Tuesday, February 28, 2017

w&w 3rd Birthday Bash | Special Guest Star Cheiron Brandon Take Two

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To our great joy Cheiron Brandon is back for a second performance as a special guest star in honor of our 3rd Birthday Bash!  If you missed her first fantastically festive post please CLICK HERE.  It has been such a pleasure to have Cheiron make her debut on the w&w blog during our celebrations and we hope we can have her back in the future!

Now on we turn over the w&w blog to Cheiron....


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Hi there! Cheiron Brandon here and I am so delighted to be here with a 2nd guest post for this month's Birthday Bash. This time I am creating with the Mini Scenery: Marbleize stamp and playing along once again with Mayuri's PatternMaking Challenge (Editor's Note: Cheiron's card is also perfect for the latest The Gossip Column with Taheerah Atchia | No. 6 - Marble). I love creating my own backgrounds and playing with techniques. Today I decided to do a bit of water stamping with Distress Oxide inks. To create this background, I started with a panel of Distress Heavystock and inked it up with Distress Oxide inks in Fossilized Amber, Iced Spruce and Vintage Photo.  Making my own inky backgrounds and die cut pieces with ink ensures that everything on my card always matches. 


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Once my panel was created, I sprayed some water with a mini mister onto my non-stick craft sheet and "inked" up the Marbleize stamp with water then stamped it on to the panel multiple times to create a pattern. The inks react with the water and creates the marbleized pattern which almost looks like woodgrain, which for me is perfect for a guy card. 

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Once my panel was dry, I cut out the word cheers from a tag that I had made with the same colors of ink. To finish off the card, I added some strips in coordinating colors, layered up the die cut and adhered it and finished it off with a few metal stars.

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Thank you again to Winnie & Walter for having me this month! I adored creating with your stamps...they are so fun and versatile. Wishing you the very best of birthdays! 


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Monday, February 27, 2017

w&w 3rd Birthday Bash | Special Guest Star Yana Smakula

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Today's special guest star, Yana, is so gifted, sweet and inspiring!  Her projects are as lovely as she is...full of the same bright vivaciousness as she is.  We've been privileged to have Yana guest on the w&w blog before...CLICK HERE to see her beautiful cards.

Please welcome Yana once again to the w&w blog! Hello Winnie & Walter fans! This is Yana Smakula and I’m super excited to share a few absolutely simple one layer stamped speech bubble cards.

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I used Sketchy Thoughts stamp set and only a handful of ink colors to create these cards. I went with pink, peach and apricot colors to stamp the backgrounds.

I love that the speech bubbles included in the Sketchy Thoughts set aren't entirely solid images, there's a bit of detail to them - they look like they are sketches and thus the inside of the bubble isn't completely filled in, they look very cool.

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I used black ink to stamp main sentiments for these cards and black really made them pop against the vibrant background. I also added additional subliminal messages from the Sentimental: Love stamp set using light gray ink and I stamped those overlapping the bubbles.

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Lastly, I added my favorite clear droplets in small and medium size to spice this design up. You can skip adding those if you prefer to have an absolutely flat card.


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Sunday, February 26, 2017

w&w 3rd Birthday Bash | Special Guest Star Stephanie Klauck {Video}

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I am so happy to have our superb January Leading Lady, Stephanie Klauck, back for another appearance as our 3rd Birthday Bash special guest star.  Stephanie is a sweetheart and so generous and giving of her time and talent!  I can't thank her enough for joining in with our celebration.  If you wish to see more of her w&w projects please CLICK HERE.  She has an adorable clean and simple card with video for you to enjoy.

Hello everyone! It's Stephanie here and I'm so excited to be back on the Winnie & Walter blog to help celebrate their 3rd birthday!

For my card today I used the adorable giraffe image from the new Big Hugs with Evelin T Designs stamp set to create a watercoloured, baby themed card.


I stamped the giraffe image onto watercolour paper using Versafine Onyx Black ink and then I added colour using my Sakura Koi watercolours. I painted the giraffes in stages so I could let each of the areas dry before moving on to the next and I finished with the grey on the bottom for the ground.


Once all of the watercolor was dry, I trimmed down the panel and adhered it to a grey card base. I added a red heart from the From the Bottom of my Heart stamp set (originally was a limited time free with qualifying purchase with our January/February 2017 Release and will officially be released later this year) that I watercolored with red and then I finished it with a sentiment from The Big, The Bold and the Baby stamped in black ink.

You can see how I created the card in the video below:



Thanks so much for joining me on the W&W blog today!


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Saturday, February 25, 2017

February Leading Lady Rebecca Luminarias | Take Four

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February is such a short and sweet month and sadly that means today marks the final performance of our fantastically fabulous February Leading Lady, Rebecca Luminarias.  I anticipated each of her posts so I could be entranced by the wondrous photos and magnificent projects along with her writing being informative and entertaining.  I really can't think of a better person to have this month as our Leading Lady to help celebrate our 3rd birthday and I feel so honored to have Rebecca grace the w&w blog this month.

