Sneak Peek Day 3: Sew Pretty and Welcome Home

The previews continue! First peek of the day is Rupa Shevde's "Welcome Home", filled with images and sentiments perfect for making a special welcoming or moving card or announce a change of address. My mom and stepdad are currently looking for a house, they have been uprooted for awhile, let's just say we will all rejoice when they find the place they can call "home"! Anticipating it will be soon, I made them a card with a little picture perfect neighborhood, moving van already unloaded! The space on the side of the truck image is open, but I stamped the "Welcome" greeting inside it. The popped up house is actually part of a border which I stamped on the envelope to match, it's fun to be able to use the different houses separately when you want. I created a front lawn and sky from clover and cloud prints from Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love pack, a clothesline from Cosmo's Boyfriend pack, and street from a Basic Grey pad, it was fun cropping all these strips together. TIP: The clothesline has some especially cute garments, namely the slip and boxers, but would have been hidden behind the truck if I left the strip "as is". However, this strip would only be showing in a few places around my focal points so I just snipped it up in a few places to make sure the colors and images I wanted to see would be featured. Try this with other parts of your prints and patterns you really like! :) I used a Kraft base which I also used to paper piece the packing boxes, and added my own detail of the words with a red marker. :) Last I added some red ribbon and the keys image with "love" stamped on the tag for a little embellishment.

Next is Asela's "Sew Pretty", and this lady I am using today may turn out to be one of my favorite "Asela" images because the attitude and retro-feel remind me of the Anne Taintor magnets, which use stock photos of Hollywood starlets or print adds on fabulous backgrounds accompanied by very snarky comments clipped up ransom note style, they are a hoot! Since I've gotten so into cooking lately, I decided to celebrate my inner domestic goddess and make a fabulous menu dry erase board! This uses a 5x7 acrylic frame, but you could easily adapt the concept and size it down to an A2 card.

I used Basic Grey Junebug print as my starting point and trimmed a big floral section for the corner and then paper pieced her apron with the scrap left over. The Black Onyx, Lemon Drop and new Turquoise Sea colors really sizzle and add to the retro feel. I trimmed two of the greetings from the set I stamped onto white into separate words and adhered these over the mats.

Here is a closeup of the gal, colored with Copics. Although the mats and she are slipped inside the frame, I added some adhesive rhinestones on the outside directly on the acrylic for her necklace, diamonds in the kitchen , oh my! (I made her a brunette like me, and totally want this apron for myself! I promise to make more of these for friends who I know will LOVE them, but this is one for me, it reminds me "Girl, you are cooking, and cooking is HOT!" hee hee) :)

The assorted buttons are on the frame itself as well, adhered with glue dots to the flower centers inthe print, as well as a green safety pin and stitched ribbon, I just love the texture and funkiness these details add to the project! I put another little row of rhinestones around the dry erase pen and did a mock up of my meal (I wasn't doing any writing though when I took this photo because of my hand, so I added some text in Photoshop, you get the idea! if only my own handwriting were that lovely!) If you are gifting this board, adding a little utensil to go with tied up with a matching ribbon makes it the total package!

Designers Participating in Previews tonight:

• Gina Krupsky

• Jessica Fick

• Cathy Tidwell




• Donna Baker




• Erika Martin




• Emily Giovanni




• Kurtis Amundson




• Lee Murphy




• Lynn Mercurio




• Melanie Muenchinger (you are here, thanks for visiting!)

• Nina Brackett





• Tami Mayberry




• Theresa Momber




• Bev Gerard




• Colleen Schaan




• Suzanne Dean



• Geri Utterback - our Center Stage Spotlight Designer!




• Asela Hopkins - Sew Pretty illustrator

The Release Party is this Thursday, April 22 on StampTV. We would LOVE to have you join us for the fun!


There will be challenges, contest questions, chatter, as well as tons of samples from the Design Team members from 7-10 (central time) all leading to the new products being available in GinaK's online store at 10pm.