Ringing in the New Year!

Christmas is over, the cookies are almost gone, the kids have headed home, mountains of towels and sheets have been washed, the house is almost back to normal, wow how I miss it all!   I just love having my family home for the holidays.  But now it's time to ring in the New Year, so that's the theme I used to create this week's design for the Thursday Dream Scheme free challenge from Dreamweaver Stencils.
Enjoy:

I started by taping the Vertical Bells (LL497) to blue cardstock and applying Metallic Silver Embossing Paste (DSP). After removing the stencil, sprinkle the wet paste with Crystal glitter. While the paste is drying, emboss another piece of blue cardstock with Swirls (LJ863) through a die cut machine. Remove the cardstock and gently sand the design so the image shows. Layer the dark blue pieces on metallic silver pieces and mount them on a dark blue card.
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year in 2012! Thank you for your support this past year. I can't tell you how much it means to me to read your supportive comments. Keep watching for some changes coming in the new year. I'll be adding Twitter and Facebook links to make it easier to follow our great team whenever you have a minute. We've also welcomed our new team members, so be sure to stop at their blogs for even more great ideas.
Here's our new list of members, just click on their names to hop to their blogs:

DREAM it UP!

Pam Hornschu

Wendy Jordan

Laura Drahozal

Liz Martin

Georgia Sommers

Lee Kellogg

Cyndi Bundy

Kristi Van Doren

Jessie Hurley

Cherylynn Moser

Terrece Siddoway

Watch the DREAM it UP! blog for monthly opportunities to win some great prizes too!
Happy Creating,
Louise

Merry Christmas!

It's hard to believe that Christmas is only 3 days away! It has been a wonderful week with all of my kids home for the holidays. With them spread all over the country, it is fabulous to have everyone together for 10 days. However, it definitely means that I don't get quite as much time in my craft room.
This week's Dreamweaver Stencils Thursday Dream Scheme was a burgundy and gold challenge. I took a little liberty with this one and used one of my favorite cards from a Christmas past. I hope you enjoy it.

This was very simple.  Apply black matte paste on a metallic shimmer cardstock over the Partridge in a Pear Tree stencil (LG695). Let it dry about 10 minutes then brush with metallic FX powders to color the image. Mount on decorative papers, and tada! a beautiful card in no time at all. Can you see my burgundy and gold? The pot is burgundy and the background is gold, that counts, doesn't it!
Be sure to stop over at the DREAM it UP! blog to see another great creation, then to the other designer blogs for even more. Stay tuned for the announcement of our new team members starting in January.
I hope you have a wonder Christmas with family and friends.
Happy Creating,
Louise

Vintage Christmas

Welcome to this week's Dream Scheme Thursday sponsored by Dreamweaver Stencils. This week we were given the challenge of using a specific sketch with a Vintage Christmas theme. Sounded easy enough right? Ha, there's a reason they call them challenges! Although I had several ideas for Vintage Christmas, they did not fit the sketch challenge very well. But I have to say, I'm pretty happy with what I finally designed.
The sketch looked like this:

Here's my version of Vintage Christmas using the sketch (well, all the elements of the sketch anyway!):

I started by taping the vertical ornament stencil (LL468) to white cardstock and applying Glossy Red Embossing Paste. After removing the stencil I sprinkled Crystal glitter on three ornaments, and Metallic FX Kimono Red on three, then set those aside to dry.
The Long Merry Christmas (LL557) stencil was paste embossed using Metallic Gold Embossing Paste and set aside to dry.
I wanted to have some small holly leaves at the tops of the ornaments so I used the new Color Solution Alcohol Inks (Pine Bough, Citron, Gold Star) on a piece of felt along with a few drops of cleaning solution and pounced it over vellum. It dries pretty fast so I was able to keep creating by laying the 3 Xmas icons stencil (LL469) on the now green vellum and use an Extra Fine Black Sharpie to trace the small holly leaves several times. Cut them all apart, but put them in a little container until you're ready for them or they magically disappear!
By this point my pasted images were dry and ready to assemble. Buff the ornaments that had the FX powder on them to get the excess off, then cut the ornaments out to get three sets. I used a gold Krylon pen on the edges and the "caps" of the ornaments. The gold stripe paper behind the ornaments was left over from a previous project using Memories Mist Gold on the Plaid maker stencil (LX 7002).
To assemble, cut three pieces of striped paper and three black mats for behind them. Attach two ornaments to each striped piece using foam mounting tape behind the ornaments. Place another piece of foam mounting tape at the top and apply a group of holly leaves in a cluster (you may need to use some additional adhesive once the foam is covered. Attach a small red bow to each as a finishing touch. Mount the three sets of ornaments toward the left side of the card (5" x 7") staggering them slightly. Cut apart the Merry Christmas leaving the holly attached to each piece. Use a COPIC marker to color the holly and berries. Mount the words on black cardstock with foam mounting tape, and trim around the image leaving a small black border all the way around. Add additional holly leaves between the words to cover the black. Use red stickles for berries. Adhere it on the right side of the card. There you have it -- Vintage Christmas.
I hope you have time to check out all the team blogs for more beautiful samples of Vintage Christmas using Dreamweaver Stencils great products. Be sure to check out the DREAM it UP! blog too, and play along with the fun if you can.
Happy Creating,
Louise

Dream Scheme Thursday

It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas...no snow yet, but decorations are up, presents are almost all purchased, parties have begun...I just love the Christmas season, it is so inspiring.
Today's Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Scheme Thursday challenge is designer's choice (a free week). Like almost everyone in the crafting industry, I love to follow Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas blogs, and yesterday's tag (Day 7 click here to see it) was my inspiration for my post today. Sharing concepts is what blogging is all about, and then creating your interpretation of the concept. Sounds complicated, but it really isn't!
Today's post isn't for the faint hearted, this one was a little work, but I love how it turned out.

