Functional Friday: Gum Wrapper Valentine

Hi all! Time for another Functional Friday installment. In case you missed this post, I'm featuring one die from Top Dog Dies each month, and each Friday I'm sharing a different way to use the die. My hope is that even if you don't own that exact die, the ideas will translate to similar dies you do own.

This technique uses the border die as a wrapper. Specifically, to dress up a package of Extra gum for a Valentine.

Each Heart Border Die is big enough to make two gum wrappers. Since these valentines are for kids, I just used a piece of tape to secure the ends in the back.

I used the holes in the die to attach the sentiment, which is written on a heart die from the Diaper Card Finishers Die Set. Such a quick and easy way to make a pack of gum look special!

 Scenery: Stripes from winnie & walter fill the space on top and bottom of the gum. The sentiment is from The Big, the Bold, and the Happy. To further fill the top of the card, I randomly attached a few of the negative hearts.

These could easily be mass-produced for classroom valentines. We ended up going with a Minecraft theme instead this year, but given how popular the gum was, I am keeping this in mind for next year.

This free printable is given away by Rebecca on the Simple As That blog. So fun! The kids loved it today!



Here's Jackson making his deliveries in class. 

We had them play the balloon pop relay, where you run to the front of the class, pop the balloon by sitting or stomping on it (one kid grabbed scissors for his weapon ... you've never heard a louder chorus of "no's" from the moms!) and run back to your team. The nervous anticipation of the loud popping noise kept the kids jumping up and down the whole time! Love the expressions on each of their faces!

They also enjoyed the over-under balloon pass, 

  

and the balloon hopping relay. So wonderful watching them have fun today!

I was a bit melancholy since this is the last classroom party ever for my oldest. He'll be in middle school next year. Sigh. I suppose that means no more valentines too. These days are just flying by!!

Anyway, thanks so much for looking! See ya next Friday with another Heart Border Die project : )
-Kelly

Fusion: Birthday Card for a Dude

Welcome to another fun Fusion Challenge!

Love the color combination in the photo so much, but I didn't have that shade of aqua. The closest I had was a bluer blue, so I stamped the orange first, and then inked the blue without cleaning it. Voila, aqua!

The stripes are from the new winnie & walter Scenery: Stripes. I just put all the stripes on my stamping block and stamped once for each color. "4 you" is from MFT. "Dude" is from my favorite CAS-ual Fridays set Rad which happens to be on sale now from $15 to $10.50!!!

I tried overlapping a few elements to give that focal point intersection a little more weight. And since the card is for a boy I substituted hole-punched glitter paper for sequins. This one turned out pretty close to the photo and sketch, which doesn't always happen for me. I like it though!

Here are some fabulous cards by our design team!

Amy Tsuruta

 Betty J.

Jeanne Jachna

Julia Aston 

Katie Brooks

Lynn Mangan

Kimberly Wiener

Lyndal Higgins

Michelle Williams

Michelle Lupton

Stephanie Severin

Winners: Will be chosen by all of our teammates in two weeks. We each will choose one favorite. The winners will be announced at 4 am (PST) in two weeks!


Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

Functional Friday: Those Tiny Dies Just Kept Pouring ... Six More Cards!

Hi all! Time for another Functional Friday installment. In case you missed this post, I'm featuring one die from Top Dog Dies each month, and each Friday I'm sharing a different way to use the die. My hope is that even if you don't own that exact die, the ideas will translate to similar dies you do own.

Last Friday's blog post shared some how-to's on using the hundreds of tiny hearts from the Heart Border die to embellish an adhesive shape, like a larger heart. This Friday I'd like to share the rest of the "collection" with you. They all have the same heart focal point, the same white panel, and the same "hugs & kisses" sentiment stamp from Winnie & Walter's You've Got Love Mail.

First up, a tone-on-tone heart. This is actually where I started, just to see if the whole idea would even work. I figured if it looked OK without any colors or patterns, it's probably a good enough design. My fabulous neighbor Brenda was over for craft night when I was putting the sentiments on and she guided me to use bright red. Love that pop on the white base.

Since this is a tone-on-tone design, I didn't need to color the paper underneath the heart first. So simple.

