Friday, September 20, 2019

Concord & 9th Friday Feature: Merry Shapes

Happy Friday everyone!  It's been a warm week here in Minnesota.  Having 80+ degree temperatures in September is not uncommon,  but 80+ degree days with a non-working air conditioning system has been rather uncomfortable.  A faulty capacitor has been replaced  and it's working again now, but having some fun new winter holiday products to work with helped make a few hot, humid days this week much more bearable.  Today I'm excited to share more Concord & 9th September Release Feature Friday projects with you.  Today's features include this post featuring the Merry Shapes Bundle, as well as a second post HERE, which features the Mistletoe Messages Bundle.




My first project uses the candy cane from Merry Shapes as my focal image for some holiday gift tags.  After cutting several of the canes from white cardstock, I stamped the candy cane onto the grid paper in my MISTI, then aligned one of the negatives from my die cut around the stamped image.  I used the bar magnet and a disc magnet to secure the negative in place.



Now I am able to pop those white die cuts into the negative and stamp on each of them perfectly.


I cut tags using the tag dies from both Holiday Cheer Tag Dies and Little Love Tag Dies from white cardstock.  I used my MISTI to stamp a border of Woven Plaid to the bottom of each tag.  (I could stamp two at a time!)



I used a small acrylic block to stamp the MERRY three times to each tag before adding the stamped candy cane with dimensional foam tape.  As a finishing touch, I added the red bow diecut to each candy cane (from the Mistletoe Messages Dies).


Since these tags will be given away, I decided to make a small gift bag for the tags.   I used my Original MISTI to stamp the geometric tree image and greeting from Merry Shapes onto a small muslin bag.  I placed a small piece of cardstock inside the bag to prevent any ink from transferring through from the front to the back panel of the bag, then stamped with regular dye ink, and set it aside to dry carefully before handling.





I used the tree image and dies for this cards, stamping two trees directly to my white card base, then adding three more that I had die cut from felt using the solid tree die, then die cut once again using the stitching die.  I used several strands of silver embroidery floss to simply stitch around each tree before adhering them to my card base with Scor-Tape.


This card was a simple exercise in color and perspective.  



I began by using the star stitching die to cut the holes from a white cardstock panel before inking a pink to purple sky with Distress Oxide inks.  


I cut three tree die cuts from the Silver foil paper from the Neutrals Foil Pack, three from a silver glitter paper and one from white cardstock.  Beginning with the solid silver mirror-finish trees, I placed them low on my ink panel, then added a hand cut "snow drift" over the top, covering about half of the die cut.  I trimmed the excess drift paper away using a paper trimmer.  

I added the three silver glitter paper trees in the same manner, this time placing them higher on my panel, and coverinng only the lower third of the die cut with a second hand-cut snow drift.

I sprayed my single white tree die cut with spray adhesive and added clear prisma glitter  to give it a fine glittery shine before adding in to my panel.  


I placed it even higher up than previous trees on my panel so it would appear taller and closer in the foreground of my scene.   I stamped the Happy Holidays greeting to another strip of white cardstock and cut one more snow drift curve before adding it to my panel and trimming the bottom edge flush with the previous layers.  

Rather than stitch the star, I used silver gel pen to draw in my stitching on the angled lines, and a white gel pen for the horizontal and vertical.






Trees are also the focus of this card, using three patterned paper die cuts along with white and foil  diecuts from the Holly Jolly Dies.  These die cuts were added to my white cardbase that I'd added Woven Stripes Background.

The following simple card uses the letters from Merry Shapes.  Instead of using the letter O to form the word Joy, I used the globe from Globe Greetings.  I stamped with globe with Kraft ink, then the blue oceans were added with an ink blending brush.    The Noel banner is from the Mistletoe Messages Bundle.



One final project uses the light bulb filament and stamps from Merry Shapes and a makeshift stencil that I created by cutting into post-it tape with the smaller circle die.  Using this circle stencil, I created the bulb shape with a buttery yellow ink for each bulb, then added a brighter yellow ink to create the glow.  I also brushed in a pale gray ink to accentuate the glow of the bulbs before adding the sentiment from Shine On.


Merry Shapes was a very fun set to play with.  It's simple geometric shapes allowed for lots of creativity, and added some new ways to use sets and sentiments I already owned.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Make sure you check out the Mistletoe Messages feature post as well as the posts from Emily and Sara too!




1 comment:

  1. Great cards! I especially like the purple card with the different trees.

    ReplyDelete