Dashed Circles, i-crafter May Release

Hi again friends!

It's i-crafter's Release Day and I am so excited to share the new Dashed Circles dies. This set is super versatile and allows you to use your other i-crafter products (and every other company's products) in even more fun ways! The dies cut dashes on two sides of the cut circle creating a positive and negative space that can be used on your projects. I have 3 cards to show you today with fun ways to create using this great new set.

My first two projects use paper from Echo Park's Perfect Princess paper pad. I have two adorable little girls that are getting a package from me soon and I wanted to include some cards for them. 

The first card, I folded my card base out of a dark gray, and took the die to the very edge of the fold. By placing the cutting circle just over the fold, I was able to cut *almost* a full circle card base. My cutting machine didn't fully cut the bottom circle's dashes, I could have recut or used a shim to help it, but decided that I liked the look and kept it as is.

Next, I picked my patterned papers from the Perfect Princess pad, and die cut two Dashed Circles from it, the larger of the two circles is the princesses, the smaller is a sentiment that says "little girls have a magic of their own, princess." 

I added a medium sized Dashed Circle in a bright yellow to contrast with the gray and create space between the two patterned papers. This was popped-up on a thin foam tape, then the smallest Dashed Circle was added to it. I finished the card with 3 light purple heart embellishments from HAI Supply

The second card, I used the same paper pad, but wanted to show off a few more tricks the Dashed Circles die set can do! I started with a blue-green card base then cut down another piece of the yellow to add on top of that. I cut out various pieces of the patterned paper that I wanted to include. Next, I took a medium sized Dashed Circle die, and added the die one size smaller in the center of it. I cut both of these at the same time, creating a frame for my unicorns (I lined up the outer circle dashes on both the unicorns and the frame) and a back layer for my crowns.

After playing with the layout of the 4 patterns, I turned my attention to the sentiment circle "You're a princess". In order to highlight this circle, I positioned the smallest Dashed Circle die in the top left of the yellow layer, creating a negative space that opened up to the blue-green base. I added foam tap to the back of the sentiment to give it more depth. I finished this card off with some Raspberry DoubleClick Skittles.

My last card is super shiny! I stared with a black card base to make the Holographic Cardstock pop more, in the center of this shiny layer, I used second from the smallest Dashed Circle die and cut a negative space. I used this to line up the location for my Halo Lights. I added the center cut piece of the Holographic Cardstock to help the light reflect upwards more (black tends to absorb light so this helped more go upward.) I also used a metallic blue marker to fill in the rest of the black, thinking I would be using vellum to fill the negative space, which I later decided against.

Next, I cut out 2 partial Dashed Circles from a striped pink cardstock scrap. I grabbed the scraps of my yellow cardstock from earlier and cut out "Shine on" for the top circle, and "like a" for the bottom circle with i-crafter's Carly alphabet dies. For "diamond" and to fill the negative space in the center, I used Light Blue Metallic Paper.

I finished the card off with Diamond Clear Jewels from HAI and by writing in "Push" since I failed to stamp it before I glued everything together! Here is a short video show off card all lit up!

Head over to i-crafter to get the new Dashed Circles die set, and check out the other wonderful new release items too! Be sure to join the i-crafter Facebook Fan Club, then follow us on Instagram, and Pinterest too! We love seeing all of your creations using the i-crafter products.

Until next time,

R. Winn

Pixie Dust

It's release week at Kindred Stamps and I have 3 cards that I am so excited to share with you! 

My first card shows off the new Pixie Dust Slimline Stencil paired with the Kindred Stamps Happily Ever After Glitter Gloss. I used Pixie Spray to hold my stencil down while I added the Glitter Gloss which allowed me to easily reposition the stencil from the top edge to the bottom edge. 

I used Catherine Pooler Blue Suede Shoes ink to stamp a sentiment from the new Pixie Dust stamp set and placed it in the center of the trails of pixie dust. 

