Susan's Garden New Flowers

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas.  Are you ready to start working on new flowers for your Spring Paper Garden? It is great to be back designing.  The past few days, I have been working with the new Susan's Garden Flower Collection.  What amazing dies she has in this new release!

Here is a list of the dies in this collection:

Sweet Peas

Camellia

Carnation

Southern Magnolia

White Pine Pine Cones

Spider Mum

Rhododendron

Christmas Holly

Cistus (Rock Rose)

Nasturtium

Spring Bouquet which includes dies for mini daffodils and Tulips 

Cosmos

Amaryllis

3-D Book (Sizzix Bigz XL Die)

Grid Works (3 7/8" Square)

Woodland Leaves

Lady Slipper Tag

 Each flower is very easy to create.  I watched each of Susan's videos for instructions and love all the little tips she gives us to create such realistic flowers.  I will be posting each flower individually, along with the link to Susan's instructions,  but today I want to show you the entire flower collection.  I included the 3-D book in this picture which is decorated with Susan's Garden Poinsettia, the White Pine Pine Cones and her Christmas Holly.  This little box is perfect for including a gift card, money, candy or other small gift.  It will be beautiful with any of Susan's flowers for other gift occasions.  

I previously posted the Southern Magnolia and will be doing a tutorial soon to show you how I created the stamen for this gorgeous flower. 

You can find all these dies at Ellen Hutson, LLC at this LINK.

Have a great weekend.

 Good Morning.  A few months ago I posted a picture of three of my poinsettias left from last Christmas.  I told you I was going to try and get them to bloom again this year.  Well I was successful.  Here is a picture of my pink and white poinsettia that is blooming.  It only has four blooms but I was so happy to see that all the work in storing them in a dark spot from 5 PM to 8 AM paid off. 

Here is a close up of one of the blooms.

 Here is a picture of my Picasso Poinsettia.  The petals are just starting to turn Tan and Burgundy, and I have a lot more blooms on this plant. I'm not sure it will be fully bloomed out by Christmas, but I think it will.

I also have a red speckled poinsettia that is now blooming, but the plant isn't as healthy looking.  The blooms are pretty small on it but you can definitely tell what kind of poinsettia it is.

I do not think I will go to all this trouble next year.  It was a challenge just to see if I could do it; but I think I will just purchase new poinsettias next year.

I have many emails from you that I feel bad for not answering. Things have been extremely busy for me.  My husband finally got to come home from the hospital.  What a long month of traveling down to Spokane every day.  The weather was not good many days and it took two or three tries some days to be able to get out on the highway.  Our home kind of  looks like a therapy center now, with all the equipment but we are so thankful to have him home. My days are still really busy but hopefully I will have more time before long. Right now I have to stay close by because he already had one bad fall and got three bad cuts on his head. (He was getting up in the middle of the night and fell getting out of bed and hit his head on the night stand.)  I will now work on getting your questions answered and hopefully get back to working with some of the the new Susan's Garden dies that came out last month.  The new flowers are amazing and I am very anxious to show them to you.

Happy Holidays. 

Susan's Garden 3-D Book

 Today I have a project I think a lot of you are going to love.  It is perfect for gift giving for the holidays.  It is the new Susan's Garden 3-D Book die that can be used for inserting a gift card or be used for small gifts.  It is a die you will be able to use year round. 

Here is a picture of the Susan's Garden 3-D Book package along with the box I created.  It is one of the long Sizzix dies that you need to use the Extended Cutting Pads with to die cut it.  To create a very solid box, I recommend purchasing Craft-a-Board from Ellen Hutson, LLC.  This board is thin enough to be used with most diecut systems and dies, yet sturdy enough to produce beautiful projects.  I covered the Craft-a-Board with Design Paper. 

 To decorate my 3-D Book (box), I created a poinsettia using Susan's Garden Poinsettia Dies.  I also used the Susan's Garden Christmas Holly and Susan's Garden White Pine Pinecones dies for fillers under the poinsettia.  A sparkly white ribbon was used to close the book.

I always have certain people on my Christmas List that ask for gift cards.  This little 3-D Book creates a beautiful box I am sure the recipient will love more than receiving a gift card in a little folder or envelope.

I still don't have time to post tutorials on the new Susan's Garden products, but if you have any questions, please email me and I will help you.

