Wedding Envy!

August has been a bit crazy in our household.  Both my husband and myself are in a friend's wedding this month, throw in showers, a few birthday parties and a large order of cards on top of those and you have one full month!

Making a few wedding cards made me stop and think about all the different ways to celebrate the union of two people.  We are lucky to have some amazing friends, and were even luckier that they asked us to support them on their wedding days.  



This first card was made for our friend Paul and his bride Heather, Jeff and I were lucky enough to get to spend some time with Paul a few days before the wedding and I was able to find out their wedding colors turquoise and yellow , I used them as the inspiration for my card!

I used SU Daffodil Delight card stock  as my base and then used the new Moonlight Designer Series Paper Stack (OMG!) as my background, the paper stack offers amazing options for your backgrounds, accents or whatever you want really!  

Next, I took my FAVORITE, framelit set, the Dress Up Framelits Dies, that happens to be on the clearance rack right now, and the Dazzling Diamonds paper, in order to make this gorgeous but expensive paper go a little further, I only made one full size dress, then used the scraps to make 4 additional layers.  The bottom layer I used some sparkly blue "tape" to add a "Something blue" to the dress.  The rhinestones are SU as well, and I think I got lucky that they stayed, but I felt like my wedding dress needed a little extra BLING!  

To finish it off, and say what I wanted it to say, the Labels Collection Framelits and the Love and Laughter SU stamp set, which is sadly retired (except in the digit studio! L&L Digi)

I wanted to keep this simple, fun and elegant, much like Paul and Heather Griswold!  Congrats you guys!  I hope you loved your card, lots of love went into making it!



Next, I have a card that was for a set of commissioned cards for a lovely Susan Smith Bruzas, she contacted me about making a set of 20 cards for her and gave me creative freedom (which is scary and exciting all at once!)  

As most people know, I love fairytales, I think weddings and a marriage should be our own personal fairytale.  I am lucky enough to have my own Prince Charming who helps me slay the dragons that head my way.  I wanted to express my hopes for Susan's loved ones to have their own fairytale.  I used a silver card base from a pre-cut base pack and my favorite of the SU 2014-2016 In Colors, Lost Lagoon to create a card that is simple, classic and hopeful!  The heat embossed wedding bells are from SU's Embellished Events set and my ribbon is Lost Lagoon Satin Stitched Ribbon.  Thank you again Susan for your order and for being my second order for cards!


Last, but definitely not least, I got to make a card for one of my best friend's bridal shower.  Desiree is one of the sweetest women I've ever known and I feel privileged to be in her wedding on Saturday.  I know she is going to make a beautiful bride and I appreciate that she loves kiddos enough that when my 6 year old sister fixes my smudged ink she just grins and knows that it was made with love!

I began with Whisper White cardstock, and layered it with a red paper (her wedding colors are red and black!) I wanted a dramatic look so I used one of the Typeset Designer Series Paper pieces that to me looked very elegant and again layered it with red paper.  I used my Love and Laughter set for the embossed wedding dress and the Girls' Night Out stamp set for the "Here Comes the Bride" banner.  I added the rhinestones for a little sparkle.  

That was when I made my fatal mistake and smudged my Whisper White Craft ink!  My little craft helper, Addison, was with me, she told me she knew how to fix it, dug around in my supplies and pulled out a Minnie Mouse self inked stamped and slapped that puppy on the smudge before I realized what had happened.  I almost cried!  Then I stopped and remembered the amazing person this card was for and knew that Addison's help would make Desiree laugh and I was able to smile and tell my little helper that it was perfect. 

Congratulations to Desiree and her groom-to-be JB!  I cannot wait to celebrate with you on Saturday!  Now to come up with a perfect card for that! :)


***Want a Dress Up Framelit Set of your own?  Place an order on my website, select me as your demo and use hostess code TTUFDBN9 by September 27th!  I pick draw a winner once Jeff and I return from our one year anniversary trip to Disneyland!***

XOXO,

R. Winn
My Stampin' Up! Website

My first blog post! SBS Mermaid Challenge, My take!

First, let me say, eeep! This is my first blog post... EVER!

I have been wanting to create this blog for a long time a Betty at Simply Betty Stamps has given me a kick in the pants to do so! 

 

I wanted to participate in her July Simply Betty Stamps challenge to create something amazing with her mermaid digi stamps. I think I've managed that goal!  I created not a card but a poster, I see this going in a little girl's bedroom or play room, but for now, one I find a cute frame, it will be hung in my craft cave.

I used a letter size piece of white card stock and built my background using a sponge to create a soft sand and water background, I had colored my beautiful digis using Stampin' Up! Blendabilities, and Copics, ahead of time and fuzzy cut around my beauties.

The challenge had a few requirements!

I needed to heat emboss (MY FAVORITE TECHNIQUE EVER!) I may have heat embossed way too many things (pssshhh!) I used a few different inks and embossing powders, 2 sets of the starfish and the crab were stamped with regular Stampin' Up! ink pads and covered with clear or iridescent ice embossing powder from Stampin' Up! The schools of fish, the lobster and the remaining starfish were stamped using Versamark from Stampin' Up! and topped using powders I had purchase from various craft stores. The coral, I attempted to heat emboss and failed, instead I used a few different colors from my Stampin' Up! Stampin Write markers and made a beautiful part of the background

Next, use glitter, duhhhh I basically bathe in glitter! A few of the embossing powers (ok like 90% of them) had glitter in them, NOT ENOUGH FOR ME!  So I grabbed my Dazzling Details (the original and silver) from Stampin' Up! and my Stickles in various colors and hit few tails,a hair piece, and yes even a shell bra with GLITTER!

NEXT! Rhinestones and gems! Can we just sign together, ***rhinestones and gems***
I used the rhinestones that we offer through Stampin' Up! and used various Blendabilities and Copic markers to turn them in to gems.  I placed a few in hair as ornaments, added a few as stones on the ground, and on one pretty maid added a bit of flair to her tail!

Lastly, and this is the part that STUMPED ME! Was ribbon or twine.  After A LOT of thought, I decided to got simple and easy (ha easy.) I gave them each a friendship bracelet with some colored twine (yes, I literally braided 4 tiny bracelets and wanted to poke my eye out trying to tie them to the itty bitty paper wrists, one may look like she is being bound, she's not, she has a bracelet on!

With no further ado, my project and close ups of my pretty ladies!

XOXO,

R. Winn

My Stampin' Up! Website