Great tips on card making, Eli! I’m getting into the Christmas spirit early, I’ve knocked out a few cards that only took a few minutes to assemble.  I used one 12″ Borderabilities® die template to make several cards.

First let me thank Design Team Member Debbie Seyer for her Poinsettia Card (click for details and instructions!), my inspiration for today’s post.

This is what I designed:

How are they similar? We both used the S7-016 Poinsettia Border Grand, and we both hand trimmed the border to use pieces of it. Debbie used all the pieces on one card, I used the pieces to make four cards.

My cards are made from these supplies: Spellbinders™ S7-016 Poinsettia Border Grand; S7-014 Classic Lace Border Grand; S5-019 Labels Eight; Fancy Pants Christmas Magic Chestnuts Roasting, Bough of Holly, and Yuletide Greetings; Clearsnap, Colorbox Dark Moss Fluid Chalk, Black Pigment Inks; JustRite Stampers Rectangle Block, Special Ocassions 95 pt, Times New Roman 50 pt; SCRAPBOOK ADHESIVES by 3L, 3D Foam Squares, E-Z Runner; Brads; Black and Dark Red Cardstock.

First, cut/emboss one strip of Yuletide Greetings (green) and one strip of Bough of Holly (red) using the S7-016 Poinsettia Border Grand die template. Sand both borders to give them a distressed look (and to make it easier to see where to cut apart). With scissors, trim the green strip into four pieces and cut the poinsettia flowers from the red piece.

From the Chestnuts Roasting (light green), cut/emboss four S5-019 Labels Eight #4, sand the embossed ridge and ink the outside with Dark Moss ink.

Cut/emboss S7-014 Classic Lace Border Grand twice, with light green cardstock, ink the edges with Dark Moss ink.

These are the pieces, along with A2 sized dark red card base, and 4×5.25” black cardstock.

Spell out “Merry Christmas” with JustRite Stampers, and stamp with Black ink onto the labels, on the right side of the labels.

To assemble the flower piece, adhere the red flower directly on top of the green flower. The die template cuts the flower petals so they can be lifted, curled or otherwise altered.  Place three yellow brads in the center of the red poinsettia.

Flip the piece over and place 3D Foam Squares on each of the petals. Notice how the petals sit above the green background.  Use E-Z runner on the rest of the poinsettia piece, label and lace border. Assemble as shown.

I wish you a Merry start on your Christmas cards!

Beth

Today’s Tattered Angels Blog Hop Hostess with the Mostess is Heidi Blankenship. Her personal blog, Embellished Dreams is chock full of Tattered Angels artwork, take some time to look around! This post is especially cool, enjoy!

I”m still having with foam!  Remember this Fall Wreath I made with embossed foam?  I had a few extra S4-228 Nested Maple Leaves left over from that project.  When I saw Eli’s Savvy Saturday and Margie’s Cushy project, I remembered my embossed foam leaf was still waiting to play.  Hmm, that would make a nice stamp!  Remember how nicely these embossed with the I2-1009 Flourish when I heated the Impressabilities™ with my iron?

I attached it to a clear block with a bit of adhesive. Then I inked the leaf with Clearsnap Colorbox Chestnut Roan Fluid Chalk Ink.

 Actually I used the same ink, but from 2 different ink pads, and I think it looks pretty cool!

I also added the S4-226 Harvest Border Petite , with a green ribbon under it to add some color.  It’s wrapped around the My Minds Eye Penny Lane Chasse cardstock.  I inked through the Borderabilities™ die template like a stencil, to color the embossed areas.  That piece is mounted on brown cardstock.

Enjoy Fall!
Beth

Have you heard?  We’re doing a blog hop with Tattered Angels, makers of Glimmer Mist and much more. Today, Design Team Member Julie Overby  has blogged a project, go check it out! You can also check out the Tattered Angels Blog for even more ideas.

Did you love Margie’s Savvy Saturday, where she cut apart the S4-227 Pumpkins Nestabilities®?  That got me thinking about the S4-220 Nested Pine Trees.  I wanted to give them some dimension. 

I pulled together some supplies: Spellbinders™ S4-220 Nested Pine Trees, S4-142 Long Classic Rectangles LG #4 and 5; Spellbinders™ Impressabilities™ I2-1006 Floral and Stone, I2-1009 Flourish, I2-1002 Paisley.  I also included 7gypsies, Gypsy Market Paper; SCRAPBOOK ADHESIVES by 3L, 3D Foam Squares; Tattered Angels, Pearl Glimmer Mist; Clearsnap, Colorbox Chestnut Roam and Dark Moss Fluid Chalk Ink; Stampers Anonymous, Mini Ornates Stamps; Core’dinations Color Core Cardstock; tan and brown cardstock; sanding block.