Susan's Garden Southern Magnolia

 I am so excited to show you the new Susan's Garden Southern Magnolia.  Doesn't it look real!!!   

This is a picture of the package of Susan's Garden Southern Magnolia dies.

 I wanted to see a closeup of the stamen in the Southern Magnolia to see exactly how it was shaped.  I found this picture on the Internet. 

 Susan has a video at this LINK showing you how to assemble the magnolia.  I love Susan's tips on creating very realistic leaves.  Be sure to check that out!

I followed Susan's directions on assembling the magnolia except for the stamen.  I looked at the picture I found on the Internet and tried to create the stamen very similar to the one in that picture.  I used three of her stamen die cuts.  I don't have time to do a tutorial right now, but if you leave a comment below and let me know if you are interested, I will do a post later with a tutorial.

I had asked Susan last Spring if she was going to have dies to create a magnolia and knew the dies for this gorgeous flower would be out this Fall.  When I received my package of new dies, this was the first flower I wanted to create.  Susan's flower dies always create such gorgeous and realistic flowers.  I know you will love creating this flower and all the other new ones in this collection.  I will continue posting the new flowers as I have time.  My husband will be in the hospital about one more week then I will have time to devote much more time doing my favorite thing -- creating flowers!

Let me know if you have any questions. Have a great weekend.

NEW Susan's Garden Fall 2014 Collection Dies

 

I have great news.  The new Susan's Garden Fall 2014 Collection is now available.  Here are the 17 new dies:

Rhododendron

Southern Magnolia

Cistus (Rock Rose)

Sweet Pea

Cosmos

Spider Mum

Nasturtium

Spring Bouquet

Amaryllis

Carnation

Camellia

Christmas Holly

White Pine Pinecones

Lady Slipper

3 7/8 square Grid Works (create a box)

3-D Book (box)

Woodland Leaves (10 leaves)

You can see all of Susan's new Fall 2014 dies at this LINK

I have anxiously been awaiting Susan's new dies, however they arrived the afternoon before my husband went to the hospital for a knee replacement.  He ended up with blood clots so has been in the hospital much longer than expected, so I have not had much time to work in my craftroom.  However, since I know you are all probably working on Christmas cards, I wanted to take time create and show you the beautiful Susan's Garden Pinecone and Pine Branches dies and the Christmas Holly dies.  If you go to the link above you will be able to view the videos Susan did showing you step by step instructions for these dies. 

Link to Susan's Pinecone Video

Here are the pinecones I created with Susan's dies. The pinecone and branches are beautiful just the way Susan's created them, but I thought I would show you an additional idea to give them a snowy effect.   I added Ranger Texture Paste and Distress Stickles Dry Glitter. 

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 Link to Susan's Holly Video

You are going to love all the different sizes of realistic holly in this set.  Susan will show you a tip for creating the glossy look of the holly leaf and also how to create the berries.  

Here is a close up of the holly and pinecones I created.  On the holly leaves I added Viva Inka Gold paste. 

In this picture I have created a Susan's Garden lavender poinsettia, with gold highlights, and surrounded it with Susan's Garden pine branches and pine cones.

My husband is expected to be in the hospital for another two weeks, but as I can, I will be working on creating all the other flowers and boxes with Susan's Fall 2014 Collection.  I will post a board showing all the new flowers, as I have done in the past.  

Have fun creating!

Box with Lilies

Today is a beautiful sunny day.  My husband is out getting in some last minute golf before he goes in for knee replacement surgery this week, so I decided to work on decorating a gift box with Susan's Garden flowers.  I used a little wicker box and created Susan's Garden Lilies for the main attraction.  The smaller mum type flowers were created using the Susan's Garden Dahlia dies and then for a third flower I used Susan's Garden Daisy Dies.  My sweet friend from the Netherlands sent me a "Kitchen Craft Buttons Fondant Mould".  This mold is perfect for creating realistic centers for flowers.  I used Martha Stewart yellow air dry clay.  After they were dry, I sponged on Aged Mahogany Distress Ink.  They look very realistic. 

Here is a closeup of the lilies.  You can go to this link to watch Susan Tierney-Cockburn's Lily Video.

