Fussy-Cut Flowers for Martha

Happy Thursday!  I mentioned in an earlier post that one of my creative goals for 2013 is to try new techniques.  One of my other creative goals is to use more patterned paper.  Matching patterns and colors doesn't come easily to me, so I've found that paper packs and matstacks are helpful because they coordinate well with each other.  I used a matstack for today's card and it definitely took away some of the frustration of choosing papers!  I also used fussy-cutting to create dimension with the pattern, which is another technique that is new to me.

I created this card for this week's Teapot Tuesday challenge at Splitcoast Stampers.  This week our cards are heading to Texas for a sweet lady named Martha.  Shortly after Thanksgiving, Martha and her husband decided to take a short,  impromptu trip to New York with another couple.  While they were there, Martha's husband said he didn't feel well.  Moments later he died of a massive heart attack.  Martha enjoys handmade cards, so the Teapotters will be showering her with our best thoughts and wishes as we mail our cards to her.  We were encouraged to use fields of flowers or other peaceful nature scenes for our cards.

Here's my card for Martha:

This card has very little stamping; only the sentiment is stamped.  I started with a card base in natural white (a lovely off-white color).  I stamped my sentiment in Rich Cocoa on a smaller piece of natural white, then attached it to brown and green patterned papers from the Latte matstack collection.  I cut a large panel from the flowery patterned paper in the same collection, then used a second piece of the patterned paper to fussy-cut some of the flowers.  I popped those flowers  up on dimensionals and adhered them over the identical flowers on the larger panel.  

I didn't have the color of ribbon I wanted to use, so I grabbed some off-white ribbon and my New Sprout ink pad.  I dyed the ribbon by running the ink pad over it several times, then rubbing off the excess ink with an old cloth.  I adhered the ribbon to the patterned paper, then adhered the entire panel to the card base. Finally, I added my sentiment block over the ribbon with dimensionals.

It's hard to see the "popped-up" flowers in the first photo, so here's a slightly different view:

If you're inclined to make cards to send to others who could use a bit of sunshine, I hope you'll consider joining us for the next Teapot Tuesday challenge.  Everyone is welcome!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Products Used:
Stamp: Close as a Memory (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Memento New Sprout (Tsukineko)

Paper: Classic Crest Natural White 80 lb. card stock (Neenah), Latte matstack (DCWV)

Tools and Accessories: Ribbon (Offray); Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!)

Triple Time/Seamless Tiers Love Card

Happy Tuesday!  It's a beautiful day here and I'm feeling a bit spoiled by the brilliant sunshine and mild temperatures.  This weather is really unusual for us at this time of year.  What a blessing!

I rarely make New Year's resolutions, but this year I decided to focus my resolutions on the "creative" part of my life.  One of my resolutions is to try new techniques and projects this year.  I have developed a bad habit of seeing techniques I want to try and "pinning" them but never actually trying them.  So I'm going through my Pinterest boards and my gallery favorites at Splitcoast Stampers and pushing myself to try new things.  Here's to breaking out of my comfort zone in 2013!

This week's Try a New Technique challenge at Splitcoast Stampers gave us the opportunity to try one of the many challenge techniques from 2012, so I chose to try Triple Time Stamping (also called Seamless Tiers) for my card.  I have seen so many magnificent cards using this technique, but it involves a bit of measuring and I'm more of an eyeballer than a measurer.  Thankfully, many wonderful bloggers are willing to share their recipes and measurements and they've taken all the hard work out of this technique!

Here's my card:

And here's a link to the tutorial I followed at Jan's Stamping Creations.

There are many wonderful tutorials online and some of them include videos, so you can certainly find many options for this beautiful technique.  I've seen lots of different measurements for the layers and I may try other combinations in the future.  You could easily cut the pieces for several cards at once and then construct them as you have time, or make several of the same card assembly-line style.  I was truly surprised at how quickly this card was completed. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you have a wonderful day!

Products Used:

Ink: Real Red Classic Ink (Stampin' Up!)

Paper: Real Red, Whisper White card stock (Stampin' Up!)

Stamps: Field Flowers (Stampin' Up!)