 If you missed her smashing debut you must see it...CLICK HERE or her stunningly sensational second performance CLICK HERE or triumphant third performance CLICK HERE.   Today she pulls out all of the stops with more pretty packaging and tempting tips!

Lucky for us all we have her final command performance today. 


Oh, I'm sad!  It's my last Saturday with you wonderful folks here Winnie & Walter.  I've had a blast, challenged myself in more ways than one, worked with amazing products, and connected with a bunch of new friends--it's been an awesome month!


I'm leaving you with a few fun little DIY tricks.  The beauty of many paper crafting products is all the different ways you can use them.  A designer may have one intention, but then another creative comes along and shows us all a different way to work with it.  Those are my favorite products because of their versatility.  So I took one of the best W&W dies and used it in a few different ways, essentially making do-it-yourself embellishments.


If you don't have the Lulu Fringe cutaway, go and buy it right now.  It is the best thing ever!  I started by using it to make the fringe hearts that are all the rage right now.  I'm sure you've seen them, so here's one way to make your own...(okay, two ways ;)


I started by cutting a heart out of white card stock using the True Multifaceted Heart cutaway.  Then I picked a few papers to fringe.  All the papers seen here today are Pink Paislee's Fancy Free line by Paige Taylor Evans.  I used prints with smaller patterns from the 6x6 paper pad.



I cut small strips for the hearts, approximately 3/4" by 6".  When I had a few strips cut, I lined them up on my heart, starting from the bottom up.  Be sure to put adhesive only on the flat, un-fringed part of your strip or the fringe won't stick up and be fringy!  You can trim the excess as you go or trim all at once in the end.  Either way, when you've finished, you have a pretty fringe heart!


(*Here's a tip that might be even easier, but it was one of those things that didn't dawn on me until I was writing up my post: Take a 4"x4" piece of white card stock and adhere your fringed strips to it, just as I did with the heart.  When you've reached the top, run it through your die cutting machine with the heart die.  Done!  Way less trimming, and much faster!  But, if you don't mind taking your time, you can try my first way!!)


To show it in use, I've simply used it as a gift topper here with some seam binding and a simple tag, also cut from Fancy Free paper.  The hearts are pretty enough to not need much else on a small package.


The second embellishment I made with the Lulu Fringe cutaway is a paper tassel.  If any of you stopped by my blog during the W&W World Card Making Day Blog Hop, you saw me use them on a card there.  It's still my favorite thing to make with the die and it's so easy!


Again, trim your papers--longer this time, around 1 3/4" long.  If your paper stock is thin, 6" is a good width; if it's thick, 5" is best.


You will need some tassel caps--I've used these small gold plated pieces here, which are 4mm in diameter.



Starting at one end, start rolling your strip.  It should look like this when you're done:


Pop your cap on (some adhesive inside the cap will ensure that your paper doesn't slip out) and you're done!  Super easy!


I made a fringe tag next, similar to the heart.  I actually had white shipping tags that I used, but the tag from Essentials: Katharine Cutaways would be a great die to use if you wanted to do it the card stock way.  Again, had I thought of that trick earlier, I would have done it!!  But, honestly, this way is not hard.  I didn't put fringe all the way up, but opted instead to use coordinating paper for a hole reinforcement.



It's all about the fringe on this present!  Yup, I absolutely did cover the box top with fringe strips, too, because once you start fringing, it's difficult to stop fringing!


For my last DIY embellishment, I made a little bow clothespin.  While I didn't use the Lulu Fringe die to make it, I'm including it because it still qualifies as a DIY embellishment.


I used the Take A Bow cutaways to make the big looped bow and adhered it to a chunky wood clip.  That's all.  Easy, again, but effective, especially with a few fringe scraps on a plain white gift box.


That's a wrap!  I hope you try some of these fun DIY embellishments!  Thank you so, so much for welcoming me into the W&W family and being so hospitable.  It's been awesome to be here--don't forget to stop by my blog to enter the giveaway!  You have until Monday, February 27th to leave a comment on this week's post or last week's (but OVER THERE!) to be eligible for the $30 W&W gift card.  I'll announce the winner (OVER THERE) on Tuesday, February 28th.


Thank you, thank you, thank you, Winnie & Walter (and friends) for making my February AMAZING!!


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Friday, February 24, 2017

w&w 3rd Birthday Bash | Special Guest Star Kathy Racoosin {Video}

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Today's special guest star really needs little introduction as she is known throughout the papercrafting community for her astounding coloring skills and huge heart.  Every project Kathy does is a piece of art and every time I have the pleasure of seeing Kathy I am reminded that the woman behind such captivating work is a marvel and truly incredible person.

To see Kathy's previous delightful posts on the w&w blog please CLICK HERE.

Kathy's card today is adorable, sweet and gorgeous all at once.

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Kathy created an awesome video tutorial of her darling card!


A close up so you can see the detail on the monkey and elephant as well as that background!

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I hope you have adored Kathy's card and video as much as I have!

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Before you go I also wanted to remind you that Kathy's wildly popular 30 Day Coloring Challenge will be back beginning March 1st!  For more information please CLICK HERE.

Happy crafting and partying!


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