 

 After creating all the flowers, I placed them on the box and started pulling things out of my embellishment box.  I added a variety of leaves and other floral pieces I had in my stash.  There is a piece of a net bag, that fruit came in, that is tucked under the items on the top of the box.  The three butterflies were fussy cut from some Graphic 45 design paper and attached.

This wicker box was purchased from Hobby Lobby.  They come in a variety of sizes.  I think floral arrangements on these boxes always look so pretty.

Thank you for visiting me today.  I hope I give you some inspiration to decorate a plain box, with flowers, for a beautiful gift.

Heartfelt Creations Alumni Design Team Blog Hop

Are you ready for more inspiration from the Heartfelt Creations Alumni Design Team!  This month there are 12 designers participating and as in the past, that gives you 12 chances to win a $25 Gift Certificate to Heartfelt Creations. Be sure as you visit each blog to leave a comment.  The Blog Hop closes Friday, October 31st at midnight and the winner of the $25 Gift Certificate will be announce on Saturday, November 1. 

Here are the links to the designers participating in this blog hop:

Giovana Smith
Vicki Dutcher
Glenda Brooks
Caroline Duncan
Amarilys Doria
Alissa Wells
Emilia van den Heuvel
Selma Stevenson (you are here)
Tesa Broman
Sarah Miller
Lisa Gregory
Lisa Allen

To create my card, I used  the beautiful design paper from the Heartfelt Creations Festive Christmas Paper Collection. I used one of the layered 5x5 inch card panels and backed it with a piece of black card stock, then layered that onto another piece of design paper from the same collection.  The poinsettias were created using the Christmas Poinsettia PreCut Set and were cut out with the matching dies.  I added some additional pine branches, pine cones and branches.

If you are going in order, the next in line is Tesa Broman.  Have fun going through the blog hop and good luck with winning the $25 Gift Certificate.

Heartfelt Creation Festive Christmas Paper Collection

Heartfelt Creations Christmas Poinsettia PreCut stamp set

Heartfelt Creations Sun Kissed Fleur Die

Have a Magical Holiday

I need to make more Christmas cards and created a bunch of Susan's Garden White Poinsettias to have for future cards.  I used one on this card using the Marianne Design DF3406 embossing folder. I received a couple of sheets of Marianne Design "Tiny's Winterworld" landscape scenes, and used one of the scenes in the center of the embossed design. To get the cut out in the embossed design, I used one of the Heartfelt Creations  1B Cut Mat Create dies.  The scene was cut out and glued behind the opening.  A piece of green card stock was glued on the backside of the embossed piece to show through the die cut areas.

The poinsettia was created using Susan's Garden Poinsettia dies.  Behind the poinsettia I used the Susan's Garden Branch and Stem dies to create the snow covered twigs.  The branches were misted with water then pinched to shape them.  Texture Paste was added for snow then dipped in glitter.  There is also some pine branches and pine cones behind the flower.  On the very bottom of the flower, some pieces of cheese cloth were glued down before layering the other pieces on.  I added some red glitter decorations I found in the Christmas section of the craft store.  The sentiment is from the JustRite Christmas Inner Thoughts stamp set.

Have you started creating your Christmas cards?  I know I have to send a handmade card to everyone -- they would never let me send a store bought card, so it keeps me busy this time of year getting them all completed.

 Hope you have a great weekend.

Putting new Glue to the Test and a Special Offer

Good Morning. I know you like to hear about products I love to use and I have a new glue I would like to share with you. Be sure to read below for a special offer. The name of the glue is Ivy Hollow, ScrapFusion. The project I designed today was created using  ScrapFusion glue.  There are a variety of items glued to this box - flowers created with Susan's Garden dies and ScrapFusion Glue, laser cut pieces, die cuts, lace trim, cheese cloth and a button.  I designed this box a few days ago, so the items are thoroughly dry.  Everything is glued down solid; I have no fear anything will fall off.

Let me tell you a little bit about this glue.  Ivy Hollow Publishing is a little company, in northern Wisconsin, that Doug and Meegan operate out of their home.  Doug is a high school science teacher and before becoming a teacher, he spent 25 years working as a chemist in the printing/binding industry.  This is where Doug got his expertise with glue.  Below is a picture of the variety glue package.  You can purchase these glues as a package or individually. Doug packaged the bottles with three different applicator tops; a spout top, a dauber top which allows the glue to be applied in a half inch wide band, and a needle top which permits precision application of the glue onto small die cuts such as doilies, flourishes, gluing base of petals to form flowers, and alphabets.  When you order the variety pack, you also receive an 8-ounce refill bottle. 

