This afternoon I’m teaching my first class of spring… aka Spring Fling. What better way than to chase away the winter blues than an afternoon filled with creating, colour and friends? I’m so excited to share the four very different projects PLUS as a bonus a gift tag with my crafting friends.
Months ago, I promised I’d teach class that featured flowers. So our Spring Fling class seemed the perfect opportunity to grab four flowery stamp sets and keep my promise. I decided it was also an opportunity to challenge myself to use colours that I don’t use regularly. (Not sure why I wanted to make things hard for myself ?)
You may have noticed the holiday catalogue was released on 1st September. Well, the Painted Harvest Bundle (page 49) is proving to be very popular with Stampin’ Up! customers. Guess what the Painted Harvest Bundle features… yes… you guessed it… FLOWERS! I just had to include this bundle in today’s class!
Take a look at one of the projects we will be creating today:
I rarely use Wisteria Wonder or Pear Pizzazz in my projects but I love them teamed with Smoky Slate. It’s such a soft, pretty colour combination. Who would have thought that accidentally inking my flower stamp with smoky slate ink instead of Wisteria Wonder would turn out like this?
Now to the real reason I’m showing you this project. Did you notice the patchy smoky slate brickwork background? YES! It’s meant to be patchy and uneven. One of the most overlooked items in the 2017-2018 Annual Catalogue, the Pattern Party Decorative Masks was used to create the background.
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This mask set hidden on page 201 of the 2017-2018 Annual Catalogue contains 4 different contemporary designs. At only $10, this set are an absolute bargain when you sit down and think it! They make it easy to create custom backgrounds in any colour… Here’s a few ways you can use your Pattern Party Decorative Masks:
- Ink with your sponge brayer, stamping sponges or sponge daubers and inks
- Use you Stampin’ Spritzer filled with a few drops of your favourite ink refill mixed with water or rubbing alcohol
- Embossing Paste and the palette knives
- direct ink with Versamark Ink and sprinkle with Stampin’ Emboss Embossing Powders
- sponge Multipurpose glue and Stampin’ Glitter,
- sponge with some Acrylic Paint or Gesso tinted with Stampin’ Up! ink refills
The list of creative possibilities goes on and on – limited only by your imagination. I’m considering experimenting with sand or dirt to create a textured background, but I need to give how that idea would work a bit more thought. They are so versatile. One of my friends, bought two sets, one for her craft room and one for cake decorating. (How clever is she?)
The Mask Experiment
When I was prepping my class kits, I experimented with making the same card but instead of sponging through the mask I used embossing paste tinted with smoky slate ink. That small change actually changes the look of the card. Here take a look
The card on the left is the sponged with ink, the other card on the right has a tinted embossing paste background. I like the rougher, imperfect look of the embossing paste bricks and how it feels when you run your fingers across them. Sadly, I was running low on embossing paste so we wont use it this class.
During my class prep time, I also experimented with sponging the three other masks. I thought I’d share these with you so you can appreciate how different these masks can make a project.
First up is what I call the “lattice” mask.
I really like how this one turned out. Not to covering the whole background was a deliberate choice. Hmmmm, I might even like this better than the bricks… perhaps I should making this for our Spring Fling class instead?
Next up is the “medallion” mask
It has a completely different look… again I only used sections of the mask and varied how much I sponged them… on reflection I probably should have positioned the mask differently so there was less “white” space. I’ll go back and add some more leaves later. Did I mention I was experimenting?
Now to the last experiment… the “clouds”
I have to say this is the one I like the least. Not because I don’t like clouds, the clouds are actually pretty cool. Clouds just aren’t right for this project. To me it seems a little weird to have a flower floating in the clouds. Some people might like that whimsical concept. BUT this project has lead to another idea… change the flower’s colours to crushed curry and pumpkin pie, left off the leaves and swap the pear pizzazz mat to a different colour and the wisteria card stock to pumpkin pie, the flower could be a blazing sun nestled in fluffy grey clouds. (I’ll have to find time to try that idea that now !).
Hope you enjoyed my little experiment to show how changing the decorative mask on our Spring Fling card completely changes the look of the project. If you haven’t got your Pattern Party Decorative Masks yet – head over to the online store.
Don’t forget to comment below and tell me which card is your favourite.
Products used in this experiment
