Days of Summer StampTV Kit

Good morning!  The Design Team for Gina K Designs welcomes you to another awesome blog hop, and this time we are featuring the brand spanking new Days of Summer StampTV kit! We are hoping to truly inspire you with many beautiful creations and ideas, and as you hop along, make sure you leave a comment on all blogs because we will be choosing a winner to win a $50 gift certificate to Gina K. Designs! Check back in a couple of days on StampTV and check the Big News forum to see if you are the winner.

Here are the four mini sets included in this kit.  Where to start?  They are all fabulous!  So how about 4 cards today?  Using all of the mini sets.

 

I guess I just had all those cute fruits with the faces in mind (you know, with the beans for eyes?) when I looked at this set the first time so I went digging though my stash of embellishments after stamping the bold two-step fruits to find some googly eyes.  No luck, (I was sure I had some!) but then, I spied that little pack of black and white brads that came *with* this kit on my desk!  Make it work and make my own!  I added the pupils to the white brads with a black gel pen, but a black Copic or Sharpie would work, too.  I used the piercing tool to poke holes on each of the fruits to add my brads and then inserted them. 

 Tip:  I drew the eyes on first and then inserted them through the poked holes but it was a little tedious getting them twisted facing the direction I wanted them pointing when opening the prongs, SO, speaking from experience, I recommend inserting your white brads first and once you have them set, THEN add the pupils with your pen! That would be much easier, and I will definitely do this again: )

Fruits are stamped in Gina K. Red Hot, Passionate Pink (edge of watermelon wedge, but next time I will use Innocent Pink for the lighter part) and Grass Green for the stems and rind.  Cardstock is Pure Luxury Red Hot and Layering Weight White, both in the kit of course. I kept the rest of the card simple so the focus would be on the fruit, but adding the little gingham bow to the cherries was a must!

Here is a very CAS card made from Pure Luxury White and embossed to frame the stamped silhouettes .  Stamping is done with Gina K. Sweet Mango, Blue Raspberry, Grass Green, Red Hot, Innocent Pink and Black Onyx Color Companions.

 I remembered these little glitter tubes of teensy sequins shaped like flowers, so I added some of these with Mono Multi glue for accents.

 I also had fun mixing the sets.  The "pinch to grown an inch" with the crab is so perfect for a birthday card, and I noticed the little cherries from the kit's fruit set would make sweet balloons for him to pinch!

  Aren't the patterned papers that come with this kit so cute?

 Aren't the patterned papers that come with this kit so cute?  Base is Red Hot.

 Finally, here is another CAS design with the butterfly, showcasing 5 Gina K. ink colors (Sweet Mango, Sweet Corn, and the other three are shown in two shades, Red Hot, Grass Green, and Blue Raspberry, the lighter being the stamped off color from each.

I colored in the large spaces in "birthdays" with some coordinating Memento markers and added a few adhesive rhinestones.  The Gina K. Pure Luxury White panel is popped up with foam dots.

In this kit, you  receive:

• 24 sheets of Pure Luxury 8 1/2 X 11 card stock
• 1 Summer Brights 6 X 6 paper pack (24 sheets of patterned paper)
• 8 yards of ribbon
• 1 bag of brads
• 4 Days of Summer assorted pre-cut rubber stamp sets
• 1 binder sheet
• plastic storage box for keeping contents of the kit together

 Terrific kit!

 

Now, please check out all the amazing designs and inspiration from our team, and don't forget to leave comments for the random drawing!

 

• Gina K
• Carolina Buchting
• Cathy Tidwell
• Debbie Corbari
• Latisha Yoast
• Laurie Schmidlin
• Lee Murphy
• Michelle Woerner
• Sean Fetterman
• Sharon Harnist
• Valerie Stangle

Day 2 Inspiration Hop: Elegant Florals and Sentimental Holiday

 Good morning!  The Design Team for Gina K. Designs welcomes you to another fabulous Inspiration Blog Hop! Gina and the Design Team will inspire you with many beautiful ideas, and as you hop through their blogs, make sure to leave a comment on each of them because  a few random comments will be chosen and those stampers will each win a grab bag of Gina K. Designs products! To see the full list of winners, check the Big News forum at Stamp TV a couple of days after the hops.

