Poinsettia Magic!

The Stampendous Design Team is sharing from the July 2015 Stampendous Catalog again this week. Our new weekly theme is "Pretty Poinsettias". There are several gorgeous stamps and Dreamweaver stencils that feature poinsettias, all of them are fabulous and make beautiful holiday cards and projects. I have always loved this beautiful stencil from Dreamweaver, as I'm sure you'll understand when you see what an elegant card you can create with it!

This was done with our Molten Magic Technique.  I pasted the Poinsettia with Pearlescent Embossing Paste, removed the stencil, sprinkled the wet paste with Metallic F/X powders (mica powders), tapped off most of the powders, then heated the image until it was bubbly and almost dry. Once it dries completely, dust it with a Swiffer cloth to remove the residue from the powders.

Here's a mirror project I did a while back with this stencil (and a few others!) and this technique.

If you'd like more detail about the mirror project, click here.

Stop over at the Stampendous Blog today too! Here are the earlier links for this week.

Monday

Stampendous Blog

Pam Hornschu

Kristine Reynolds

Tuesday

Stampendous Blog

Louise Healy

Happy Creating,
Louise

Let's Go Wild!

The Stampendous Design Team is going wild this week! We're all excited to share some fun designs with you for our weekly challenge of "Let's Go Wild!" Stop by the Stampendous Blog each day this week for lots of wild ideas!
With Father's Day coming up this Sunday, I thought I'd create a card that any Father would be wild about.

Who doesn't love a good bear hug from someone they love! This was super easy to make:

• Fold a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of cardstock in half to form an A2 size card, I used Almond Dot from BoBunny
• Add a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of patterned paper to the front of the card, this is Pioneer from Authentique, edged with a brown COPIC marker
• Tape the Grizzly Bear stencil (LL593) to a small piece of Almond Dot, and paste emboss with Matte Black Embossing Paste, take a piece of paper towel and lay over the wet paste, press it down lightly to add a little pattern to the bear, slowly peel it off
• Remove and clean the stencil, let the paste dry about 10 minutes
• Use a soft paint brush to carefully brush Metallic F/X Cocoa over the drying paste, leaving the nose black, set aside to dry completely
• Stamp the Bear Hugs saying from Stampendous' Beary Mice set (SSC1216) in Archival Coffee Ink on a small piece of Almond Dot
• When the bear is dry, dust off any extra powders with a Swiffer cloth
• Mount the bear and the saying on brown mats and attach to the front of the card

Like I said, super easy and fun. Great for Father's Day, or someone's birthday. Now stop by these designers blogs for more wild ideas!

Stampendous Blog
Louise Healy (that's me)
Janelle Stollfus

Happy Creating,
Louise

More Picnic Fun!

Today wraps up our Stampendous Picnic Fun weekly theme. If you missed some of the fun, you can check over on the Stampendous Blog for this week's links. There have been so many wonderful ideas!

I love going on picnics with family and friends, so my card today shares that sentiment. These two little owl friends are having a picnic on a beautiful summer day in the shade of their favorite tree!

"Picnic buddies"

Can't you just feel the warm summer breeze...I wish I could, it's very cold here again and we would love our warmer days back. Oh well, soon enough.

To create this little "picnic" really didn't take very long because I keep a stash of images that I've made in the past and didn't use right away. So I looked, and found that I had paste embossed the Owl Pair stencil (LL3013) on tan paper  with Translucent Embossing Paste tinted brown with Metallic FX Cocoa. They were perfect for my picnic. I cut them out and set them aside while I created their background.

I placed the Leafless Tree stencil (LX7020) near the left side of a 4 3/4" x 6 3/4" piece of white cardstock and taped it down. Using a 1/2" stencil brush and Memento Rich Cocoa ink, I stenciled the tree. I also added a little Memento Tuxedo Black for some depth. The "leaves" were created using a 1/2" stencil brush and Memento New Sprout and Bamboo Leaves, keeping each color concentrated in little circular areas.  The "grass" was done with Bamboo Leaves and the "shade" under the tree with Memento Cottage Ivy.

