book

A SHADOW BOX BOOK AND PRESSED PANSIES

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Brandi Kincaid’s Shadowbox Die is such a well-thought out concept; the extra elements for foiling or die cutting a cover label and for foiling the page grooves is brilliant! I ran out of time as I was generating the samples for this release to get to a foiled version, but I’m dying to do it—you’ve got to see how Emily Leiphart foiled her samples. Just stunning!

Sometimes, a monochromatic card is all you need—a little bit of ink blending, masked off in the lower left corner, makes a subtle backdrop for the flowers and sentiment stamped in a darker, more intense hue—the ink blending was done in a combination of Oxide Tattered Rose and Catherine Pooler Bellini and the focal images were stamped with Oxide Spiced Marmalade.

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For this one, I brayered a backdrop starting with Oxide Tattered Rose, then continued with Catherine Pooler Bellini—where the Bellini ink overlapped back onto the Tattered Rose left a different variation of color that I just love! It looks like I used another color of ink, but nope! I finished along the bottom with that Concord & 9th Stardust I adore so much! The sentiment was stamped with C9’s Midnight, which is a rich navy blue and the florals were white embossed onto vellum card stock. I have had great luck using Mini Glue Dots to glue vellum down; when an image has been embossed, there are usually several spots where you can place the glue dots that will be pretty much concealed—I think you’d need a microscope to tell! LOL!

Wrapped those two pieces with my favorite twine, and then popped it up onto a vanilla card base. Turned out dreamy!

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Here’s the front cover of my Shadowbox Book—I used the beautiful hot foil stamp to actually die cut that lovely, leafy label into the cover (quarter sheet of C9 Stardust).

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I used colored pencils to color in the pansies, and as I was assembling everything, realized how cool it would be to have those popped up on a strip of clear plastic; when the card is closed, they lie flat, but as you open the card and the shadow box pops up, so do the flowers because the strip is attached at each end behind the frame of the window. You could certainly just use card stock for that strip, but I love how the acetate just blends in and does not become obtrusive to the overall design.

Want to know a surprising fact about me (the girl who doesn’t like to cook and rarely bakes)? When my daughter was wee little (i.e. 3-6 yrs. old), I’d put together tea parties for her, with vintage china and tea service trays and little finger sandwiches, etc. I went the whole 9 yards with prom dresses, heels, gloves and tiaras I’d found at second hand stores. And, I also kept pots of violas and pansies. I would sugar the violas and pansies and place them atop little cupcakes, covered with a cream cheese frosting . . .

Brandi’s Pressing Thoughts brings back such sweet and happy memories for me . . .

Hope you are having a beautiful day and thanks so much for popping in.