Fun with Die from Serendipity Stamps

 I love diecutting and I love Serendipity's new die for the fall and winter! When I get new die, I like to just sit down and play with them. There are two new die, a pumpkin and an ornament.
Who says the color behind the filigree pumpkin has to be all the same color? Above, I pieced different colors, a brown for the stem and three shades behind the pumpkin...fun! Now I want to try vellum behind the filigree, for kind of a stain glass look!
Also, who says you can't cut things off of die....below, I cut off the ornament hanger and made a quilt!

 And don't forget to use the negative part of the image....both of these die have great negative shapes. I saved the little part from the ornament hanger and the two little pieces from the vine and these will be great for cards on their own.

 Who says everything has to lie flat....above, I have embossed the filigree pumpkin and then raised some of the portions for a metalwork look.....below I have used the colors of an apple, cut off the vine and added a green leaf....

 I couldn't resist doing a Christmas quilt. Also, to coordinate with the die is a Merry Christmas stamp....

 and also a stamp of the Christmas ornament....that creates a lot of possibilities!!!

 I haven't tried it with the new die designs, but I recently made a honeycomb type design with the Serendipity Heart by layering several diecuts together to create a dimensional piece.

I just began playing with these new die, so I am sure I will come up with a lot more possibilities!

Edgeabilities 3

For the flower girl basket, I cut four pieces and put them together. The scallops were done with a nestability.

This is kind of an overall view of the ensemble.....then I thought of doing the gatefold program.....I am never DONE!

Here is another card I had done in the past with the rose die, cut from watercolor paper so you can really push out the embossing (with a stylus).

As you can see, you can get a lot of different looks. I will post some of the other designs of Edgeabilities also.

Edgeabilities 2

Here I used the edgeability to make a lining for the envelope for the RSVP. I used the extra roses cut from white on the vellum envelope for the invitation and on the RSVP.

Here you see the invitation. The green folds down over the pink and vellum. You can make your paper longer when putting it through the Wizard...you are only limited by width.

They now have a border (12 inch) that you could do the same thing as I did with the regular edgeability...only I added the roses to my border to hide the intersections. The little loose roses come in very handy to use as embellishments. These photos are of my neice and my brother in law is pictured in the bottom photo. He has been gone for almost a year now.

Edgeabilities

I have a stamp that says "If you aren't living life on the edge, you are taking up too much room"....I pretty much live life on the edge!
Last year when I was on the Spellbinders DT, I did a whole wedding ensemble using the rose edgeability die. It is a lovely, simple die, but I think a lot of people don't know what to do with the edgeability die. Someone just recently wrote on the Yahoo group and asked how to cut with it. My advice....experiment. Take a piece of scrap paper and play with it.

Anyway, I thought I would share some things I did with this die. Some of them are featured on a free tear sheet at Hobby Lobby where they sell the die, so if you are in Hobby Lobby, check it out.

Another thing I did on these projects was too do reverse stenciling, where I applied ink directly to the die (thus the dark green you see above in the background around the flowers). This is a simple name card that I printed the name first on the computer and then did the cutting and embossing. I added the extra flower cut from white paper.

The thank you card is also simple.....used a corner round er on the corners.

Now we are getting a little more complicated, cutting the opening out of the green and the pink. It is still easy enough to do.

I have several more items I will share with you from this ensemble.

Hope everyone had a great holiday. We went up to the cabin and my parents came up. Had some good steaks and barbeque. I did red, white and blue flower arrangements and worked on VBS projects. I was having problems with my back, so no yardwork for me. Hope you had a great weekend also!

Dramatic looks for a wedding

This bride likes drama and she asked me if I could change our fellowship hall so that it looks totally different....quite an undertaking! To make the cake seem larger, I set it up on a hat box and added lights in tulle....definitely dramatic.

The borrowed dress was too long, so I used beautiful buttons to do ruching (sp?) as seen in this shot. She has the buttons to save and the dress was uncut.

I made winter themed cookies such as these brides and grooms and mittens for the reception. I also had LOTS of snowflakes hanging from the ceiling to give the effect of a blizzard. The fellowship hall definitely did look different than normal!

I needed a vacation after this wedding!

We are on a wedding roll!

This is a winter wedding I did in January 2007. I really killed myself on this one....even altering the dress, in addition to the photography, flowers, favors, papercrafting, and some of the food! Here are a couple of examples of collages I did on Picasa.

I like to take "engagement" photos that can then be used on the invitations if desired.

Here is a shot that shows the napkin cutlery holders....Snowflakes were the theme for this winter wedding. I print the envelopes with the computer first and then do the punching and stamping.

Special Effects on Picasa

If you like to use Photoshop, you can do some of these effects there, but it is so easy on Picasa. Picasa has improved so much since these were done (especially the collage effects). Anyone can use Picasa and it is free! Above I did spot color on the bouquet. This works great on circular shapes. My friend, Heidi, likes to use Picnik so I need to check it out also. I find it hard to venture out since I like Picasa so much.

Glow and adding a tint works great on this shot. The yellow tint looks like sunshine to me.

I used this "picture pile" on their program. Now you can shuffle the photos around, so you have more control on what lands where.

Here I overlaid a photo I took of the couple on the wedding day over one of the still shots I had taken earlier. Sometimes it is good to take some plain shots to overlay photos over. Just a few more ideas.

Wedding photography tips

I mentioned using the starlight filter...here are a couple of examples. Sometimes it can be a bit "much" so you have to be careful and shoot with it and without it, just to be sure you get a good shot. I also like to carry a spritz bottle of water to add dew drops to flowers.

Here are a couple of examples of using windows....the one with the harp uses the window for backlighting.

This mirror shot is a little different than the billiards shot. With this view you can see her face and her hair. Maybe I should have shot the fruit centerpiece in a mirror, but by that time there was NO time. No morning goes as fast as the morning of a wedding for the mother of the bride....especially if you try to do everything yourself.....especially if you waste a couple of hours on your HAIR!!! Getting curious?

I do love weddings

I just hate how tired I get when I do one! The key is to do as much ahead of time as you can. I was anxious to get things done when my daughter was getting married and still shots were something I could do ahead of time. Above this their wedding invitation. I used Crane stationery as we loved the light blue envelopes lined in white. I printed the photo I had taken of them and created into an oval vignette on the card. The info was printed on vellum and I made a belly band with the two hearts. The bow signifies that they are "tying the knot".

For the reception, I made cutlery holders out of envelopes and punched a heart, so the periwinkle napkin shows through. These can be used for any party, and it makes it easier for the guest to pick up the cutlery and keep them all together and they have their napkin too. I tied two chocolate kisses in tulle and they look like wedding bells. I had photos of the couple on the tables for people to take home if they wanted them.

We also did book marks to give as favors at the wedding. Most all of this could be done ahead of time and checked off the list. Having just helped with a wedding where they weren't done ahead of time, I highly recommend it :-). It will de-stress the process. There will still be stress and things that come up unexpectedly, but at least these things will be out of the way.

The rings are a great subject for still shots and I like to find interesting places to put them. In flowers such as this lily or roses is a great place. I also like to use a starlight filter on items that have a reflection.

It is wedding season so I thought you might enjoy seeing some of these details. I know I enjoy looking back at them.