Of course, the perfect image of a summer day is a sky filled with fluffy white clouds, so I used the Picasso tool (LL332), 1/2" brush and Memento Bahama Blue to add a few clouds.  The little saying is from Stampendous SSC1213 Life Words set and was a perfect sentiment for the feeling I was trying to express.

The red and white gingham ribbon from May Arts made a great tablecloth, but what would they eat at their picnic? I didn't think it would be very cute to have dead mice on the tablecloth, so I created some nice healthy little apples for them instead using the Lg Cherries stencil (LL3032), a 1/4" stencil brush, Brilliance Rocket Red ink, and a little Bamboo Leaves.  I made two "apples", cut them out, pressed them in VersaMark, sprinkled with clear embossing powder and heat set them.

I'm on vacation this week (at the happiest place on earth, you know, WDW!) with my family, so I'm just going to send you to the Stampendous blog for the list of wonderful links today!

Stampendous Blog

Happy Creating,
Louise

Showers of Showers! Week 3

Ever use the expression, "When it rains, it pours"? This does not have to be a bad thing, does it? For the month of April, the Dream Team are featuring "Showers of Showers" as our theme. Our designers have so many choices with this theme, baby, wedding, rain...You'll definitely want to see what we come up with each week of April!

As usual, we'd love for you to play along. Just link your creation on the Dream It Up! blog for a chance to win the stencil of your choice...bonus chances for incorporating Dreamweaver and/or Stampendous in your design. Here's what I'm showering you with this week...

"Wishing you a ton of happiness!"

I just love this Dreamweaver  Sm Elephant stencil (LL3042). It makes a wonderful Baby Shower card and can be done in any color palette. I'm going to a Baby Shower this weekend and they know they are having a boy, so this was perfect timing for me! 

I've been preparing some class samples for a workshop I'm going to be doing for Door County Rubber Stamps in June and it just so happened that I had some left over paste that was perfect for the "Sludge technique" Elephant. Whenever you have left over paste that you have colored, save it to an empty paste jar (or any container that seals well). It will keep quite a while in the right container. Anyway...I had some left over blue (Regular Paste with Metallic FX Navajo Sky added), and matte copper (Regular Paste and Copper Paste mixed in equal amounts). Add alternating dollops of paste along the edge of your paste spreader (LM2010), swirl them together a little with the tip of a palette knife, then paste your image. Do I even have to tell you to save the left over! They turn out different each time. This one is a little more "stripey" than "marbley", but it worked great with the striped paper I chose. I can never throw left over paste away, so Sludge pasting is the perfect solution. Beautiful papers also help tie everything together, as does the fabulous ribbon from May Arts.

Our "A" wants to "shower" you with lots more ideas, so be sure to stop over and leave them a "shower" of comments!

Dream It Up!

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Happy Creating,
Louise

Frilly and Fabulous Week 3!

Break out the frou frou! For the month of February, the Dream Team are going Frilly and Fabulous! Vintage, retro, or modern, adding extra charm with fun Fran•tagé products fromStampendous, ribbons and lace from May Arts, buttons, crystals, charms, or even creating your own dimensional decor! A snippet or a pile, whatever your creative heart desires! Remember to link your creations using the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog for a chance to win the stencil of your choice! Bonus points for using Dreamweaver and/or Stampendousproduct in your work of heart.

Mine aren't exactly "frilly" this week, but I think they are "Fabulous"!  When I first saw the new Frigate stencil (LG763), I thought,  "What in the world am I going to do with that!" But when given a challenge of something outside my comfort zone, I like to think I can create something presentable!  I had so much fun designing my sample card for Dreamweaver, I decided to create a whole class using the Frigate! I'll be teaching it at Memories and Beyond in Downers Grove, IL on Tuesday, March 3rd, click here for the details. Here's what I've been playing with:

LG763 Frigate stencil, Glossy Black Embossing Paste on white cardstock, let dry, cut out bottom edge
LX7029 Spiral dots, stenciled with blue inks using a stencil brush, on white cardstock
May Arts braided twine tied in sailor's knots

While it's not very "frilly", I like how the background and ship look together. The knots really added the finishing touch to the card.
So then I decided to design a 3 card class around this stencil. Here are the cards we'll be creating on the 3rd:

Stenciled using Memento Inks and stencil brushes
LL332 Picasso was used to create the "clouds"

Gold Leaf Technique using Metallic Gold Embossing Paste as the base

Matte Black Embossing Paste with Metallic F/X Powders

For more frilly fun, visit the "A" team:

Dream It Up!

