I am hosting a Christmas In July swap over on my fav MB. We have a few different themes to choose from, one of which is Vintage Christmas. A good friend JeanP is always trying to encourage Vintage, and I finally took the plunge. I don't have any vintage stamps, etc, and she said that's okay, look at this site:
vintageholidaycrafts.com/ They have LOTS of Vintage goodies there, for all sorts of occasions! Now the original image was in color (red) but I used a photo editing program and changed it to black and white. I printed that out on white, used my handy nestling dies cut the images out in a smaller oval, and then I stared at it for a while. Now what? I started daydreaming, and looked out my window, and there on the window sill was a bottle of Walnut Ink. OK, I'll try it. While that was drying I pulled the dies back out and cut the red with the next size up. And I sat and stared some more. I searched the web for a vintage looking Christmas sheet music, but couldn't find anything that didn't look too "modern" . Ok back to my stamps. Oh I had a music background, perfect. Then I sat there trying to hum the notes in my head to see what song it was. Still haven't figured that out. So I stamped that in my Soft Suede stamp pad (Stampin' Up). But it still looked too....new. Ok distress time! I rubbed my Soft Suede stamp pad all around the green making it kind of hard to see the notes at all in some places. Looks good. Now what can I do with the sentiment (came with the image). I had to print and cut a few out so that I could get just the image onto one sheet of cardstock. Did that, and also sprayed them with the Walnut ink. Then I added a strip of cardstock to back the sentiment. Still needs something. OH OH where is that awesome adhesive lace looking strips that someone (and I wish I could remember who so I could thank them!) sent me?? Ah, there it is, added that, (important note/disclaimer - I did have to cut these in half, and position them on each side of the strip of cardstock. Also not all will have the same lace as I just don't have enough of the strips) stuck it down. Ok looks good. I sent a picture off to Jean to see what she thought. While waiting for a response I also added little bronze snaps. PERFECT! Amazing the difference a couple of little snaps make! For a card I was so much "against" I think it turned out well! I love the effect the Walnut Ink had on the white cardstock! It's hard to believe that it really was white! So...what do YOU think???
So this year Cheyenne and I decided to make her party invitations. We wanted something "summery" and she suggested watermelon. My first thought? Oh no. My second thought? "the bug" So I pulled out my trusty "E" and and we started cutting them out. She wanted to have the white part of the rind as well as some white seeds. So that's what we did. I wasn't quite sure what we were going to do once we cut and assembled the watermelons, and then as I lay awake it came to me. I had this old paper that sort of looked like one of those red and white tablecloths you often see on picnic tables. I thought it would be cute to have a little ant brad on each one, but I had almost every bug but an ant! We may add a sun in the upper corner and add "come join us for something sweet" or something along those lines. I think we did a great job, don't you think? Stay tuned for her Flip Flop cards that she wants to make for her "family party".
This front is for the June card front swap on my favorite MB. The theme, is you guessed it, Butterflies. I actually took this layout and design from a fellow PhillyInker Melissa. She showed us how to double emboss on a butterfly cut out. The butterfly is cut using Stampin' Up Beautiful Butterflies die. The images are from "Elements of Style". I then sponged yellow all over the image. The speckles on the yellow piece is from the "Itty Bitty Backgrounds" set from SU. I then cut the sentiment out with my circle punches.
