Unforgettable Tulips Scrapbook Layout

Hello, Connie Nichol here today with a scrapbook layout featuring a number of Quietfire Design dies.

I started out gazing at Rosebud Wreath and Elements cutting die set and thinking to myself, it would be very cool to use the small wreath die as a photo frame.  Then, I started thinking about the best kind of photographs to use and the fact that the rosebuds remind me of tulips, and well, one thing led to another.....

This is such a cool die set - you can use some or all of the elements to create cards or to accent scrapbook pages.  It's very versatile.  The wreath fits perfectly on a 4x6 photo.

 

I cut a separate wreath out of green cardstock to frame the die cut photo, but look how pretty the photo wreath is.  I'm saving it for a future card.

I used Unforgettable as a page title and added a couple of flourished butterflies.  It's a very simple layout but I think the die cut photos add a unique element to the page.  And if you ever get a chance to go to the tulip festival in the Skagit Valley in upper Washington State, it's simply beautiful.  Thanks for stopping by, Connie

 

Autumn card with Alcohol Inks and Clear embossing

 I'm still playing with alcohol inks and I thought they would be a great way  to make a background.  But I tried something new by embossing it with the leaves from Leaves stamp set.  I then attempted to paint the leaves a slightly darker color than the background.

I then added a tag with a quote from the Autumn Collection and some hemp twine for texture.

I did notice that you have to be more careful embossing on Yupo - it'll warp like heated plastic!  I'd still like to figure out a way to keep the embossed lines nice and white too.  Any suggestions?

 Autumn Collection (mounted stamps)

Leaves Collection (mounted stamps)

Nature gives to every Time Card

Hey Quietfire Fans! I'm thrilled to be back on the blog today sharing with you my Nature gives to every Time card which features a variety of Quietfire Stamps and A Way With Words Dies. You'll want to grab a cup of your favourite Fall beverage and learn how to recreate my card at home.

To start, cut a piece of watercolour cardstock that measures 4" x 5 1/4". Grab a stamp block that is about the same size as the piece of cardstock. Rub Walnut Stain, Fossilized Amber and Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxide Ink onto the block. Spritz the block with water. Stamp the side of the stamp block that is inked onto the piece of watercolour cardstock. Dry the piece of cardstock with a heat tool.

Apply Potting Soil Archival Ink to the Crackle Background stamp and stamp randomly on the piece of cardstock. Reapply ink to the stamp as needed.

Apply Emboss It Ink to the Grid Background and stamp onto the piece of cardstock. Sprinkle Clear Matte Embossing Powder overtop of the grid background. Tap off the excess powder and emboss with a heat tool.

Cut the cardstock piece to 3 5/8" x 4 3/8". Distress the edges of the cardstock piece. Ink the edges of the cardstock piece using Walnut Stain Distress Oxide Ink and a blending tool with foam.

Die cut a 2 3/4" Stitched Circle out of white cardstock. Grab a smaller stamp block and rub Walnut Stain, Fossilized Amber and Spiced Marmalade onto the block. Spritz the block with water. Stamp the side of the stamp block that is inked onto the circle. Dry the circle with a heat tool.

Apply Potting Soil Archival Ink to the Nature gives to every Time stamp and stamp in the middle of the circle. Distress the edges if the circle. Ink the edges of the circle using Ground Espresso Distress Oxide Ink and a blending tool with foam.

Die cut two wreaths from white cardstock. Using a blending tool with foam, blend Forest Moss Distress Ink over the entire surface of both wreaths.

Apply Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide Ink to the wheat stamp and stamp onto a piece of white cardstock. Reapply the Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide Ink to the wheat stamp and stamp onto the same piece of white cardstock. Fussy cut the two wheat images out. Ink the edges of the wheat pieces using Ground Espresso Distress Oxide Ink and a blending tool with foam.

Foam square the circle to the middle of the cardstock piece. Adhere one wreath around the stitched circle. Adhere the other wreath on top of the first wreath, make sure the second wreath is slightly off set to create the leaves.

