Thursday, November 22, 2012

Illuminating Snowflakes

Good morning and a HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my US friends! Today is such a wonderful day of love and gratitude. By far this is my favorite day of the year.

Today for my Clean and Simple Festive Holiday Challenge, I am sharing a card that was inspired by two of my dearest friends. Last week we had a stamping get together and everyone brought projects to share. One dear friend, Sue, created a card using a Karen Stolfer's "Stick Chick" stamp and the other dear friend, Denise, created a Twisted Easel card using vellum.

I combined both those ideas and came up with a Twisted Easel card using a "Stick Chick" stamp and Dreamweaver's Snowflake stamp:


The snowflakes were paste embossed on vellum using original paste and then sprnkled with glitter. When you place the faux tea light behind the vellum, it illuminates and really makes the glitter sparkle.

I'm off now to finish the desserts and then put our 21 pound turkey in the oven. Wish me luck, its the largest turkey I've ever made!

Please take some time for yourself over the next few days and visit the other Dream Team blogs for holiday inspiration.

Hugs and many blessings to you all,
Cherylynn

Friday, November 16, 2012

Holiday CAS Week 3

Happy Holidays!

I know, its not even Thanksgiving yet but if you are a crafter and have any desire to make your Holiday cards this year, its already the holiday season. And that is one of the reasons Dreamweaver is having a Clean and Simple Holiday Challenge this month. Hopefully we'll inspire you with some ideas to create your own cards.

This week I am sharing 3 cards we are making in my Holiday Dreamweaver paste class.


This class features 3 different techniques but none of the cards take all that much time. From left-to-right order, the techniques are: Marbling, Using Paste as an Embellishment and Double Pasting.

Remember to check out the other Dream Team blogs (all the links can be found on the right) this week for additional holiday inspiration.

I'll be back on Monday with some more holiday inspiration. Why don't you set some time aside this weekend to work on your Dreamweaver Holiday challenge? You have nothing to lose and a stencil to win!

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Ranger Challenge Week 4


We've now had four weeks of festively distressed fun playing with the Ranger/Tim Holtz Distress Powders along with our wonderful line of Dreamweaver Stencils and products. Huge thanks to Tim Holtz and the fab people at Ranger for sharing these four collaborative weeks with us, and providing the yummy shades of Distress Powders for us to create with. We've been inspired by the process, and we hope you have, too!

If you haven't won one of the prize packages yet, you still have one more opportunity this week as the set below is up for grabs to a random commenter on one of the Dream Team blogs.


If you've been following along each week, you've seen some gorgeous creations with these stencils and powders, so you should be all fired up to get distressed! If you've missed the first three weeks, check them out once you've made the rounds today:

For this week's Festively Distressed project, I went with the November challenge of Clean and Simple Christmas. This entire card, from start to finish, took me less than 15 minutes to make. What could be faster?


 
I began my rubbing Dreamweaver's Handmade Hawaiian soap (which smells incredible) on the back side of both the LG675 Pine Cones stencil and the LM139 Happy Holidays stencil.

Then I layed soap side down against a piece of double-sided mounting adhesive that was cut just slightly smaller than the stencil. Burnish the stencil well to this adhesive to avoid any air pockets. I removed the second piece of adhesive liner and adhered this piece to layering cardstock. (This gives your adhesive film a piece of stability.)

Then using a straw, I sprinkled on the Distress Embossing Powders one at a time, shaking off the excess as I went. When I had all the colors I wanted on the image, I CAREFULLY removed the stencil and sprinkled the Antique Linen DEP over the exposed adhesive paper. 

Then just using my heat gun, I melted the DEP and layered the card onto coordinating cardstock.

So easy yet the texture of the DEP really adds dimension to the finished project.

Dreamweaver products:
 LG675 Pine Cones
LM139 Happy Holidays
Double-sided Mounting Adhesive
Hawaiian soap

Ranger Distress Embossing Powders:
Distress Embossing Powders in Pine Needles, Vintage Photo, Tea Dye
 and Antique Linen

Don't forget to leave me some love before hopping to the rest of the Dream Team blogs:


 Please remember to continue to follow the team through the Dream It Up! blog as we bravely go where no stenciler has gone before, to like us on our Facebook page, and to learn from our fabulous weekly Thursday Tutorials on Paper Craft Planet as well.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Dreaming of a White Christmas

One of my all-time favorite Christmas carols is Bing Crosby's rendition of "White Christmas". Growing up in Chicago, you would think we'd have snow for Christmas. Unfortunately I have more memories of just dreaming of a white Christmas than actually have snow on the ground.