 

ScrapFusion is perfect for card markers and scrapbookers.  This glue is archival.  It is pH neutral and is permanent.  Once it is dry, it is not removable but stays flexible, never becoming brittle.  Items will not pop off.  The paper won't wrinkle when layering design paper or card stock together. This glue is color safe and is resistant to bleeding with water.  

  

 I have created a lot of flowers with this glue and love using the needle top bottle because I can put just a small dot of glue to adhere petals. You can see the small amount of glue, in the picture above, that I used in assembling the flower I posted yesterday. I love this glue because it does not make my fingers sticky, when you lay the needle point bottle on its side the glue doesn't leak out (a big plus for me!) and you can dispense just the perfect amount of glue without wasting any glue. When I apply petals to form a flower, I add a small dot of glue, lay the petal down over the glue and press it in with a stylus. 

I am really happy I was introduced to this glue.  This glue is only sold by word of mouth.  I have talked with Doug and he is going to make you a special offer.  If you order the glue and use the code SELMAWA, you will receive a 20% discount on your order. Also, I love the price for shipping -- I will let you check that out with your order -- you will love it!   What a great way to give this glue a test.  Here is the LINK to the Ivy Hollow ScrapFusion site.

Ivy Hollow ScrapFusion

Pretty Gift Box

 I have had some computer problems and wanted to let you know that is why I have not posted for a few days.  I was made aware, from one of my Followers, that an additional site was opening up when they opened my blog.  I immediately contacted a computer tech who ran virus scans and nothing was found on my computer  but I still had the problem.   I then contacted Blogger and received excellent service from one of their technicians.  It took some work but he found out it was actually not in my blog or on  my computer, it was in the counter widget for hits on my blog that got infected and brought up another site -- it was on the server of the makers of the widget either by mistake or on purpose and was causing all the trouble.  That widget has been removed from my blog. I am happy to be back with no problems.

For my post today, I decorated a box with my Susan's Garden dies, that I purchased from Michaels Craft Store.  You know I love the challenge of  looking at pictures of flowers and creating different types of flowers with my dies.  I found the perfect dies for the flowers on this box - I used the petals from the Susan's Garden Daylily for the dark purple and white flower.  For the other flower shown on the box, I used the Susan's Garden Gerbera Daisy. 

I meant to take a picture of the top of the box  before attaching my flowers and forgot to do it.  I hope you can see the  flowers on the sides of the box.  I used the flower base from the Susan's Garden Poppy dies for the large purple flower.  It has six points, so there are six petals on each of two layers for one flower (a total of 12 petals for one flower).    I wanted to copy the flower on the box as close as possible, so I die cut the dark purple flower petals out of purple card stock using the petals of the Susan's Garden Daylily.  The back of the petals are white in the design so I used the Adirondack Snow Cap Acrylic Paint Dabber to swipe white paint up from the base of each purple petal (just on the back side).  It matches the flowers in the design perfectly.  For the stamen, you can use the Susan's Garden Gerbera Daisy stamen.  Each point on the stamen was cut several times to make them very thin.  The tips were colored with a marker.  I glued together 10 to 12 stamens for each flower.  Be sure to alternate the stamens so they form a nice full center.  In the very center I added a small daisy that was pinched up to match the stamen in the design on the box.

 For the the other flower, I used the Susan's Garden Gerbera Daisy.  I used Susan's Garden Pan Pastels and Distress Ink to color the white petals.  Each petal was shaped using the Susan's Garden loop tool.

I was sent a bottle of glue from one of my Followers - thank you Colleen.  I love it so much I ordered a variety pack of these glues.  The name of the glue is ScrapFusion.  Tomorrow I am going to tell you more about this glue, why I love using it,  and will have a special offer for you, so be sure and come back tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed seeing another way to use your Susan's Garden Flower dies.   

