The Ton Stamps Spring Release- Day 3

Hellooooo! Welcome back to day 3 of The Ton's Spring Release! What did you think of those peonies yesterday, eh?? Totally swoon-worthy, right?! Well, today we have some absolutely fabulous sets to show you. Some really inventive, gorgeously scripty sentiment sets. I unfortunately did not (again, due to some unforeseen issues that came up this past weekend) have enough time to properly play with these incredible sets, but I'll show you what I have and save my other ideas for a rainy day. :) Today, we're showing you the NEW Bokeh Burst line: Bokeh Burst Round, Bokeh Burst Heart, and Bokeh Burst Star. (I am so totally and completely in love with this idea. Effie is a genius!) We also have the amazing new Brushed series to show you: Brushed Hello, Brushed Happy, and Brushed Thanks. These are so gorgeous. And lastly, we have a new floral cling background to show you: Floral Border. Let's get started with the projects, shall we?

This first project is suuuuper simple using Bokeh Burst: Heart. I have plans for using them as they were intended, but I wanted to do something a little simpler for my first project. To start, I stamped that incredible brushed "love" using the darkest shade from The Orchid Collection of Couture Color ink. Next, I used the various sizes of hearts included in the Bokeh Burst: Heart stamp set to create a kind of ethereal trail of hearts that are concentrated on the bottom, both in the dark shades of ink and the size of the hearts. Tip: to make your ink go farther, as well as create that ethereal faded look, stamp off once or twice to get a lighter shade of the same color of ink. To achieve that bokeh look, I stamped off on a sheet of scratch paper for some of the hearts, as well as overlapping some of the hearts to make it look more random. I popped up the panel on a white card base, then added some Glossy Accents over the top of the calligraphic "love" sentiment. That's it! Super clean and simple, but so pretty, I think. 

This next project is a favorite. I love blush colored anything, and blush colored peonies are so very very beautiful.I started with some of the new Loose Peonies stamps and heat embossed all of the flowers and leaves included in the set using gold embossing powder on watercolor card stock. I watercolored them all using a super pale pink Zig marker, a paint brush, and water. My next step was to heat emboss the gorgeous scripty "love" from Bokeh Burst: Heart onto some vellum. I fussy cut it, then arranged my Loose Peonies in a bouquet and adhered them down on a dark heather green card base. (I love the contrast of the super pale flowers with that dark card base!) I used some matte adhesive to adhere my vellum sentiment down. The last step was to adhere some pretty sequins (Peach Whisper and Pastel Pink) to fill out the bouquet.  

This next card is one of my favorites from the entire release. It's so happy and festive... I have been really enjoying this color combination of late, and in my head (well, now on my blog) I've been calling it my "fiesta" color combo. Now, one of the fabulous things about the new Brushed series is that the sentiments are utterly massive. I have always loved handwriting. I think I have pretty nice penmanship, but when it comes to calligraphy, for some reason... I'm hopeless. With the Brushed series, I can get that gorgeous hand-drawn calligraphy look without agonizing over each stroke and giving myself carpal tunnel. One technique that I really love to do with scripty sets like this is to make it look like I wrote the sentiment myself. To do this, I simply stamp my sentiment from Brushed: Happy using Distress Ink (in this case, Wild Honey), then go over it with a wet paintbrush. I took it one step further with this project by adding some shadows of a darker orange in Spiced Marmalade. Doing this makes it appear that you have those enviable calligraphic skills, but in actuality you're a big faker. Teehee! The floral spray from Happiest of Peonies was stamped at various angles all over the edges of the A2 watercolor panel using a very pale gray ink. I then used my Zigs to color and shadow the flowers. The final step was to take a super pale gray (you can't see it as well in the photo as you can in real life) Zig marker and outline both the "Happy" and the flowers. This last step seems unnecessary, but it really adds such a huge impact and makes all of the elements pop off of the paper. 

My last project for today uses the new Floral Border Cling stamp. This stamp is sized just slightly larger than an A2 card, so you get perfect coverage. I stamped and heat embossed it using silver pearl embossing powder onto watercolor paper (my favorite right now is Montval by Canson), then colored in all of the blooms using my Zigs (surprise, surprise). I stamped my greeting, from Sending Peonies, in Noir ink, then used the Double Stitched Rectangle dies to cut out the rectangle from the center. (These double stitched dies from The Ton are my first double stitched dies, and I have to say, I'm totally hooked. I love that I can get a useable die cut from both the positive and the negative spaces of my die cut.) I popped up my outer frame on my card base using dimensional adhesive, then glued my interior rectangle directly to the card base itself. The last step was to add a few Glass Slipper sequins. 

That's all for me today! Now, for the details of the GIVEAWAY! Effie is giving away FOUR $15 gift certificates. Be sure to comment on The Ton's Blog as well as on each of the Design Team's blogs to get maximum entries to win!! Have a fantastic day, and enjoy the rest of the DT's projects! They're works of art in card form.