Category: Rosemary Dennis

  • Hugs & Roses | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hugs & Roses | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello friends! Rosemary here on the blog today with another card full of layers and texture. This time I used multiple tried and true Birch Press Design dies and one hot foil plate set for my card. Let’s have a look at what I created.

    Quite sometime ago I pulled out multiple Birch Press Design floral die sets that I had not used in awhile (or never!) to use on future cards. I went to this pile and pulled out the Rose Bunch Contour Layers die set as I had actually never used it on a project before. I then pulled out my Memory Box 6×6 cardstock pads and chose the Greenery and Blush pads to use for the flowers. Three darker shades of red and three shades of green were pulled from the pads to use for all the die cutting.

    Once I had those items selected I selected the die set I wanted to use for the foliage to go with the roses. I decided to go with the Oval Leaf Branches Contour Layers die set because of the variety of little leafy branches in the set. I used the lightest shade of green for the smaller branches and then the two darker colors for the larger branches. I die cut everything and then assembled all the various pieces.

    As I indicated I’m kind of into adding more texture to my projects and one way is with embossing. Birch Press has so many different dies that can be use for embossing on cardstock. For this card I decided to use the Wiegela Leaf Contour Layer die set. I used the main die to emboss my off white cardstock panel. I then layered on the roses and all the little branches. Layering the branches did require me to cut some of the branches apart to get the look I wanted, but that is one of the things I like about die cuts. The ability to modify them as needed!

    The embossed panel shown with the card was my first impression. It turned out okay with a little bit of cracking, but I decided to do a second one and this time I spritzed the panel with a little water before embossing it. The second one turned out perfect! Unfortunately I covered up most of the embossing, but the embossing was more there to just add another element.

    I finished off the card with a foiled sentiment from the Sugar Script Sentiments 1 hot foil plate and die set. I love the little touch of gold that it adds to the card. Well, that’s it for me. I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

    Supplies

    BPF503 Sugar Script Sentiments 1 Hot Foil Plate and Die Sets

    57495 Rose Bunch Contour Layers

    57525 Oval Leaf Branches Contour Layers

    57515 Wiegela Leaf Contour Layers

    sp1011 Leafy 6×6 pack

    sp1012 Blush 6×6 pack

  • Monochromatic Hugs | by Rosemary Dennis

    Monochromatic Hugs | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here today with a sweet monochromatic card that I had so much fun creating! I used lots and lots of different Birch Press Design products, as well as some products from Birch Press Design’s companion company, Memory Box. Let’s have a look at what I made.

    I recently did a little bit of organizing of my Birch Press Design products and as I went through them several items I hadn’t used in a while (or maybe I hadn’t even used them yet!) kind of popped to the forefront as items I could use to make the card for today’s post. I started with the Big Hugs Sugar Script die set and the Perky Bloom Contour Layers die set. Then I started looking through all my Memory Box cardstock pads and realized that I had not used the pad called Blush. Now that I had my starting point things really got going!

    I went with a light coral pink and a dark coral pink from the Blush pad. I die cut all the pieces from the Perky Bloom from both sheets and then alternated the colors. This resulted in two flowers. I decided to go with the one that has the light coral pink bottom layer for this card. I had a previously die cut stamen piece that I had cut from yellow cardstock. I like the little pop of yellow. I also die cut the Big Hugs from the sheets. Since I had used the light coral pink for the first layer of the flower I decided to use the dark coral pink for the shadow layer of my sentiment.

    When I layered the flower I used a combination of liquid adhesive and thin foam squares to give the various petals additional lift. Once I had the flower finished my creative juices really got flowing! I decided to die cut a piece of paper from the Memory Box Gladiola Plaid 6×6 pad to cover the front of my card base. I went with a piece that has a hint of yellow in it to tie in the yellow stamen in the flower. Then I die cut white cardstock using a Curved Cap Pinpoint Layers die. At this point I decided that I wanted to add some texture to the white panel so I looked through my background layering dies and landed on the Arista Layer B die. I love the detailing in this layer of the die set. So I embossed it using my die cutting maching. I offset the die to the right side of the panel for additional interest.

    I layered this panel on the card front using thin foam squares. I liked the look of the flower on top of the embossed image, but I wanted even more texture! So I pulled out the Fuddle Leaf Branches die set and die cut the smaller branch and layering pieces from thick vellum. The layering pieces were adhered with liquid adhesive. Then I arranged the flower and the little branches on the white embossed panel.