I cut S4-220 Nested Pine Trees #3 with Core’dinations Cardstock, then embossed with one of the Impressabilities™ templates.  I repeated this step 2 more times, with a different tone of green, so that I had 3 large Nested Pine Treea die cuts, each embossed with a different Impressabilities™ template.  I trimmed the lightest green tone for the top section of the tree, then the medium tone for the center, and left the darkest tone full size. I cut a trunk from dark brown cardstock.  I inked the edges of the tree with Dark Moss ink.

I sanded the embossed areas that would show, then spritzed with Pearl Glimmer Mist.  I cut/embossed 2 tones of tan cardstock with S4-142 Long Classic Rectangles LG # 4 and 5, then inked the edges with Chestnut Roan ink.  I stamped a Mini Ornates sentiment with Chestnut Roan onto the smaller rectangle.

To give the tree depth, I lined the lower curved edges with 3D Foam Squares, but used normal flat adhesive at the top of the tree.

I assembled the card as shown below. The “lift” and inked edges give dimension and shadow.

Enjoy the day!

Beth

Spellbinders™ has partnered with Tattered Angels for a Designer Blog Hop!  You can let your fingers do the hopping, we’ll tell you where to see some fabulous projects using the Spellbinders™ Wizard™, our versatile Die Templates, and Tattered Angels’ products. 

To get us started, Design Team Member Heidi Blankenship has done a fabulous job embossing with her Wizard and Tattered Angels’ Glimmer Screens and Glimmer Mist.  Visit Heidi at Embellished Dreams.

We’ll direct you to each featured blog from here, so be sure you are subscribed!

Enjoy!

Beth

Hi Spellbinders Friends!  Just like the kids write a “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essay, I want to share with you what’s going on at Spellbinders Paper Arts this season.

Following a successful show at the Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show in Orlando in July, our new Die Templates and Impressabilities have been shipped to retailers and are available now.  But don’t wait, several of our products are limited edition!  They will only be shipping through November 30, 2009.  Don’t miss the chance to get them!  The limited edition products are:

• S4-220 Nested Pine Tree
• S4-228 Nested Maple Leaf
• S4-227 Pumpkins Nestabilities™
• S4-226 Harvest Borderabilities® Petite
• S7-017 On the Vine Borderabilities® Grand
• S4-222 Create A Flake 1
• S4-223 Create A Flake 2
• S4-219 Nested Poinsettia
• S4-225 Holiday Cheer
• S7-016 Poinsettia Borderabilities® Grand
• S7-015 Holiday Lights Borderabilities® Grand
• S4-221 Poinsettia and Stars Borderabilities® Petite
• S4-224 Snowflake Borderabilities® Petite
•  S5-017 Snowflake Frameabilities®
• S5-018 Poinsettia Frameabilities®

Education Director Kim Hupke and Design Team Member Heidi Blankenship were thrilled to meet throngs of ladies and a few gentlemen at Scrapfest 2009 last week!  They had a wonderful time introducing many new customers to Spellbinders™ products through demonstrations and some super cool make and take projects. Thank you for stopping by to say hi, to snag a tote bag, and to participate in the make and takes!

A huge thank you to my wonderful Spellbinders™ staff!  We welcomed our Marketing Team, including Education Director Kim Hupke, Design Team Coordinator Cathy Chlebana, Beth Pingry, and Eli Harlan to join Tobi Hall, Terre Fry and me in Phoenix this week for planning meetings.  We are well on our way to 2010, which will be bringing more of the new and innovative products you’ve come to expect from Spellbinders™ Paper Arts, as well as the fun and creative ways we reveal them to you.  We have some super exciting things in store and I’m sure you will love them, but that’s all I can say right now…

I especially want to send out a big THANK YOU for supporting us on the Great Crafters Tool Hunt on When Creativity Knocks!  We love our Impressabilities™ Templates and we love that you love them too!  Have you enjoyed the month of Impressabilities™ ideas, art and techniques on the blog? 

And we wanted to follow up with, Margarita, the Grand Prize Winner from the Pendant Project Contest. She received her prizes from not only Spellbinders™, but from our generous Coordinating Partners: My Mind’s Eye, JustRite, Core’dinations, SCRAPBOOK ADHESIVES by 3L, and Clearsnap!  Enjoy those fabulous prizes Margarita, and be sure to show us what you create!

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As you can see, things are always on the move at Spellbinders™!  Thank you again for all of your support!

Love,
Stacey

While today’s post is not a new technique, it may give you some new ideas.  I have this thing for textured paper.  I love it like I love cookies. 

