Do you ever wonder how Stampin' Up! Demonstrators create and share ideas? There are many ways, and last week I was invited to participate in a Virtual Gathering with other Canadian demonstrators who like me, report directly to Stampin' Up.
Dale Hampshire our Canadian DM hosted the hour long Zoom Meeting along with members of the Admin team. What a fun and engaging meeting. Not only did we get to meet other demos from our home Provinces and across Canada, but we received great tips and business information from Anne Granger, participated in a virtual card making session, had a demonstration by Lisa Henderson called the Bubble Blowing Technique and a prize patrol, all from the comfort of our own homes.
Here's the sketch we were given a few days before the meeting. There weren't a lot of instructions or any dimensions, but we were given free reign to create what we wanted to and to pre-cut all our pieces before the virtual meeting.
During the meeting we were broken into small groups in different virtual break out rooms where we chatted and assembled our cards. After about 20 minutes we did a show and tell and then went back to the main meeting. What a great group of gals I was placed with. Here's the card I made:
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 My card features the large Sunflower from the Celebrate Sunflowers Bundle in the Annual Catalogue. I've used Cinnamon Cider card stock for the card base, a layer of Whisper White followed by a dry embossed layer of Cinnamon Cider. The beautiful sunflower paper is from the Flowers for Every Season Memories and More pack. The sunflower image and leaves were stamped with Bumble Bee ink on Whisper White card stock and cut out with the coordinating dies Sunflower dies. The overlay flower was cut from Cinnamon Cider and Bumble Bee card stocks. To finish the card I added a white cotton ribbon, some rhinestones and I stamped the sentiment "Thanks a Bunch" on Whisper White with Cinnamon Cider ink. |
After the meeting I simply couldn't wait to try out Lisa's technique for creating backgrounds. I decided I wanted to do create a winter sky background and create a scene using my new Freezin' Fun Bundle.
Here's my finished card. I've incorporated the background layer behind the snow hills and trees. I used Bermuda Bay and Pool Party inks to create the sky. The sky looks so realistic, and the clouds actually look puffy. What fun! This technique can be quite messy but gets results that are so creative in next to no time.
Supplies For Bubble Blowing Technique:
- Water colour paper cut in 4 x 5 1/4 inch pieces
- Styrofoam coffee or Dixie cup(s)
- Re-inkers in various colours
- Dish Soap or Bubble Blowing Liquid (I used Dawn because that's all I had on hand),
- Straw(s)
- Paper towels
Create Bubble Mix
- 1/4 cup of water
- a tsp of liquid soap or bubble mix from dollar store
- 3-5 drops of re-inker (depending on how dark the re-inker is)
- quickly stir up the mixture making sure all the re-inker is pulled up from the bottom of the cup and colour is even
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| I used 5 drops Coastal Cabanna and 3 drops Bermuda Bay Re-inkers. |
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| Stir it up so the drops are mixed together. |
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| Have fun, blow some bubbles. Remember which end of the straw you had in your mouth and which was in the bubble mixture..... quite important. |
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| Here's what your watercolor paper looks like after the first swipe across the bubbles. Keep blowing bubbles and swiping until you've got the coverage and look you're going for. |
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| Okay this was just the right amount. It's soaking wet so needs to dry. I used the hair dryer and then covered the piece of water colour paper with my largest acryllic block to make it lay flat while it was drying. |
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| I love how my finished card turned out. The card base is Pool Party card stock followed by a Real Red layer. The bubble background piece was adhered to the Real Red layer. I cut two rolling snow banks with the curved edge from the Freezin' Friends Die set. |
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| I stamped and coloured three trees from the Freezin' Fun stamp set and popped them up with Dimensionals. I coloured and cut out the little Penguin. He's simply adorable. The sentiment "Dashing Through the Snow" was cut from the sentiment line paper in the Trimming the Town Designer Series pack. |
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| Here's a peek at the inside of the card. |
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You can see that sky background a little better in this picture. The Bermuda Bay ink really shows up. |
I really hope you enjoyed my post today both the meeting information and the instructions for the Bubble Technique and the Sketch. Hope you'll give one or the other a try - maybe both. I'd love to see what you create, so email me a copy and I'll post it on my blog.
Breaking News:
Before I end this post I have to let you know that I received an email from Dale Hampshire letting me know my card was drawn in a random draw today and I won $40.00 to put towards Stampin' Up! products. How wonderful is that? I was yelling "Wheeeeeeeee" just like the little penquin and doing a happy dance over that news.
Happy Stamping!
Penny Tokens Stampin' Spot
Penny Hanuszak, Independent Stampin' Up Demonstrator