    At this point I thought I was finished, but nope, lol! I wanted to add one more thing! A sweet little vellum dragonfly! I used the smaller dragonfly from the Simple Dragonfly Contour Layers die set and cut all the pieces from the heavy weight vellum I used for the little leafy branches. A tiny coral jewel was added to the body for the final touch!

    I absolutely love how this card turned out. I started with a simple idea and just let my creativity go! It is so fun to do that and something I need to do more often. I hope you enjoyed today’s card. Thanks for stopping by!

    Supplies

    57418 Arista Layer Set

    57500 Fuddled Leaf Branches Contour Layers

    57531 Perky Bloom Contour Layers

    57138 Big Hugs Sugar Script

    57487 Simple Dragonfly Contour Layers

    pp1027 Gladiola Plaid 6×6 pack

    sp1012 Blush 6×6 pack

    94646 Curved Cap Pinpoint Layers

    94672 A2 Rectangle Frames Die Set

  • Delicate Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Delicate Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today. Can you believe that May is almost over? I can’t! Time is going by too fast. Today I’m sharing a card that I created by combining two contour die sets to get more mileage out of them. Let’s have a look at what I made.

    I have wanted to use the Birch Press Design Crystal Lingo stamp set for along time. The large image in the stamp set is a fun one and great for creating backgrounds. So one day I got out some pens I have that have liquid watercolors in them and created a ton of background. I started by embossing the crystal image on watercolor cardstock with white embossing powder and then coloring them with one color per image. Now I have multiple background that I can create with. As I was thinking about the card I wanted to make I decided to use two of the panels I created. I chose panels in a sort of coral pink and one in light yellow.

    Above are the two panels I used after I cut the pink one in half and die cut a piece from the light yellow one.

    Now it was time to decide on what dies to use. I knew I was going to use the small Vintage Hello Sentiment die set so I needed to keep the dies I used more on the delicate side. I went with the Phlox Blooms and Leaves Contour Layers and the Hillside Branch and Bramble Contour Layers die sets. The smaller flower in the Phlox Blooms set was perfect to add to the Hillside Branch die where the little berries are supposed to go. To color the flowers and branches I used the same watercolor pens that I used to create the backgrounds. The pinks on the flowers turned out darker than the background strip, but I think that is okay.

    I die cut all the pieces out of watercolor cardstock and colored them with the pens. Once they were dry I assembled them using liquid adhesive.

    Here is a close up of all the flowers after I assembled them and then arranged everthing on my card front. I had a little scrap of the pink background left over so I decided to die cut the bottom layer of the Hello Vintage Sentiment from that scrap and the top layer from white cardstock. They were together with liquid adhesive and adhered to the card front with a combination of liquid adhesive and small foam squares to finish off my card.

    I really like how my floral branch turned out and glad that I decided to try combining these two die sets. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day.

    Supplies

    57507 Phlox Blooms and Leaves Contour Layers

    57550 Hello Vintage Sentiment

    57524 Hillside Branch and Bramble Contour Layers

    cl8155 Crystal Lingo clear stamp set

  • Bold Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Bold Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hey there! Rosemary here on the blog today and I’m sharing a card that took me way out of my comfort zone! My card uses the “blackout” technique that I have been seeing on blogs and Instagram. Full disclosure it took me quite a few times to get a panel I was happy with, but it was fun trying out this new technique.

    For this technique you start out with a panel of white (or some other light color) that you emboss with a 3d embossing folder. For my card I used the beautiful Open Studio/Memory Box Gracious Floral embossing folder. After much trial and error I settled on using white distress heavy stock cardstock. After trimming down my panel to A2 size I misted it with water, placed it in the embossing folder and then ran it through my diecutting machine. I let my panel dry thoroughly before moving on to the next step.

    For the second step in the process you apply to the debossed (or backside) of your embossed piece. As you can see I used distress inks and detail blender brushes to apply the ink. With this technique you can get fairly messy with the application of your inks because in the next step you will be engaging in what to me was the scarry part, lol!

    The scarry part is applying the black ink (the reason it is called the “blackout” technique)! I learned through trial and error, again, that you have to apply the ink with a firm swiping motion on the cardstock. If you are too timid with the application of the ink you run the risk of getting alot of black ink in places you don’t want it. Now as you can see from the photos the ink does get left in certain areas, but that is because parts of the embossed image are not as deeply embossed as others. I hope that makes sense.

