There is a VERY special young lady in our household and she has a big day coming up this week! Yesterday as I stood besider her in the bathroom I looked in the mirror only to realize that she is now taller than I am. Not only is she beautiful on the outside, but her beauty radiates from within. As a mom it brings tears to my eyes when her teachers, and other parents, tell me what a kind and thoughtful daughter we have. But what surprises me is when her friends tell me that someday, when they are all grown up, they hope that their daughters will be like Maddi. My children are such a huge blessing in my life and I cannot begin to imagine my life without them. Each and every day I watch them grow into the young women they will become and feel grateful for being given the opportunity to be their mom. So without further ado - I love you my sweet Maddi and I am so very proud of the adult you are growing into. Nothing can state better the sentiment of this card - Happy Birthday my sweet 16-yr-old. Thank you for being you!
Now enough of the proud mom stuff - LOL! Nothing speaks "sweet 16" better than bold, bright, fun colors and a little glitter :-D It is amazing to me that when I put boundaries on what it is that I am going to create how easily it all comes together. This week the challenge I gave myself was to use the same products that our team will be using here in the CLASSroom - Hero Arts, Inchie Arts and Cosmo Cricket. I immediately knew what I wanted to use - Delovely, it is so very lovely. Combine it with some of the bold Hero Arts stamp designs and a few Inchie squares and you will have a perfect card for your teen.
A very hot trend is to use glitter letters and numbers on our cards. Today I am going to share a little secret with you - you can easily make your own custom glitter sticker letters/numbers in any color you would like using Be Creative Tape and any color of glitter. We are going to be carrying some Ultrafine glitter shortly that will coordinate with the paper colors we carry, but for now I used some of the fabulous, regular Martha Stewart glitter we carry.
To begin I cut squares from the Be Creative sheets using the Tim Holtz Sizzlits Alpha Vintage Market Die. The sheets are so easy to use because they come already backed. I haven't tested to see if I can adhere the regular tape to a different surface before cutting, but it is something I will be experimenting with. For now I just went with what I guessed would work. You know me - always testing and experimenting - LOL!
First remove the portion of the tape that the adhesive is not sticking too. I played around with trying to figure out which side the adhesive would stay adhered to and it appears to me that it is the side I have facing up when I punch - but I'm just not certain yet. You may need to experiment with this depending on what type of die you are using.
I removed the white backing and using a tweezer located the number in position. Next burnish the number in place using a teflon bone folder. As you can see on the number "1" I did not get a clean cut - this worked to my advantage. As I removed the backing, the adhesive stayed on the number one and not the surrounding area. If it had I would have snipped around the number, but as it was I was able to easily use the extra paper like a little "handle."
Sprinkle glitter over the adhesive and then burnish in place with the teflon bone folder. Use a soft brush to remove the excess.
WARNING: This is section is NOT a recommended technique - so proceed at your own risk - you may destroy your punch! BUT I just couldn't help myself and had to give it a try - LOL! Guess what it worked :-D
Curiosity killed the cat you know and being a curious one myself I just had to try this next technique. It is not recommended that you punch through the tape with regular punches, never mind highly detailed ones like the Deep Garden Trellis! BUT I had to test it for myself and found the results to be simply breathtaking.
Once again I used the Be Creative Tape sheets due to the backing being in place. I punched my design in the tape being very careful to remove any excess bits of paper or adhesive that appeared on the underside of my punch with each pass through. One of the incredible things I discovered about these punches is the amazing detail in the way that the punch is designed. The engineering is so well thought out. These detailed punches do not punch through your paper in all one area. The punch is designed so that there are peaks and valleys to allow the punch to pass through only small portions of the design at one time. I would like to suggest that you take a look at the bottom of your punches - it really was an eye-opener for me. So cool!
Once I had my design the width I felt worked best I removed the backing. What I found was that this time the brown backing needed to be removed (just the opposite of my Sizzlet punched image) and the adhesive remained on the white portion as shown above.
I positioned my design and then once again burnished it in place. I followed the same procedure with the glitter - applying it and burnishing it in place, then using a soft brush to remove the excess.
As you can see the detail of the punched designs is incredible! Following are some cutting techniques I have tried, or plan to try:
- Sizzix, Sizzlet and other steel blade dies,
- Low profile dies such as the Nestabilities,
- Punches - these are ones I canNOT fully endorse because of the possibility of ruining your punches, but...my oh my are these every cool,
- Cricut or Silhouette electronic cutters - I'm going to be giving this a try soon. I can hardly wait to see what the results will be.
The other experiment that needs to occur is what types of media I can apply once I remove the second side of the adhesive. Following are just a few of the products worth experimenting with:
- Glitter (of course)
- Fun Flock (I punched out a little bunny and applied white fun flock, adding a little pom pom tail - OH SO CUTE!)
- Perfect Pearls
- Dried, crushed flowers and leaves
- Flower Soft - Ultrafine may be way cool - I can hardly wait to try!
- Gold Leaf - wowsers this will be gorgeous!
So many ideas - so little time :-D You all have to help me out here by playing with these ideas and giving me your feedback - LOL!
Next, was the selection of my image. One of the beautiful things about the 6x6 pads is the wonderful scale of the images on these papers. I selected a Hero Arts image that was bold and beautiful. I love the fact that the images come mounted on a storage sheet that I can also use to locate the perfect portion of paper to stamp my image.
Stamping the image three times on different papers made for the perfect layered flower! I LOVE the design of this Hero Arts image for paper piecing!
Using a 2-way glitter pen I added details to the leaves and top flower. Sprinkling the same turquoise glitter as used on the numbers and trellis. I allowed the adhesive to dry and then once again used a soft brush to remove the excess glitter.
Tip: When threading buttons I keep a needle threader handy and simply insert my DMC Embroidery floss using this handy, dandy tool.
The final details include Black Inchie+ Squares covered in decorative paper, a Tiny Type sticker (these are fabulous stickers and such a great value!) and a silk ribbon tab.
stamps: Hero Arts Big Flower Pattern
paper: Cosmo Cricket Delovely 6x6 Paper Pad, Memory Box Sunflower Cardstock
ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
accessories: Be Creative Tape Sheets, Tim Holtz Alpha Vintage Market Sizzlet Die, Martha Stewart Turquoise Glitter, Pink Tiny Type Stickers, Black Inchie Square, Black Inchie+ Squares, 2-way Glue Pen, Teflon Bone Folder, Fuschia Silk Ribbon
Be certain to visit our "*Weekly Special" section and use promo code HAIACC upon checkout when purchasing any of the Cosmo Cricket, Hero Arts and Inchie Arts products we have used in this weeks posts!