First up we have Theresa Momber's Elegant Florals (clear and rubber. I love these long stems!  One of my most popular posts recently was a CAS card I made with the colored lilies, but today I wanted to to share some inspiration from one of the set's bold silhouette images. Even with their delicate details, they make for really awesome graphic cards and work beautifully with modern elements, check it!

First I stamped a background with my Lots of Letters set with the long strip of rounded squares going down on white CS, first in Memento Toffee Crunch, then Cantaloupe, Tangelo, and finally Morocco. Next I stamped out some of the individual rounded squares in the same colors, cut them out and adhered them with pop dots over the stamped background to mix up the colored pattern and add dimension.

Now stamp the sentiment and leafy branch in Memento Rich Cocoa.  I also stamped just a bit of the branch to one more square to make the pattern dance and repeat around the card.  Isn't that gorgeous? Base is Pure Luxury Sweet Mango.

TIP:  Stamping the first line of the sentiment in the white space between the stamped pattern makes it easier to read.

Next up we have Beth Silaika's Sentimental Holiday 

(clear and rubber.)  These sentiments and bold images make creating holiday cards a snap.

 Base is Pure Luxury Red Hot.  Stamp sentiment on Pure Luxury White in Memento Rich Cocoa.  I stamped the star in Bamboo Leaves centered over the & and then did some scoring with the Scor-Buddy though the points of the star and around the mat. I layered this onto Dark Chocolate Pure Luxury.  DP is from the GKD Merry Little Christmas Patterned Paper pack.

I added a few more adhesive rhinestones to embellish the mat and the star print on the DP.

Thanks for visiting today! Please enjoy hopping for more inspiration with these two terrific sets with the rest of the 

Gina K. Designs team.

• Gina K
• Beth Silaika – Illustrator Sentimental Holidays
• Theresa Momber – Illustrator Elegant Florals
• AJ Otto
• Becky Oehlers
• Carolina Buchting
• Carolyn King
• Cathy Tidwell
• Deb Felts
• Emily Giovanni
• Giovana Smith
• Jimmi Mayo
• Lee Murphy
• Lori McAree
• Melanie Muenchinger
• Sharon Harnist
• Suzanne Dean
• Tami Mayberry
• Tina Gilliland
• Vicki Dutcher

Illustrator Hop and Release Party Invitation

Good morning!  The Gina K Designs team is readying for tonight's October release party and the illustrators are giving you another peek today at the new sets coming out this evening! Here's just a taste of what you'll be seeing from each of us. I really hope you will join us tonight for Gina's newest StampTV video featuring the new sets (and cardstocks, and embellishments, oh my!) and the  contests, prizes, new samples and chatting with the teams and StampTv friends!

 Here is my sample with the newest addition to my Stately Flowers series, Stately Flowers 5. I had to give you Oklahoma's Mistletoe in time for Christmas!  Isn't that sweet?  Change the color of the berries, and this little of sprig of leaves will add a lovely touch of nature to your cards year round. 

  Supplies: Gina K Pure Luxury Kraft, Red Hot Cardstock and Spellbinders Matting Basics B set.

Memento Cottage Ivy, Lady Bug, Espresso Truffle (for stamping image) and Copics YG03, YG23, YG67, and YG93. White Opal Liquid Pearls

 

This set also contains the flower South Dakota proudly claims: the Pasque Flower (also known as Pulsatilla, or Wild Crocus.  Did you know Pasque means Easter?)  Love the showy bloom with the prickly stems, a survivor that thrives gracefully in the wild! I used the matching Stately Flowers 5 cut file for the Silhouette Cameo on the flower, also available tonight.

