Paper Seedlings: PINECONE JOY

Before I get started with my regularly scheduled blog post, I must make an exciting announcement.

I am honored to have been chosen as the Papercraft Superstar on the crafty website Cut Out & Keep this week, Monday through Sunday.

Throughout the week, a new tutorial from me will be added each day. There is also an interview about me. The link to this honor is Papercraft Superstar.

The team at Cut Out & Keep have been having trouble linking up my social media accounts, with the exception of Twitter, to the post. So, if you'd like to follow me on any of the social media platforms, you can link up through my blog.

If you are interested, please take a few minutes to check out the post. And, be sure to come back each day to keep up-to-date on the tutorials.

Thanks, Cat, for naming me Papercraft Superstar!

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Today, while spending time in my Creation Station, I couldn't resist doing a resist card. I just couldn't resist typing that sentence. Irresistible, eh? What a dork.

Following is the seasonal card I ended up with:

I started the process with a quarter sheet of Old Olive cardstock, rubbing my Embossing Buddy over the entire surface, then stamping in VersaMark ink the lovely evergreen branches from a long retired stamp set that I still love dearly.

As always, I started my stamping in the center and worked outward to the edges. I covered the stamping with clear embossing powder and then used the Heat Tool to set the embossing.

The photo below shows how it looked after this step. Notice that after the embossing, even though the embossing is clear on Old Olive, the branches appear much darker than the cardstock.

Once the embossing was cooled, I started sponging Old Olive ink over the embossing, leaving some places lighter, some darker, for variety. I followed that with some Soft Suede ink. The photo below shows the start of the brown coming in.

After I finished the sponging, I set the piece aside to work on the rest of the card.

Before I proceeded with the rest of the card, I cut the embossed piece down to 3 3/4" x 5" so as to allow a mat and the card base.

I knew I wanted to use the evergreen branch again in my focal point. But, I also wanted to add the pinecone that came in the set to the branch.I stamped the bough in Old Olive onto a cream colored cardstock. I first inked up the pinecone stamp with VersaMark ink and followed with Soft Suede ink. This way, even though I don't actually have Soft Suede embossing powder, I can still emboss my pinecone and have it be brown. After stamping the pinecone, I covered it with clear embossing powder and heat set it.

My next step was to fussy cut the pinecone. I tried to cut as close to the stamping as I could but still leave a sliver of the cardstock showing. After cutting it out, I attached it to the branch with a Stampin' Dimensional in an attempt to make it look a bit more realistic.

Wait a minute! Before attaching the pinecone permanently, I laid it in place to see how I would die cut the oval. To tie a little more of the green into the composition, I softly sponged the edges of the oval in Old Olive ink. THEN I attached the pinecone to the branch, leaving it to extend beyond the oval.

To continue with a little more of the extending, I stamped the word "joy" from another retired set and fussy cut that also, gluing it flat to the oval, but letting a bit of it join the pinecone outside the oval.

The card still looked too bare for my liking. After searching through my Stampin' Up! ribbons, I came across this really old striped ribbon. Even though it is actually retired Chocolate Chip, it coordinated well enough with the Soft Suede to be pleasing.

Since, at this point I'd already adhered the resist background to the card base, it was too late to wrap the ends of the ribbon to the back of that piece. Instead, I cut it to the exact length I needed for the space and fringed both ends. I know the fringing doesn't show up too well in the photos.