Getting Ready for My Open House

Whew!  I’ve been working like crazy to get ready for my Stampin’ Up! New Catalog Open House tomorrow night.  I thought I’d post some of the projects here for those who won’t be able to make it…and if you ARE coming and think you don’t need to now that you’ve seen it all…I’m not going to post photos of the two REALLY cute FREE make-and-takes to my blog until after the Open House! 🙂

When I set out to do these new projects to show some of the new stamps, colors and accessories, I decided to use some new embossing techniques given to demos at the Stampin’ Up! Convention going on right now in Denver.  Even though I’m not there 🙁 , other demos were kind enough to post some of the things they learned – and I was just dying to try them!  I won’t demo all of these at the Open House – just a few – and not the entire projects – just the embossing parts.

To start, I made a card that uses a mixture of embossing powder and Dazzling Diamonds.  I stamped the image with Perfect Plum craft ink, then used the mixture to emboss the image in the center of the flower…

 

 

I also used the new Pretties Kit and left the flower white.  The cardstock is Sage Shadow and I used the Baroque Motifs swirl (LOVE that stamp!) behind the flower.

Next, I tried a technique where you take a photograph and add Dazzling Diamonds to areas you would like to highlight.  I used a VersaMarker to highlight my daughter’s pom-poms and the teddy bear’s bow tie and then heat embossed with Heat & Stick powder.  I added the DD on top – I think it looks really cute in person. but you may not be able to see it as well in the photo (see?  that’s why you need to come to my Open House 😉 .

 

 

I also used a technique where you take the Weathered background stamp and use it with VersaMark on top of a photograph.  Then you heat emboss with Glossy Glaze embossing powder for a cracked-glass look…

 

 

This is a copy of a photo of  my grandmother.  I also used one of the Pretties pins on this layout.  The cardstock is the River Rock textured cardstock and the patterned paper is Brocade Backgrounds.

Next, I made a card using a chipboard accent.  I used Rose Red craft ink to ink the chipboard flower, then embossed using iridescent embossing powder.  Next, I inked the entire flower with VersaMark and heat embossed again with Glossy Glaze embossing powder – what a GREAT effect!

 

 

On the rest of the card, I used soft sky and Purely Pomegranate.  It’s funny – once I was done with the chipboard, the color darkened quite a bit and didn’t look like Rose Red anymore.  I also used three flowers from the pretties.  I dyed them using ink refills and an aquapainter.

I used the same technique for the star on this scrapbook page of my dog, Daisy.  For this, I used Blue Bayou ink then just coated it with Versamark the first and second time I embossed it since I don’t have the corresponding craft ink.

 

 

The filmstrip effect is done with a piece of black cardstock, the spiral punch and the square punch.  I like how this turned out!

Finally, I used some glue dots in the centers of some stamped flowers, then embossed them with silver embossing powder:

 

 

I used a combo of Wild Wasabi, Blue Bayou and Soft Sky on this card – makes a nice combination.

Tune in later to see the Open House make-and-takes…