For the adorable fairy from the Pixie Dust stamp set, I colored her up with Copic markers and added blue Wink of Stella to her wings which made them SO sparkly! I stamped out the "I believe in you" sentiment onto dark blue paper, and heat embossed it with gold embossing powder. Then I added the "pixie dust" above that and mixed a sparkly embossing powder with WOW Opaque Bright White powder. I positioned my fairy over the dust.

Next, I started to build my TV using the amazing new TV Time Die from Kindred Stamps. I began by blending brown ink over a burgundy piece of card stock to darken the paper to a "cherry wood" color. Then I used a darker brown ink smudged into a Tim Holtz 3D Woodgrain Embossing folder and put it through my die cut machine. I was REALLY happy with the end results.

Next, I used roughed up some gold foiled paper to make it look aged. I used this for the "dials" and other details of the TV. For the TV antenna, I pushed the ball end of the i-press in small circles on the back which made the paper kinda rounded like an old timey antenna! I went a head and repeated that process the entire TV, 

I wanted this to pop up on the inside of the card the i-crafter Hello Sunshine wiper die and mounted the TV to the front of it.

Next, I used these two adolecents from "Pixie Dust" for a slimline card using the Kraftgali Stitched Scallop Slimline dies I created a starry sky using Color Burst Powders and Crafter Companion glittery watercolors for them to fly off into.

For my last card, I paired the Kindred Stamps Dragon Scale Stencil with the crocodile from the Pixie Dust stamp set. To start, I dry embossed a bright green cardstock using the Dragon Scale stencil, then ink blended 2 darker shades of green over top.

I colored the crocodile from the Pixie Dust stamp set using Copic markers and put him on a circle die cut from The Stamp Doctor. I layered this over a 1.75" strip of dark brown that I had heat embossed "after a while crocodile" from the Pixie Dust stamp set.

I wrapped a bit of plain white twine around the brown strip. To finish the card off I used a few Hazelnut DoubleClickSkittles sprinkled across the stenciled scales!

The entire Kindred Stamps July release will be available Friday, July 24 at 8am PST/11am EST.  Be sure to subscribe to the Kindred Stamps blog to see a daily line up of sneak peeks from our amazing Design Team and see the full product release on Friday!  Come join the Fan Club and release event to be part of the release fun, and you may just win some Kindred Stamps credit!!

I hope you enjoyed my cards as much as I enjoy this set! See you next time.

~R. Winn

Friendship Cards - Tropical Party

Ready for some bright colors? I got to play with all sorts of fun things this week! This week I'm sharing the Witt & Sass Stamp Co's Tropical Party stamp set!

I started by creating a card for the #wscardchallenge "Black & White, POP of color, and ribbon". I picked a few patterned papers that were black and white but complemented each other and layered them. I colored up the pineapple with Copics for my POP of color and put it on a white square. I wrapped two corners with black glitter ribbon.

I love the sentiments on this set, they're super fun and are all about celebrating yourself. I chose "Celebrate Your Weirdness" and heat embossed it using Brutus Monroe's Raven Embossing Powder. I added a few black DoubleClick Skittles and a few clear droplets from Pretty Pink Posh to finish off the 3" x 3" card!

My next card is the main feature! I freaking LOVE this flamingo. It's tall, and fills a card well, and is SO cute. I knew I wanted a one layer card. I find that they are hard for me, I flounder when I don't get to add lots of die cuts or embellishments because that means getting things right the first time, no mistakes!

I started by stamping out the flamingo and coloring him up using my Copics (I had to go get more pinks because what I had wasn't cutting it!) After he was done, I masked him off and then used the Wave Background Builder stencil to put him on a golden sandy beach.  I used Catherine Pooler blues and a blending tool for the water, then added the sand in using Delicata gold.

I topped the waves off with the darkest blue using the Background Builders Sand & White Caps stamps. Then added a few sandy details in the same Delicata gold to complete the scene.

