly die from Paper Smooches.  So, we're sharing a quick card we made using it and the super versatile Bracket die and Double Stitched Ovals dies from MFT Stamps.

We added some Xmas Red Stickles to the die cut berries.  The sentiment stamp is from Avery Elle's Christmas Floral set.

The holly paper is from Echo Park's Story of Christmas Collection.  The red stripe paper is from Lawn Fawn.

Prills and Poppy Stamps Stitched Trees

Have you seen Prills?  Love these itty, bitty, little colorful bits!  They're perfect for shaker cards, snow, centers of flowers and lots more.  Today, we used them to embellish the trees we cut from the Stitched Tree and Stick Tree dies from Poppy Stamps.

We randomly squeezed small amounts of Multi Medium Matte onto the trees, covered them with Prillls and let them dry.

After die cutting the trees, we inked them using Tim Holtz Distress Ink and an ink blending tool.
The colors we used were:  Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers, and Cracked Pistachio.

We used the Dotted Borders from Avery Elle to create the snow banks.

We have the Prills available in quite a few colors.  These were some of our favorites.

Below:  Mini Pearls, Silver Lining, and Sweet Shoppe

 Below:  Heart of Gold, Red!  It's Right, and Go Green.