    There were still spots where I did not get full coverage and for those areas I used a small black ink cube and used a corner of the cube to apply the ink. Using the corner allows you to get into those small areas without getting more ink on your image. To finish off the card I used the new Big Hello Vintage Sentiment die set and a sentiment from the Crystal Lingo stamp set. I die cut the bottom layer of the Big Hello Vintage sentiment from heavy weight vellum and the top from Memory Box glossy black cardstock. I used liquid adhesive was used to adhere the pieces together and to the front of the panel. I heat embossed the sentiment in black on vellum, die cut it and adhered it with rolled up medium sized glue dots.

    Overall, I’m pretty happy with how my blackout panel turned out. It got me out of my comfort zone and trying something new. Was it perfect? No, but that is okay because this is a handmade card after all! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57549 Big Hello Vintage Sentiment

    8155 Crystal Lingo clear stamp and die set

    EF1026 Gracious Floral 3D Embossing Folder and Die

  • Birthday Balloons | by Rosemary Dennis

    Birthday Balloons | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today sharing three birthday cards that I created with the Floral Balloon Layering die set, the new Happy Birthday Vintage Sentiment die set and pretty patterned papers.

    I have been wanting to make a card (or cards) with the Floral Balloon Layer dies for along time. When the new Birch Press Word dies landed in my mailbox and one of them was the Happy Birthday Vintage Sentiment die I knew that time had finally arrived! Along with the dies I also received the new Memory Box Gladiola Plaid 6×6 pad. The papers in that pad are just gorgeous and so I used them for two of the cards. For the third card I used the Anemone Plaid 6×6 pad.

    My mom is the proud great gramma of three great granddaughters and one great grand son and about 2 years ago I started making the birthday cards that my mom gives the little ones. So, these cards will be going to three of the four. I will be making something a little bit different for the oldest great granddaughter. For the card for the great grandson, I omitted the balloon layer that cuts out the flowers to create a balloon with little dots. I pulled colors from the plaid for the background cardstock as well as the back layer of the balloon. All three cards are mini slimline in size.

    For the cards for the great granddaughters the bottom layer was die cut from glitter cardstock that coordinated with the patterned paper and cardstock used for the balloons. You don’t see alot of the glitter cardstock, but I think it adds a fun touch. All the balloons were adhered together using liquid adhesive.

    To finish off the cards I die cut the Happy Birthday Vintage Sentiment die from gold mirror cardstock for the top layer and then the same cardstock I used for the middle layer (or in the case of the first card, the bottom layer) for the bottom layer. Liquid adhesive was used to adhere everything together. Coordinating baker’s twine was tied around the bottom of each balloon, gathered together and tied in a knot so I could glue them to the card front once the balloons were attached using liquid adhesive.

    That’s it for me today. I hope you enjoyed my idea for using the Floral Balloon Layers dies and patterned paper. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57551 Happy Birthday Vintage Sentiment

    57433 Floral Balloon Layer Set

    Supplies

    pp1025 Anemone Plaid 6×6 pack

    pp1027 Gladiola Plaid 6×6 pack

  • Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today. Hope your April is off to a great start. It is a little bit of a cold start to April here in the Pacific Northwest, but that is the PNW for you, lol! Today I’m sharing a card created using the sweet Prime Peony Duo Contour Layers dies and a foiled sentiment from the new Sugar Script Sentiments 2 set. Let’s have a look at what I created.

    I started off my card by deciding that I wanted to use some pretty patterned papers and do a little bit of inking on the papers once I had them die cut. I pulled out the lovely Memory Box Anemone Plaid and Anemone Grove 6×6 pads and went with a purply-blue plaid for the flowers and a dark green plaid for the stems. I die cut all the pieces and then added some distress ink in Milled Lavendar to some of the pieces.

    I didn’t add any additional color to the stems as they were dark enough already. I then adhered all the pieces together. For the flowers I used a combination of liquid adhesive and thin foam squares to provide lift to some of the petals. Liquid adhesive was used soley on the leaves. I also decided to use the green flower centers that were die cut when I die cut the stems as I liked the look. In the close up photo above you can see the shading on flowers that was added with the distress ink.

    After the glue had set on the flower for a little bit I adhered the stems with additional liquid adhesive. I die cut a piece of the Anemone Grove paper with a rectangle die and adhered that to a white cardstock base. I then die cut Memory Box white woodgrain cardstock with a Curved Capped Pinpoint Layers die and added some Milled Lavendar distress ink to the top portion of the die cut and then lightly around the edges. I adhered that piece with thin foam squares.