Supplies: Dreamweaver Glossy Black Embossing Paste, Dreamweaver Glossy Green Embossing Paste, Dreamweaver Stencils LJ863 & LM254, LJ896 & LM134, LL3005, Stampers Anonymous TH Joyful Song CMS119, Dreamweaver Metallic F/X Gold Dust, Palette Stamp & Stick, Xmas Red Stickles, VersaFine Onyx Black ink, Distress Ink Tea Dye, Vintage Photo, 1/2" stencil brushes, cream cardstock, dark green cardstock, blending foam, finger dauber

Here we go:

• Cut a piece of cream cardstock 5" x 7"
• Lay the Swirls stencil (LJ863) along two edges, and use a 1/2" stencil brush and Tea dye ink to color the image
• Move the stencil, matching up the design, and continue adding color until the swirls fill the card
• Clean and dry the swirls stencil
• Randomly stamp the music image from the Joyful Song set using Versafine Onyx Black ink
• Tape the angel with dove stencil (LM254) in the upper right corner and emboss using Glossy Black Embossing Paste (tape off the dove so it does not get pasted)
• Remove and clean the angel stencil, and let the angel dry
• Power paste the Holly and swirls stencil (LL3005) on dark green cardstock with Glossy Green Embossing Paste three times so you'll end up with nine holly leaves
• Remove and clean the holly stencil after the last pasting
• Set the holly aside to dry
• Tape the Large flourish stencil (LJ896) to a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" piece of cream cardstock and stencil with a 1/2" brush using the black ink
• Remove and clean the flourish stencil
• Tape the Merry Christmas stencil (LM134) toward the lower right side of the flourish
• Apply Glossy Black Embossing Paste to the Merry Christmas
• Remove and clean the stencil, let image dry well
• When the angel is dry, use blending foam and Distress Ink vintage photo to rouge deeper color around the edge of the card
• Apply Stamp and Stick to the angel using a finger dauber
• Let the glue sit for a minute to get tacky, then use your finger to rub a little Gold Dust FX powder on the angel
• Add a star charm in the upper left corner
• When the holly are all dry, cut out all the leaves so you have nine individual holly leaves
• Apply Stamp and Stick to each leaf and let sit until tacky
• Apply Gold Dust FX powder to each leaf using your finger to spread it around
• Cut around the flourish and Merry Christmas to form an interesting shape, making sure it will fit the card front
• Use the blending foam and Distress Ink vintage photo to add color around the edge of the design
• Determine the placement of the saying and holly leaves before attaching them
• Use foam mounting tape behind the Merry Christmas to add some dimension
• Adhere the holly leaves around, using double sided tape, or tacky glue
• Adhere the design to the front of an A7 card
• Apply your "berries" using the Xmas Red Stickles, let dry well

I hope you enjoyed my interpretation of Tim's Day 7 tag and that it will inspire you to apply any techniques you learn to your stencils.  They truly are so versatile.
Don't forget to check out the DREAM it UP! blog to see what Lynell has dreamed up this week, and the rest of the team too!
Happy Creating,
Louise

Dream Scheme Thursday

Well, the countdown to Christmas officially starts today! Only 23 shopping days left to find all the right things that you know they'll love. I love giving presents to family and friends, I even love giving presents to people I barely know, it just makes me happy to make someones day.  Needless to say, I tend to go a little overboard at Christmas, but someone has to keep the economy moving!
This week the Dreamweaver Stencil design team was given a colorway challenge for our Dream Scheme Thursday. We had to use silver and turquoise with the stencils and supplies of our choice. With Christmas right around the corner, I decided to make a quick and easy card that would be easy to make in larger quantities.. Here's what I created for this week's challenge:

This was created using the Gothic snowflake stencil (LL396) and the double glitter technique. The simple version is: soap the back of the stencil brushing away any flakes of soap in the openings; apply a square of double sided mounting paper to a larger square of silver mirror paper; remove the release paper from the mounting paper and place the stencil soap side down onto the sticky surface; tap the stencil in place especially along all of the small bridges; apply ultrafine opaque silver glitter, pressing it down with a piece of the release paper; tap off the excess glitter then use a brush to clean any glitter on the stencil; turn the stencil face down on a clean paper towel and gently pull the paper off the stencil (be sure to hold the stencil flat with your free hand); apply ultrafine opaque Ice glitter to the background, pressing down firmly with release paper; tap off all excess. The image is very pretty at this point, and you could stop there and mount it onto a card, but it wasn't popping as much as I wanted, so I place the stencil back over the glittered image, taped the edges, and applied Dreamweaver Metallic Silver Embossing Paste over the snowflake, removed the stencil and sprinkled the wet paste with the silver glitter again. This gave it a little more dimension. Here's a close up of the finished image:

Glitter is hard to photograph, but I hope you can see what I'm talking about! While the silver paste was drying, I put glue on a white 3" embellishment pin from Dreamweaver and sprinkled it with the same Ice glitter that is in the background of the snowflake. You only need a thin coat of glue to hold the glitter and it dries in just a couple of minutes. I made a square card from silver mirror cardstock, added a layer of beautiful Hanko washi cardstock (Seafoam, but I think it is pretty "turquoisy"!). When the snowflake was dry, I mounted it to the front of the card with foam tape, added a silver bow and the glittered pin for a beautiful holiday card, or even a winter birthday card. One last thing, I put a turquoise gem in the center of the snowflake as a finishing touch.
Hope you've enjoyed this week's design. For more great Silver and Turquoise creations, stop over at the DREAM it UP! blog and the rest of the team blogs listed at the side.
Happy Creating (and shopping!),
Louise