Monday, August 12, 2013

A Beautiful Life Tip Sheet


Today I am sharing my tip sheet for the A Beautiful Life set!

The tulip blooms are the same size and shape as the tulips in "A Year of Flowers" which make it easy to stamp just the blooms to pop up over the frame for added color and dimension.


The frame can be turned in 4 directions to provide you with a variety of vertical and horizontal layouts.


You will love the double border in this frame! Similar to that of "Festive Frame", you can color these in any hues you choose to give the illusion of extra layers without adding the extra bulk or time to cut them. Notice however these borders use both a bold and narrow line: when left uncolored, this creates the illusion of a beautifully embossed panel!

Fill out the frame even more with your favorite blossoms and leaves from "A Year of Flowers" to create your own custom arrangements! Cut them out and layer on top or mask off the border to stamp them inside.

The oval and surrounding flowers create the pefect backdrop to frame a smaller arrangement of "A Year of Flowers" blossoms.


Stamp the frame onto colored cardstock in Versamark or a matching ink for a beautiful tone on tone, embossed look.

Emboss the frame in silver or gold for an elegant wedding or anniversary card.

Cut out the oval window to create a window into your card or to layer another color under.


Cut out just one tulip corner or the other and pop it up over the corner of a greeting panel on another card, already masked for you!


Add buttons, pearls, or punched corners to the open corners to dress the frame up or wrap a ribbon around each and tie at the top or bottom.

Color in the corners of the frame around the tulips and/or color the borders to create the illusion of several different mats without all the cutting or adding extra bulk to the card.

Stamp onto designer papers to let the beautiful patterns show through. color directly over the pattern to make the tulips and narrow borders pop out without adding extra mats.

Paper piece the different parts of the frame to look like quilting.

A little bee and butterfly have been added for quick adornments here, as well as provide you with more options for your "A Year of Flowers" and "Arranged with Love" sets. Pop them up in the corner or lighting on the flowers for the perfect little embellishment. You can also use these new delicate images with any other flowers on your cards to create focal points and backgrounds.





Some ideas for creating a flight path for these insects:
pierce it
stitch it
stamp a flourish or use a rub on
a row of adhesive pearls or rhinestones
doodle it with a pen


Add glitter or Stickles to the butterfly wings for shimmer. Fold the wings in half and adhere the center of the image to your card so they pop out. layer a cut and folded butterfly over a stamped one on your card, this creates the illusion of flapping wings!


Cut the butterfly straight down the middle, between the antennae and through the body's center. now you have two new butterflies that can be viewed from the side! This gives more versatility to the image, mix these up with the front view and it will look like you have a lovely little swarm on your card.


Stamp it all over cardstock or your favrotie patterned papers to make beautiful coordinating butterfly backgrounds.


Make the bees wings translucent by stamping them on acetate or vellum and layering over the body, or cover with Crystal Lacquer, clear or iridescent embossing powder or Sakura glaze. Try flocking his little bumble bottom with black and yellow flock! :)


Ink just the "utiful" in "beautiful" and place a popped up bee in front of the word, that spells bee-yootiful!


Create a honeycomb background for your bee by inking up bubble wrap and stamping, the result will be hundreds of little holes in a hive!


The bee has his own quote: "Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers", which can be used for so many occasions. Make him the focal point of your card with this sentiments, yellow, black and white cards are so crisp and cheerful!





Add quick color to these tulips using the stems, leaves and blossoms from the coordinating "Pressed Flowers" set.


This set includes sentiments for year round occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and thank yous, as well as sympathy and encouragement. Greetings are sized to fit in the oval whether you orient your card vertically or horizontally.

The smaller greetings like "thank you", "friend" and "bride" look beautiful when stamped into the corner of the border or onto a tag.


Sentiment Combinations:

beautiful friend, bride, or mother

hello beautiful

thank you beautiful

you are a beautiful friend, bride, Mother

Mother, friend, bride, you are beautiful

you make life beautiful

hope your birthday (wedding, anniversary, Mother's day) is beautiful

have a beautiful day, wedding (day), anniversary or Mother's day!

These classic fonts will never go out of style and can work with so many other images you have collected whenever you need to make a beautiful card, not just for flowers! They also coordinate with the greetings in "Say it with Flowers".


Use some of these new quotes inside your "Festive Frame" set for wintery thank yous and birthdays!



Make a beautiful coordinating gift with your cards by adding a photo into the oval window: lovely for a bridal portrait, picture of you and your mother, Easter photos etc.


Make a wonderful mini wedding or Easter scrapbook using the stamp to frame favorite photos.





Create a bee tag and tie it onto a jar of honey with a little dipper for a sweet gift for a friend or teacher.





Use the frame on the top of a painted to altered paper or wooden box to create a gorgeous jewelry or keepsake box, perfect for Mom!


Create a clock with the frame using a clock kit and panel of painted wood like in this post. Glue the little bee or butterfly to the end of the second hand to make it continuously circling the clock face! (I almost hated to tell you about this one already since I am making one right now for the the blog and wanted it to be (bee!) a surprise!)



The frame would make a beautiful book plate to line the inside of your favorite books and add your name to the middle.





Create a matchbook style card or pouch with the tulip frame on the front and add a seed packet inside, truly giving the gift of flowers!





Stamp it onto the outside of plain gift bag and color, quick, beautiful and inexpensive!





Create real framed art work with the frame, a pretty acrylic message board for jotting notes, or a wine label with the waterproof labels for special occasions.





Stamp the frame and a greeting onto Polyshrink, color cut out and make a hole in the corner, the heat. Add a chain and you now have a sweet key chain!

Shrink down the bee and butterfly images for charms to use one a wine ring, bracelet or earrings, a book mark, or card bling!

4 comments:

  1. WOW ! ! I feel like I just had a very filling meal. Thank you sooooo much for allll the wonderful ideas and for the time it took for you to come up with them.
    Jean McGee

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  2. Hi Melanie, I love all the ideas you have given and you have perfect timing as I literally just got your book and four of your frame stamp sets in the mail only minutes ago!!

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  3. Thanks so much, Melanie, for all of the wonderful tips. The possibilities are endless!

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  4. Melanie, great tips for using these fantastic stamps. You are such a gifted artist; I'm so glad we are able to purchase your stamps through Gina K Designs.

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Your generous feedback helps make my work and this blog better! Thanks for inspiring and motivating me! :)