By the Sea, By The Sea, By the Beautiful..............

It is close to Flourishes release week again! What do we have in store for you this month? Well there are a couple of things going on.......we are continuing to except cards for the Wounded Warrior Project. With a gift certificate to the top three winners! Plus if your card is picked on Sunday it be featured in Flourishes newsletter. New card/s will be picked each Sunday in July.

Then for the next week we are having a challenge:
Summer nights, sunsets, the sound of waves crashing on the shore – what could be more relaxing? Because these are the sights and sounds of life on the beach - what better way to challenge you all to a fun contest than to invite you to bring a taste of of the ocean into your creations!

What a great opportunity to win all three July releases by entering in the challenge, it is easy even if you do not have any Flourishes stamps, yet. Read all about it on the newsletter!

I have made a few cards while on "vacation" with my grand kids. I tried to take as many of my supplies as I could think of as "must haves," watercolor paper, classic white and ivory, a couple of jennie bowlin dp Copic markers, Palette Inks, Spellbinders........of all types and of course my Flourishes stamps. The stamps and nesties did not take up much room as I have them all "packed" in clear boxes. I left my ATC at home but double sided tape does just as well. I brought my water pen but no water based markers or pads :-} .........Micheals..........I bought a 100 piece set of water based markers for $20, after all I have more markers at home than I will ever use.

I inked direct to polymer, I used my water pen, I inked direct to paper then used the water pen. I have been more than pleased with the results at a fraction of the cost, besides I did not want to use my Copic's on water color paper too often.......they soak in too much. That is not to say I do not use them on WCP because I did for the waterlily, it is the Hollyhock Collection.

I also did not bring much for embellishments so I took a lesson from Dee Jackson and colored the little tab of ribbon with Copic's, using RV04 in the Hollyhock Collection,

I added dots with the darkest color and a spot inside the dot using the blender pen.

If you enjoyed seeing this, even a little, take a look at what the senior DT has come up with; They are just stunning!

Julie
Christine
Leslie
Cindy
Faith
Latisha
Laura
Stacy

Flourishes Happenings

Hold on for the ride, we have so many things in the works it is going to take the next two weeks to showcase it, give you tips, basic coloring lessons and samples from our fabulous DT and blogging teams.

WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT?? Why the natural blending families of Copic markers. New hand picked classic white and Ivory paper that is fabulous for layering or a card base. And the month long Patriotism On Parade card extravaganza! With chances to win a $25 or $50 gift certificate. If you would like to know how, Here are the details or go to http://www.flourishesnewsletter.blogspot.com/ to read all about the Copic Natural Blending Color Families.

I did not use any Copic's on the POP card, I did use the card sketch 233 and color challenge 223 from SCS.

I drug my baja breeze ink pad across the white panel, them I embossed the kids parade with Vera Mark and red embossing powder.

Bunting and fireworks seem like a natural addition to salute and honor the men and woman that fight to protect our rights and freedoms.

We Thank You!

Stamp Set: Patriotism On Parade
Paper & Ink: baja breeze, ruby red, white, Versa Mark, Charcoal
Embellishments: embossing glitter, bead caps, rhinestones, water pen

Worthy Project - Wounded Warrior's

When we launched our June release, we knew we were saving the best stamp set for last. That's because it was packaged up with love knowing that each stamp set sold, would go to benefit the injured soldiers in our country. A percentage of all stamp sets sold will benefit....

The Wounded Warrior Project is an amazing non profit that offers programs, resources, training and more to both the injured soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families who are trying hard to help their loved ones. We read the emails that poured in and we thought.... how can we keep the momentum going and honor those customers who bought/want to buy the set to help us in our effort and do more good?

If you would like to be part of Flourishes project read all about it on the newsletter. We thank you for your willingnes to help in this cause.

Love of Life With Spellbinders

You say you do not have a Spellbinder die the right size for your sentiment? Of course you do, you just have to cut your paper to the size you want.

I like the deckle rectangles, but I have found that they do not always come in the width or length I wish for. No problem..........I use one die to cut to the desired dimensions I want.

First I cut the white card stock with the closest size I need.


You can emboss at this time if that is the desired effect you want.




Then I off set the die to the width I desire and cut again, if you embossed the first time then you will have to turn the cut one over and emboss again on that one edge.

I found the the length of die was not what I wanted either and as before I off set the die and cut the length a bit shorter. Keep in mind the length and the width reduction can be done in one step.


Using the same die, I cut my backing layer and as before I "off set" the die and cut it a little more narrow and shorter.

