July Blog Hop--Summer Celebration

Hi all!  I've returned from spending a week up in Salt Lake and the day I returned it was 117 in Las Vegas!!  It's not the hottest it's ever been, but really anything over 110 is just no-earthly-reason-to-be-outside hot!  So, I guess it's appropriate for this month's blog hop theme to be Summer Celebration!  I created this project last year, but I have revamped it just a bit.  Since I created it, MDS added a few new tools to make subway art and printables much easier to put together.  The  text tracking tool helps you stretch or shrink the spaces between your letters (kerning) and the cropping tool lets you crop parts of a photo, stamp, punch, or embellishment.  Most of the stamps I used on this project were from Red, White and Blue designer kit and July 4th stamp set.  I love to use fun printables for holiday decoration, and this is perfect for our Independence Day celebration this week. This printable can be printed as a 5 x 7 or an 8 x 10.  You could even do it as a 16 x 20, but the very top or bottom may be cut off, depending on where you send it, so I would stick with the smaller sizes on this one. 

Download

I have one more project for this hop!  When I think of summer, I think of a circus. This is a card I actually made as a Stampin' Up! Artisan contest entry, but because of issues beyond my control, it didn't make it in time to be sent, so I will share it with you!  I used Big Top Birthday Designer Series Paper and Under the Big Top stamp brush set.  After I received it from the printer, I used my 2 1/2" circle punch to punch the balloon from the front of the card so that you can see the balloon that is inside the card and then I also added the white baker's twine for the balloon string.  I just liked the idea of a cute little elephant holding a great big balloon and then letting it fly above the big top tent!

I hope you are enjoying your summer!  Make sure you visit my blog hop friends and see how they celebrate summer!!

Stay safe and cool-er!! (Seriously, you probably will unless you live in Death Valley!!)

Julie

Shared on Tatertots and Jello, Skip to my Lou

Feeling Blue

Well, I'm not really feeling blue, but I am feeling in the mood for blue. Light blue, dark blue, blue-green, greenish-blue, any blue!  I saw a similar color combo on Pinterest and I just had to change it to Stampin' Up! colors!

 I'm not sure if it reminds me of the beach at dusk or a mountain lake in the morning, but it calms me.  Do you have colors that do that for you?  So, anyway, I decided to make a couple cards with this color scheme and I used some new techniques that add a little bit extra to a kind of plain card.  The first one uses a technique I saw on Stampin' Up!'s website.  You can see it here. Angie, a concept artist at Stampin' Up! used the new firm foam stamp pads and dragged them across the paper which gave it a sort of watercolor look to it.  Now, I have some of the new firm foam pads, but not all, and it definitely makes a difference!  Can you tell which ones were the old linen pads? Yep, Night of Navy and Soft Sky!  That's ok, it still came out pretty well.  The new pads have a smoother feel to them so they seem to smear better.

I used the new Chalk Talk stamp set in Basic Gray and colored the Whisper White taffeta ribbon with a Pool Party marker--easy way if you don't have all the ribbon colors you want!!!  I really like the graphic look to this card, what a great technique.
The second card used the same stamp set, along with the Chalk Talk framelits set that comes in the Chalk Talk bundle (you save 15% if you buy them together).  It's a smaller card (3 1/2 x 5) so the small tag takes up most of the front, then I just added little pennants at the end (got that idea from this card by Shannon Jaramillo).  On the tag, I used a technique I learned at Salt Lake Regional convention in April and was demonstrated by Jane Lee (very talented Stampin' Up! Artisan team member/new stampin' friend).  Jane used the stamp pad and wiped it across the embossed cardstock so that the raised part got inked and the debossed part didn't (makes perfect sense, right??) I ran my die cut Pool Party tag through the Big Shot with the chevron embossing folder and then inked it with Night of Navy.  Again, I think it would've turned out better had I used the new ink pad, but it did the job.  I finished it off with some Whisper White taffeta ribbon and the white heat embossed stamp (from Chalk Talk) on the top and inked the edges of the card with Night of Navy.

If you follow me on Instagram (you do follow me, right?) you saw the photo of my car thermometer--now, you know that the official temp (109º) is taken in the shade at the airport, so the car was reading the ambient temperature with me standing in the sun on the blacktop,  and it was scorching hot!!!

I had to sit and wait for my steering wheel to cool down before I could actually drive!  I hope it's not nearly this hot where you are, but if so, please stay cool and hydrated!  School's out, summer is here and I'm going to start counting down the days until Convention!!  Yay!

Julie

It's a Wrap...

...dress that is! I am really loving the Dress Up Framelits dies!  There are so many cute fashions you can make!  I've seen such cute creations on Pinterest, and I'm inspired by fun new trends all the time!  I love the look of the trim and I frayed the ends for the "fringe".

I used wire snips to cut the hanger paper clip, I reverse sponged the Deco Labels die on crumpled cardstock and I couldn't resist using the Ciao, Baby stamp set one more time.

I hope you have had a chance to see the new Stampin' Up! catalog!  It is so much fun to look at and I see new things each time I look through it!  If you're interested in having your own copy, please send me your address and I will send you one, (you just need to pay for shipping).  If you are local in Las Vegas, we can meet up and you can have it in your hot little hand right away!

Sunny and hot is the forecast for today (and the rest of the week)!  I think I'll stay in and stamp!

Julie