Supplies: Gina K Pure Luxury Lovely Lavender, Wild Heather and White Cardstock.  

Spellbinders Hexagons, Memento Tuxedo Black and Sweet Plum. Copics V06, V09, V17, Y06Y19. 

White Opal Liquid Pearls

 

Can't wait for you to see the full reveal of Stately Flowers 5 tonight at 7 PM CDT! All new products will be loaded to the store at that time for you to get your shop on!

Now please hop with the rest of our illustrators for peeks and inspiration for ALL the new sets:

 Gina K
 Becky Oehlers  
Beth Silaika
Melanie Muenchinger (you are here!) 
Tami Mayberry 
Theresa Momber

See you this evening at the party!  

New Pure Luxury Colors and Comparisons

Hello, happy Sunday! I was so excited to get my order of new Gina K Pure Luxury colors in yesterday's mail, I just had to pull out some other Pure Luxury colors to compare and show you! The first pic shows all four, plus white, to help the colors appear more true.

Check out the new Tomato Soup, I am in love with this new gorgeous orange-red! So warm and rich, love it! (Pass me the Ritz!) ;)
And the new Cherry Red is my *new* favorite red! Now, you all know how I feel about Lipstick Red (near and dear!), and although they do look similar in this photo, you can definitely tell the difference: Lipstick Red is browner and doesn't have as smooth an appearance, while the Cherry Red is so much more vibrant and smooth as silk pure color! Cherry Red is the perfect name for this perfect shade!
Next up is the Honey Mustard, this color really isn't like anything we've had before, and I am so excited about it, just in time for fall! So elegant! Completely different than our yellows, but too yellow or brown to be called an orange, the closest thing is Tan Leather, pictured below. You can see how much more golden it is, though, and of course the smooth finish.

Last, the Dusty Sage, this such a gorgeous color! I can never have enough greens, and this one is completely different than the others in Pure Luxury line. Love how muted it is, it will be a wonderful neutral paired with so many other shades. Here I put it next to the Pure Luxury Grays so you can see how much bluer they are, and how subtle it is next to the Green Apple.

Hope this is helpful in planning your purchases and designs for Autumn projects! Can't wait to start cutting, and matting! Which new color is your favorite? Excuse me while I go work them into some samples for our inspiration hops, starting on the 13th!

Thank you for visiting me today! Hope your weekend has been great and Monday kicks off an even better week!

Scallops and Photos

Hello! Happy Sunday! Here is the last card I shared at the release party with my new Pretty Patterns set. Cardstock is from the new Gina K Pure Luxury Calypso collection (plus layering weight White), and inks are Memento Teal Zeal, Morocco, and Pistachio. Love the contrast of these colors! So fun to create rows and layers of these scallops inn different inks, what an easy way to work in a color challenge! Butterflies from A Beautiful Life are stamped onto Carnival Blue and then shaded with BG49 Copic. Greeting is from Theresa's Mountain Wilderness.

I also wanted to point out how varying the distance between the scallops when you stamp changes the look: in my card they are nested pretty closely together, but as you can see in Gina's sample above and video, you can put about 1/8" to 1/4" between each row, which will create a white space similar to the width in the patterns of each of the individual scallops. And that looks fabulous, too! The Clearly Gina K stamps make it simple to stack them however you wish!
Last thing today, I wanted to share this cool new free online service, Foto Fuze! (Does this picture look different?!) You can upload any photo to the site that you've taken on a white or black ground, then highlight the image and the shadow with your mouse, and like you magic, it erases the background and adds this bright white background for a really professional look! So I tried this one this morning, a photo I had already taken. (It would have turned out better if I had used a white sheet behind rather than the two pieces of white paper, it works better without a seam, this messes up the shadow slightly as you an see on the right. But how I love how brilliantly white it looks and how the card stands out! I'll be using an 11" x 14" piece of paper for a curved edge behind from now on because I don't have a white sheet.) Just wanted to let you know because it makes editing your photos really easy, no light box necessary. There is even a video before you do your first upload that shows you more pointers for how to use it, although it very simple without, and in it how even a light box photo can be improved. Please enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by today!