Adhere the wheat bunches at the bottom of the circle.

To finish the card, cut a cardbase that measures 3 7/8" x 9 1/2", score at 4 1/2". Adhere the cardfront to the cardbase.

Here are a few close up's of my Nature gives to every Time Card.

Thanks so much for joining me today and taking a look at my project! I hope that I've inspired you to want to recreate my card at home. 

Quietfire Supplies Used:

- Crackle Background

- Grid Background

- Autumn Collection

- Rosebud Wreath & Elements

Other Supplies Used:

- Tim Holtz for Ranger Ink: Distress Ink - Forest Moss, Distress Oxide Ink - Walnut Stain, Fossilized Amber & Spiced Marmalade, Distress Spritzer and Blending Tool with Foam

- Ranger Ink: Emboss It Dabber and Potting Soil Archival Ink

- Emerald Creek Craft Supplies: Clear Matte Embossing Powder 

- Elizabeth Craft Designs: Stitched Circles

- Misc: Watercolour Cardstock, White Cardstock and Heat Tool

- Katelyn

Video Tutorial- Watercolor Poinsettia background

Hello Crafty Friends!

Don't you just love trying out new techniques?  Like creating a beautiful, yet easy to make, watercolor poinsettia background?  Or learning some new tricks to mount vellum- without seeing the adhesive through the vellum?  Or a simple way to adhere paper in a specific location with less fuss or messing up?  Well, perhaps today's tutorial video will provide those tips and tricks for you!  And, you get to create an oh-so-lovely Merry Christmas card.

This card is created using the newly released Merry Christmas die and Poinsettia stamp...a perfect festive duo!

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy!  If you wish to see this on YouTube, click HERE!

Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section below!  Or to share a link to your Quietfire Merry Christmas card.  We would love to see it!

Have a happy, crafty day!
Big Hugs,
Kathy Jo

How to use a Glue Stick with Leafing

Hello!!!  Happy Monday and Happy Anniversary for the hubs and I.  We have now been married for 35 years.  Wow!!!  

Autumn has arrived and the leaves are looking beautiful, however yesterday felt much more like winter outside and it even spit a bit of snow.  Thankfully the rest of the week will be more like fall than winter.

 I've started today's project with a tag from my stash that was already colored.  To tell you about the background already on it would be a total guess.  I'm thinking it's Distress Spray Stain along with Mica Spray but it's possible I'd have that wrong.  Either way I thought it was a beautiful start to an Autumn tag.

I've used glue stick with foil or leafing before but I'd never done it with a stencil/. I was thinking that it should work and had to play.  The stencil is the Leaf and Snowflake Spray (QF / ECD).  I placed it on my tag and dabbed over it with the glue stick being careful not to get globs in the design.  I then used my finger to rub the glue around pulling what was on the stencil into the cut outs, hoping to get good coverage. 

I was going to use my container of left over leafing but the colors were so similar to the tag that I chose to go with some plain gold.  I pressed it onto the glue and then rubbed over the tag to remove the excess leafing putting the pieces into my container.

As you can see, I didn't manage to get glue everywhere in all the areas.  This would look great if you were just going for the suggestion of falling leaves and I'm thinking an art journal page is in my future.  However, I wanted the whole design on my tag.  I almost started over with a whole new idea but then decided I would continue and take you along on the journey.  So what to do....

I decided on Embossing Powder on top of Embossing Paste.  Before beginning I used an anti-static bag over the tag to be sure the powder only stuck to the paste.  The stencil was placed back on lining it up with what was already leafed, Texture Paste Transparent Matte was applied with a pallet knife, the stencil removed, Queen's Gold Embossing Powder poured on the wet paste, and dump off the extra.  At this point you can allow the paste to dry with the powder on it and once the paste is completely dry then heat to melt the embossing powder.  This will create a smoother look.  If you like a more textured look then you can heat the powder to melt right away which will cause the paste to bubble.  Be sure to have adequate ventilation when heating acrylic mediums.  

Yes, I chose to heat right away and get lots of texture in my leaves.