As you see it has taken one die and a little temporary stick, double sided tape to hold your paper in place

to provide me with just the right size for my sentiment. When nothing will do than you have to make it work.

Ingredients for this card:

Paper; Basic Gray Wisteria & Eva, White (new coming soon to Flourishes), yellow

Stamp; Lemons Love & Life

Inks; Copic Collections Buttercup and Fields natural blends (coming soon), nior black, mustard

Embellishments; Finishing touches Beautiful Brads, rhinstones-yellow

Ribbon; green with yellow edge

To see more beautiful and creative cards using Spellbinder dies check out all of these.

Latisha

Laura

Faith

Leslie

Julie

Christine

Cindy

Stacy

Flag Day!

Happy Flag Day everyone!

The more I see what has been created with this Patriotism on Parade stamp set the more I am loving it. There are so many days in our calender year that are appropriate for displaying the flag. You can bet our yard/drive will be lined with flags tomorrow the same with Memorial Day, Veterans Day, the 4TH of July, Patriot Day, just to name a few.

If you missed how proud Flourishes is of our Veterans, read here how we are donating proceeds from the sale of this set to the Wounded Warrior Project. Help us help them, purchase this set.

This is my equivalent of a 10 minute card, it took me 1 hour to make, taking into account the time it takes me to choose papers, decide how to assemble them, color, cutting, and what to embellish with.

Papers: white, red, & Best Creation dp
Ink: Copic, black, Versa Mark
misc: embossing powder, Spellbinder dies, M S punch

Opportuinties

Opportunity: 1. a favorable juncture of circumstances...........

First off I needed to know how to spell.....what better way than type it here as I was doing a post anyway that to start with did not have any thing to do with opportunity, but it is a convenient way to find my misspellings, (I am writing notes then I thought "Why not"? After all this card is very much an opportunity......

It provided me with an opportunity to "fix" a mistake...I had over re inked a stamp pad, when the ink does not immediately soak into the pad it is a good indicator that it did not need to be re inked in the first place......but I used it anyway and as a result it did not look as much like a tree as it should......... I put it aside to "ponder" what to do with it now???

As you can see I figured "what if I got my black and inked over it" The black ink pad is much dryer that my charcoal gray so it gave a very crisp black outline over the blurry soaked in gray image. I was very pleased and went about finishing the card..............until it came to the background.

I used the "background" from the Thank You Tulip set and because I did not want the same line of words at the top left and right of the charcoal grey panel, I "off set" the image by one line of words thinking it will be easy to go back and use the "bottom line' of the sentiment at the top left, and the top line at the bottom right of the grey panel. It was easy as you can see through polymer stamps so placement is a breeze...........except for the ink I had on the block which put a black smudge when I "wobbled" my acrylic block.

ALMOST DONE and I messed up again..................then I remembered how the like the look that so many of our DT and many other people use when they add distressed ink to the edges...well I was distressed all right!!! It couldn't hurt so I added more black ink along the edges all the way around.

I am more than please with the end result, but I wish I had.............

It turned out well!

I want to mention another opportunity, Flourishes has just released three new stamp sets.

Flourishes will proudly donate a portion of the proceeds of our brand new Patriotism on Parade set to the Wounded Warrior Project. It's a non-profit organization who's mission is to honor and empower wounded warriors. We believe wholeheartedly in the work they do. They have training programs to help wounded soldiers transition into the workforce. They have caregiver training focusing on PTSD. They have support groups and rehabilitative retreats that they fund. They are going above and beyond to help the men and women that went above and beyond to protect and serve. We can't wait to give back to this one of a kind charity!

You will have an opportunity to help in this worth cause and....by owning Patriotism on Parade it will allow you to participate in the BIG plans we have for this set. Stay tuned.

Poppy's

What a pleasure it is to make any type of card using the many floral images that are available from Flourishes. Now that I have the Copic in natural color blending groupings, all the work has been done for me. All I had to do way use a little imagination or in some cases a picture of the object I want to color and start.
Sometimes just getting started is the hardest job of all. I started with my new favorite white paper, coming soon to Flourishes, it is the absolute best to work with copic's. It's not so heavy that it soaks up the ink to achieve the look I want. But heavy enough to stand on it's own.
I stamped with momento black ink on white paper and made a "mask" from eclipse masking tape. Copic (Tiger Lily) collection is the perfect shade for orange poppy's.

Card recipe:
Paper; New White paper, Black, light orange
Ink; Copic Tiger Lily Collection, momento black
Spellbinders; Lables one
Ribbon