New Cardstock Colors in da House!!

Hello! The order I placed for new Pure Luxury cardstock last week just arrived, so I had to get out all my existing cardstock and see how all they compare! I'm really excited about all these new colors, yay!!

First, is the new Sandy Beach, I have been wanting to color like this for a long time! Yellower and lighter than Soft Sand, here it is with our other Pure Luxury neutrals. It's a lovely wheat with natural flecks and specks similar to a Kraft will and some gorgeous warmth and texture to your projects!
Next up, some beautiful layering weight bright collections, Calypso and Carnival, just in time for summer! Love how intense these colors are, and so popular right now! From top left to right, Calypso Orange, Pink, Teal, and Purple, and Carnival Red, Yellow, Green and Blue.
Here is the Calypso Pink next to our current pinks! It almost makes the Passionate Pink look like magenta, this is like no other color we had. Really fun!
And here is the Carnival red (oops, I forgot to put Red Hot next to it, but it is softer and slightly pinker and than Red Hot.) and Calypso Orange. Love this new fiery orange color, more saturated than Sweet Mango, much different than any current orange.
Carnival Green is lighter and brighter but not as "neon" a Key Lime. Gina no longer carries the Creme de Menthe but for those of you who still have it, I thought I'd throw it in the lineup to show how much yellower and brighter the Carnival Green is.
Finally the "blues". These three are really different as well! I'd say the Calypso Purple is the most different from what we currently carry, it is like a true primary or royal blue, but as you can see next to our other blues and green it does have a purplish undertone. We really needed this color! I'm so excited to have this Calypso Teal as well, much deeper and greener than Turquoise Sea! Last, the Carnival Blue is a smooth clear sky blue, and with turquoise and aquas being some of my favorite shades to use on cards, this is 2-3 shades lighter than my beloved Blue Raspberry!
I did not add a photo of the Carnival Yellow with the other yellows because in a photo it is almost identical to our Wild Dandelion (but you can see it above in the Carnival collection). If you love Wild Dandelion, and I do, you will love having this new layering weight version of this gorgeous, sunshine yellow!

I'll just end by saying, getting 2 packs of each of these new collections won't last me long! Good thing I realized I need to get some more binder boxes, so I will be placing another order very soon!

Hope this was helpful to you! Please leave me a comment below letting me know your new favorite(s) colors from these collections!

Have a TERRIFIC weekend! Hugs!

Silhouette Cameo: MUST HAVE

Just a quick post because I have so much to get done today, but I couldn't wait to tell you just a bit about the new Silhouette Cameo that arrived at my house last night, I've been stalking the mailman ever since I ordered!! Hope you all saw the message from StampTV that Gina is now selling the Cameo in the Gina K Designs store for the best available price and it is absolutely amazing, you won't believe all you can do with it and how inexpensive it is to cut anything your heart desires once you have invested in the machine! Soon we will be able to cut out all our stamped Gina K Designs images as well, can't wait, can't wait, it will change the way we all craft! I made my first cuts tonight and this morning so I had to come show you (with my NINE year old son setting up the machine and installing the software! You can do this!)

The software is so simple and it comes preloaded with 50 beautiful and useful shapes, words and backgrounds, PLUS a $10 gift card to go shopping with immediately in their online store so the shapes you love and need the most! Can't wait to use that! And NO wait for something to ship or a need for space or a system to store it, it downloads instantly to your computer you can cut it, minutes later!

