Bright Blossoms and Lace Curtains

Hello again friends and visitors,

     Today I bring you some flowers and sunshine, which is interesting considering the weather outside is rainy with gale force winds!

     Wanting to rise above the rainy, cloudy, windy day feeling, I decided to play with a stamp set called Bright Blossoms to cheer myself up. Bright Blossoms is a lovely little set, quite inexpensive as well, with lots of interchangeable images.

     When I took this set out to start crafting, all I could think of was vases sitting on windowsills. I reached in my scrap bin and pulled out a piece of cardstock that seemed just big enough, and it happened to be Crumb Cake. I found another piece of Whisper White that was slightly smaller, and was at first going to just layer the white over the Crumb Cake. I looked through my larger scraps and found a long piece of Blushing Bride 29.6cm x 10.5cm, so I scored that at 14.8cm and had a card with a long flap rather than the traditional a5 card.  Still the same size when folded, but it's half an a4 sheet the long way and not the short way.

     So now I had my Whisper White, Crumb Cake, and Blushing Bride. Well, it just so happens that I recieved from Stampin' Up! a product I had ordered a while back that was out of stock, some StazOn White (Opaque) ink. I was a bit disappointed that it didn't come with the rest of the order I had placed with it, but I do love seeing the UPS man! He's my own personal Santa.

     Unlike Whisper White Craft Ink, the white StazOn ink (also from Stampin' Up!) does not require lenghty time to dry nor does it require heat-setting. It's perfect for stamping onto surfaces like plastic, glass, and anywhere that you may need a permanent image. The pad comes un-inked, to prevent drying out in the warehouse. I simply had to put about a teaspoonful of the ink onto the pad, and massage the ink into it with the ink bottle's nozzle. Then, after a minute, I was ready to use it!

     At first I was looking for a way to stamp something into the background with the StazOn, but couldn't decide on a stamp to use for this. I was thinking of using the Delicate Doilies set for the background, but upon looking at the stamps in that set I decided that one of them looked a bit like a sun, and that I could stamp it in the corner of the white piece of card. Spontaneous inspiration!

     It was the one with the points that reminded me of a sun, so I stamped it in So Saffron with some Peach Parfait daubed in the centre. I then decided to make this into a window setting, so used my Word Window punch to cut out the inside of the Crumb Cake. I used Simply Scored first to run a score line 1/2" in from all sides to form a rectangle, just for a guide. This way I didn't have to mess with a ruler and pencil, and a score line is much easier to see than a pencil line anyhow. So I punched along the score line, thereby cutting out the inside bit and creating for myself a frame for my window.

     I stamped the Crumb Cake frame with the Woodgrain background stamp in the white StazOn ink, and daubed the inside and outside edges with Early Espresso. In doing this, I discovered that when you daub colour over the white StazOn ink, it will not ink where the white StazOn has been stamped. Must keep that in mind for future reference!

     To finish my window setting, I used Bright Blossoms, Stampin' Write markers and my Stamp-a-ma-jig to position the vases and flowers exactly where I wanted them, with every piece in the colour I wanted. So easy! I knew where I was going to put my window, and wanted to spice up the background "wall" a bit, so cut up one of the Nursery Nest Designer Series Papers into strips and stuck it to the Blushing Bride background.

     Since I had now created what seemed to be a piece of a room (most likely a kitchen) with a window looking out into the sunshine, I wanted to put some curtains on the window. Lace curtains seemed most appropriate since most curtains in England seem to be lace. I thought Vellum paper would do very well for this, as it is quite transparent, so stamped with the largest image from the Delicate Doilies set onto it with the white StazOn ink. I was so impressed because it looks just about as close to lace as you could possibly make with stamps on paper!

     Originally I wanted the curtains to hang vertically, and be gathered at the sides, but wasn't too sure how the Vellum paper would take to folding. I knew I wanted to use the Eyelet Border punch along the bottom, so did that, and decided to score just at the very top of the piece of Vellum paper to test how it would act when folded. It made a very tight crease, and as I messed with it I decided it looked nice folded horizontally, so kept with that and made it look like a Roman shade.

     To create the Roman shade look, I scored in a pattern of 1/2", 1/4", 1/2", 1/4", and so on, and folded the 1/4" wide strips behind the 1/2" strips in a pleated fashion. I punched holes in the pleats on the left side with the 1/16" circle handheld punch and threaded white Baker's Twine through it. I tucked the end behind the top of the curtain and adhered the Vellum paper to the Blushing Bride card with a long piece of Sticky Strip. At the end of the piece of Baker's Twine I made a paper bead, coloured it with a marker, tied a knot to keep it in place, and frayed the end a bit to make it look like a tassel.

     Before sticking the window onto the wall, I punched three tiny holes at the bottom of the window frame, and attached some mini silver brads. I stamped three teacups from the Tea Shoppe set, cut them out, and hung them from the brads, securing the window to the card with Tombow glue and securing the teacups with dimensionals to make them a little more 3D.

     And then I had..... THIS!

     If you skipped over the blah, blah, blah part and when straight to the photo, here's a list of what I used:

Stamps/stamp sets: Bright Blossoms, Delicate Doilies, Tea Shoppe, Woodgrain
Paper: Blushing Bride, Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Nursery Nest DSP, Vellum paper
Ink: White(Opaque) StazOn ink pad, Riding Hood Red, Blushing Bride, Pear Pizazz, Baja Breeze, So Saffron (all in marker form), Peach Parfait, Early Espresso (with sponge daubers)
Punches: Word Window punch, Corner punch, Eyelet Border punch, 1/16" circle punch
Embellishments: Baker's Twine, Mini Brads (silver)
Other: Simply Scored, Sticky Strip, Tombow mulitipurpose glue, Dimensionals

     The hanging teacups remind me of a cup-rack I built in the US. I covered it with coloured tissue paper and glue in a plaid pattern, and put a bunch of hooks in it. I installed it beneath a cupboard and we were then able to display our collection of mugs (I really like mugs, especially ones I've painted) in a cute way rather than putting them away out of sight. This card really creates a bit of a nostalgic feel for me and makes me feel like huckleberry coffee is brewing and pancakes are on their way to my plate. Makes me smile. :)

   Lengthy one, I know, but I hope it's brightened up your day just a bit!

Thanks for reading, and Happy Crafting!