"Ain’t Life Grand" is one of the sentiments from the Grand Soiree Stamp set.  Take a closer look at this GORGEOUS invitation, found on page 126 of catty, using this set!  Of course, we have so many more stamp set designs that could be used for invitations, showers, weddings, and announcements with the Please Come Set, Sincere Salutations, Together Forever, and Nursery Necessities, just to name a few.

This card is a criss-cross card, done in chocolate chip cardstock creating a tri-fold.  The invitation is a large tag that pulls out by the chocolate chip stitched ribbon secured at the top of the kiwi kiss cardstock mat.  The large chandelier image on invitation was stamped on naturals ivory cardstock in regal rose ink.  The Occasions/RSVP was stamped in chocolate chip ink over the chandelier.  I stamped the large rectangle frame of the Frames with a Flourish set in regal rose classic ink.  I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to center the sentiment from Grand Soiree stamp set, inside the frame, and stamped it in chocolate chip classic ink.  I took the swirly stamp image from the Frames with a  Flourish set and stamped it underneath in Kiwi Kiss classic ink.

I used a small 1.5" x 12" strip of the green pattern from Bella Rose Designer Series Paper to wrap around the outside of the criss-cross folded card.  I used a 1/4" strip across the width of the front only, slightly up from the bottom of the green dsp.  I tied a piece of Regal Rose 5/8" grosgrain ribbon in a bow off center to the right, just above the seam of the dsp.  I used a stick pin and a pearl from the Pretties Kit, tied a small piece of old olive 1/4" ribbon to the end of the pin, and then layered a green felt flower from Flower Fusion and then a brown felt flower from Flower Fusion Too which was adhered through the regal rose ribbon. 

We’re heading into that period of time that whizzes by and leaves my head spinning.  Before you know it, we’ll be celebrating Columbus Day weekend, Halloween which is huge in our house and neighborhood, and then Thanksgiving.  I’ll be putting away the fall and Halloween decorations up in the attic while my husband hands me down the Christmas decorations to be sorted in the spare bedroom.  Dec 1st marks the beginning of many Christmas Parties leading up to Christmas and New Year’s dinners and gatherings.  If you’re hosting a party or event, one of the things I can help you with is designing an invitation for you that is customized to your personal style and color preferences.  And you can be sure it will be received with ooohs, and awwwhs, because it won’t be a cookie cutter off the rack invitation.  It will be a personal work of art handmade by you! 

Technorati Tags: Flower Fusion Accents and Elements, Frames with a Flourish stamp set, Grand Soiree stamp set, hand made invitations, Pretties Kit

It’s not my original design, but it’s definitely the most beautiful card I think I’ve ever made!  It appears on the cover of our catalog, and I LOVE this card and had everything I needed to make it, accept I don’t own the All Scallops stamp set.  Well, I thought of a way to case the card and reproduce the scalloped edge with a chocolate chip marker and a hole punch. 

I have really found my preference for watercoloring.  I have used crayons, pencils with waterbrush, markers, and misting my stamped image with water, but I really like painting with our water brush and using my ink pads.  The brush pack comes in two sizes also, for smaller and larger line artwork.  I just find this technique quick, easy and no mess!  I also advise you to use our watercolor paper, which I used here and for the snowman in the last post.  However, you can also use our confetti white/cream papers too, because you need a thicker, fibrous and pourous paper that can accept the water without pilling  up.  Stamp your image in black or brown stazon, or craft ink and let it dry before you watercolor.  You can even  emboss the image with clear powder after you’ve stamped the image with colored craft ink and then watercolor it.

The base of the card is kraft card stock.  The two flower images and the birds come from a gorgeous stamp set, Eastern Influences, part of our style watch, stamped on watercolor paper.  The sentiment is from One of a Kind which is framed by Frames with a Flourish, stamped on confetti white card stock.  I REALLY love that stamp set, and its size of frames accommodate almost all sizes of sentiments.  It also has neat flourishes that you can use on top or bottom or both of any photo, frame, picture mat, or sentiment.  You’ll see an example of the flourish in my next post.

The color inks are the base colors of the Bella Rose Designer Series papers, which I used a small strip of the red damask under the kiwi kiss striped ribbon and a small square of the CC polka dot under the framed sentiment.  The inks are chocolate chip, riding hood red, and kiwi kiss.  I used a little bit of sahara sand and going gray on the birds.  I used our new scalloped edge punch for the bottom border of the card, and then used the chocolate chip marker to "dot" the scalloped edges; the large end for the large dots and small end for the smaller dots.  I punched 1/16" holes in the center of each larger brown dot at the "top" of each scallop.

All stamped images were cut out (tediously) and raised with dimensionals.  The end result is definitely worth the time! Even if you don’t find cutting stamped images out as relaxing as I do, you could stamp all of these images on a piece of watercolor paper, masking the largest flower before you stamp the frame, so it appears under the rose.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Bella Rose Designer Series Paper, Eastern Influences stamp set, Frames with a Flourish stamp set, One of a Kind stamp set, Punches, scalloped edge punch, waterbrush, watercoloring