September 2010 Sneak Peek Day 2: Ever After

Welcome back to Day 2 of our sneak peeks. I want to thank you all so much for all of the kind, kind comments you've left and for all of your support. Seriously, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I have some more samples for you today, using our September Release stamp set, Ever After.

This set focuses all around one of the most fragrant flowers, the Gardenia. Yep. That gorgeous white bloom with the deep green, wide, waxy leaves and the intoxicating scent. I just love this flower and it always makes me think of weddings. Such a truly elegant and classy flower. I tried to throw you off yesterday by coloring the stemmed gardenia included in the set in pink. OK, so I mostly did it just to show you how this really can be colored to be made like any flower you want. But today, I want to show you how this set truly captures the essence of that beautiful flower.

I started by stamping the large solid bloom three times in Versamark onto white cardstock and embossed them using White Detail embossing powder. After embossing them, I wanted to add just a bit of creamy depth, so I went over all of them with some Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Antiqued Linen. This added just the right amount of shadow and dirt. To assemble, I cut two of the blossoms out whole, trimmed off the outer petals from the third, and then stacked them with dimensionals. I stamped the solid leaf in Old Olive ink (Stampin' Up!) onto Ripe Avocado cardstock (Paptertrey Ink) and trimmed those out as well.

I used some glue dots to adhere the bloom to the outside of a frame I picked up from Micheal's. For the inside, I used a Vintage Cream piece of cardstock, and stamped another of the sentiments that is included in Ever After in Dark Brown Colorbox ink. And all around the edges randomly stamped the same leaf. Truly not much else was needed. These images really do stand on their own and little effort is needed to create a stunner.

I want to share another of my favorite things to do with any stamp. Creating patterned paper. I know I'm not alone in this, there is just nothing better than stamping and hey, stamping out patterns means...more stamping! LOL

For this, I used one of the outlined leaf images and the small solid bloom and randomly stamped them onto Very Vanilla cardstock (Stampin' Up!). I inked the edges a bit and then sprayed the whole thing with some Glimmer Mist.

Since the pattern is a bit loud and busy, I layered it under a Kraft panel that I stamped with the solid leaf in Vintage Cream (Papertrey Ink) and added both the large and solid blooms stamped in Riding Hood Red ink (Stampin' Up!). I finished it off with another of the sentiments included in Ever After. I really like this color combo, the Tim Holtz distress ink in Antique Linen comes out looking a bit gold when used to stamp with.

So there you have day 2. I really try to pack in as much as I can into each set for you guys. I take into account that some of us like to color and some don't. Some of us like to scrapbook, so we need bigger images and sometimes we like to build a little intricate masterpiece so we want little scene building images. So, I really have only scratched the surface of this set, I still have some fun stuff to show you tomorrow. And, if you want more right now...check out what the design team has to share:

• Elise Durenberger
• Hannah Craner
• Jinny Newlin
• Kerrianne Gwin
• Savitri Wilder

And don't forget since this is the only set releasing this month, the giveaway is a bit different. Leave a comment by 11:59 pm August 30th, and I will pick two random winners from all countdown comments combined to win "Ever After". Be sure to leave a comment each day to increase your chances!