Inspiration: Create with Us Live from Lawn Fawn
I was excited to find out Lawn Fawn's next Create with Us Live would fall on a Friday evening. I was thinking it would be a great way to end the week and I was happy that it would be featuring my favorite set from the new release, Ugly and Bright, which I had not used since purchasing. I ended up having quite the hectic day at work, so I hastily prepared a very quick meal and then started watching the Live while eating. Which means that when I sat down at my crafting desk, I had not prepared the material for the class and I was already quite behind when I started putting ink to paper. Thankfully, it did not matter because they have a very comprehensive guide that they provide to follow along, so I was able to work in a different order and still craft along with Jen and Kelly. It was great to finish my week crafting when I would have otherwise crashed and burned on the couch after a very long and demanding day at work.
I knew if I was to make those samples that I would have to think outside the box, as both were designed around large English sentiments, which I would be trying to change for French ones. The first card was not so bad as it was using alphabet dies, so I knew I would make my own French word. When looking through stamps, I found a sentiment that reads, "Being together is the best gift," which post-pandemic is a very meaningful sentiment, so I hid the last word, inked the stamp in black and I created the French word for gift using Oliver's Stitched ABCs. I colored white cardstock with two shades of pink Copic markers before doing the die-cutting to make my life easier.
As you can see, the word ended up being a really tight fit on the card, barely making it on the card front. Jen's original had aqua letters, which were really pretty, but I went with pink because my background was already aqua. Hers was using a stencil set that I don't own, so I used a snowflake stencil with Coastal Cabana ink and I layered a different stencil over it, using Nuvo's Moonstone glitter paste for this second layer. Because my sentiment was not going across the full width like on the original, the card felt a little bare in the middle, so I went back with the snowflake stencil and added a couple more and it really elevated the card. The critters are done pretty much how the original was showing it. I did add chunky glitter on the letters, but I used the Stampin' Up! one (long retired), which I like because it is clear with no pink, green or orange highlight.
The second card ended up more challenging. I had made my stenciled background while my supplies were out, covering the whole panel with the snowflakes and Moonstone paste. I don't have any of the Giant sentiments sold by Lawn Fawn since they're all in English and I went through my French sentiments, to find out none of them are super big. The closest I could find was the Joyeux Noël dies from Stampin' Up!, but the card still felt quite bare with the words on it. I was thinking about maybe adding patterned paper at the bottom or even scrapping this specific design altogether, but then I remembered that there's an additional sentiment banner at the bottom, and when I added the Coastal Cabana banner, the card already felt more balanced.
To create the die-cut sentiment, I inked cardstock with a blender brush and Saltwater Taffy and Candied Apple Distress Oxide inks, then I sprayed the cardstock with Pearl Glimmer Mist from Tattered Angels. I die-cut the words again out of Basic Grey cardstock and I loved how the shadow really made the words stand out better against the background. I also added some Marshmallow Scrubby Sparkle yarn, just because I'm still excited over this recent find, and then I placed the images similarly to the original sample, moving the reindeer down to fit with the width of my words better.
It's always interesting when you try to follow along with a class, but use what you have on hand. It definitely becomes more about picking the parts of the project which you love the most and fitting them in a redesigned project. I'm glad those worked out - for a second there, I was considering using my leftover part to decorate a matching envelope for the first card because I was not liking where my second card was headed...
TIP: You will notice how I used the Santa sweater die-cut image as is on the fox and how it cover its chin. There's no way around it if you use the die-cut as is and want to fit it properly over the shoulders. But if you run your scissors along the edge of the stamped sweater at the top (as I did for all other three images), you can see we now see the neck and the result is nicer. I know that one design member was showing in one of the videos how she uses her markers to color the white part and a black pen to fill in the lines, but that looks like a lot of trouble when snipping the excess cardstock is faster and produces a nice result.
Supplies
Stamps: Ugly and Bright (Lawn Fawn); Joyeux moments, Nombreux joyeux messages (Stampin' Up!)
Cardstock: Coastal Cabana, Basic Grey (Stampin' Up!); Solar White (Neenah);
Blush Pink (Dress My Craft)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Coastal Cabana (Stampin' Up!);
Saltwater Taffy, Candied Apple Distress Oxide (Ranger)
Dies: Ugly and Bright, Outside In Stitched Rectangles, Oliver's Stitched ABCs,
Everyday Sentiment Banners (Lawn Fawn); Joyeux Noël (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Blender Brushes (Taylored Expressions); Moonstone Glitter Paste (Nuvo);
Falling Snowflakes Stencil (Carta Bella); Jack Frost Stencil (Echo Park)
Markers (Copic); Clear Chunky Glitter, Stampin' Dimensionals,
Dazzling Diamonds Glitter (Stampin' Up!); Marshmallow Scrubby Sparkle Yarn (Red Heart)