Back to the glue stick.  I rubbed glue stick onto the edges of the tag, pressed all the edges into the little pieces in my container of leafing, and then rubbed over the edges to burnish the leafing and remove all the excess. 

The quote is from the new Autumn Collection of stamps.  It is stamped with Versamark Ink and embossed with Weathered White Powder.  

Some twine and a metal leaf to finish it.  The leaf was gold and color added with Alcohol Inks.

Leafy Acanthus - Merry Christmas - When This Christmas - Multi Loop Bow

Yogi Here today and I thought I'd play with the Leafy Acanthus and the 3D die cut word technique... Really hard to photograph - sigh!!

I'm using an A Way With Words dies  "Merry Christmas" from Elizabeth Craft Designs, also available on Quietfire Design HERE

I'm also using a quote and design element stamps from Quietfire Design ("Leafy Acanthus"); ("When This Christmas")

Scored and folded my dark green textured cardstock to create the easel structure. Cut another piece of gold cardstock (Paper-Garden.ca)  same size as card and adhered to front.

Using my Tim's stampin platform stamped the acanthus on white cardstock using Versafine Toffee, flipped the stamp over to have a mirror image and stamped next to the first stamping overlapping the images slightly then embossed with Queen's Gold embossing powder.

 

Die cut the "Merry Christmas" making sure I kept all the little pieces intact.

Trimmed down and adhered the Acanthus background to a piece of the dark green cardstock. I put a small drop of white glue on all the negative pieces and re-glued them in place to the background.

For the positive part of the die cut, there are several ways you can create depth - adhering several, 4 or 5 layers of die cut cardstock - time consuming; or cutting minuscule pieces of 3D foam tape - very finicky; I tried using Fun Foam and Sookwang on both sides and die cutting, but the die isn't thick enough to go through all the layers SIGH!!; so I ended up using Glossy Accents - mine is old a thick... and just putting a thick layer onto the whole back, setting aside to dry and repeating to get a thicker coat... then putting a bit of white glue and adhering to Acanthus background. Adhered to card front.

 

On the floor: stamped the quote onto a piece of the gold cardstock using Versafine Black Onyx and clear embossed. Die cut with Elizabeth Craft Designs "Stitched Rectangles" die set. Adhered to floor with 3D foam tape.

Tied a multi loop Gold Sari bow (see instructions below) and adhered to floor with hot glue (click on images to enlarge)

 

Using a quilling comb or dog comb etc loop the ribbon over and under the prongs. You should be over 2 sets of prongs and under 2 sets of prongs. I do it every 4th prong (depending on size of bow loops wanted)

Work your way back going between the original prongs. Continue in this manner back and forth until you've done it 5 times, ending with the tail on the opposite side of starting. This will give you 4 loops for the bow. Add more loops if you want a fuller bow.  Cut the end.
 
Thread the ribbon through the mid point prongs and tie a tight double knot. Remove from tool and fluff up, trimming ends pleasingly.

Winners of New Christmas Release Dies!

I'd like to congratulate the winners of our giveaway!

Last week we celebrated the release of the brand new Christmas dies from Elizabeth Craft Designs and asked our followers to comment on each blog post.  Here are the lucky winners! Each one will receive one of the new dies (randomly chosen by me!).

Linda E.

Linda EOctober 6, 2018 at 10:44 PM

Very Elegant!

TracyM #6773

TracyM #6773October 5, 2018 at 4:21 AM

ELEGANT card!
LOVE the gorgeous sentiment and delicate flourishes of your card ... and ALL the sneak peeks :)

Mary O.K.

Mary O.K.September 28, 2018 at 8:32 AM

Suzanne, have you ever considered a job as a voice-over artist? My goodness, your gentle voice on the video relaxed me more than petting a bunny!

Seriously— lovely video and excellent way to understand the size difference of the two Merry Christmas dies. You make creating exquisite cards look effortless.

I’m looking forward to this week of Christmas inspiration!

Ladies, please email me and I will get your prizes out to you!

Thanks to everyone who followed along!  See you next time!

Suzanne