Sparkle N Sprinkle August 1st Reveal

Welcome to Sparkle N Sprinkle's August 1 Reveal.

This month SIX new stamp sets are being introduced. These sets are 20% off their regular price, until August 3rd.  All the sets are available on Cling Mounted Rubber and as a digital image. The Sunflower, set #643 is the stamp set featured in  This Month's Technique Video.
As you can see, I chose to use the same set for my reveal card this month. I incorporated the dry embossed background technique (using Mustard Flocking, an embossing folder and a dye based ink). I also colored some micro beads with alcohol inks for the center of the sunflower!

Here is a quick look at all the new sets:

Knight Owl #632     (Digi version: DIGI632)

Sunflower #643     (Digi version: DIGI643)

A Little Note #645     (Digi version: DIGI645)

Pilgrim Thanksgiving #646     (Digi version: DIGI646)

Wisps of Autumn #647     (Digi version: DIGI647)

Witchy Gerty #648     (Digi version: DIGI648)

On August 3rd,  one Grand Prize Winner will be selected from the comments left on the designers' blogs listed below.  The Grand Prize Winner will receive their choice of:

1) all SIX of the new rubber stamp sets
or 
2) all the new digital stamps and digital stamp sets. 

The new SNS Creative Challenges also begins today, with lots of prizes and recognition badges. 

The winner of the blog hop will be announced on August 3 on Facebook, the SNS blog, and on our blogs:

Anita Scroggins
April Williams
Belinda Shupe
Emmy van den Heuvel
Eret Pank
Marie Berquist
Shona Erlenborn
Steff Munnings
Anne Temple

OK, so that's the scoop, so now let's get on with a project, shall we? I had lived in Rome, Italy for a few years before moving to New Jersey, and we would often take weekend trips up to Tuscany. The fields of sunflowers were both abundant and astounding! As soon as I saw this stamp set, it immediately reminded me of those wonderful weekends. That in turn reminded me of the beautiful Tuscany embossing powders of Sparkle N Sprinkle.

I stamped the sentiment in Versamark and heat embossed with Sienna. These Tuscany embossing powders are very fine and opaque which makes them perfect for detailed images and sentiments. To match the brads with the sentiment, I used the "bling your brads" technique along with the Sienna Star embossing powder. 

The sunflower was stamped on watercolor cardstock in StazOn black and then I colored using watercolor crayons with a water brush before fussy cutting it out. I added some "new" Cherry Lemonade to the petals and Green Iris to the leaves. 

How could I make the seeds dimensional? Oh, I know! I discovered a cool trick the other week - did you know you can make clear Micro Beads any color you need? All you do is put a little amount of beads in a cup and squeeze a couple of drops of Alcohol inks into the cup and swirl the beads until they are all colored. For this project I used two drops of Sunshine Yellow and one of Caramel. Pretty cool, huh?

OK, so now for the background. Does it look fuzzy? Well, that's because it is! I don't know if you saw my last blog post, but I recently had an article published in the Scrap and Stamp Arts magazine. This technique uses flocking, an embossing folder and some dye-based ink. For my sunflower background I covered a piece of white cardstock with a piece of Super Adhesive Sheet. I removed the protective backing and applied Mustard Flocking to the entire piece. I then ran the flocked piece through an embossing folder (here I used the Darice Grass embossing folder) which had been inked with Memento Rich Cocoa - a dye-based ink. This is such a fun background technique and inking the embossed or debossed side to the folders gives you different results. I especially love this background technique used along with animal stamps. To incorporate the sentiment, I was looking for a "field" for the sunflower to be "outstanding" in, which is why I used this particular embossing folder.

To finish and assemble the card, the sentiment was attached to the flocked background and then that was centered to a white card base, edged with 1/2" Tear-ific Tape. Some more Cherry Lemonade glitter was applied to the exposed sticky edges. The sunflower was attached with dimensionals and then I used some more Dimensional Glue along the base of the field and "spread" some left-over "seeds of happiness"!! Full directions can be found in the SNS gallery.

I'd like to enter this card in The Love to Scrap Challenge Blog.  This month the challenge is Scheming Crafters! For my entry I'm using "The Colors of Tuscany". 

Hope you've enjoyed my project today. Don't forget to leave a comment with each Designer to be eligible for the Grand Prize.  We love reading your comments and hope we have inspired you as well.  If you absolutely can not leave a comment for some reason, please email icinganne@yahoo.com with your comment and the name of the blog or Designer you are commenting about.

Hugs and good luck,

Shona