Blog Hop!! Dream with your eyes wide open & 3D Foam Scrapbook Adhesive Products by 3L

Happy Friday to you all!!!!  Wanda here and I hope you've been having a good time hopping along with Quietfire Design and Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L.  If you've missed any of the posts this week, be sure to check them out and leave a comment on each one.  Most days on this blog there have been two different posts for the hop so don't miss out.  

I've been using Quietfire stamps for years and you all know that I love them.  However, I had never used Scrapbook Adhesive products before or made it a point to work the adhesive into the design.  This was a challenge for me but after I got going, it was a lot of fun!!!  So much fun that I had a hard time stopping as you can tell since I have three projects to share.  So we better get on with it!!!

This first card uses ideas that I had swirling about my noggin' as I thought about the adhesives I had to use and "what am I going to do with them".  Since the 3D Foam Squares I got come with 2 different sizes in the package I thought it might work to stack them and I wanted to try them with embossing powder.  I chose Distress Embossing Powder for the extra texture.  I stuck the larger squares to my strip of paper, took the liner off the top, put on the smaller squares leaving their liner on the top.  Poured on tea dye powder and shook off the excess... perfect.  Don't heat yet.  Take the liners off the small squares and pour on fired brick powder.  Shake off the excess and now you can heat the powder.  Worked great!!!!  The adhesive on these squares is VERY sticky!!!  They stay where you put them and they hold what you put on top of them... no changing your mind, lol!!!

Now for my background and accent papers.  Since I had already decided on what colors of embossing powder I was using on the squares I wanted my background to match.  I started with a piece of Specialty Stamping Paper, cut it in half, laid both halves in front of me, sprayed them both with some water and then "sprayed" (yes, I've taken some of my stains and put them in mister bottles so I can spray them - fun, fun, fun!!!) Distress Stains (wild honey, fired brick, barn door, tea dye, spiced marmalade) just on one of the papers creating puddles of color, no skimping on the spraying here.  Then I took the other piece and laid it on top, pressed them well together, pulled them apart, and used a paper towel roll to pick up excess stain.  My paper towels have a pattern and it left that pattern in some areas of the papers - very cool!!! I set one piece aside and it is the piece I used to tear the strip for behind the squares and to stamp and die cut my quote (Dream with your eyes wide open) - LOVE this quote!!!!  For the other piece I started with the Dylusions letter jumble stencil and the black Dylusions spray, spraying lightly through the stencil, moving the stencil and spraying again.  I blotted the ink with the paper towel roll and dried the paper.  Next I used the Dylusions number jumble stencil and sprayed barn door stain through it, again spraying, moving, spraying, blotting and drying.  I decided what size I wanted my background to be and cut it from my paper.  

I had first thought I would put the squares directly on the background but after it was made I realized they would get lost and I needed to do something to highlight them.  Tearing a strip from the other paper was perfect as it matched so well but also was much lighter than the background.  The quote was stamped with jet black Archival ink and fit perfectly in the Spellbinders Butterfly Circles die.

To finish it off I took one butterfly from the 3D foam butterflies package, stuck it on my craft sheet, carefully poured Distress fired brick powder in the center area and then Distress spiced marmalade on the rest of the butterfly.  These shapes are so sticky that I actually had to work at getting it up off my craft sheet so I could dump off the excess powder and heat it.  But I got it up and it worked great!!!!!  Some powder got on the back as I was taking it off the sheet but since I didn't want the whole thing to stick down that was a plus.  I heated the powder and it also caused the butterfly to bend up a little - yay!!!  The butterfly foam was white and to make it match my squares better, I used a black Sharpie marker to color the edges and then used small Dodz just in the center of the butterfly to stick it down.  I took 3 white pearls, colored them with the Sharpie marker and stuck them to the butterfly.  I adhered the whole piece to a folded black card with the small Dodz.  

Next up I have a tag.  To be honest, I made the tag first.  Since I thought I was going to be putting the squares directly on my background of the above card, I decided maybe I should test my idea of stacking the squares and adding embossing powder, so I grabbed a #5 Ranger tag and put four large squares along the bottom, took off the liner, added the small squares (liners still on), poured on tea dye powder, took the liner off the small squares, added pine needles powder, shook off the extra and heated them.  Now I knew it would work great for the card since it worked on the tag.  I originally had a different color scheme in mind which is why I used the pine needles powder on my test (which in the end I covered up, I'll get to that).  The squares looked so good that I thought I should do something with the tag, I couldn't just leave it!!!!  

I was ready to use tea dye, old paper, and antique linen Distress Stain in mister bottles to make my background so that is what I used on the tag.  I stood the tag up, did close sprays of color letting the color run down the tag.  I was really liking this!!!!  Dried the tag, laid the letter jumble stencil on and sprayed black Dylusions.  Next came a few mistakes that I kept trying to fix.  I thought I would outline the squares in white to make them pop more and grabbed my Sharpie Paint marker.  Not only did it make a line but the foam soaked up some paint which I didn't like, plus I couldn't get it in-between the squares very well... ugh.  Now what to do, I'll use a Black Permanent Sharpie just to color the sides of the squares... nope, got black lines on my background, but finished doing the edges of the squares so they would be black again.  Ok, I'll spray lots of black around the squares to cover up the black lines, so did that and blotted it off.  Too dark, just not right.  Ok, I'll use some white Dylusions, so I sprayed some of that and blotted off the excess.  Ok, we are looking better but still not quite right.... I took a small paint brush and added back in more black Dylusions below the squares.  The white paint that I had first put by the squares was resisting the black but I did have more of a fade to black at the bottom and the white was acceptable.  Yay, something I could live with as I just didn't want to throw it away!!!