With the few left-over white hearts, I thought it would be fun to make an ombre heart, so I cut some more colors.

 This one might be my favorite of the bunch. Before spraying adhesive on, I colored the background heart in the same colors as the tiny die cut hearts. I started pouring the darkest color first and just loosely placed a sheet of copy paper above where I wanted the hearts to stick. Then gradually moved the copy paper up the heart after each new layer that was poured.

 Here's the whole card! The arrow (from the Heart Mini Album Finishers Die Set) was cut in half and attached on each end under a tiny heart so you can't see where it pierces the heart. The card base has tiny stripe impressions to add a little something extra. Since the sentiment is small I stamped it a couple times without reinking to fill the space.

Now it's time to use the left-overs from the ombre stripes. Nothing goes to waste! Here's the lightest pink on a very simple card.

This time the sentiment is added on top of the heart. I used all gray tones on these cards instead of black. Gray is a good partner with pinks.

Next up is the middle pink. This time the sentiment is stamped across the bottom of the panel in stripes. I adhered random pink hearts in between each sentiment for greater readability. Plus it looks cute!

Finally, I used up the darkest pink. My Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher did a wonderful job of securing the sentiment through all those tiny hearts.



Cousin Helen's gold thread worked well to quickly add some spice to the bottom of the panel.

At this point I've used up all my tiny hearts, but I really wanted to see what chunky glitter would look like if it was added to the mix, so I cut one more batch from white paper.

While I'm not in love with this one, I do like how the glitter filled in the cracks somewhat and makes it seem more like a solid heart. To do something different with the sentiment I stamped the Big Bold love in very light pink first, and then "hugs & kisses" on top.

It was really only my intention to make one card, but I had so much fun and just kept going with it. They practically made themselves. I could really see making even more of these, or using them for a set. Do you have a favorite?

Thanks so much for sticking with me on this long, photo-heavy post! Hope to see you next Friday : )
-Kelly

Surprise Birthday Hop for Shay!! + My First-Ever Video

Shay from Winnie & Walter is just about the most thoughtful person ever (well, except for perhaps her counterpart, Julie) so I'm super excited to have the opportunity to show her some love on her birthday by participating in this special blog hop. 

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Shay in person at CHA last month and got to spend two wonderful days hanging out with her and Julie. Man, does she know the industry! She was really able to fill in the blanks for me on people and products. She's very passionate about our hobby, and it really shows in everything she does.

The only thing I am more impressed with is how kind and thoughtful Shay is. Whether it's including surprises in packages like pretty sequins, handwritten notes, encouraging words OR A KELLY GRIGLIONE STAMP SET (no kidding, I will have to share this with you in another post!) she always puts a huge smile on my face. I am so thankful to have met her through our wonderful community!

The card I designed for Shay is based on a really neat Cosmo Cricket line which will be released soon that we fell in love with at CHA ... Just Add Watercolor. There are canvases with gold resist elements, and you can watercolor the remaining canvas as you like. One of the samples was a gold geometric pattern with pink and red watercolored areas. For Shay's card, I tried to recreate this look by stamping the solid line from the new Winnie & Walter Scenery: Stripes stamp set that was just released and embossing it in gold.

Then I watercolored the various shapes. I didn't have to be super careful about staying within the lines since the embossed line was thick enough to corral the watercolor. The sentiment is from another new set, The Big, the Bold and Party. That got moved around a few times before I landed on one of the large vertical lines to anchor it on. I decided to cut off the bottom of the whole panel to have the base of the card show through. I may have closed my eyes and said a prayer while trimming the bottom 1/4 inch off, lest it turn out to be a big, regrettable mistake. Anyone?!

The inside is finished off with the heart (watercolored and gold-embossed) and "Love You" from The Write Stuff: Love Story, and "kisses" from You've Got Love Mail.

Here's the new Cosmo Cricket catalog with this gorgeous design on their back cover. You can see how I darn near copied the whole thing! Why mess with a good thing?

So before I end this post, I have a little something extra to share. I told Julie that I would put on my big-girl panties and post my first-ever video, in the form of a birthday greeting to Shay.