One terrific thing is you can cut any font you currently have on your computer and in any size for FREE, immediately. Well, we (Jonathan and I) had to try that because I've never had have the capability to cut letters, which are so great for cards and scrapbook pages. Here is a 3 inch tall "J" my son cut out of patterned paper using the Stencil font from my MS Word program. (Software instantly imports all these from your computer when it installs no extra step for you to find them) Perfectly cut! This is a very thin patterned paper, so the blade was set for 2. Went through like buttah! (butter)

Now here is a Scalloped Background, also included, you can cut this as large as your 12x12 paper, or here I sized it 4x4 for a card front. Unbelieveable detail, cut in about a minute (fun to watch the blade do its work, too!)

Unfortunately, I underestimated how deep the blade would need to go for our super thick, super luxurious heavy baseweight Pure Luxury Lipstick Red, it did not go all the way through and that setting for the designer paper. (There ARE recommendations for you on different material thicknesses in the manual, we got a little ahead of ourselves) But no matter, I will not let this gorgeous design go to waste, however, will just trim around to make a square mat and stick on a card, and everyone will wonder have I made this gorgeous engraved texture. :) So I'll try that design again later with the proper setting, but moving on!! (It will go through these cardstocks no problem as you'll see below, never fear!)

Now here is a 5 inch leafy stem (also included in the software! how versatile and pretty!) cut from Pure Luxury Green Grass.

I put the blade setting on 10, that is the highest. (I tried several lower settings and it made a gorgeous cut design, but would not go all the way through. Again, I'll use those!) Layering weights like Pure Luxury White and Ivory and Pure Luxury Accent Colors are thinner and will not need such a high setting, probably a 3 or 4.) This, however, peeled off the mat like a dream, look how fine that stem is, it's like a piece of floss!!! Are you drooling yet?

This is what the screen looked like so you can see exactly how big for your finished cut will be and can drag it to any spot on your mat. Awesome customizing the size for your specific use!

I can't wait to explore the potential of this dream machine, as well as shop for fun cut outs, AND create perfectly cut flowers and other images from Gina K DESIGNS!! Scream! This is an amazing investment, I cannot recommend the Silhouette Cameo highly enough. Put in on your birthday list, your Christmas list, your belated Mother's Day list, because you need it, will take your cards to another level and save so much time and money!

Will share more soon, have a terrific weekend!

BTW, while you are here, thanks for visiting! My feed to my readers seems to have stopped working again, so if you haven't been getting my posts you want to resubscribe or try a new way to follow subscribe to my blog! Thanks for your help, any linking to let people I'm know still alive and posting, or linking posts you especially like like this one is greatly appreciated! :)

Easy Being Green!

Good morning! New cardstock in da house! Just wanted to show you a photos of the new Gina K Pure Luxury Jelly Bean Green Pure Luxury cardstock next to all the other greens in the Gina K Designs line for comparison. It's not like any other green I had, pure Luxury or otherwise, and you know I love using my many greens! Much deeper than the pastel Creme de Menthe, not as bright as Key Lime. I am VERY excited to use it with all my flowers: it is the perfect, leafy Spring green, in my humble opinion! Hope this is helpful to you in ordering and choosing your cardstock! :) Of course I'll continue to use them all, so nice to have this wide variety for the different seasons and pairing with other colors!

Hope your week is off to a great start, I'm headed for the gym! Hugs!

Card Candy and Candy Winner

Good morning! Thanks everyone for entering the Spellbinders blog candy and letting me know what is most helpful and enjoyable for you to read here, I will certainly use your feedback as I move forward! The winner of the dies, randomly drawn is

Joan V said...

Your posts are educational and inspiring for me. Everyday I try to read and learn something new, in this craft area. Love your designs that you have done for Gina K. I would love to know how you draw and submit your designs to get made into rubber stamps.

I have been a follower for a good while. Thanks for the chance.

February 14, 2012 5:05 PM

Congrats, Joan! Please email ASAP wih your addy, thanks! To the rest of you, you know there'll be more candy soon, stay tuned!

