Watercolour Wednesday - Sale-A-Bration - Delicate Dahlias

 Today I used the Delicate Dahlias again but I had even more fun than I did on Monday. I stamped the large onto the white mat using a Stazon Ink Pad. I encircled it with the 5 smaller flowers and then stamped 2 more Dahlias onto spare white card. I coloured each of the flowers from the centre of the flower using the Watercolour pencils from Stampin' Up! Then using a water-brush I lightly washed the colour outwards to the edges of the flowers. I used the peachy pink of Flirty Flamingo again and the gorgeous bright yellow of Daffodil Delight. I wanted a little more colour on the larger flowers so I stamped an acrylic block onto the Flirty Flamingo ink pad and picked up some of the ink with my water-brush and added the extra colour. I then cut out one of the flowers complete and the other, I cut into the flower and took the outer petal off and gave the dahlia some extra dimension. Both of the 2 flowers were added to the card directly over the original flower. Now I have a decoupaged flower. A few sentiments using 1 from the Dahlia stamp set and the other from another Sale-a-Bration stamp set called In Your Words. I mounted the white mat onto a piece of the Flirty Flamingo card to help make it jump off the card. 

For more information on the products that I have used this week, please click HERE and it will open up a link on a new page to the shop. You'll be able to browse all the way through the catalogue.  

Technique Tuesday - Sale-a-bration - Counting Sheep

 Hello, today's card is using DSP, stamp set and dies. These are 3 of the FREE products that you can chose from when you place an order with a Stampin' Up! demonstrator or even with an online order. The technique today is just by using the paper, you can get amazing backgrounds. Whether they are lots of colours or the monochrome  Today I have used the lovely, cute stamps set, Counting Sheep, the designer series paper (DSP) called Beautifully Penned and the coordinating Sheep dies. I have used all 3 freebies on this card. The papers also coordinate with the Colour & Contour stamp set and the Hand Penned papers in the annual catalogue and they can all be used in so many ways. These papers are black and white and there is so much that can be done to the paper to change the look if you wanted to. I'll be showing more ideas later this week. The way Sale-a-bration works is that for every £45 that you order, you can chose any 1 of the FREE goodies, a £90 order you get 2 freebies, £135 order 3 freebies and so on. 

I cut 2 pieces of the floral paper and the smaller one I reversed. To me it reminds me of little clouds. So the sheep jumping over the gate floating in the clouds, was perfect. I stamped cut out the sheep and using a scrap of Soft Suede card, I die cut the gate. I did shade the sheep with a little light grey from the Smoky Slate Stampin' Blends pens and they were mounted, to look like they are in the jumping position. 

A few sentiments, one of them punched out using the Label Me Fancy punch and the card was complete. If you would like to see more of the Sale-a-bration products or the products that I have used  this week, click HERE for the link. It will open up in a new web page so you won't lose your place.

Make It Simple Monday - Saleabration - Delicate Dahlias

 Hello. Have you ever had one of those weeks when you wish there more hours in the day? I had the week that I wish the days were longer to achieve more! This, I feel is going to be another one of those weeks too. Cary goes away for 3 days on Wednesday so wants to get everything sorted for when she gets back after her mini Disney Cruise. She's really excited but as she's so busy, she hasn't had much time to get prepared for the trip! This week sees me making the most of the remainder of the Saleabration for this year. I have used for my first card a set called Delicate Dahlias.

I stamped with the outline stamp randomly over the white card mat then using the blending stamp, I filled the image in. It's called 2 step stamping. Now I wouldn't ordinarily use a 2 step stamp set for a #simplestamping project but this one is so very easy to use. I used the lovely peachy pink coloured ink of the Flirty Flamingo Ink pad. A simple Happy Birthday message on the front and another on the inside. The 2 sentiments were from another FREE stamp set called In Your Words.

  The stamps and dies that I use this week are all from the Saleabration booklet that started in August and ends at the end of September. So less than 2 weeks to go. To acquire any of the products in the booklet, when you make a purchase of £45 or more from either of the Stampin' Up! catalogues, you have the opportunity to choose a FREE product. I like FREE stuff. Don't You? In this booklet, there are DSP's (Designer Series Papers), Stamp sets and die sets. There's quite a choice.

Fun Fold Friday Beauty of Tomorrow suite

 The final project of the week is always a fun fold here at 2 Big Girls Crafting and today I'm sharing a nice easy one. I  used the gorgeous Blackberry Beauty suite to create a center easel card. 

In particular I wanted to use the Blackberry Beauty Ephemera.  I  like that the ephemera pack contains a fab selection of die cut pieces to use in your projects. You get 2 of each of the items shown below.

The card starts life as a piece of cardstock measuring 14.85cm x 21cm scored at 10.5cm.  I then marked along one of the long edges at 4.5cm in from each end.

Next cut up from each of the marks to the fold line. Now adhere the left and right hand panels to the card base. The center panel gets scored at 5.25cm, ie in half.

I then cut a panel of cardstock measuring 10.5cm x 8cm . I attatched it to only the bottom panel of the center of the card base.

Then it was time to decorate. And I went to town using the gorgeous products in the suite. 