Again with these sentiments, they rock! "In a world of pigeons you are a flamingo!" went directly next to the flamingos lower legs and I embossed it in Brutus Monroe's Mermaid Tail powder. In order to finish the card off, I went ahead and put it on top of a bright tropical patterned paper!

I hope you've enjoyed my makes, and want to invite you to join us on Facebook to see the rest of the team's projects, and share your own too!

See you soon!

~R. Winn

Chubby Unicorn!

Guys... GUYS! 

The day I've been waiting months for is here. I've some how been blessed with amazingly talented friends. I stumbled across this insanely talent gal, Amy, a few months back and stalked her a little bit until we became friends. She told me about her plans to launch her designs from digital stamps to clear, I was on board immediately. I loved the designs that I had purchased from her Etsy store, and well, I love clear stamps. So, when she invited me to join her design team, I was floored.

I am pleased to bring you my first blog as part of the Witt & Sass Stamp Company Design Team! Today, I feature Chubby Unicorn... he's my favorite! My first card, I worked with a design sketch I found from Google (I really can't remember who designed it and I'm sorry for that!) Normally, I build my cards as I go, planning is actually a little outside of my comfort zone.

I had picked some really beautiful pastel papers but they ended up working against this awesome pink dude that I colored up using Copic markers. So... I tried again! I worked with richer, darker colors, the result is beautiful! (Well, at least I think it is!) I wanted him to become the focal point of the card, to make him really pop, I made sure to keep his coloring bright and the background I did in shades of Warm Grey. I finished him with a clear Wink of Stella to add sparkle.

The sentiment, I heat embossed using WOW powder in Earthtone Grape and layered using Stampin' Up's Layering Oval die cuts. The beautiful star strip is from this set too, it reminds me of a bar of music! I used Chameleon Pens to color it, and finish it off with Wink of Stella on the stars. 

Finally, I finished the card off with red and black DoubleClick Skittles and Silver Star Sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.

My next card, I chose the original, full body Chubby Unicorn! I used the Blue Green family, and just colored the shaded parts of him, more of a reflection than color. This was followed by using the colorless blender marker to pull some of the brightness of the color out. My best friend, Molly, and her purple hair were the inspiration for the hair color!

So, I had this adorable unicorn all colored up, with no where to go. I reached into the box of goodies that Witt & Sass Stamp Company is launching with, and pulled out this AMAZING, Background Builder Hill Stencil. I love using stencils in a variety of ways, ink is always fun to play with, but really, we have some truly skilled ink blenders on the team that have been playing with these stencils too. Glitter paste is always fun, but I didn't want to overwhelm the unicorn, then I saw it... my Tonic Embellishment Mousse! I recently have been picking up additional colors here and there. I had the Citrus Green, which was perfect for this grassy hill so I started there. I off-centered the hill a little so you can really see how well it rounds, on a 5.5" x 5.5" card, it covers from edge to edge. On my A2 size, I got to pick my placement!  

You all know I love my clouds, stencils, die cuts... stamps. Well, you've never seen something this fantastic! Amy came up with this brilliant Background Builder Cloud Stencil and my life was completed! I used my powder blue mousse for the base of these clouds (yes, I know clouds are white, but in unicorn world the sky is inverted.) and did the cloud shadows in black ash mousse. After that was all done, I placed my little guy on the hill, and added a few bunches of grass to the top of the hill with the stencil!

The sentiments with this set are just fun, I love how encouraging this card would be to get. I stamped the sentiment out on some scratch pink paper using Versafine and used one end of a Lawn Fawn sentiment banner die cut to give it shape. I layered both my card front and the sentiment strip on purple glitter paper I picked up at Hobby Lobby! To finish the sentiment, I used a Luna Wink of Stella pen to fill in the word "cool"!

I hope you all enjoyed my cards, and if you haven't already, come check out Witt & Sass Stamp Company! We'd love for you to join us on Facebook and to see what you end up making too!

Thank you all for joining me, and thank you to Amy for believing in me!

