Happy Friday! We are having some gorgeous sun this morning which is a prelude to a forecast of intense winter storm coming this weekend with up to 2" of snow in some elevations. Yes, I know it isn't even October but it's also Montana and Montana can do whatever it pleases in the weather department. We have wide open prairie spaces and majestic mountain spaces and all of it combines for some crazy weather. I'm going to ignore the predicted snow for now and dwell on something much more springy - flowers!
Have you seen the "Band Together" bundle in the Annual Catalog on page 121? It's a charming set with some great sentiments and a fabulous flower to color. The dies are unique in that they include some sentiment dies as well as ways to make belly bands for your cards or more ornate background pieces. Confused? What's a belly band anyway? It's like a belt! Keeps the whole thing together and in place! Here are some designs I came up with while playing with this set.
I tried a lot of things with this card. First, I stamped the large flower stem in Tuxedo Black Momento Ink. I then colored it with a combination of Flirty Flamingo and Petal Pink Stampin' Blends. These were easy colors to blend together. I stamped my sentiment and cut it out with one of the dies, then cut the Flirty Flamingo frame with another die and then cut the belly band part with a third die.
Here's a picture of the same card only with the belly band removed. You want the band to be snug but not so tight that you can't slide it on and off the card. Oh, one other thing I did after coloring my base layer. I grabbed the Subtle 3D embossing folder and embossed it to give it a textured, woven look. I love the Subtle folder and it is an absolute "must have" for your stash of folders.
Here are a few other ideas:
For this card, I again used Stampin' Blends to color my flowers, leaves and the background of my card stock. This gave me a mottled background look. I wouldn't do this very often because it takes quite a bit of ink from the Stampin' Blend marker! this time, I created a side fitting belly band as well.
One of the band dies in the set is quite narrow so I thought I could probably do several of them, different colors, stacked on top of each other. I'm always looking for ways to show off the In-Colors and this was the perfect number of bands I needed. I just glued these on flat on my card and love the look. This card looked great without a sentiment but I added a Happy Birthday while I was at it.
It's fun to think a little outside the box and create projects by using products in alternate ways, like the last card. We have so many choices for dies, stamps, paper and more. It can be overwhelming but once you go to our online store, you'll see some easy shopping categories to explore and you can always contact me if you can't find what you're looking for or have any other questions. I'm here to help! Supply information is listed below!
I hope you have a beautiful weekend, whether you're stunned by the first blizzard of the year or enjoying a gorgeous autumn somewhere besides Montana! I report back on Monday and let you know if the snow actually showed up!
Happy Stampin'!
Sarah
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