I gathered these supplies and set out to make a quick card:

S4-190 Labels Four #5 & 6; I2-1007 Impressabilities™ Diamonds and Stars; Clearsnap, Colorbox Antique Pewter Pigment Ink and Charcoal Fluid Chalk Ink; My Minds Eye, patterned paper; 7gypsies, patterned paper; Stampers Anonymous, Birds & Baubles stamp set; cardstock, sueded paper.

The key to this is the sueded paper, which  has a soft texture that accepts embossing beautifully.  I embossed the sueded paper with the I2-1007 Impressabilities™ Diamonds and Stars with the same sandwich I used for regular paper, which is

White Master Mat
Impressabilities™ Diamonds and Stars
Sueded paper, soft side down
Embossing Mat
White Master Mat

Feed the sandwich into the Wizard™. The result is simply gorgeous, along with being easy!!

I trimmed the sides and mounted it on black cardstock, and adhered it onto a piece of 7gypsies patterned paper. I stamped a Stampers Anonymous floral image with Clearsnap Colorbox Antique Pewter ink, then stamped the quote with Charcoal Fluid Chalk ink. I then cut/embossed that using S4-190 Labels Four #5. I used S4-190 Labels Four #6 to cut a black mat for the quote piece.

The finished card looks like this:

Have a great day!

Beth

After seeing Design Team Member Karen Taylor’s technique on Savvy Saturday I was a little perplexed, I have not worked with foam very much, just a few room parent projects when my boys were younger.  

I started out making a leaf project with foam. I cut the S4-228 Nested Maple Leaf die template with 3 colors of foam, several die cuts of each size maple leaf.  Then I used my heat tool to warm up the I2-1009 Impressbilities™ Flourish.  I embossed with the foam in the die, attempting to preserve the embossed edge from the die, like this.  Because foam has some give to it and it stretches, the results were less than spectacular.  Also, the flourish pattern wasn’t as noticable as I wanted it to be.  EUREKA!  What if I used the iron? 

I turned the iron onto the highest heat setting without steam.  I built the sandwich upside down (White Master Mat, Tan Embossing Mat, die cut maple leaves).  I placed the Impressabilties™ template on the ironing board and put the hot iron onto the Impressabilities™ for about 15 seconds.  My iron just about covered the entire template, evenly heating it.  I used a pair of kitchen tongs to pick up the very hot Impressabilites™ and placed it onto the die cut foam maple leaves, covered it with the other White Master Mat and fed it into my Wizard™.  I did this so that I could quickly feed the sandwich before I lost the heat.  By the time the sandwich was out of the Wizard™, the Impressabilities™ was cool enough to touch.

I achieved the shiny, evenly embossed area that Eli did by using the iron.  Remember that once heated, the Impressabilities™ template is HOT!  I embossed all the leaves using this technique.

To assemble my little wreath, I cut a circle from chipboard and glued the leaves around it. I added some light green foam S4-198 Flourish Accents and dark brown foam S7-017 On The Vine Border Grand, cut into several pieces.  Just add ribbon to the back and its ready to hang!

Supplies used: I2-1009 Impressabilities™ Flourish; S4-228 Nested Maple Leaves; S7-017 On The Vine Border Grand; S4-198 Flourish Accents;  Foam Sheets; Craft Foam Glue, chipboard, Iron.

Beth

Impressabilities™ Rules! We Won!  If I can quote Stacey Caron, “Yeahhhhh!!!!! Yippee!!!!! Yahoo!!!!!!” We owe our faithful readers a huge thank you for supporting us and for loving our Impressabilities™ templates!  Don’t forget to check in over at When Creativity Knocks, a lucky entrant will win a prize package of one of all the nominated tools featured in the contest!  

Spellbinders™ wins a full-length episode featuring the Spellbinders™ Impressabilities™ and will be featured on the When Creativity Knocks website as the When Creativity Knocks Best Tool and receive a trophy! We’ll let you know when that episode is ready to view, and show off our trophy too!

So thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts! We really appreciate your support!

Today’s Savvy Saturday is all about  Letterpress.  This technique dates back to the year 1450, with thanks going to Johannes Gutenberg, as the main method of printing until the invention of offset printing. That is today’s history lesson.

You can do this technique with Spellbinders’™ Impressabilities™!  I started by playing with ink.  I rolled my brayer across an ink pad, then onto the I2-1004 Impressabilties™ Flowers.  I built my sandwich this way:

• White Master Mat
• Inked Impressabilties™ (ink side up)
• Paper
• Embossing Mat
• White Master Mat

Feed the sandwich into the Wizard™.  One pass in the Wizard™ will emboss the paper and transfer the ink into the debossed areas. This is the result with Clearsnap ColorBox White Pigment Ink and black cardstock:

Then I tried acrylic paint. This is the result with Ranger’s paint.  This is a fast drying acrylic paint, and despite working quickly, I am not 100% happy with the coverage in this example. We’ll come back to paint another time.

