It’s not yet the end of November but we’ve had snow on the ground for a few days and it’s not melting. I don’t know what happened to autumn, but I must have blinked and missed it. The long range forecast says Nova Scotia is in for a long cold winter with lots of snow, and I’m already wishing for milder temperatures. So today I thought I’d turn First Frost into springtime for my What Will You Stamp? Challenge Design Team project.
A SOLID BASE
When I was looking through my miscellaneous supplies in my craft studio I came across a wooden oval plaque. I considered colouring it using sponges and ink, but decided a little more texture would be good.
I began with a piece of So Saffron Card and spritzed it lightly with some clean water. Then I placed it inside the Subtle Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. I put the embossing folder directly onto the multipurpose platform, placed a cutting pad on top and then ran it forwards and backwards through the Big Shot.
Despite being a 6″ x 6″ folder, it wasn’t quite big enough to emboss all the card in one go. So I turned the card around and placed just the unembossed section inside the folder and embossed that as before.
Once it was dry I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to fix the embossed card to the wooden oval. Then I trimmed off the excess card using my Paper Snips and the base was done.
SPRINGTIME BOUQUET
Next it was time to stamp and cut the pieces for the floral sprays. I decided to stick to pastel colours from the Subtles family to give a spring feel. In the end I chose just Blushing Bride, Highland Heather and Mint Macaron.
On Very Vanilla Card I stamped two large and two small roses using Blushing Bride ink. Then I stamped 5 thistle heads in Highland Heather. Finally I used Mint Macaron to stamp 5 of the long leafy piece.
The stamped images are very delicate but each one has a coordinating die in the Frosted Bouquet Framelits. So using my Big Shot and Magnetic Platform I cut out each one.
BONUS – Knowing that we’d want to cut more than one of the smaller images, there are actually two dies for the thistle and two for the small rose included in the Frosted Bouquet Framelits. Thank you Stampin’ Up!
I thought I should add a little bling to the arrangements so while I had the dies out I cut some berry pieces from Silver Glimmer Paper.
ASSEMBLING THE FLORAL SPRAYS
Assembling the pieces was a simple task using mostly liquid glue. I set all the roses aside and began with the leaves, berries and thistles with glue only towards the bottom of each piece.
The larger arrangement in the bottom left began with three leafy pieces and two silver berry stems, and then three thistles. The heads of the two thistles pointing into the plaque were popped up on Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals.
Next I used liquid glue to add one of the small roses towards the top of the arrangement.
Then I attached the larger rose using Stampin’ Dimensionals.
Finally I added a second small rose with even more height created by stacking two Stampin’ Dimensionals together.
The smaller spray was created in the same way although the leaves and silver berry pieces had to be trimmed down a little.
To complete this arrangement I used two thistle heads and a large rose all popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals.
WWYS196 FIRST FROST
I must admit that I was late to the party with the First Frost Stamp Set and coordinating Frosted Bouquet Framelits Dies. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, but there were other things in the Stampin’ Up! 2018 Holiday Catalogue I wanted more.
What tipped the balance for me? To be honest it was when I found out that the stamp set and dies were being carried over into 2019. This meant that I’d get lots more use out of them. Woo hoo! It’s funny though, now I have the set I can’t imagine not having it. I have a feeling it’s going to become a firm favourite and I look forward to experimenting with it over the long winter months.
This week’s What Will You Stamp? Challenge is WWYS196 First Frost, so as a member of the Design Team I had an extra reason to play. You’ll find more inspiring projects using this set from other members of the team over on the WWYS blog today.
If you already have this stamp set we’d love you to share your ideas with us. To enter the challenge simply create a new project using at least one image from the First Frost Stamp Set. Then upload it to the challenge gallery by December 1st.
At the end of the challenge we’ll randomly choose one person to be our winner. They’ll get bragging rights, a badge for their social media and an invitation to be our Guest Designer for the challenge starting on December 17th. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Well that’s it from me for today. I’m off to prepare for a special Demonstrator only event I’m holding at the end of the week. We’ll be exploring some new products from the 2019 Occasions Catalogue and Sale-A-Bration Brochure so I know it will be a lot of fun.
Whatever you have planned, I hope you find time to exercise your own creativity.
BUNDLE BONUS LIMITED TIME – Right now you can do what I did and buy the First Frost Stamp Set and Frosted Bouquet Framelits Dies as a bundle using a single item number. Doing this will save you 10% off the cost of buying the two items separately. HOWEVER even though you’ll still be able to buy the stamps and dies in the new year, this bundle item number will be switched off on January 2nd when the 2018 Holiday Catalogue period ends. I’ve included links to the bundles and separate items so you can look at these in more detail while the bundle option is still available.
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