Susan's Garden Gerbera Daisy

Susan's Garden Daylily

Susan's Garden Poppy

Susan's Garden Pan Pastels

Susan's Garden Tool Kit

Adirondack Snow Cap Acrylic Paint Dabber

Let It Snow

 

I love to create scenes with stamps and dies.  Today I decided to work with one of my old Hero Arts snowman stamps called "Stove-Pipe Snowman".  He was stamped on white card stock and colored with Copic Markers.  For the blue background, I used the Metallic Blueberry Gelato.  I scribbled it on the Non-Stick Craft Sheet and sprayed it with water to make a watercolor then brushed it on.  For the snowbanks, I die cut the Poppystamps Puffy Cloud Border a bunch of times and fit it around the snowman.  The trees were die cut with the Impression Obsession Fir Trees Die.  Above the snowman I drew snowballs and glued on some tiny Styrofoam balls I bought at the hobby shop.  Down by the bottom of the snowman, I glued more Styrofoam balls to form a mound of snowballs.  The snowflakes and sentiment are from the JustRite "Large Fancy Holiday Sentiments" stamp set.  (This stamp set is on sale right now.)

Thank you for stopping by.  

Impression Obsession Fir Trees die 

Poppystamps Puffy Cloud Border die

Gelatos

Non-Stick Craft Sheet

JustRite, Large Fancy Holiday Sentiments stamp set

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Tis the Season to be Jolly

As you know, I love snowmen so when I found this cute snowman frame I thought it would be perfect to add some Susan's Garden red poinsettias for a home decor piece I can put out this Christmas. Under the poinsettias is an open space where you could add a photo, but I decided it was a perfect area to filled it with flowers.  You can watch Susan Tierney-Cockburn's Poinsettia video at this LINK to see how to assemble these beautiful flowers.  Under the poinsettias, I added some Impression Obsession Pine Branches.  I also added a few other embellishments from my stash around the flowers.

Remember I posted a picture of my poinsettia plants from last Christmas.  Well in order to get flowers this year, I have to place the plants in total darkness from 5pm to 8 am every night for a month.  Finding total darkness was hard -- it has to be a place where not a speck of light can get to them.  They have to be in light during the day. We taped some thick black plastic around a table, like a skirt, that sits under a window in the basement, and place them under the table at night.   I am so excited to see if I really get flowers. If this works, I will post a picture of them.

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

Susan's Garden Poinsettia dies

Susan's Garden Pan Pastels

Viva Decor Paper Pen Light Moss Green

Impression Obsession Pine Branch

LOVE

I love to create roses with Susan's Garden Rose Dies.  The roses petals were die cut using white card stock and the center petals were sponged with Milled Lavender Distress Ink. Today I combined these lavender and white roses with a new die from Marianne Design called "Love".   The white frame was die cut using the Spellbinders Captivating Squares.  The purple panel behind the white frame was scored on all four sides, three times, using the Martha Stewart Score Board.  Behind the roses I added the Memory Box Bamboo Shoots and the Poppystamps Massa Leaf.  I used the leaf tool and pad from the Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit to draw veins in each leaf.  Drawing in the veins really makes the leaves look realistic.  For the little flowers in the corner and around the roses, I used the Poppystamps Small Hydrangea Blooms die.

Below are links to products used:

Susan's Garden Rose Dies
Marianne Design LOVE
Spellbinders Captivating Squares
Martha Stewart Scoring Board
Memory Box Bamboo Shoots
Poppystamps Massa Leaf Background
Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit
Poppystamps Small Hydrangea Blooms
Milled Lavender Distress Ink

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God Bless You

I love the new Marianne Design Anja's Circle die (LR0327) so much I had to design another card with it today.  Before taking the die cut out of the die, I sponged Spun Sugar Distress Ink over the exposed portion on the front.  This really helped bring out the beautiful design in the die cut.  I placed this white die cut over a pink die cut from the same set.  It was attached with dimensional tape.  Before attaching it I stamped a sentiment in the center (I am not sure where this sentiment came from).  

This is a 6"x6" card.  I cut a lightly smaller square and embossed it with the Crafter's Companion Regency Swirls 8x8 embossing folder.  The pink doily was attached with dimensional tape. 

 The pink flower was created with the Susan's Garden Gerbera Daisy dies.  Under the flower, I added the Marianne Design LR0192, LR0157 and CR1272 leaves.  To decorate the corners, I added the Marianne Design LR0280 die cut corners.

Doesn't this new Marianne Design Anja's Circle make a beautiful background!

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