So in keeping with my white Christmas dreams, here is another card from my upcoming classes which also uses JustRite stamps.



Remember tomorrow is Dreamweaver Thursday! I hope you'll stop on by because the Dream Team will once again be sharing their creations using Tim Holtz Distressed Embossing Powder!

Until then, smile, the elections are over!

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

A Red and White Christmas

Happy Election Day! Its a great day, regardless of who wins and what your political beliefs because now we can stop be besieged by all the campaign ads and get on with working on solving some of our critical issues here in the U.S. (Please, lets not turn this post into a political commentary forum.)

Now on to another joyful topic: Christmas!

This card is one we will be making in my upcoming Dreamweaver paste classes. This class is slightly more advanced than a basic class and will open up students to seeing their Dreamweaver stencils in a totally different way (or at least I hope!)



I hope you'll stop by again tomorrow when I'll share another card, this one using JustRite stamps. And don't forget to hop on by on Thursday for the final round of Dreamweaver's challenge with Ranger to use Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder.

Hugs and happy day!

Monday, November 5, 2012

It's beginning to look a lot like....

Yes, its that time of year again! November is here and that means Christmas is just a few short stamping days away! That also means that I will be posting quite frequently on this blog, sharing some of my Christmas creations, both cards and projects.

Today I thought I'd start with one of the cards we will be making in my November and December classes.



I just love the vintage colors and warm textures of this card.

Tomorrow I'll share another card from my upcoming classes, this one definitely will be a bit "chillier".

Until then, happy creating.

Cherylynn

Thursday, November 1, 2012

A Distressing Christmas



Still feeling festive? We hope so! Dreamweaver and Ranger still have two weeks left of our Festively Distressed collaboration, and we are full of distressing ideas...Tim Holtz' Distress Powder ideas, that is. Mixed with our fabulous line of stencil designs and exciting products, your creativity will know no bounds! If you missed the first two weeks, start HERE and HERE!

For our postings this week and next, we are offering you the opportunity to win one of two prize packages, perfectly coordinated for your holiday crafting. Simply leave a comment on each of our Dream Team's posts, and YOU could be one of two randomly selected winners!




The Dream Team have been challenged for the month of November to create something CAS (clean and simple) for the holidays. The extra challenge is mixing the Distress Powders in for the collaboration with Ranger. Think that it's possible? Well...let's see...

Here's what I came up with:



SUPPLIES:
LL570 Pine Trees; LJ878 Snowsplatter; LM203 Happy Christmas
Translucent EmbossingPaste; Black Embossing Paste;
Paste Spreader; Palette Knife
 
Distress Ink: Pine Needles, Vintage Photo and Black Soot
Distress EmbossingPowder: Pine Needles, Vintage Photo and Black Soot

INSTRUCTIONS:

1.  Begin by first stenciling LL570 Pine Trees with Distress Inks onto blue cardstock; heat set.

2.  Using Translucent Paste, paste emboss LJ878 Snowsplatter over dried trees; remove stencl and sprinkle with Crystal glitter; set aside to dry.

3.  Die cut Tim Holtz Alterations Pine Tree and color with Distress Inks; sprinkle with Distress Embossing Powder and heat emboss.

4.  Using Black Embossing Paste, paste emboss LM203 Happy Christmas over snowsplatter; remove stencil and sprinkle with Black Soot Embossing Powder; set aside to dry. When dry, heat emboss to melt powder.

5.  Layer cardstock as shown and embellish with diecut Pine Tree.

Clean and Simple!

So tell me what you think in your comment below before heading over to the rest of the Dream Team posts:


The Ranger blog is offering another amazing prize opportunity, just for playing along with the Ranger/Tim Holtz Distress Powders and Dreamweaver Stencils and linking your creation on the Ranger blog. You can find more details HERE.

We hope that you have been inspired by our creations, and will continue to follow the Dream Team through the Dream It Up! blog as well as to like us on our Facebook page. We really encourage you to play along with our monthly challenges for more prize opportunities and creative fun!