Mason Jar Bouquet

I've been in hibernation for a while. The primary reason is that our gas company decided to relocate our gas meter to the outside of our house. Guess where the location of the gas meter that they have to pull out? Yeah, in my designated craft room, by the shelves which has my crafting tools and supplies. Although, they said it will be okay to leave most of the things on the shelves, to save my supplies and myself from the possibility of any damage, I took everything out of the shelf. Now, looking at the bare shelf, I thought of renovating the whole area. After browsing for possible storage solutions, I just decided to tidy up the things I removed. In that sense, I think it will look like it has been renovated having it organized. But I am not halfway through the cleaning. When I took off the things from the shelf, I boxed it by which shelf I pulled it out from. The difficulty now in trying to create something is I can find the things I need but I have to go through boxes or stacks to get to it. Plus, I really have to be good in putting it back or else, that's when I will start to lose something.

Enough of my troubles. I have to get my creative juices flowing. I chose to jumpstart it with Simon Says Stamp Best Mom Clear Stamp Set. I stamped the flowers multiple times on a watercolor cardstock using Ranger Archival ink. I watercolored these flowers using Zig Clean Color Brush Marker and Akashiya Sai Watercolor markers. I fuzzy cut the flowers once it has dried. I ran a black marker around the edges for a finish cut. And for the final touch for the flowers, who wouldn't want a touch of clear Wink of Stella on the roses?

I just got a Cricut Explore Air. This is one of the initial cuts I made and so far, I am impressed with the cuts. There are still imperfections in my opinion but it is far better than my Cricut Imagine. Using the Cricut Design Space, I searched for a mason jar image. I cut the mason jar almost @ 3'. I cut this on a Kraft cardstock. I applied Glossy Accents to the bottom half of the mason jar and poured Tim Holtz Distress Glitter in Antique Linen on it. While waiting for this to set and dry, I stamped the word 'mom' on the oval cut-out. I masked a sentiment stamp from Altenew Wild Hibiscus stamp set. I embossed this using white powder. I inked the edges of this oval cut-out using Tim Holtz Distress Ink Vintage Photo.

Here's where the difficulty starts, is how to arrange the flowers. I would love to put a dozen roses. Who doesn't want to received a dozen roses, right? I temporarily adhered the jar to a Doodlebug pink doily. I added a small dot of Ranger Multi Medium Matte to the tip of the stems. When I was happy with the arrangement, I removed the mason jar and squirted some Ranger MMM to areas that need adhering. I applied an acrylic block on top of this to serve as a weight while the glue is drying off.

While the flowers are drying, I applied foam adhesive to the back of the mason jar. I adhered this on top of the rose stems. I also adhered the rest of the die cut elements to the oval space. I also tied a white twine around the top of the mason jar. To pop up some of the roses, I applied a clear dimensional tape on the back of some of the roses. To keep the interest focused on the roses, I embossed the front of a white notecard using Li'l Inker Design Quilted Stitched pattern die. I adhered the doily using a double adhesive tape. To finish off the card, I stamped a sentiment on the base of the mason jar. The sentiment is from Hero Arts All Occasion Messages stamp set.

Thanks for viewing my blog. Have a brilliant day!

Maria Giselle

I am submitting this creation to:

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/blog/work-it-wednesday-april-2016/

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-anything-goes-26/

http://fantabulouscricut.blogspot.com/2016/04/challenge-275-mothers-day.html

Flowers For You

I always miss the deadline of the Lawnscaping Challenges so I made it a point to be able to join this time. It was a challenge for me in a sense that most of my flower stamps are not Lawn Fawn. But creativity also means working with what you have.

I initially die cut a watercolor paper using LF Stitched Square Stackables. I used the 3" sized square. I watercolor wash this using Akashiya Sai Watercolor markers. I stamped the bear from LF Party Animal on watercolor paper using Ranger Archival Ink. I also watercolored the bear using the same markers. I fuzzy cut the bear and ran a black marker at the edges for a finished look. I stamped the flowers from LF Chirpy Chirp Chirp on watercolor paper, watercolored it and die cut it using the matching die. I stamped the grass from the same stamp set on vellum. I embossed this using a clear powder and trim it into a strip.

To assemble the card, I positioned the grass vellum on the bottom of the panel, folded the excess towards the back, then adhered it with tape. I tucked the bear underneath the grass vellum then adhered it. Next, I adhered the flowers with some being held by the bear, and the other flowers still on the grass, sort of like the bear picked up some of these flowers. For the sentiment, I used LF Milo's ABC.