Ugh.

I dreaded this for weeks. 

Apparently, when I'm nervous, I lose any semblance of speaking at a level higher than a 5th grader, and pull out the incredibly descriptive adjective "great" four too many times. But who's counting. Shay, you know this was made with lots of love : )

Anyway, on with the show! It's my pleasure to send you over to the super-inspirational Mayuri who has more birthday wishes to share!

Shay, I hope you have an amazing birthday today. As wonderful as last year was, I know this year is going to be an even bigger success for you!

Big hugs,
Kelly

Winnie & Walter Blog
Joni Andaya
Suzanne Dahlberg
Kelly Griglione - you are here : )
Mayuri
Vanessa Menhorn
Gayatri Murali
Heather Pulvirenti
Laura Sterckx

CAS-ual Fridays: Red Hot Smooches

Hi folks! Sometimes you can't over think things. I had a distress ink panel left over and was wondering what to do with it. I didn't want to put it in my scrap pile, because quite honestly, most things never make it out of there once they go in. I really liked this one and wanted to use it right away. The red/pink colors and the splotches were calling out to be a love note, so that's what I did.

The white X's and O's are from CAS-ual Fridays Tic Tac Toe Fri-Dies. The sentiment is from Mwah and is embossed in gold. Everywhere I look I see gold with pink watercolor. So I thought I'd toss on a few gold splatters as well.

The distress ink panel was actually connected to another piece originally. I used an old card base for the Laura Bassen "smooshing" technique and smooshed right along the fold line. When I cut the card apart, one half became the panel for this card, and the other was used for the card below ...



Can you see where they were joined? I couldn't believe I actually got two viable panels from that one smooshing session. I am definitely trying this again!

This card is over at the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog.

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

Functional Friday - Pour On Those Tiny Die Cuts!

Hi all! Time for another Functional Friday installment. In case you missed this post, I'm featuring one die from Top Dog Dies each month, and each Friday I'm sharing a different way to use the die. My hope is that even if you don't own that exact die, the ideas will translate to similar dies you do own.

This technique uses tiny die cuts in the same way that you'd use glitter, micro beads, or embossing powder. You apply adhesive to your base, and then sprinkle on the die cuts. Fun! Let's take a look ...

First I cut the Heart Border Die. Then I freehand cut a larger heart from a sheet of copy paper. This will be my template for coloring and applying adhesive.

A very IMPORTANT first step is to use your template to make a light outline of where your shape is going to be. Fill it in with a shade of marker that matches the color of your dies. This will make life much easier later. Now any spaces that are not completely filled will not stick out like a sore thumb.

 As you can see, the coloring doesn't have to be pretty. You just don't want this area to be stark white. Now place the template over your colored panel and spray adhesive through the opening.

  
  
Now the fun part! Sprinkle the tiny heart dies onto the area you sprayed with adhesive. Shake off any excess. You may have to play around and fill in some bare spots. 


  
At this point you can either try to get one layer of die cuts on your panel so they lay nice and flat, or leave them chunky with some standing up and some laying on top of others. 


  
I like the nice and chunky look. After the spray adhesive dried I didn't have any issues with the tiny dies falling off.

Now that you see the finished product, I'll mention that it's helpful to think carefully about the double-sided paper you pick for this project. Since you are randomly shaking the dies onto the adhesive, both sides of the paper will show. I really liked the colors on the colorful side of this Crate Paper Acorn Ave. paper, but the other side was too gray for me. So before die cutting the hearts, I colored the gray side with a pink marker. Now it's a patterned pink paper!



Here you can see half of the hearts show the pink pattern side. You can also get a better feel for how chunky the heart is. It's a fun one to touch!

This was a really fun technique to play around with. And, it was really quick to put together. In fact, I made 7 of these cards in total! They're the same basic design, but they all have a different way of using the tiny heart dies. I can't wait to show you the other 6 cards next week, PLUS an amazing trick that I just learned from my crafty friends Helen and Brenda on preventing paper from sticking in your die cuts. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO WANT TO MISS THIS!! I'm so darn excited!!

Thanks for looking,
-Kelly