    The flowers were then adhered to the panel using liquid adhesive. I finished the card with the sentiment that I foiled in matte gold and a few purply blue fairy gems.

    I hope you enjoyed today’s project. Thank you for stopping by and have a lovely day!

    Supplies

    57504 Prime Peony Duo Contour Layers

    BPF505 Sugar Script Sentiments 2 Hot Foil Plate and Die Sets

    Supplies

    94646 Curved Cap Pinpoint Layers

    pp1026 Anemone Grove 6×6 pack

    pp1025 Anemone Plaid 6×6 pack

  • Happy Easter | by Rosemary Dennis

    Happy Easter | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today. Can you believe that Easter is just days away?! Time is just flying by, lol. With Easter in mind I created a card using the beautiful new Floral Cross Layering die set.

    I used several new products on this card, including the new Lush Layer Contour Layers die set and a new set of products from Open Studio/Memory Box: Cheerful Floral 3d embossing folder and cutting die and Cheerful Floral stencil set. My original idea for this card was to have the beautiful Floral Cross layering dies layered on top of the embossed Cheerful Floral background. Unfortunately, I have a problem with my die cutting machine when it comes to 3d embossing folders. Sometimes with beautifully detailed ones like the Cheerful Floral my cardstock shifts in the folder and the bottom of the image is blurred. That happened this time. I tried multiple times and could not get a good image. In the end I decided to die cut the center flower from each attempt and use those instead. Nice save, I think!

    It was pretty easy to pop the die cuts into the stencil and color them up with a combination of pretty yellow inks. Below is a photo showing how it looks when you use the stencil with the die cut.

    For the stenciling I colored the first flower and then moved it to the next spot. I then placed the second flower in the stencil and colored it. Then I grabbed the next color, added it to the first flower, then moved everything to their next spot. I continued with that until the flowers were fully colored. I used a piece of cardstock from Greenery 6×6 cardstock pad. This particular piece was one shade of green on one side and a slightly different shade of green on the other side so I was able to use only one piece of cardstock for the leaf.

    The cross was die cut from white cardstock, pale yellow glitter cardstock and light yellow cardstock, then adhered together with liquid adhesive. I also used one of the flower dies from the Floral Cross set and die cut the layers from the pale yellow glitter cardstock. The pieces were layered. a light yellow rhinestone added to the center and then adhered to the center of the cross. I then began arranging all the elements on a panel of white cardstock. I used a combination of liquid adhesive and foam squares to adhere everything. The sentiment is a Memory Box die. I die cut it from white cardstock and adhered it with liquid adhesive.

    Supplies

    57537 Floral Cross Layer Set

    57521 Lush Leaves Contour Layers

  • You Are The Best | by Rosemary Dennis

    You Are The Best | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today with a bright and sunny card I made using the new Perky Bloom Contour Layers, Wiegela Leaf Contour Layers and Sugar Script Sentiments 2 products. I also used the Pinpoint Contour Plate and papers from the new Memory Box Sunrise and Greenery 6×6 cardstock pads.

    I don’t often use yellow cardstock as I don’t have alot of it and most of the shades I have don’t really coordinate. That is a thing of the past with the Sunrise cardstock pad! The yellows in the pad coordinate perfectly! I went through the pad and pulled out the ones I wanted to work with and die cut the various layers from each. The Perky Bloom die is one piece so after diecutting I did have a few extra pieces that I didn’t need for my flower. I just simply tucked those inside the packaging the die comes in for future use! I used a combination of liquid adhesive and thin foam squares when I put together my flower. The leaves were simply adhered together using liquid adhesive.

    I used a Memory Box arched die to cut the white panel. The arch is only on one side of the side so to create the second arch I simply flipped the arch to the other side and die cut that portion of the panel. I then laid the panel on the Pinpoint Contour plate and ran it through my die cutter. This panel was adhered to a panel of yellow cardstock that I die cut with a rectangle using foam tape for dimension. I like how the arched panel fits perfectly inside with just the ends showing the yellow peeking out!

    Now it was time to add the flower and leaves to the panel. I glued down the leaves and then added the flower I made sure to only add glue to the center of the flower so I could slip in the thin foam squares when I wanted to to provide dimension and lift to the flower petals. The last thing to do was foil the sentiment. I used matte gold foil and my hot foil machine. I foiled all the sentiments in the Sugar Script Sentiments 2 set as I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to use. I settled on “you are the best”. I used the die for the sentiment to cut additional layers from scrap cardstock and adhered them to the sentiment with liquid adhesive. The sentiment was then added to the card also using liquid adhesive. I had some yellow nuvo drops that I added to the tips of the stamen for a little more dimension.

