Mixed Media Poinsettia Card Tutorial

As promised, here is the tutorial for the Poinsettia card I shared earlier.

Supplies Used:

• The Craft's Meow's Holiday Poinsettia and Inside Christmas stamp sets
• Imagine Craft's/Tsukineko's Versafine Onyx Black, Versamark and Memento Love Letter inks
• Ranger's Distress Inks in Worn Lipstick, Fired Brick, Evergreen Bough and Crushed Olive 
• Stampin' Up's Watercolor Pencils
• Scrapbook Adhesives by3L EZ Runner
• Want2Scrap Silver Rhinestones strip
• Kraft A2 card base
• 2 Patterned papers
• Lace
• Seam binding
• Watercolor Brush
• Blending sponges
• White Embossing Powder
• Heat Gun

Stamp image with waterproof ink.

Sponge different hues of red Distress Inks onto the image. Use the darker ink in the center.

Sponge Olive ink in the upper part of the background and Evergreen on the bottom background.

Highlight the shadows and lights on the image using watercolor pencils.

Highlight the poinsettia image with a dark brown watercolor pencil.

 Color wash and blend the water color highlights using a brush.

 Stamp image onto a patterned paper. Cut out a few of the petals and adhere onto the corresponding part of the watercolored image.

Heat emboss partially the image with white embossing powder. It's okay if it's not perfectly aligned. That way it creates a shadow effect.

Stamp sentiment inside box. Adhere patterned paper on the left side of the card base. Embellish the center of the flower with rhinestones.

Stitch top and bottom edges of the combined panels. Adhere lace, seam binding bow, white flourish sticker and rhinestones.

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Butternut Squash Minions Tutorial

I shared this photo on my Facebook page the other day and it's been one of my most popular posts so far. I guess I'm not alone in my love for these adorable inions.

I enjoyed making them, with the eager help of my 8 year old. Here are the supplies you will need:

• Butternut squash that are the right shape and make sure the outside is clean and completely dry.
• Yellow and Blue Paint (I used DecoArt Traditions Acryllic paints). You can also use spray paint and other types, but I have no experience with them to recommend them.
• Silver Paint (I used DecoArt Metallic Lustre Silver Spark)
• Glazing Medium
• Glossy Varnish
• Thick cardstock or Paper Coasters (I got mine here)
• 1-3/8" and 1-1/8" (3.75mm and 3mm) wide Circle dies (I used Spellbinders Classic Circles) or punches (1-1/8" and 1-3/8")
• Permanent Markers like the Sharpie brand
• White pen (I used Uniball Signo)
• Masking tape
• Black 3/8" wide Ribbon
• Buttons
• Pencil
• Thin sticky permanent double-sided tape

Sketch the overalls with a pencil (right squash) and use that as a guide to adhere masking tape on your squash (left). The front and back will look the same.

Apply yellow paint from top of head to the middle, making sure you don't go past the tape where the overalls will be. I did about 3 layers of paint. Let dry for at least 30 minutes.

Remove tape and carefully paint the overalls with blue paint. I used a mason jar to hold the squash that can't stand by itself upside down. I painted 2 coats and let dry again.

Apply Glazing Medium and let dry. I read that you can add this to the actual paint before applying, but I didn't do that. I just wanted a glazed layer before I add the final touches to my minions.

While paint is drying, make your goggles by die cutting or punching circles from thick cardstock or paper coasters. I cut 4 of these per eye. If you don't have either dies or punches, you can print them out and trace onto thick cardstock and freehand cut them.

Glue together 4 layers of the donut-shaped eyes.

 Rub or paint silver paint over goggles. I made 5 of these because one Minion was going to be one-eyed.

Arrange the squash so you can see how they lean. This will decide how you want their faces to look like. I googled minions and found some expressions I liked and sketched them on the squash with a pencil.

 Draw the faces with the permanent markers. Draw the overalls details (pockets, stitches, etc) with the white pen. I filled in the teeth with the white pen as well. After all the drawings are done, varnish your squash and let dry.

Die cut or punch the bigger circle without holes 6 times. Shape one of these into two eyelids. Apply yellow paint and let dry. Draw in the eyelid edges with black marker. Punch 1/2" circles for the eyeballs and scribble a dot with white pen. Assemble goggles as shown.

Wrap the black ribbon around their heads and adhere with sticky tape. Place goggles over ribbon.

My daughter and I had fun making these. I hope you were inspired to make them, too. Please share in the comments if you post your Minions online. I'd love to see!

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Easy Burlap Mason Jar Vase Tutorial

I'm sharing with you something that's not a card today. Tomorrow, my church is hosting a Women's Brunch Outreach. I turned ordinary mason jars (a bargain at 35 cents each!) into these vases as decorations for the tables.

These are really easy to make. Here are the supplies I used: mason jar (or save your old mayo jars) burlap, ribbon, rubber band and flower (I used Prima). Not showing here is my glue gun.

Cut a piece of burlap and remove the strips of fibers to create a fringe on the long sides of the burlap. Trim the fringe so they look straight.

Wrap it around the jar. Secure with a rubber band. Leave the rubber band as is if you're using a non transparent ribbon.

I'm using a see-thru ribbon, so the rubber band can't stay there. Move the rubber band lower to keep the burlap secure as you tie your ribbon.

Adhere the flower using a glue gun. It will also slightly secure the burlap onto the jar.

Here it is with flowers and some greeneries.