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Happy Creating,

Louise
An InLinkz Link-up

Happy Birthday Week 3!

Welcome to our Birthday celebration for the year 2015! In honor of that, we've decided that our monthly challenge for January will be Birthday Wishes. We'd love for you to play along with us, and link your creations to the Inlinkz tool at the bottom of this post, or on the Dream It Up! blog, for a chance to win the stencil of your choice...and remember, using Dreamweaver products gets you bonus points towards an extra stencil!

My creation this week didn't turn out how I had first envisioned it, but I really like it. I meant for it to have a more Spring-time feel, because we could use a little Spring here in northern IL! Here's my birthday wish for this week:

LX7014 Daisy background - dry embossed on glossy cardstock, colored with Color Solutions Alcohol Inks
LL548 Daisies - paste embossed with Glossy Black, FX Powders sprinkled on then heated, outlined with a fine tip Sharpie

LG704 Birthday words stenciled with black ink

Of course, more birthday inspirations coming your way from our "A" team:

Dream It Up!

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Happy Creating,

Louise

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy HallowThanksMas Week 4!

Can you tell that sometimes Dream Team's "Fearless Leader", Pam Hornschu, has a hard time deciding on monthly challenges? Since the team will be taking turns all month with the Smeared and Smudged 31 Days of Halloween, and we did a Christmas collaboration with Stampendous and Core'dinations the 13th - 17th, the confusion should be understandable. Therefore...happy HallowThanksMas! As usual, we'd love for you to play along with the challenge and link your creations to the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog. Just in case you are wondering...NO, YOU DO NOT NEED TO POST SOMETHING WITH ALL THREE HOLIDAYS ON IT! However, you get bonus points for actually using Dreamweaver stencils and product on your creations! And bonus points might actually earn you an extra stencil as our monthly winner...just sayin'!

Here's my creation for this week:

LJ832 Give Thanks stencil
LL515 Pumpkins
LL3008  Tall wheat

LJ832 Give Thanks in Matte Black Embossing Paste with
Metallic FX Powders

Several team members have been participating in the 31 Days of Halloween Smeared and Smudged hop, and we just featured a lot of Christmas designs in our hop last week with the Stampendous and Core'dinations teams, so I thought I'd feature the "Thanks" part of our challenge. 

• Start with a natural square mirror from Ikea
• Paint across the bottom with some greens and brown acrylic paints (I used Distress Acrylic Paints) 
• Move up the mirror with yellows, oranges, rust, and little red, blending them together
• Dry with a heat tool to make sure the paints are dry
• Lay the Tall wheat stencil (LL3008) in different areas and stencil with the brown paint
• Paste emboss the Pumpkins stencil (LL515) on green cardstock with Matte Yellow Embossing Paste, let dry (do this twice)
• When the pumpins are dry, use the paints to stencil on color
• Tape off the Give Thanks part of LJ832, place the stencil in the lower left corner of the mirror and paste emboss with Matte Black Embossing Paste
• Remove stencil and let paste dry for about 8-10 minutes
• Clean and dry stencil, tape off the cornucopia part, leaving just the words
• Paste emboss the words in the upper right area of the mirror
• Remove stencil and let paste dry
• Use a soft brush to brush Metallic FX powders on the almost dry paste
• When paste is completely dry, use a swiffer cloth to remove any extra powders
• Cut out the two sets of Pumpkins, adhere one set flat onto the mirror, use foam mounting tape on the second set

Check out more great HallowThanksMas designs on the design team blogs below:

Dream It Up!

