Winging it with hand-dyed ribbons for a pretty little gift!

Today I would like to share with you a little gift set I have made using Stampin' Up!'s Watercolor Wings stamp set. The folded pouch holds four 3x3" cards and envelopes and is made with the new Envelope Paper in Mint Macaron. I think it would make an ideal teacher thank you gift or even a nice little birthday present and it is very quick to make:

I used Mint Macaron and Perfect Plum. I love this colour combination. I used the same two colours in my covered notebooks that I showed you in my recent Pinkies Blog Hop post.

As Stampin' Up! do not have any Perfect Plum ribbons, I decided to dye some of the Whisper White Organza Ribbon and Whisper White Bakers' Twine with a few drops of Perfect Plum Ink Refill ink and a tiny bit of water. I placed about a dozen drops of the ink into a small plastic pot, added about a tablespoon of tap water and then coiled the ribbon and twine into the liquid, making sure that it was all submerged by using a bamboo barbecue skewer to dunk it under the surface! (You could use a cocktail stick, but I hadn't got any left!) I left it for a few minutes to let the ink to soak in, then removed it and pegged it to my washing line to dry in the sunshine. 

The ribbon came out a bit paler than I wanted for this particular project, so I decided to use my Perfect Plum Ink Pad to add a bit more ink to it. I placed one end of the ribbon on the ink pad and held a small acrylic block over it with one hand, whilst gently and slowly pulling the ribbon with my other hand, until the ink covered all the ribbon. Be warned - you will get inky fingers doing this, however careful you are (my fingers looked like I had been picking blackberries afterwards!) and you will need to allow plenty of drying time before you use the ribbon on your project, too. I do love how you can make bespoke ribbons and twines this way though. It is worth the wait, do give it a go!

Here are a few more photographs of the gift set and the cards inside it:

I do love the versatility of the Watercolor Wings stamp set - the butterflies are so beautiful. I really like how the four butterflies above look so different, despite only two ink pads being used. I stamped off the ink first on my grid paper, before stamping some of the layers and then used direct stamping on other layers. This gives a fantastic range of tones of the same colour - thus showing that you can still get a variety of effects even if you don't yet have many ink pad colours in your craft stash! It doesn't look like only two colours have been used, does it?

I like how you can see the lovely wood grain pattern on the inside of the gift pouch in the last photograph too. If you haven't yet bought the Envelope Paper, I can highly recommend it. I have used it a lot - and I must confess I've not even made an actual envelope with it yet! Ooer! It is hugely versatile and a bargain at only £5.50 (7,50€) for twenty 12x12" (30.5x30.5cm) sheets. It is strong-enough to be scored and folded, but is a slightly lighter-weight than our regular Designer Series Paper.

Well, that is it for today, do leave me a comment. I am wondering if you would like to see a step-by-step tutorial for making the above folded gift pouch? If I get enough response I will do one for you all to see.

Until next time, happy crafting everyone!

Lucy x

ONLY FOUR DAYS LEFT to get yourself TWO FREE STAMP SETS with your starter kit - so hurry or you will miss out! Click here or on the photograph below, to find out how: Offer ends this Tuesday, 30th June 2015.

Watercolor Wings decorated notebooks for another Pinkies Blog Hop!

Thank you for joining us on another Pinkies Blog Hop! We're showcasing lots of gorgeous projects using products from the new Stampin' Up!® Annual Catalogue. Simply use the buttons at the end of each post to keep hopping!

Thank you if you have joined me from Sarah's blog - what lovely ideas!

I have totally fallen head over heels with the Watercolor Wings stamp set - I am a huge fan of butterflies and the two-step layered butterflies in this set are just beautiful. I love their slightly sketchy, textured look and have discovered that there are endless ways of combining ink colours to produce a myriad of designs.

Today, however, I am keeping it simple and using just two colours in my projects: Perfect Plum and the new Mint Macaron. I adore how these two colours go so beautifully together. Come and see what I have done with them:

I decided to decorate two hardback notebooks by covering them with some of the Mint Macaron Envelope Paper, stuck down with Fast Fuse (so quick and easy to do!). I then stamped a large butterfly directly onto the larger book's cover with the larger butterfly layer pieces from the stamp set. I cut out a filigree butterfly from Perfect Plum cardstock with the Butterfly Thinlits using my trusty Bigshot (and a bit of wax paper to release it easily) and applied tiny dots of Tombow glue to the back of it to stick it down securely:

For the smaller notebook I used my Chalk Talk Framelits to make a double-layered label, wrapped a little of the gorgeous Mint Macaron 1" (2.5cm) Dotted Lace Trim around it, overlapping two pieces ever so slightly to make it appear wider. I then stamped one of the smaller butterflies from Watercolor Wings onto Whisper White cardstock, cut it out with the Butterflies Thinlits' smallest butterfly shape and then adhered it to the ribbon with Stampin' Dimensionals:

I think it looks really pretty, don't you? A good mix of vintage and feminine whilst still being clean and simple.

This last photograph shows the inside of the larger notebook. I decided to stamp the inside cover with the words "There is nothing in the caterpillar that tells you it is going to be a butterfly" taken from the Butterfly Basics Stamp Set. I also stamped some of the stylised flowers from that set onto the first page of the book and the front cover too, to keep it from being too plain! I love how these two stamp sets and the two butterfly thinlits sets coordinate so beautifully. Even better is that they are available in bundles with a 15% saving - thank you Stampin' Up! for that!

That's it for today, don't forget that you can get two FREE stamp sets if you join my team before the end of June 2015, I welcome both hobbyists and business-minded stampers and am happy to help answer any questions you may have about how to join and what to expect. If you join my team you will also come under the umbrella of the Pinkies team and together we offer a huge pool of knowledge, experience, inspiration, ideas  and friendship. I love being a demo and being a Pinkie too is the cherry on top of that!

Thank you for taking the time to view my post today, please click on the images below to hop onwards to the next person, Christa's, blog, or, back towards Sarah's.

Hope you come back to see me again soon:  next week I will have another project to show you, using the same colours and stamps that I have used today' to make a pretty gift set of cards which would make an ideal teacher thank you present! 

Until next time, happy crafting everyone!

Lucy x