I finally got new stuff!

I didn't preorder anything this year from the Occasions Mini or Sale-a-bration catalogs like I normally do. This year, I had to wait until the end of January to place an order (gut-wrenching!) - so I'm a little late on showing you new things. 

BUT, my first shipment  arrived yesterday.  Now it's like Christmas all over again! I'm so excited to share with you what I have so far.

One of my favorite stamp sets from the Occasions Mini catalog is called Happy Watercolor. It has two flowers, sentiments, and stamps that look like you applied a watercolor "wash":

I love this set! I especially love that stamp that looks like watercolor wash!

Here is a card that I made that shows that particular stamp used as the background.

I stamped it in Pistachio Pudding and Pool Party. Then, I stamped the flower in black StazOn ink. I used ink pads and a blender pen to color. The colors are: Crisp Cantaloupe, Calypso Coral, Pink Pirouette and Primrose Petals.

I stamped the flower two more times on white card stock, colored them and cut them out. I adhered them with Dimensionals to get a 3-D effect.

This technique is called "3-D Paper Piercing". Here is the page from the technique-book class I offer (DSU) that explains paper piecing:

Can you see that the snowman's hat and scarf are a patterned paper? The snowman was stamped on the blue paper and I just followed the lines to cut out, and glued them right on top of the snowman that I had stamped on the white paper. 

On my flower card I did not use patterned paper but the technique is still the same. By adding Dimensionals to each layer, now the name changes to "3-D Paper Piecing". Cool!

This card also features the Fancy Foil vellum in gold, the gold baker's twine and the gold foil sheets -  all available in the Occasions Mini catalog.

The mini catalog also features new fringe scissors. I do not own them. I guess it would be a lot easier to do this fringe in one fell swoop then to cut them individually like I did!

This card is a CASE, of sorts. I combined a couple of different elements from several cards that I saw. The layout itself came from my card seen on Pinterest by Billie Moan. The dimensional flower idea was from a different demonstrator - Heidi Baks.

---------

On that card, you saw how I used the "wash" stamp as a background and colored the flower.  But, what if I don't feel like coloring? That's what's awesome about this particular stamp - you can use it to color an image as well!

I just added a little glitter and, presto! - it was done.

Two more new products were used on this card: The Decorative Dots embossing folder for the Big Shot (FREE with a $50 purchase!) and the Watercolor  Wonder Designer Series Paper.

In case you're wondering - the colors are Island Indigo and Gumball Green. This card is in that CASE of a card by Michelle Humphreys.

Love, love, love, playing with my new goodies!

More to come soon!

-------

The Occasions mini is in effect until June 1.

Sale-a-bration, our annual special, runs until the end of March. With every $50 that you spend, you can choose one free item from the Sale-a-bration brochure!

You can check them out online! Just visit my website and click on "shop":
http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/dandyspandy/