~R. Winn

The Next Space Explorers!

Guys... guys... GUYS! I am SO excited to share these projects! Kindred Stamps released their new set The Next Space Explorers stamps on May 25th, and to say that I geeked out a lot!

I had so much fun coloring these guys using the no-line technique and Ink On 3's Fade-Out ink, and Copic markers. 

I started by making my first foiled card! I was so nervous that I was going to screw things up. I used Altenew's Warp Speed Stencil that I picked up at Crafty Doodle Chick, DecoFoil's glue pen, and red foil. 

I also tried out my Tonic Studio's Silver Mica spray to create the middle layer of paper for my card, and the sentiment is stamped on a piece too!

My android and blind dude are totally best friends and there for each other through everything!

Next, the Captain is a fan of Earl Grey tea and to me it felt perfect for a gift card holder (some lucky nerd is going to get a Starbucks gift card with it!)

I got him colored up and mounted him on piece of patterned paper from the Sunny Studios Rainbow Bright pack, again from Craft Doodle Chick!

I finished him off by giving him a little shadow with a grey watercolor marker. 

My last card is the chief security officer... He was a little more difficult for me to color, and it shows. But I tried my best, and used the colors I had! I will say, I am pleased with the silvery look of his weapon and sash!

To keep him the hero of the card but not have him too dull, I used the new paper stack that one of the gals in the Kindred Stamps Fan Club shared, and I clearly needed, Echo Park's Space Academy! I grabbed my previously unused Stampin' Up Starbust die (seriously, I've had it for like two years guys...) and cut my patterned paper with it and backed it with dimensionals. I mounted it on a piece of black cardstock.

My last touch was grabbing a random banner I had in my hoarding stash... I may need actual help guys... to use for the sentiment. I love the buildable sentiments that Kindred Stamps does and this one may be one of my favorites! I finished it off with a nice DoublClick Skittle that pulls out the red planets on the paper.

I hope that you enjoyed these projects as much as I enjoyed making them! If you haven't been lucky enough to buy Kindred Stamps, you can set up your account using my referral link and get 10% off http://i.refs.cc/9VcMQuB9?u=1527128718946!

~R. Winn Creates

Dragon Along!

Hi again friends! It's been a trying month for me, I won't lie! Battling through depression over my job loss, and climbing over hurdle after hurdle that seem to come my way have been tough. BUT, I'm Dragon Along (ha!) and am excited to start my new job this month!  For this month's release we have SO many amazing sets, but one of my absolute favorites is "Dragons" It's not a huge set, but it's a very versatile set in my opinion!

My first project using it is a kid's color me in type of card.  I've seen this done many different ways, but they all come back to using an adorable image for a card to give to a kid in your life.  This flying dragon made me thing of my "baby" sister who can be a bit of a dragon herself lol! So, I made her a Valentine using him, a few pieces of Kindred Stamps's Sweet Love Shaker Pack, a set of Brutus Monroe's Clickable Alphabets (affiliate link), Stampin' Up's Starburst Circles Die Cuts, and the "So Fly" sentiment from "Dragons". 

The result is an adorable dragon card for a 10 year old to color in, since coloring is one of her favorite things to do at my house! She will be able to use crayons, colored pencils, or even Copic markers if she wants to since I used blending paper to make sure any medium that my little dragon wanted to use would work. (Yes, she uses my Copics, and she does an excellent job with them too!)

Next up, I wanted to use both dragons in the set, and I adore this "I heard you're dragon" sentiment. Like I said, the last month hasn't been easy on me so it really spoke to my heart. Both dragons are colored using Copics, I chose blue for the little guy sitting, and for the flyer I went with a more traditional dragon color of red (maybe I should've done green but I like my dragons colorful!). It's hard to see, but both dragons are COVERED in Wink of Stella clear glitter and shimmer and shine in good lighting! 