Using the 4" square rom the LF Stitched Square Stackables, I die cut a patterned paper from the LF Perfectly Plaid Petite Paper Pack to matte the scene panel. I adhered this to a square note card of the same size.

Most of the time, I leave the inside of the card blank but for this card, I did not. To complete the sentiment on the front, I stamped 'For You' on the inside. This sentiment is from LF Lucky Stars. I have to do a little bit of clear stamp surgery to come up with these two words. This card can be used for any occasion but since Mother's Day is close by, I stamped 'Happy Mother's Day' as a second sentiment. This stamp is from the LF Mom + Me stamp set. I stamped this to mimic a label. I learned this technique from Kristina Werner. I wanted to link her tutorial here but I couldn't find the card she created using this technique. Anyway, to create this, just stamp the sentiment using Versamark ink. Emboss it with white powder. Apply a masking tape around the sentiment. Ink the space with Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress ink. Remove the tape. Buff the sentiment to remove the ink from the embossed sentiment.

The card is pretty much done until I decided to add more accents. I added Glaze to the flower petals. I added shimmer to the center of the flowers. I still went on and decided to add black Glaze to the bear's eyes. Then, I messed up with one of the eyes. You should see the cringe in my eyes. Have you had a moment like this before? I tried to save it by scraping the mess using a craft knife, buffing it with an eraser, watercoloring it again, and apply the black glaze. Well, it won't work. Somehow, it keeps bleeding onto the area that got scraped off even if it was buffed. I was decided to pull off the bear and replace the bear with a new one. But I really like how the bear turned out, except for the messed up eye, of course. So, instead of ripping this card apart, I fixed the mess with some googly eyes. It's not bad after all since the bear, now with the googly eyes, seem to be looking at the flowers.

Thanks for viewing my blog. Have a brilliant day!

Maria Giselle B.

I am submitting this creation to:

http://lawnscaping.blogspot.com/2016/04/lawnscaping-challenge-beautiful-florals.html

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-lets-do-the-polka/

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/?p=4783

Ink Blending, Metal Die Embossing and Foiled Sentiment

I created these cards for a friend who needs Thank You cards and also to participate in the MFT Color Inspiration challenge. I only have one MFT ink pad so I looked through my ink swatch to see which of my inks are close to the challenge colors.

I blended the colors on Strathmore Bristol paper. Using a white pigment ink, I stamped the solid figures from the MFT Party Patterns, sort of like creating a bokeh pattern. I zapped the panel with the heat gun. I misted the panel with Ranger Pearl diluted in water. I dried this again with the heat gun. The thing I like about the Bristol paper is it's endurance with water and heat. I didn't notice any warping. I haven't tried other kinds of medium to put this paper to the test. How about you? Have you tried this paper with other mediums?

To add more detail to the panel, I used MFT Die-namics Stitched Companion-Diagonal to emboss and add the detailed stitching to the panel. To achieve this, I sandwiched the ink blended panel, the metal die and a Spellbinders Silicone mat under the inked panel, then ran these through the Sizzix Big Shot. My panels were bigger than the metal die. At first, I embossed the metal die to the larger inked die then snipped the sides just enough to leave a small margin around the stitched lines. With the second and last panels, after embossing it, I did partial die cutting to cut the edges off. This is when you just apply the top plate on top of the area of the die you want cut. Anything not covered by the plate will not be cut.

For the sentiment, I tried foiling using the Therm O Web ICraft Deco Foil Adhesive Pen Glue. I wasn't coming up with good results so instead of wasting a lot of resources, I die cut the word thanks from MFT Many Thanks Die-namics using a silver foiled cardstock. To make it easy to adhere this sentiment, I also applied Stick-It to the back before die cutting it.

I mat the panels with dark gray cardstock. I adhered this to a white top folding note card. I further embellished the card with sequins and glass beads. I was trying to adhere a small seed beed to the center of the sequin but the Ranger Multi-Matte won't keep it stuck to the sequin so I  just got rid of that idea.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Have a brilliant day!

Maria Giselle B.

I am submitting this creation to:

http://www.cardchallenges.com/search/label/colorchallenge

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/blog/work-it-wednesday-march-2016/

http://pdelinkyparty.blogspot.com/2016/04/ch-117-anything-goes.html