    I hope you enjoyed today’s card. I had a lot of fun creating it! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57515 Wiegela Leaf Contour Layers

    57531 Perky Bloom Contour Layers

    57511 Pinpoint Contour Plate

    bpf505 Sugar Script Sentiments 2 Hot Foil Plate and Die Sets

  • Mixed Media Tag | by Rosemary Dennis

    Mixed Media Tag | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today. Hope everyone had a lovely Valentine’s day. I did as I got several things that I love! Today I’m sharing a tag that I created using several different techinques. I used the new Early Blossom Contour Layers dies, as well as the Simple Dragonfly Contour Layers dies and the layer A of the Herbarium layering die set. I had a lot of fun creating this tag!

    I started off by spraying my premade cream colored tag with the spray stains that you see in the photo: Speckled Egg, Antique Linen and Lost Shadow. I sprayed on each stain individually and then spritzed the tag with a little bit of water. I didn’t want too much movement of the colors. I did dry the tag a bit with my heat tool in between each layer of color. Once I had the background to my liking I set it aside to fully dry.

    As the tag dried I got to work on my flowers and dragonflies. I die cut them from white cardstock and used a grip mat to hold all the pieces in place while I blended on the inks in a color family that moves from the light pink to a more reddish color for the flowers and dragonflies. The leaves were inked in two shades of green. I used liquid glue to adhere all the pieces together. While they were drying I moved onto the next layer for the tag.

    I have a small jar of Solar Paste in the color Golden Hour and I thought it would look perfect with the background on the tag. I used the A plate from the Herbarium set to create a stencil and then added the embossing paste. I was right that the embossing paste would look nice with the background. I just love how it turned out. As the tag was drying I decided to custom color some chunky white twine I had using two of the spray stains. I used Speckled Egg and Antique Linen for the twine.

    Once the paste was dry I began adding all my elements to the tag. I must admit that I was a little worried that the pinks in the flowers wouldn’t play well with the background colors. But as I added the flowers to the tag I realized that the colors worked perfectly! I finished off the tag with the sentiment the Sugar Script Sentiments 1 set and the twine. I had previously hot foiled it on cream woodgrain cardstock and so it worked perfectly with the tag. The tag is large enough that in the future I can turn it into a card!

    I hope you enjoyed learning how I made my mixed media tag. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57520 Early Blossom Contour Layers

    BPF503 Sugar Script Sentiments 1 Hot Foil Plate and Die Sets

    57487 Simple Dragonfly Contour Layers

    57458 Herbarium Plate Layer Set

  • White on White | by Rosemary Dennis

    White on White | by Rosemary Dennis

    Hello everyone! Rosemary here on the blog today sharing a white on white (with a little bit of gray) design using one of the January release dies, Rose Leaves Contour Layers. I paired the new die set up with the older Morning Rose and Triple Buds Contour Layers dies and layer A from the Dazzle layering dies. White one white always creates a clean and classic look.

    As you can see that Rose Leaves Contour dies are fairly large and I felt they needed a larger floral design to compliment them. That is why I went with the Morning Rose and Triple Buds Contour Layers die set.

    The bottom layer of the larger leaves die was cut from the glitter cardstock and the top layer from white cardstock. For the smaller leaf cluster I die cut the bottom from white cardstock and the top layer from the glitter cardstock. Since the large rose has four layers I die cut two from white cardstock and two from glitter cardstock. Two layers of the buds were cut from the glitter cardstock and one layer from the white cardstock. I used liquid adhesive to secure all the layers together.

    I die cut the Dazzle layer A from a light gray cardstock and a piece of thicker white cardstock. The two layers were secured with liquid adhesive, added to a white cardstock base using more liquid adhesive and then allowed to dry for a bit before I added the rose, buds and leaves with more liquid adhesive. I trimmed some of the leaves off the larger leaf cluster to better fit the flow of the design.

    I finished off the card with a sentiment from the Open Studio Gracious Floral stamp set. I heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder on vellum. The sentiment was secured with rolled up glue dot hidden behind the letters and liquid adhesive.

    I hope you enjoyed today’s card. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

    Supplies

    57493 Morning Rose and Triple Buds Contour Layers

    57522 Rose Leaves Contour Layers

    57000-DA Dazzle Layer Set

    cl5280 Gracious Floral Clear Stamp Set