Sunday, October 6, 2013

My Cards and Tags: What We Could Be

This week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge was to make a project inspired by Tammy Tutterow's tutorials.  Not hard, my friends!  Tammy's blog is a treasure trove of fantastic tips and techniques.

Here is my finished project, though as you'll see, it came only after I veered from one of Tammy's tutorials to the point of total crafting disaster!



So I started out by following Tammy's tutorial on Stencil Transfers.  My problem began when I didn't have a craft mat handy to work on, so I used a piece of baking parchment paper with some foil underneath it instead.  I sprayed my ink onto my stencils, then decided I liked how the parchment paper looked with the leftover design from when I was spraying my stencils.  I decided to incorporate it into my project.

See?  Isn't it pretty?  It looks innocent, right??  The ink was dry, so I figured I was good to go.



I cut around the inked areas and used it as the background for my card.  I adhered it to a piece of patterned paper and carried on.  I stamped on a Tim Holtz image with embossing ink and white embossing powder and heat set it.  Still good, right?  WRONG!  Big duh to me, but apparently the whole point of parchment paper is that things do NOT stick to it (yep- I never claimed to be a baker)!  I guess I was absent that day in cooking class or I missed the big message on the package that said: "Non-stick!  Even the most delicate and sticky foods lift with ease!"  And guess what else started lifting with ease?  Yep.  My embossed image!  I thought heat embossing would stick to anything, but alas.  For the remainder of my project, I was brushing off crumbs of white embossing powder as my image flaked away before my eyes.  Note to self: do not use parchment paper as a background to stick or emboss things to!!

Luckily, I was still able to salvage this card by covering most of it up (a handy skill when crafts go awry).  I added some fabric scraps, stamped them with a sentiment, and then added one other lovely element: the flowers!  They started out white, but thanks to Tammy's awesome tutorial on coloring flowers, they ended up adding just the right bit of color to my project.



I finished this card with some scraps of lace and Tim Holtz Distress ink here and there.  The sentiment is truly one of my favorites, too.



So what great products did I use that I bought at Simon Says Stamp?  Not parchment paper (ha, ha)!




I'm sure that you can be equally inspired by Tammy Tutterow's blog, so check it out, create something amazing and then submit it for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge so that you'll have a shot at 50 beautiful bucks to spend at one of the best shops ever! 50dollar_voucher_600px