Now for a simple CAS cards with punches. This is a card I made in a flashfor my son's 4th grade teacher Mr. Reese's birthday. While I don't know if these are his absolute favorite candy to eat were it not for the name, he definitely likes to associate himself with the brand and refers to his students as "Reese's Pieces" (their field trip tie dye shirts are of course brown , yellow and orange!) it's pretty cute!I used a Pure Luxury white base and popped up several circles I punched with a 1/4 inch punch, form Pure Luxury Chocolate Brown, Sweet Mango, and Wild Dandelion. Don'tcha just love circles? I have both circle dies and punches in almost every size, they certainly go with everything! This would be a fun way to make an M&M card for your sweetie, kids birthday, etc, in different colors. Now, so it's not just blobs of color (and you want a touch of the unexpected and wink of the candy), I notched out the bottom circle with a scalloped circle punch to create the nibble and rounded the card base with a small corner rounder punch. Greeting is from my Fun Year Round set and stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa.

Enjoy! Hope your day is SWEET!

Special Moments

Hello! I finally got around to creating a card with this bitterroot image from Stately Flowers 3 I colored a few weeks ago! I used images online to help me choose the colors, and saw that those tan colored buds would terrific as a really bold pink and brown combo! Base is Gina K Passionate Pink and both DPs are from the Casual Friday pack. I might not have thought of this particular pack at first glance when I'm thinking about "flowers", but when you hold your images next to you papers you'll start seeing colors and similar motifs like the pointy leaves popping out...

Tracing the undersides with a W-3 Copic creates such a realistic shadow! Greeting is from Mehndi Wishes, I thought the sentiment was perfect with the single gorgeous bloom! I added some teensy adhesive rhinestones to the flower center, stamens and o in "Moment" for some sparkle!

Have a terrific weekend! We have family here celebrating little William's 7th birthday oh my, where does the time go! I remember posting about his THIRD birthday just after I started blogging! Talk to you soon, hugs!

Blog Candy: Love Joy Peace

Happy Monday, hope you had a great weekend! Today's card uses a fun color combo I don't think I have done before: navy*, lavender, violet and white. I love this non-traditional Christmas mix!
I stamped the "Fun Year Round" frame in Vivid Inky Blue on Pure Luxury White and then filled in a few areas outside the circles with different shades of purple Copics. Next I stamped the bubble burst and snowflake elements in blue, purple and lavender. TIP: to make the elements inside look more layered, mask the surrounding circles before stamping, see how the little heart in a circle is behind the larger one? It may be a little difficult to see in the pic, but I filled in some of the little spots inthe flakes with a Stardust pen, gives wonderful silver shine! I added some adhesive metal dots and rhinestones to the centers of the flakes for some sparkle and popped up the circle punched greeting centered over the large circle in the lower corner. The circles in the frame insure perfect placement opportunities for all your greetings and embellishments! Frame is layered on Pure Luxury In the Navy and Lovely Lavender. I really enjoy making more graphic, modern Christmas cards like these!

How about some blog candy? I have one copy of my new "Fun Year Round" set to give away. Leave me a comment below, I will randomly choose and post a winner tomorrow. Followers and subscribers can leave TWO comments! Not following yet? Go ahead and add me to your Blogspot or Google reader today and get two chances to win!

Thank you for visiting today! I look forward to finding some time after finsihing all my kids' activities to go through the CSS color challenge hop and hopefully make a card for the challenge myself! :)

*the navy may look a little black, but this combo looks so fresh in real life! I just can't figure out how to make my navy look more blue in pics (without distorting the other colors, of course!)

Hats &More...

So I haven't had as much time to play around with my stamps this past month with school being out, but I knew the party hat from "Candles on Your Cake" would have have some fun "out of the box" potential once I had more time to play! Cathy Tidwell's brilliant party banner card pictured above, made by trimming the puff off the top and stringing them along her card top, got me kicked into high gear! :) Thanks Cathy for the terrific inspiration!

