Masculine Birthday Card

 Designing masculine cards is always hard for me.  Today I have a birthday card to show you that I designed for my son.  When he has free time, he loves to get out in nature, so thought this card would appeal to him.  The overall card size is 6" x 6".  The two main items I wanted to use for this card are the Impression Obsession Tree Frame Die (IOB DIE 205YY) and the Penny Black Winter Sky Stamp (4204L).

 I started by using VersaMark Ink to stamp this Penny Black design onto a piece of white card stock.  It was embossed with Ranger's Ultra Fine Black Embossing Powder.  Next I used a 1" circle punch to create a stencil to sponge in the moon with Distress Inks.  I used a small sponge dauber and light yellow ink to create moon light down over the stamped image.  (I was trying to create a night scene but in the photo it looks more like a daytime scene!!)

Along the middle of the stamp image, I placed a piece of card stock, that was cut to resemble a snow bank, across the image and sponged on blue ink.  The round circle I punched out was placed over the sponged on "moon", for a mask, so I could sponge Stormy Sky Distress Ink and a Weathered Wood ink around it.  I used a stamp to create falling snow.  The "dots" were stamped using VersaMark Ink and embossed with Ultra Fine White Embossing Powder.  Be sure to use the anti-static pad over your picture so the embossing powder doesn't stick to some of the sponged on blue ink.  Some glitter was added along the top of the snow bank to help make it stand out.

Next I die cut the Impression Obsession Tree Frame.  Post It Notes were placed around the edge of the frame and the tree was sponged with brown Distress Inks.  I used a pencil to draw in some lines to resemble bark.  Next I used the Ivy Hollow ScrapFusion Needle Point bottle of glue to add some dots of glue on the tree branches and added Polar White Flower Soft to make the tree very dimensional.  The Flower Soft was also added along the very bottom of the frame.  Two of the Memory Box Resting Birds (98527) were added to the die cut tree branches.   

To make the card very dimensional, I added dimensional tape along the outside edge of the frame and some dimensional tape under the wider trunk and branches before attaching it over the stamped image.  The stamped image was trimmed to fit perfectly under the die cut frame.  

For the background on the 6x6 inch card, I embossed a piece of Navy Blue card stock with the Die'sire Embossalicious Happy Birthday Embossing Folder (EF6-Happy).  This piece was layered over light gray card stock.  The Dee's Distinctively "Deer 1" die was die cut using dark brown card stock and attached with a double layer of dimensional tape.

Some of these products can be purchased from Ellen Hutson, LLC at this LINK.

Susan's Garden Sweet Peas

I never thought I would be able to create the delicate little sweet pea flowers, but with Susan's Garden Sweet Pea dies, it was so easy.  You can see her directions at this LINK. 

Here is a close up of these pretty little flowers.   I assembled the sweet peas then used a hot glue gun to attach them to some thin floral wire.  These flowers make such a pretty addition to any card or box. 

 

The sweet peas look beautiful placed on white background.  You can purchase these dies from Ellen Hutson, LLC at this LINK.

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a great day.

Susan's Garden Southern Magnolia and Stamen Tutorial

 I love creating the Susan's Garden Southern Magnolia.  It is such a beautiful flower. 

  I used Susan's directions to create this flower but I did create the stamen a little different.  I promised you a tutorial on how I did it.  Here is the LINK to Susan's instructions for completing her magnolia.   Around the magnolia I added Susan's Garden White Pine Pine Cones and Pine Branches.  I created this card for a winter birthday card.

TUTORIAL FOR SOUTHERN MAGNOLIA STAMEN

 

This is a picture of a Southern Magnolia.

 When I started to create this stamen, I was not sure how many stamen pieces I would need,  so I die cut five pieces.  I cut each projection of the stamen twice to create 3 points.  This creates the frilly look needed for this stamen.  On one of the pieces, I colored the base brown to resemble the stamen in the picture.

 To get the stamen to have the curled points, I used the self-closing tweezers from Susan's Tool Kit and rolled down each point.  I caught the three narrow points and rolled them down.  You don't have to be real fussy about getting them exactly alike.  You can arrange them once the whole stamen is created.

 This is what the pieces looked like once the points were all curled down.

Add glue, on the back, to the bottom edge of one of the pieces that you have not colored the base, and roll it using the self-closing tweezers.  (You want the curls rolling out.) This will be the top of the stamen.

  Add glue to the next stamen piece and roll it around the base of the first rolled stamen.  The base is wide and this is very easy to do. This picture shows two stamens glued together.

 Depending on how high you want the stamen, you can use three or four pieces.  I only used a total of three.

 Next add glue to the back of the piece you have colored the base brown. Roll the piece around the bottom of the other stamens.  If the bottom is not perfectly straight, you can trim it with scissors so you can get it to sit straight in the center of the flower.  Add glue to the bottom of the stamen and place it in the center of the completed magnolia.

I know you will have fun creating these beautiful Magnolias. You can purchase Susan's Garden Southern Magnolia dies at this LINK.

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. 

.

 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.