Lyn Bernatovich

Louise Healy

Alison Heikkila

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu

Gill Wilson

Kristi Parker Van Doren

Happy Creating,

Louise
An InLinkz Link-up

Happy HallowThanksMas!

Can you tell that sometimes Dream Team's "Fearless Leader", Pam Hornschu, has a hard time deciding on monthly challenges? Since the team will be taking turns all month with the Smeared and Smudged 31 Days of Halloween (see the DREAM it UP! blog for details), and we are doing a Christmas collaboration with Stampendous and Core'dinations the 13th - 17th, the confusion should be understandable. Therefore...happy HallowThanksMas! As usual, we'd love for you to play along with the challenge and link your creations to the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog. Just in case you are wondering...NO, YOU DO NOT NEED TO POST SOMETHING WITH ALL THREE HOLIDAYS ON IT! However, you get bonus points for actually using Dreamweaver stencils and product on your creations! And bonus points might actually earn you an extra stencil as our monthly winner...just sayin'!

Here's my creation for today:

LL3043 Oak leaf done in the Molten Magic Technique
DX7020 Leafless tree die

I just love the new oak and maple leaf stencils that were just released! They are perfect for a variety of techniques and make fabulous fall cards. To recreate this, follow these simple steps:

• Tape the oak leaf stencil (LL3043) to cream colored cardstock with removable tape
• Use a palette knife and paste spreader to apply a coat of Metallic Copper Embossing Paste
• Remove the stencil and place in water for later cleaning
• Sprinkle a variety of Metallic F/X Powders over the wet paste
• Tap off excess powder and heat the image with a heat tool until the paste is bubbly all over
• Let image cool before using a Swiffer cloth to buff off excess powders
• Rouge the edges with Distress Inks in fall colors
• Rouge the edges of a 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" card front with the same colors
• Mount a piece of wood grain paper on the card front
• Die cut some branches out of black cardstock using DX7020 Leafless tree die
• Arrange them coming out from the left side of the card front and adhere in place leaving most of the branches loose
• Use foam mounting tape to add the Oak Leaf image over the branches
• Add a little jute string bow (May Arts) as a finishing touch

A great card for an Autumn birthday, anniversary, really, any occasion, or Thanksgiving! 

I hope you've enjoyed my creation today. Remember to visit the rest of the team, as confusion takes rein...could be interesting!

Dream It Up!

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Happy Creating,

Louise

An InLinkz Link-up

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue!

WOW! We had a great time last week playing with all the wonderful products from IMAGINE Crafts and Dreamweaver Stencils. Thanks for all the comments, they make it much more fun! Congratulations to our winners (see the DREAM it UP! blog to see if you were one of the lucky three!).
This week we are back to our June challenge of "Old, New, Borrowed, Blue" theme. I created this card as part of an upcoming class(July 9th) at Memories and Beyond in Downers Grove, IL.

LG757 Heron stencil - Sludge Pasting Technique

This is a technique called Sludge Pasting. It's when you take a couple of different colors of paste, gently swirl them together on your paste spreader, then paste your image. It's a very cool look. We will be mixing some colors for one of the other cards, then use our left overs to create this card. "Waste not, want not!"
Here's all three cards we will be creating in class:

The "A" team is creating for you today:

Dream It Up!

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Happy Creating,
Louise

An InLinkz Link-up

Dreamweaver Flora and Fauna Week 4!

The Dream Team is ready to inspire you with some extra fun this week! Not only are we posting with the Flora and Fauna challenge, we are introducing you to our THREE NEWLY RELEASED DESIGNS...our Owl Buddy, the Open Sheep, and the art nouveau-inspired Heron, which you had a sneak peek at two weeks ago on the Dream It Up! blog. Three lucky commenters on the Dream Team's posts will receive one of these designs to be announced on the Dream It Up! blog next week. Tell us in your comment which technique YOU would use with your favorite of these new designs.

