Embellish It

Edit: Prize Drawing Winner......the winner of my Copic prize drawing is Tessa Wise! Congratulations Tessa, I've emailed you already for you contact information! Thanks to everyone for playing along and I 'll be bringing you more Copic posts soon!!

It's June 1st already, can you believe it? It's time once again for the Papertrey Senior Design Team Challenge and this month's is right up my alley. Nichole has challenged the Design Team to create homemade embellishments for a project. As you know, I've been doing a lot of this lately. The process of creating these little embellishments is so fun! Let's get started.

I first cut some 5-1/2" strips of Stamper's Select White Cardstock and punched the edges with a scallop border using an EK Success slim line border punch.Using the fun Day at the Beach stamp set, I embossed some images onto the cardstock strips using Clear Embossing Powder.

Then comes the really fun part. Using the Copic markers in YG93, YG13, Y35 and RV32, I colored horizontal lines across the strips. I used one full swipe across each time and kept on layering the colors, overlapping them a bit to blend them. The more you layers of lines you add, the darker the colors. I'm trying to achieve a certain tropical look that will match another embellishement that you'll see shortly. You can see how the clear embossing resisted the markers, leaving some fun sun and star fish elements showing through.

I wanted my embellishments to look a little vintage, so I used my Ranger Distress Ink Pad on the edges of the embellishment strips.

Next, I used The Essential Glue Pad and a big swirl from Fancy Flourishes to randomly stamp images onto the colored strips. Very sticky stuff.

I then dumped Glitter all over the strips to cover the stamped swirl images. I tapped off the glitter and gave the back of the strips a good flick with my fingers to remove the excess glitter.

And here's my finished glittery embellishment strips. The Copic colors I chose match the patterned paper(K & Company Wild Raspberry) I'm going to use for my finished projects. Zoom in on any photo to see the glittery details better.

Next, I created some fun focal point embellishments for a few summer time cards. I used more fun images from Day at the Beach to create a tropical drink theme. I did margaritas that have glittered rims for the salt and a cute little lime. And for the other drinks, I used colors from the embellishment strips to create a layered, fruity drink with more glitter for added sparkle. I want one!! And check out those cute sentiments...just chillin' and bottoms up...too fun! Vintage Buttons tied with twine finish off the embellments that have been punched out with circle punches.

And here's a fun basket full of finished cards. Be still my sun loving heart!

For all of the cards, I used a Kraft Cardstock base that has been stamped with a Background Basics: Text Style font stamp in Fresh Snow Ink. The edges of the cards were inked with Fresh Snow ink right from the pad. Rectangles of various patterned papers adorn the center of the cards. I love that these cards have a fun, tropical feel to them but that I was able to use more muted background papers.

Here's a close up of the glitter strips, the circle embellishments, more tied buttons and a snippet of Sweet Blush Twill Ribbon. Yummy little morslets of goodness!

And here's my margarita themed cards using green background papers and Vintage Buttons. Do you know how much I love margaritas? Lots...but I haven't had one in ages!!

And a close up shot of more glitterfication (new word). You should see these in person because it's so hard to capture them in photos! Come on over, we'll have a margarita...along with chips and salsa!

So bring on summer!! Turn on some Jimmy Buffet, slip on your flip flops and enjoy a nice cold tropical drink.

Annnnd, check this out: Nichole did the math for me and guess how much my glittery embellishments cost to make? NINE CENTS EACH!! That's a dime with change left over, peeps! If I were to go buy my glittery embellishments along with the circle images, I'd pay well over $5 bucks for that package. I think I should treat myself to a margarita with all that money I saved! The products Nichole used to figure the cost were consumable products, the rest were items you most likely have in your stash like stamps, the inks, punches, etc. So go make some some fun embellishments of your own, it just takes a little creativity.
And if you want to be even more inspired, be sure to visit the other PTI Designers' blogs. Kelly Lunceford is playing along too.

Nichole Heady
Becky Oehlers
Heather Nichols
Lauren Meader
Lisa Johnson
Kelly Lunceford

Have a great summer everyone! I'm very, VERY excited for the June Release at Papertrey so stay tuned!!