Welcome to this month’s blog hop!.  I hope you are finding great, inspirational projects as you stop by each of our pages.  

First things first…  You are currently parked at my blog – Keep It Simple, Stampers.  I am Joanne Cantrell from a little tiny town at the very bottom of Illinois, smack dab in the middle of the United States.  I aim to keep my projects simple, but often get carried away because Stampin’ Up! offers such great embellishments!

The group of Stampin’ Up! demonstrators has gathered together to learn a thing or two from Kylie Bertucci and her gang of merry stamping buddies.  It is a place where we can grow and learn to be the best demonstrators we can be for YOU, our beloved customers.

For this month, I wanted to give you a sneak peak at what I think is going to be one of my favorite products from the new 2019 Occasions Catalog.  There are so many great things, but once I show you what I did, you will just have to order one for yourself!

The product I am talking about is the DOT TO DOT TEXTURED IMPRESSIONS EMBOSSING FOLDER (148533).  This is a beautiful folder that adds that little touch of summin-summin that a card sometimes needs.  Because, hey… that’s what embossing folders do, right!?!  

So, if you look on pages 24-25 in the 2019 Occasions catalog, you will see how this DOT TO DOT folder goes perfect with the HAPPINESS BLOOMS product suite.  In fact, the dots from it have a matching image in the coordinating stamp set, BLOOM BY BLOOM (148820).

But that is not what I saw the minute I laid my eyes on this stamp set.  I saw… get this.. snake skin!  I know, right!?!  What on earth is wrong with me!?!  LOL

But, once you see the projects I made with this and tell you how easy it was, you will no longer need paper towels and ink to create faux snake skin… nor will you have to wash your hair three times to get the ink off your hands! (You know I am talking truth here!)

Well, I guess I have hyped this enough…here is the first card I made with this.

I love a good purple and gold combination.  You really can’t go wrong with Blackberry Bliss and Gold Foil, can you.  I added a bit of bling with the Gold Sequin Trim.  The sentiment is from the new BUTTERFLY GALA (148580)stamp set.

But, I bet you are eager to learn how easy that faux snake skin actually was.  Well…  Here you go.

The Supplies:  The Dot to Dot Folder, cardstock, , VersaMark, Clear Embossing Powder, and a Heat Tool.  Short list, huh!  

The Method:  Run the cardstock through the Big Shot (oh yeah, you need one of those too – but that should go with understand with the folder!).  Use the ink pad to apply the ink all over the textured cardstock.  It is not necessary to get into all the grooves – in fact, it is best if you don’t.  Cover the ink with the embossing powder and shake off any extra.  Melt the powder with the Heat Tool.  Let cool.  Repeat the heat embossing.  You will notice that where you do not get the embossing, it gives a variation in the color making it look really cool!  After you let it cool, crumple up the cardstock and smooth it back out.  Do this until you think it looks good.

Yes, it is really that simple!

So, when I did this, I did a 6″ x 6″ piece of cardstock.  Since I didn’t want to waste any of this cool paper, I made more cards…  And of these also include sneak peaks of new 2019 Occasions products as well as some 2019 Sale-a-Bration stuff too!

This simple Thank you card gets it sentiment from the new Humming Along (148758 – pg. 36) stamp set and the little flowers are Gingham Gala Adhesive-Backed Sequins (18561 – pg. 35).

The sentiment on this card comes from a Sale-a-Bration set that I just love. It’s called Part of My Story (149719).  I used my paper cutter to cut out the little frame.  It’s a simple technique that adds a lot of interest.

And, this lovely purple card uses a couple new things…  The sentiment is from Incredible Like You (148708 – pg. 21).  The butterflies were punched using the new Butterfly Duet Punch (148523 – pg. 35).  And that gorgeous Designer Series Paper is called Botanical Butterfly (149622) and is in the Sale-a-Bration flyer.

Let’s see that a little closer too!  I used a bit of the Gold Metallic thread for the antennae for the butterflies.

Well, that is really it from me for this blog hop.  I hope you were inspired by what you see here and can’t waituntil you can purchase that DOT TO DOT folder for your own!

Here are the links to the other bloggers – get to hopping!

Until next time… keep it simple, Stampers!

🙂  Joanne