The Wacky Watercooler Welcomes the New Catalogue

It's always exciting to have a brand new catalogue in hand and even more exciting to share the products that first caught my eye.  I began my list of "must-haves" with the stamp sets and products that I'm about to share in today's creations.  Let me know if my new favourites match yours.

As you will remember, if you've wandered through our blog hops before, our blog hop is presented in a circular fashion.  What does that mean?  Wherever you begin in our blog hop, whether you go forwards or backwards through the participants, eventually you will wind up precisely where you began.  I hope you'll take time to visit all the participatings blogs and, perhaps, leave a short message letting us know  what you've thought of our posts.

If you've been moving forwards through the blog hop, you'll have arrived here from the wonderfully creative Deborah Smart's blog.

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My first project uses the Awesomely Artistic stamp set.  The moment I saw the dragonfly image, I added the set to my list.  I love butterflies but have been waiting for a good image of a dragonfly. All the images in the set compliment each other beautifully and will lend themselves perfectly to a collage-type card.  A great addition to my stamp collection!  I'll bet you think I'm going to create a collage-style card, right?  Well, not this time.  This time I've taken the dragonfly and added it to a watercoloured piece of the gorgeous Timeless Elegance Designer Series paper.  Don't the new In-Color inks look beautiful?

You'll notice that there is no sentiment on this card.  I had some major arguments with myself over this and, finally, decided that I preferred it without anything.  Of course a sentiment could be added later, but I like the idea of leaving it simple and having all the writing inside.  

Love the sparkle of the Irridescent Ice embossing powder!

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My next project is all about the little Gift Bag Punch Board.  I chose to use the new Envelope Paper in Delightful Dijon.  I love the patterns and I love the strength of this paper.  Yes, it feels light-weight but that is totally deceiving.  I added a border using the Delightful Dijon pattern from the new In-Color Paper Stack and tied it up using the wonderfully soft and so-easy-to-tie 1" Dotted Lace Trim in the same colour.  I also added some tiny white flowers cut from Whisper White using the new Tree Builder punch.   

My little card has a base of the Delightful Dijon cardstock with a layer of white stamped with the flowers from the Birthday Blossoms stamp set and coloured with the Delightful Dijon Stampin' Marker.  Of course a scattering of pearls finish the set up beautifully.

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My final project uses my favourite of the stamps in the new catalogue.  I love foxes and the fox image in The Wilderness Awaits stamp set is beautifully realistic.  Of course I had to have him as the little "star" of my easel card!  I can't look at him without smiling.

I had given the layout of my easel card a lot of thought over a number of days before even beginning to create the card.  There were so many elements I wanted in the card and so it kept changing inside my head.  I wanted to use the new Brick embossing folder.  I wanted to create a scene.  Oh, I wanted so many things.  

I began with a base of Tip Top Taupe.  My next layer was Basic Black.  My brick wall was also Tip Top Taupe but before using the embossing folder, I used my brayer to add some Whisper White craft ink to the lines and then embossed the cardstock.  The finished embossing was exactly what I had hoped it would be.

For my background I first stamped the hound on my Whisper White cardstock and then stamped him again on some regular copy paper.  I cut out the image on the copy paper and used it as a mask so that I could stamp the trees from the Lovely as a Tree stamp set as his background.  After that I watercoloured everything using my ink pads and Aqua painter.

I ripped the brick embossing to make it appear as if the wall was crumbling.  Then I attached it to my background scene using Dimensionals.  I wanted the fox for my foreground and so I stamped him on Whisper White and then watercoloured him using my inks and Aqua painter.  Then I fussy-cut him and the grass surrounding him.  For the remaining grass, I cut a 1" strip of Crushed Cucumber and used my Fringe Scissors to cut the grass.  By first cutting regularly and then cutting back into the fringe from one angle and then the opposite angle, I managed to make my grass quite believable.  I used my Aqua painter to put a light wash of Mossy Meadow ink over the grass to give it more texture.  I added the fox using Dimensionals and the grass using my Tombo glue.

For the inside of my card, I kept it simple.  I needed something to hold back the standing easel and so used the heart framelit from my Circle Card thinlits to cut two hearts from the Burlap Ribbon.  The leaves are from the Lovely as a Tree stamp set and the greeting is from the Guy Greetings stamp set.

I love the finished easel and the way the fox appears to be looking me straight in the eye, hoping I won't make the hound aware of his presence.

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Well, that's it for my projects.  I hope you enjoyed them as much as I've enjoyed creating them.  If you get a moment, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought of them.

Your next stop will be with a very talented and creative member of our group, Marsha Reed.  I'm sure you'll be amazed with her wonderful projects.