One of our stores in La Crosse, WI (Stamp 'N Hand), had requested a sample of the Paddle fan (LJ826) from me so I decided to incorporate it with the new Heron (LG757) for week's creation so it could do double duty! (I was going to say "kill two birds with one stone", but that just seemed cruel considering our theme this month!) Here is what I created this week...

Paddle fan (LJ826) with Heron (LG757) overlay
this is the one I sent to Stamp 'N Hand

Paddle fan (LJ826) with Heron (LG757) overlay
I kept this one as my sample

These were created following the same steps:

• Dry emboss the Paddle fan on white cardstock using a die cut machine and rubber embossing mat
• With the stencil still in place, use 1/2" stencil brushes to lightly add some color around the edges of the fan, and on the handle (I used Distress Inks - scattered straw & spiced marmalade in the "sky", salty ocean & faded jeans in the "water", and vintage photo & walnut stain in the handle)
• Wipe any ink off the fan stencil and tape back in place with removable tape, use removable tape over the handle opening so no paste gets on the handle
• Lay the Heron stencil over the fan area and tape in place
• Use a palette knife and paste spreader to apply Matte Black Embossing Paste over the design
• Carefully remove both stencils and let the paste dry about 10 minutes
• Use a soft brush to gently apply Metallic F/X powders on the paste (I used Kiwi on the leaves, Cocoa on the tree trunk, Navajo Sky on the water, and on the top one Moonstone on the Heron - then used a pin to scrap a little eye, the lower one I left the Heron black) 
• Let the paste dry completely then use a piece of Swiffer cloth or a soft rag to gently wipe off any extra powders
• Mount on a black mat, then onto a colored card. I love how different they look just based on color selection!

By this point I was on a roll, so I decided to use the same color scheme and stencil to create my cards for a monthly lunch club card exchange group I belong to, but using the required technique instead. Here's how that turned out:

Masking Tape ink transfer technique in the background,
LG757 Heron in Matte Black Embossing Paste w/FX powders

Close up you can see the lines of color transferred on the tape, I used
1" green painters tape

Ready for more ideas? Check out our this week's team players:

Dream It Up!

Lyn Bernatovich

Lynn Mercurio

Jamie Martin 

Louise Healy

Alison Heikkila

Lea Kimmel 

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu

Kristi Parker Van Doren 

Gill Wilson

Laura Drahozal 

Happy Creating,

Louise

An InLinkz Link-up

Flora and Fauna Dreamweaver Style Round 2

Welcome to the merry month of May! The Dream Team are challenging you this month to a "Flora and Fauna" theme! Considering most of the Dreamweaver designs incorporate both of these in the huge variety of stencils, you should have no problem playing along with our challenge this month! As usual, link your creations at the end of the Dream It Up! blog post, or at the end of our posts where it says, "Add Your Link". As the challenge gets underway, you'll see thumbnails of others who are playing along as inspirations for your own creations!

This week I have been busy teaching the Dreamweaver Stencils Certification 2 class along with Pam Hornschu in Geneva IL. Here are a few pics of the class!

Karren from Memories and Beyond, Downers Grove, IL

Carla from Pearl Street Stamping, Tremont, IL
Teachers Margaret and Joan

Jean from Stampin' n Scrapin' Fun, Marshfield, WI
Michelle from Michelle's Crafts, Hayward, WI

Marilyn from Stamp Thyme, Lockport, IL
Pam Hornschu our fearless Dream Team leader!

I have loved the Stylized Dahlia stencil (LG743) ever since it was released. When I'm in a hurry and need a quick, beautiful card I know I can use this stencil and create one in no time. Here are my creations for this week:

LG743 - Stylized dahlia using Pearlescent Embossing Paste and Metallic F/X Powders

LG743 - Stylized dahlia using Glossy White Embossing Paste and glitter

Please welcome our new "B" team, officially posting for the first time!

Dream It Up!

Lyn Bernatovich

Louise Healy

Alison Heikkila

Kristine Reynolds 

Pam Hornschu

Kristi Parker Van Doren 

Gill Wilson 

Happy Creating,
Louise

An InLinkz Link-up