The nice thing is that this card folds flat for posting...

But stands well on a mantle or table

Well that's it from me for this week. I hope I've shared something to inspire you and that you're have a crafty weekend.

We are holding an all day event on Saturday and on Sunday we will be supporting a member of our Larger Than Life Stampers team at her annual charity event. But I know I'll find time to craft at some point!!!

Please join me next week to see what Gill has to share with us all.

Have fun

Cary xx

Throwback Thursday Beauty of Tomorrow suite

 Thursdays are are throwback inspiration here at 2 Big Girls Crafting.  So for today's inspiration I decided to randomly choose a previous post from our blog to re create. I also set my self the challenge of using some of the stunning Bleckberry Beauty  This specialty double sided pattern paper is full of rich scrumptious colours with hints of gold foiling. The picture below really doesn't do it justice!

So with the paper and colour palette chosen which project was I going to do? Well I randomly picked the date of September 10th 2016 and went to see what I was making. So here it is....

Now I was really chuffed to see this project as I love making 3d items!! And to make it even easier I already had a tutorial for it as the post included one I'd written 😀

So I had my pattern paper, my colour palette , project and tutorial so with out further ado here is the September 16th 2021 version of my octagonal box.

The box is huge! Standing almost 6" tall and 5" wide it can be filled with so many things!!

I decided to trim  the box with the gold shimmer ribbon that is a part of the Beauty of Tomorrow suite. For the lable I chose to use the large tag and owl die cut from the Blackberry beauty ephemera pack that is also a part of the suite.

All together I was very happy with the out come of my random search through the archives of our blog! 

Do you ever revisit old projects for inspiration ? I can highly recommend it!

Watercolour Wednesday Beauty of Tomorrow

 If you've been here before you might have realised I'm rather into making the most from my stash. It was this desire to waste not want not that has led to today's card. If you saw yesterday's post, which you can find here, you'll know that I was playing with the gorgeous Beauty of Tomorrow stamps and the super Soft Pastels assortment.   And one of the things is that once you've finished popping you pastels you're left with some colour on the silicon mat. 

Sooo my use it don't waste it brain said lets see what I can do with that. As we always share a project featuring watercolour on a Wednesday I thought lets see what happens if I use my water painter!! 

With a damp waterpainter I picked up some of the colour left on the silicon sheet. I then swoshed it across my white cardstock mat! And it worked!!! It left a beautiful soft colour that I loved so I carried on until I'd used all the colours 😅

Now I had a beautiful rainbow looking background to use. Now I don’t know if you've ever heard of it but when a beloved pet dies we say they have crossed the rainbow bridge.  One of the sentiments in the Beauty of Tomorrow stamps says "I know this is a difficult day". It jumped out at me as being thw perfect pairing with this gentle rainbow for a card for some one who has lost a dear furry friend.

I stamped the large sprig in a soft grey colour called smoky slate onto the watercolour background to continue to soft look. I then mounted both the watercolour mat and the sentiment mat onto a rich purple coloured cardstock. Mounting both onto a white card base and added 3 coloured gems finished my card.

I had fun playing with the pastels and water but did worry it might rub off but no once it was dried it didn't! Which was really useful 😅

So the moral of todays post? Don't be afraid to try different thing that will expand your stash. After all we all want the most bang for our buck don’t we?

Tips Tricks and Techniques Tuesday Beauty of Tomorrow

 Yesterday I introduced the gorgeous Beauty of Tomorrow stamps and said that whilst they have a distinct autumnal feel to them I would also be sharing projects that most certainly weren't autumnal in colour. And today is one of those days!!!

I am also sharing a technique that has been around for yonks . Called popping pastels it uses one of the new products Stampin' Up! brought out in their latest annual catalogue. The product is the fantastic Soft Pastels assortment. This great box of 8 colours open up a whole new range of tequniques for any crafter.

For the popping pastels technique you will also need a versamark ink pad, sponge daubers,  a silicon mat or other non porous surface and a way to scrap the pastels I used the palette end of my Take your Pick tool.

First decide what colours you're going to use then scrap the side of the pastels onto you mat. It comes off as a fine powder.  Keep your colours seperate as you scrap so that they don't mix.

Now ink up your chosen stamp with the versamark and stamp onto your cardstock. Now the fun really begins!! Using your clean  dauber dab into your chosen colour. Then dab, and I don't mean shmush, swish or swirl, the dauber over the area you want to add colour to.

Personally I think having a dauber for each colour is best as there won't be any cross contamination between colours. Try and stay as close to the image as you can. Once you've finished with each colour I suggest you gently blow away any excess powder. My other suggestion is to have a soft brush to hand to brush of excess powder once you've finished . You should expect to have a small amount of colour around your image but it should appear more as a halo of colour.

My first card shows how colour can make a card . The bright bold look is definitely a favourite of mine 😀

The second card shows how you don't have to be limited to just images for this technique.  Text works well too!!!

Well I hope that I've given you other ways to look at the Beauty of Tomorrow  stamps and perhaps introduced you to a new way of adding colour to your projects , or reminded you of a forgotten one 😉