I knew I wanted the little guy sitting to be lower, and I had wanted to put the sentiment behind him, but I couldn't make that work without covering him or putting him too far right to look up at his friend.  So then it occurred to me that he would fit perfectly ON the sentiment. I glue him flat to the card base and gave the flyer with a little pop with dimensionals from Stampin' Up.

Last, the card looked a little naked to me so I grabbed some blue DoubleClick Skittles (check out Kindred Stamps's selection here) and used 3 on the two blank corners. I feel like I ended up with a perfectly balanced card ready to brighten someone's day.

My last project was a bit of a brainchild... I thought what could be better than a dragon in the clouds? Too bad I killed my Snow Marker (yes, that's a thing, here's an Amazon link) to make it, but... I think it's worth it!  I got a set of Arteza Real Brush Markers for Christmas, and was dying to try them. The bad news is that I have no idea what I'm doing with them. The good news is, he still turned out pretty cute!  

After I colored him in, I used a blue scrap for the background and glued him where I wanted him, then set to work on the clouds! Each fluffy cloud was added in layers of drawing with the marker and using my heat gun. The effect is a nice fluffy bunch of clouds, including the one little flyer is popping out of!  Last, for the sentiment, I used a Fiskar's small cloud punch and build another cloud, slightly more flat than the others. Using a Distress Oxide in Raspberry, I stamped "So Fly" into the clouds.

There you have it, my three cards using "Dragons" for the January 2018 Kindred Stamps Release!

Thank you for joining us in celebrating this month's release! We know a lot of you have been hoping for sets inspired from times when dragons wandered the earth freely and dire wolves once again moved amongst this land. We brought that to you, and then some. We brought spooky things from the deepest depths of the oceans, and we captured the night sky for you. All you need to do now is to let your inspiration reign! Where will these stories take your crafting?

Before your craft table takes you to the many planets of our solar system, let us take you to the blogs for our Creative Team Members and that of our Guest Designer. Everyone is excited to provide you with a sample of their work and to talk about some of the products they used as well as their thought process.

On your journey, if you comment on each person's blog post, you will be eligible to win store credit for a future purchase! You must comment on each person's blog, as well as the blog post for Kindred Stamps. The winner will be chosen Friday night, 1-12-18, around 9 pm EST.

We thank you so much for your enthusiasm! We can't wait to see what you're inspired by, but remember, if you are inspired by something pop culture related, please refer to our stamp set names on social media and avoid using the actual show or character names. It is very important that we do not step on copyright toes! Thank you ever so much!

Now, for the hop! Follow these links!

Kindred Stamps

Marie Nicole Designs

R.Winn Creates (You are Here!)

Dagg Designs Blog

Fanciful Spaces

The Frolicking Fairy

Thank you for dropping in!

~R. Winn

Everything is Awesome!

Hi lovelies!

I am SO excited about the new Kindred Stamps Building Block stamp set!!  If you're like our household, you enjoy using these wonderful little bricks to build iconic buildings, create scenes from your favorite movies, or even just play around!! Audra at Kindred Stamps, asked her creative team for ideas and somehow asked for something "Lego" inspired but still so unique!  

The first card I want to share is a classic couples card!  I built my own background paper using the side view bricks and top view of the flowers! They are colored with Copic markers, and I tried to use the basic brick colors in the build your own type buckets. I mounted it on a Brazill Basics burnt orange card stock, unfortunately, I was gifted it so I don't know the shade name!

Next, I built my couple, they were so fun! I loved picking which faces they got!! Thank goodness for my MISTI, none of this would've happened without it! I used my Chameleon Markers to color their clothes, I attempted some faded jeans, it was kinda fun. 

Last, my sentiment, I love the "You Complete Me" sentiment. I took some Real Red cardstock from Stampin' Up! (if you don't have a demo, check out my friend Kelli, she rocks!) and used the Layering Ovals Framelits from Stampin' Up! 

