Spring Kites Home Decor

Hi everyone! Happy Monday!

I'm up on the Maya Road blog today with a home decor project.

I used a lot of altered Maya Road embellishments and American Crafts Serendipity papers to make kites. Now how springy is that? :) I hope you'll swing by the Maya Road blog and check it out!

I also wanted to announce the winner of the $30 gift certificate to Altenew for the Altenew Die Release Blog Hop. Congratulations to:

Jamie Vanskiver

Jamie, I don't see an e-mail for you, so please e-mail me at redballooncards at yahoo dot com and I'll pass your information on to Altenew. Thank you so much for all of the really sweet comments!

Have a great day!

March Paper Smooches DT Blog Hop

Hi everyone!

It's Pep Rally week and we are here today to share a sampling of the NEW Paper Smooches April release with you! FOUR new stamps and EIGHT new dies will be available to purchase on March 31st at 8:00pm PT. Once our release goes live, you will find our new products HERE.

To add extra fun to our blog hop...we are offering up a prize! The prize - a $25 gift code to choose what you like at the PS online store. Here are the details:

• FOUR winners will be chosen at random from any of the design team blogs and the PS Blog to win the $25 prize. 
• Just leave a comment on any of the design team blogs listed above or the PS blog for your chance to win (you do not need to comment on all blogs to qualify, but it increases your chances). 
• Deadline: You have until midnight PT on Sunday, March 29th to leave a comment. 
• Please check the Paper Smooches blog on Tuesday, March 31st to see if you are one of the FOUR lucky winners. 

Here's the order of the hop:

Ashley Marcu
Emily Leiphart
JJ Bolton
Jocelyn Olson <--You are here
Kalyn Kepner
Kay Miller
Laura Bassen
Laurie Schmidlin
Michele Boyer
Pamela Ho
Teri Anderson

To increase your chance of winning:

• Tell us that you Facebooked about our blog hop (leave another comment) 
• Tell us that you Tweeted about the hop (leave another comment) 
• Tell us that you posted on your blog about our blog hop (leave another comment) 

Here's how I used the Ruffle Pleats die:

The new Ruffle Pleats die is so much fun! The die has score lines, which makes it easier to create box pleats.  Plus, if you want a longer row of pleats, you can use partial die-cutting and create a strip for a layout or packaging.

I took step-out photos of the process below:

1. I die-cut a piece of vellum (you can see the score lines) and folded the lines to create box pleats. I used a shim for die-cutting the vellum to get deeper score lines. 
2. I cut another piece of vellum and a piece of patterned paper. 
3. The vellum were temporarily held with vellum tape and then stitched in an arc to the paper. The arc fans out the pleats, although you could stitch them straight. Also, you don't have to stitch these, but if you don't I would suggest using a strong adhesive if you're going to "ruffle" the pleats.
4. For the patterned paper, I stitched through the center and loosened the pleats. Both types of stitching give a different look. :) 

I also used the Hello Words die. To finish the card, I hand-cut some American Crafts patterned papers for layering. The papers are so old, they look new again. Ha!

Here's a close-up:

Thanks for stopping by! Next up is my sweet and very talented friend Kalyn!

Supplies

Dies: (Ruffle Pleats die; sentiment from Hello Words die) Paper Smooches

Cardstock: (White Linen) Ellen Hutson; (vellum) My Favorite Things

Patterned papers: (Shoreline) American Crafts
Ink: (Taxi, Shine mists) Studio Calico

Floral Stamps Two Ways

Hi everyone! How's your week going?

I'm sharing a couple of cards over on the Altenew blog today using the Striped Florals set. Here are some sneaks:

If you want to see the cards, the post is HERE. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Altenew March Blog Hop

Hi everyone! Sorry to be so absent....I was on an 11-day work trip. Yikes! Now that I'm home, I'm trying to catch up on posts. Today, I'm participating in a special Altenew blog hop:

Yep, Altenew is releasing dies and new antique trims! Altenew is releasing 12 stamp-matching dies this month, and the antique trims include foiled frames. You can check them out in the shop HERE. To celebrate, we're having a blog hop. If you're hopping along, you should be coming from May's blog. Here's the complete list:

Altenew

May Sukyong Park 

Jocelyn Olson <-- You are here.

Marika Rahtu

Yana Smakula

Melania Deasy

I made two projects, both using the Vintage Flowers Dies. First up, a card:

Truth time: I don't stamp too many floral multi-step stamps, and therefore I don't have go-to ink combinations. So, I played around with pretty much every dye ink I own and stamped several flowers. Okay, maybe 50. ;) Here are the inks I used (all combinations are from the darkest layer to the lightest layer):

• Yellow: Hero Arts Butter Bar, Stampin Up! YoYo Yellow stamped off once, SU! Barely Banana
• Pink: Hero Arts Pale Tomato, Hero Arts Pale Tomato stamped off once, SU! Pink Pirouette
• Darker pink: SU! Strawberry Slush, Hero Arts Pale Tomato, SU! Pink Pirouette

I used the Vintage Flowers Stamps and Vintage Flowers Dies for the flowers and leaves. The dies make these flowers easy to use and are perfect for layering flowers. For the sentiment, I used the new Birthday Greetings set. In the background, I watercolored some stripes with a (ground-down) Silver Gelato.

Here's a close-up:

See the gold Vineleaf Frame? I trimmed the inner layer of the frame, and now I have a second frame for a future project. :) This frame is a pretty rich-gold color that's so popular right now.  They're great for layering, or you could add a sentiment for a CAS card.

Next, I have an altered hoop:

It's been a while since I've made a hoop, but I wanted to make one for my daughter. I used the same Vintage Flowers stamps and Vintage Flower dies for the flowers and leaves. For the sentiment, I masked off two sentiments from To the Moon.

The ink colors I used here were:

• Yellow: Hero Arts Butter Bar, Stampin Up! YoYo Yellow stamped off once, SU! Barely Banana
• Pink: My Favorite Things Razzle Berry Hybrid, Hero Arts Bubblegum stamped off once, SU! Pink Pirouette

I painted the hoop and then followed THIS tutorial for the background. Once I had the base completed, I added the die-cuts and a few embellishments. The flowers are so cheerful!

Prizes: There are two ways to win!

To celebrate this release, Altenew will draw three winners who will each receive a $30 gift certificate to their online store. Please leave a comment on the Altenew blog by Friday, March 20th 11:59pm EST for a chance to win. The winners will be announced on Saturday, March 21st.

Altenew is also offering a $30 gift certificate for comments on this blog post. For a chance to win this extra gift certificate, please leave a comment on my post by Friday, March 20th at 11:59pm.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Next up on the hop is the incredible Marika. I'm sure you're in for a treat!

Some Super Exciting News!

Hi everyone! I'm on the road this week and next, but I had to pop on to share some super exciting news I've been waiting to share (eek!):

I'm joining the Altenew Design Team! I think I nearly fell off my chair when Tasnim contacted me. Holy cow! I love their stamps! They always have such cool and new designs. Love that!

Jen and Tasnim have put together an incredible team, and be sure to check out the Altenew blog this week to see the team announcements.  :)

Thanks so much for stopping by!