So then I got to thinking, if ink works, what about ink and embossing powder? I used the brayer to apply Clearsnap Top Boss Watermark Ink to the Impressabilities™, fed the sandwich through the Wizard™ and then applied Sparkle and Sprinkle’s Outerspace Embossing Powder. I heated the paper to melt the powder. Oh my! Its beautiful! Check this out:

Then I did the reverse stencil technique with Clearsnap Black Pigment Ink and S4-234 Ribbon Tags Trio  2, the oval shape. I stamped “thank you” from Hero Arts onto the label with the same ink, and added ribbon from my stash.  It needed just one more thing, so I cut an oval using S4-112 Classic Ovals, Small #4, from the same patterned paper, which is Fancy Pants Caroling.  I mounted that onto black cardstock.

I love the texture and sheen from the embossing powder, don’t you?

Spellbinders™ Die Templates used: S5-019 Labels Eight, S4-112 Classic Ovals, Small #4, S4-234 Ribbon Tags Trio 2, I2-1004 Impressabilities™ Flowers.

Here are a few examples from our Design Team Members:

 Janine Blackwelder also used Impressabilities™ Flowers for this bookmark.  She cut the Impressabilties™ apart and letterpressed a small section.  Clearsnap ink, Hero Arts stamps, and the S4-112 Classic Ovals, Small as well as S4-113 Scalloped Classic Ovals, Small were used on this project.

Julie Overby embossed her chipboard letters with Impressabilities™ Flowers. On the card she used S5-019 Labels Eight; 12-1004 Impressabilities™ Flowers;  Cardstock; Patterned paper; Cosmo Cricket and Maya Road chipboard; ClearSnap Colorbox Ink.

Have a wonderful Saturday!
Beth

PS. Don’t forget to go over to “When Creativity Knocks!” - and vote for Impressabilities™ in the Great Crafter’s Tool Hunt…you could win something cool and we would win ultimate fame and glory (maybe even a trophy? who knows). Click HERE for more info.  Voting closes September 8 at midnight PST.

Its back to school time, and this month we’re learning the many uses of Spellbinders’™ Impressabilities™!  Margie kicked us off with her Savvy Saturday.  We hope you decide to go back to school with us,  we have so many things to show you!  Are you subscribed?  Just enter your email in the box where it says “Keep up with this Blog” and you’ll get each post emailed to you.

OK, back to Impressabilities™ School!  While Margie did a straight emboss of a piece of paper on her Savvy Saturday, I wanted to die cut the paper and emboss the I2-1001 Impressabilities™ Paisley, but I wanted to preserve the embossed edge of square die template too. 

First I cut the S4-128 Classic Square, Small #6 die template, using Core’dinations Color Core Cardstock.  Then I placed the I2-1001 Impressabiities™ Paisley on the bottom Master Mat.  Next I placed the die template with the die cut paper still in it on top of the Impressabilities™.  I made sure the die template has the cut side facing up, because I didn’t want to damage the Impressabilities™.  I put the Embossing Pad on top of the die template, then the other Master Mat and fed the sandwich into my Wizard™.

See the beautiful result!  I embossed the clean lines of the die template as well as the pattern of the Impressabilities™ Paisley.  A little sanding and the paper is georgeous!

For my layout I repeated this 4 times.  I also cut and embossed 5 red squares with S4-126 Classic Squares, Large #6.  I cut/embossed my photos using S4-126 Classic Square, Small #6. Additionally, 2 sets of S4-161 Labels One # 2 & 5 were cut to make frames, then sliced diagonally to make 4 corners.  The book in the center is made from S4-231 Labels Seven # 4 for the pages and # 5 for the cover.

I arranged them rather simply on a piece of school themed pattern paper.  And the charming little faces, those are my boys, on the first day of first and second grade, oh so long ago, or at least it seems that way!

Supplies used: Spellbinders™ S4-128 Classic Square, Small # 6; S4-126 Classic Square, Large #6; S4-161 Labels One # 2, 5; S4-231 Labels Seven #3, 4; I2-1001 Impressabilities® Paisley, Coredinations Color Core Cardstock, Black, Blue, Red; Copic, Atyou Spica, Pitch Black; The Paper Company, Homeroom Book Cover paper; Notebook paper; Sandpaper.

Your homework for this lesson is to go to When Creativity Knocks, register (and do the math!), go to the Creativity Forum.  Select Categories, scroll down to the Great Crafter’s Tool Hunt section, select Spellbinders™ Impressabilities™, and leave a brief message in the forum.  You could win all the tools! And we could win some feature time on their site.  Now go on, do your homework, I’ll be right here if you have any questions!

Beth