I completed the card with a few... LEGOS! I couldn't resist, I dug around in my bucket and pulled out some flat white 2x1s to add a little... embellishment! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

My second card, I really wanted to dedicate to friendship, because they really are the thing that keeps us standing and build us up when we are struggling!

I decided to try a little masking! This technique allows for you to tape or paper off a part of a stamp and layer the stamps. (The amazing Lydia at Understand Blue gave a good, simple video example here!) I figured the best thing to use for your first attempt at masking was Building Bricks... that you could stack. **HEHE**

Everything was colored up with Copic markers, I kept the girls simple but considered trying to mask some of the adorable flowers on to their shirts or pants (my BFF and I are a little obsessed with leggings so it would've been fitting!) 

The little brick hearts were begging to be used and added to the cutesy of the card.  I finished off with some of my FAVORITE embellishments, DoubleClick Skittles (you need them!) they give just the right amount of POP to any card and are soooo pretty! My card is layered with some retired Stampin' Up Designer Series Paper and ready for gifting!

I hope you all enjoyed my creations! I had so much fun making them and can't wait to get to play with my Building Blocks stamp set again!  For making it through this long post, if you want to place an order on www.KindredStamps.com you can use my coupon code "RWINN10" for 10% off your entire order!

Until next time!

R. Winn

What Happens When I'm Itching to be Creative but My Fibromyalgia Forces Me to Sit on the Couch!

Long ridiculous title, I know.  Today's card is a product of forced "relaxation," aka sitting on the couch because pain and fatigue have taken over your life, and an itch to actually use a few of my new stamps from So Suzy Stamps! 

Last week I missed a few days of work, dealing with a flare up of my fibromyalgia... not fun.  After so many hours watch Netflix I tend to get a bit stir crazy.  

My husband ordered me to turn on some music and color so I would relax.  Out came my Copics and Wink of Stella markers, and sitting in a bin unused looking at me with sad eyes was the So Suzy Stamps Seahorse that I had so desperately wanted (I may have even threatened a few friends to make sure I was first to order when Suzy restocked!... Good thing they love me!)  

I started coloring up Polo (the seahorse) first, but seeing as I had put on Fantasia (my version of turning on music!) He ended up a little psychedelic, but as adorable as I always knew he would be!!  He turned out to be a she... as did all my little critters, in fact, she ended up being a bit of a Rapunzel Disneybound! HEHE!

 


Next, I grabbed some little fishies.  This little ladies are tooooooo cute, I was suppose to add googly eyes, but I forgot, good thing they turned out perfect anyways!

I ended up with Tink, Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora.  All covered in glitter, as princess fishies should be.  Can you tell yet just how much time I had been sitting on the couch without any sort of creative outlet?

 

I also colored up a few more critters and my adorable coral.  Not everyone could fit on my small card so at least they can have a little moment to shine here!  Meet Ariel the Octopus, and Belle, the Sea Turtle

Today, I decided they needed a home and created a card using a few of my critters! Here, are Rapunzel, Cindy, and Snow by their sea castle on a "Happy Birthday" card.

I used the Fireworks available from So Suzy Stamps to create a fun blue violet water-colored background.  Then took her Castle stamp (another I NEEDED, but had not used!) and stamped it onto the background.  I used Stampin' Up Stamp 'n' Write markers to color in the castle and walkway. 

For the "Happy Birthday" I took a Close to My Heart Stamp I had on hand and used my MISTI and Wedding Dress White Memento Luxe ink.  I had to put down several layers to make the white stamp out from the water-colored background, the final result is pretty awesome! Using some dimensionals and adhesive I placed the critters on where I felt they fit best. I finished the card off with some DoubleClick Skittles as little air bubbles from the fish!

I double mounted the base I had created on some pretty seaweed green CS from my stock and the on top of that I used a water print from a designer paper that I got several years ago at JoAnn Fabric. 

Check out So Suzy Stamps August, Be The Sea Challenge on her blog!

As always, thank you for dropping by!

 ~R. Winn

Visit my Stampin' Up website if you need some supplies!