So now which stamps should I use to finish it up.  I started flipping through all my QF stamps and when I saw "Never Give Up", I thought it was appropriate after what I had just been through trying to make this tag work, lol.  But I should put something with it and I thought one of the birds would work great.  The bird is stamped on a scrap of manila card, embossed with black powder, and cut out leaving a small border.  When I had stood the tag up to spray it, I was holding it with a piece of paper which of course got spray on it and that is what I used to stamp Never Give Up onto and cut it up.  Hopefully Suzanne isn't cringing too bad since I split up the beautiful flourishes hooking all the words together!!!  I put these onto black cardstock using small Dodz and cut again leaving a border.  The words and bird are attached to the tag using 3D foam squares.  Some black ink around the edged and stain dyed silk ribbon finish it off.  Oops, that wasn't the end.  I decided a little metallic would be good.  I went around the edges with Distress Paint tarnished brass and also added it to the tops of the small squares along the bottom.  The green powder was very dark and I wanted to lighten it up a bit.  I love that the texture still comes through!!!

I was having so much fun and didn't want to stop so I thought something bright and springy would be my next project and I wanted to do something with the 3D Foam Creative Sheets package I received.  My first thought was to die cut something and I was leaning towards having a flower on my project.  I also needed to decide what I wanted to stick to the foam.  Foil (Jones Tones rainbow) would be bright and shiny and I hadn't used mine in a long time.  I die cut a Spellbinders scalloped circle from the white sheet of 3D foam.  I also cut a smaller circle from cardstock to be the center of my flower.  Before putting the foil on the circle I thought I had better try it on something smaller, just in case.  A butterfly would be great with my flower so I used one of the 3D foam butterflies.  The foil worked great!!!  So next I foiled the scalloped circle. I wish you could hold this piece and see the sparkle and shine that pictures just don't show!!  For the center piece, I stamped "Inspire" with jet black ink and also inked around the edge with mustard seed Distress Ink.  For the stem I cut a piece of black Crafty Foam Tape from the roll and then cut about 1/3 off the whole length of the piece so that it would be narrower.  Next I took a piece of 13mm silk ribbon, colored it with meadow Distress Stain, dried it, and wrapped it around my piece of foam tape. The leaf is cut from watercolor paper using the Tim Holtz Tattered Leaves die.  I colored the whole leaf with Distress Stain meadow and then added a bit of pine needles Stain along the bottom and picket fence Stain along the top.  I used a bone folder to press some veins into the leaf (not easily seen in the pictures).  

To create the background for this flower I started with a piece of watercolor paper.  I sprayed the paper a bit with water (both sides so that it would not bend so much as I worked) and then added Distress Stains (from the stain bottle, not sprayed) broken china and salty ocean helping them to blend together by rubbing my finger across the paper.  While the paper was still wet, I sprinkled on some rock salt and then left it to air dry (this gives the color a fabulous mottled look).  After it was dry, I brushed off all the salt rubbing over the piece with a dry cloth to be sure it was all cleaned off.  I sponged Distress Ink faded jeans through the letter jumble stencil randomly across the paper turning my stencil in different directions.  The white circles are acrylic paint "stamped" on with bubble wrap.  "Flourish & Grow" is stamped with jet black ink.  Along the bottom I've stamped flourishes with both mowed lawn and forest moss Distress Ink  

The stem and leaf are attached to the card with small Dodz.  For the flower, I removed the liner from the back but I did not want the whole piece to stick down so I painted around the edge with Distress Paint tarnished brass, let it dry, and then stuck the flower down.  Since the foam is so sticky the center holds it just fine and I could bend up the edges a bit to give the flower more dimension.  The center is attached with a foam square.  I did the same thing with the butterfly - I painted the back of the wings but not the center so it would only stick in the center.  I also painted the edges of the wings using a small brush rather than the sponge top of the paint.  The edges of the background are doodled on using a black Pitt pen.  

I hope you've enjoyed my projects and didn't mind my rambling too much :-))  Be sure to scroll to the bottom to leave a comment and enter the drawing to win a great prize!!!

Scrapbook Adhesives and Quietfire Design are giving away two prizes valued at $60 each. Enter our raffle for a chance to win $30 worth of Quietfire rubber stamps AND $30 worth of Scrapbook Adhesives by following the instructions in the Rafflecopter box below.  Comment on each blog post this week to enter to win! One (1) comment per person per blog post. Winner will be randomly drawn on 3-24-2014 and announced here on the Quietfire Creations blog! Earn additional entries by following us on Facebook and Twitter!

Enter our contest here, then go over to the Scrapbook Adhesives blog to see their project of the day and enter their contest, too!

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