Let me know if you made these easy jars. Have a great weekend!

How To Make a Polaroid Frame

I'm showing you today how I made the Polaroid frame on my Valentine treats HERE and on my cards on THIS POST. These frames are so trendy right now and they are not hard to make and customize.

What you will need:

• Spellbinders Classic Square dies - you can use other square dies, but I prefer Spellbinders because they emboss as well.
• Cardstock
• Paper cutter OR ruler and scissors

I started with a half of a LTR size cardstock, measuring 4.25" x 11". I taped the large square die to one side, making sure there's room around according to your preferred thickness. I made mine around .25" around. Cut the cardstock to center the die as shown below. Do it again for each frame you want to make. I was able to cut 2 larges, one medium and one small from the half A2 cardstock.

 You can leave these as is to make room for more stamping on the bottom.

Or if you're like me, I prefer them to be shorter. For the larger square I cut it at 3.75" lengthwise. For the medium size at 3.25." And I save those little strips of cardstock for sentiment flags in future projects.

Here they are in different sizes, colors and patterns, ready for your projects.

I hope you were inspired to try this. Please leave me a comment if you did and made a project with it.

Layers of Color's Ornament Blog Hop and Tutorial

Welcome to the Layers of Color's Ornament Blog Hop. The LOC team, along with some dear friends, has put together this hop to get your creative juices going to make hand crafted holiday ornaments.

I love making hand made ornaments and I almost always put family photos on them. Here is one side view. I used one of the sentiments from the Glad Tidings clear art stamp set. I also used the Spellbinders Labels 16, Picot Edge Circles and Fancy Tags 2 dies on it. The papers are Pink Paislee.

The tutorial for this ornament is below.

As with any hop, there are freebies and giveaways:

FREE Ornament Templates,

FREE Vintage Roses Ornament Tutorial, and

6 drawings for a $20 Layers of Color Gift Certificate, hidden somewhere among these designers' blogs, so make sure you leave a comment as you hop along!

Diana Queen * Gini Cagle * Grace Nywening * Holly Simoni

Jennie Harper * Jessica Fick * Keri Lee Sereika * Linda Beeson Linda Lucas * Melisa Waldorf * Nina Brackett (you are here) * Rae Barthel * Savannah O’Gwynn

Make sure you stop by the Layers of Color blog for more info. And while there, make sure you check out LOC's Christmas Collection and the Ornament Gallery.
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Fancy square photo ornament tutorial

I love my ScorPal when making handmade ornaments!

Ooops, there's a typo! That should say, "Tie a knot on ONE end."

Fine Furnishings and another flower tutorial

I am so excited to share with you my latest sets, Fine Furnishings and Fine Furnishing Addition.

These sets include tons of sentiments and images that can be used to create a living room scene or stamped by themselves. The sets include both the solid images (for straight stamping) and line images (for coloring and paper piecing).

First up is an elegant wedding card that uses the chandelier image from the set. The sentiment is from Enjoy the Sunshine STV kit and was die cut using the Spellbinders Double End Tags. I used GKD Black Onyx and White cardstocks. The patterned paper is by K&Co. and ribbon by Michael's.

The rest of the cards below were created as a set. This one uses the GKD Ocean Mist CS, Fly a Kite by October Afternoon. If you look closely, I created a base board using a ScorPal. I also included a miniature version of the chandelier as you see on this card. The chairs were paper pieced.
Here is another scene with other images from this set. Many of the sentiments in the Fine Furnishings Additions can fit inside the frame. Here you see the solid image version of the couch.

The GKD team is also previewing the newest Free with Three set, Friends are Forever.

And remember these paper roses from last release? Here they are again.

I have another paper flower to show you (the tutorial is at the end of this post). I packaged the cards above in a clear box and added the paper dahlia to make a beautiful hostess gift. The sentiment is from Fine Furnishings Addition.

For more samples with the stamp sets being previewed tonight, check out these Designers' Links:

• Gina Krupsky *Friends are Forever designer
• Nina Brackett *Fine Furnishings and Fine Furnishings Additions designer - you're here!
  
• Jessica Fick
• Theresa Momber
• Melanie Muenchinger
• Cathy Tidwell
• Lee Murphy
• Donna Baker
• Lynn Mercurio
• Emily Giovanni
• Erika Martin
• Kurtis Amundson
• Sankari Wegman
• Kay Simmons *May's CenterStage Spotlight Team Member!*

Please make plans to attend our Release party tomorrow night, Thursday night, May 27th from 7-10 central time which will be held at StampTV. There will be contest questions, challenges, samples from several designers and lots of chatter all leading up to 10pm central, when all the new products and stamp sets previewed this week on our blogs become available online through GinaK Designs store!

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Paper Dahlia Tutorial: These flowers look bulky, but because they're made of thin paper sheets, you can flatten them for mailing. These would look great on a gift in lieu of a bow, as you can see from my sample above.

1. Cut 4 sheets of 3.5" x 5" tissue paper. You can also use handmade paper, thin patterned paper, wrapping paper, etc.). The width of the paper determines how wide you want your flower.

2. Accordion fold the stack of papers:
3. Mark the middle point cut a small slit on each side. Be careful that you don't cut all the way through. Round the ends.
4. Tie a string through the slits.
5. Your flower should like this.
6. Separate the sheets one by one.7. Continue to peel each layer until you produce this.
This is the top view. You can decorate the center with buttons, die cut flowers, etc.
I hope you like it.