Now another way to use the hat is turn it upside down and make it an ice cream cone! Snip off the bottom and add some punched 3/4" circles in the colors of your choice and trim off the bottom of the scoop.
Aren't these colors fun?? Pure Luxury Sweet Mango, Wild Dandelion, Turquoise Sea, Ocean Mist and Grass Green. I made this card for William's girlfriend (excuse me, former girlfriend, now they're just friends!) who turned 5 yesterday, so I made 5 cones along with the "You're this many!" (love when kids say that!) and stamped up a background on my white card base to match with 5's in matching colors. Punch is Threading Water, ribbon is from a StampTV kit. Hope these projects inspire, any out of the box ideas you have for the hat or any other image in the "Candles on your Cake" set? I'd love to see! :)

Peeks start in 2 days (do you think you know which set is mine?), so I have been furiously stamping up storm for it, get ready for this, pain free! It is the first time I have truly been able to enjoy stamping in a several weeks without the distraction of a burning, tingling wrist and thumb! So thank you all for your encouragement and prayers and I pray I will stay healthy! I have been commited to stretching and taking breaks which has been helping, too.

Have a terrific weekend!!

Illustrator Challenge Hop

Welcome to this month's illustrator challenge hop! This month, Gina K asked us to use the newest sets we designed and draw inspiration for our cards from a favorite movie...with my set "Gifts from the Sea", that was a pretty easy choice: "Beaches"! Just about the queen mother of all chick flicks, starring the divine Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey, this 4 hanky sob story (with singing!) about two women who meet on the boardwalk as children spans decades and coastlines, romances and breakups, beginnings, passages and endings. Something for everyone! (I haven't seen this movie in about 20 years but when it first came out I think I saw it about 6 times at the theater, and knew all the songs) So I HAD to use *pink* and make my card super girly, and use this very appropriate quote about what a good cry or a trip to the beach with your best girlfriend can do: "The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea".
Card stock is Pure Luxury White for the base, Turquoise Sea, Innocent Pink, and the white stamped mats are watercolor paper. This is the first time I got to use my new Sea Scape Impressabilities plate, let me show what I did to make the background and why watercolor paper works great for this. First I used the jumbo sponge daubers to add aqua and coral ink over the plate like a stencil. I started with aqua, making an undulating wave pattern than went all over the plate, then finished the open areas with coral, keeping the colors separate so they wouldn't get too muddy looking later.

Then I removed the stencil to reveal the white shell pattern and spritzed it a few times with water in a Mini mister until the colors blended as much as I wanted. Ink on watercolor paper bleeds a lot more when misted than it does on regular card stock and produces really cool, painterly results. (You can get a pad of this paper at any LSS.) I thought this would be a perfect beach look, as well as mimic tears falling onto paper.... If your paper gets too wet, dry with your heat gun a few seconds before continuing.

Last I used my speckle stamp from the set to add some spatters of coral and aqua dots over the the pattern. I embossed and stenciled the Innocent Pink with the same plate and added some raffia and a layer of Turquoise Sea I Cuttlebugged with Floral Fantasy for more texture. The quote is stamped on the fancy tag die cut, traced with a Quickie Glue pen and glitter to reference the sparkling salt! One stamped scallop shell with an adhesive pearl finishes the card. Hope this inspires! :)

Hope you will all join our challenge and play along, the winner will be the Spotlight Guest Designer for our next Gina K Release and receive ALL the new sets! For the specific details of the Senior Design Team challenge, please visit GinaK's Blog


Then, check out these designer's links for all the projects they have prepared for tonight's challenge:

• Jessica Fick



• Nina Brackett



• Theresa Momber



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



• Tami Mayberry



• Asela Hopkins



• Cathy Tidwell



• Lee Murphy



• Emily Giovanni



• Geri Utterback - our CenterStage Spotlight Designer