Sunshine, Flowers, and Rebirth – Celebrating Spring With a Blog Hop

Oh wow!

It’s been six months since I posted to this blog.

SIX MONTHS!!

A lot has happened in that time that I may talk about in a future blog post. For today though, I am celebrating all things Spring with some like minded crafty peeps! (no Easter puns intended!) You may be arriving here from Alice’s blog or I may be your first stop. Either way, welcome! Keep circling through all our blogs for maximum inspiration.

What does Spring mean to you?

To me it’s all about the return of the sun! Days start to get longer. The air feels warmer. The sun starts to have a bit of strength behind it. My poor neglected garden starts putting out shoots of green. And the trees slowly get that glow that indicates buds are forming.

It’s magical and I love everything about it!

The March card kit from Simon Says Stamp – while decidedly Easter themed – was a perfect foil for my Spring-like leanings.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

As soon as the blog hop was suggested I knew I wanted to pull out those Nuvo Embellishment Mousse pots and play! (Full disclosure: I only received the pink and blue  Mousse. Not sure why I didn’t get the silver, maybe they made a change after the media images were finalized. No matter, I had fun with the ones I got!)

Since my filming skills are decidedly rusty, I took a few still shots to demonstrate my process. If you Google Nuvo Embellishment Mousse or go onto the Simon Says Stamp YouTube channel, there are a TON of helpful videos showing you many other techniques for using this product. I kept things pretty straight forward.

Palette Knife Over the Stencil

The stencil is 3 x 4 ” so I cut a scrap of card stock to that size, laid the stencil on top then taped down all four sides to my work surface with washi tape so the stencil wouldn’t move around as I was applying the mousse. I very simply scooped up the mousse with the palette knife (included in the kit) and swiped it over the stencil, pushing the mousse into all the parts of the design until it was all filled. When I was done it looked something like this.

Then I pulled up the stencil to check out the results.

I wasn’t happy with this. I don’t like how the mousse bled under the stencil in some areas and how it snuck under the washi tape in one spot too! I laid this aside and tried again.

Using Your Fingers to Apply the Mousse.

This time I got messy! By using my finger to scoop up the mousse and apply it to the stencil, I got a softer look. Less dimensional too.

Much better!

While that one was drying (something that doesn’t take very long by the way), I decided to try using the applicator sponge that came in the kit. And to blend the two colours together.

Using the Applicator Sponge and Blending Colours

This was by far my most favourite method. My fingers stayed (mostly) clean, and the mousse seemed to apply more evenly. And the colours blended beautifully!

Now we’re talking!!

Does it React With Water?

I love the look of water marks and had seen one of the Simon Says Stamp designers treating the mousse like water colour paint, so I wondered if it would react like a Distress ink if I splashed water on it. This picture shows large droplets of water that I flicked onto one of my stenciled images. After taking this picture, I blotted the mousse with a paper towel to see if any of the colour would come off and leave me with a lovely faded spot.

Alas no. Ah well! Enough playing, time to put together some cards!

Card Lifting

As I’ve mentioned already, my crafting muscles are decidedly rusty right now so I thought it best to copy one of the inspiration card images included in my kit. I like to do this when I’ve taken a long break from either card making or scrapbooking. It helps remind my hands what it feels like to hold papers, match colours, accessorize, and arrange things in a pleasing manner. This first card is a direct lift from one that Heather Hoffman made.

Her card had some twine on the sentiment and no Nuvo Crystal dots, but otherwise it’s about as close as it comes to being the same card.

So, kinks eased out, it was time to think for myself!

I initially cut one of my stenciled images out by hand and kind of hated how it looked. Then I remembered that I had some oval dies! Yippee!! Also in the set were a couple scalloped border dies so I used those too.

I actually used the next biggest oval die to cut out the green pinked piece. Then I just fussy cut the pinked part into it. Love how it looks layered with my “egg”!

I do not normally go for cutesy stamps. But this bunny (and the chick in the previous card) were crying out to be stamped. I used my water colour brush to paint some of the pink Nuvo Embellishment Mousse onto the bunny then fussy cut  a few of the eggs from one of the 6×6 Lawn Fawn papers in the kit.

Spring Cards From an Easter Kit

Easter cards down I thought I’d see if I could use the kit to make some Spring cards. I had the idea of trying to use the mousse in an embossing folder to add colour and texture at the same time. If I’d had gold mousse I would have tried it with this sun rays folder, but I didn’t so I went in a different direction.

The sentiment is from an old Ali Edwards stamp set from Technique Tuesday. I used white embossing powder on pink vellum and layered a piece of green patterned paper behind it. In my stash were a ton of these paper flowers from Michael’s so I layered them up. As an afterthought I added the stamped butterflies. Kind of wish I’d used a softer colour of ink but … it is what it is!

I still wanted to try to use the mousse with an embossing folder but my attempt failed.

I put the mousse on the wrong side of the folder so the recessed portion of the design got some colour but the raised portion was untouched. Not one to give up right away, I flipped the paper over and started lightly brushing the raised portion with mousse. Not gently enough though as it looked a hot mess. SO … I rolled with it some more and covered even more of the paper with mousse. I thought I could add patterned paper and my sentiment into the centre so didn’t bother rubbing the mousse there.

Here’s my finished card.

Well, that’s not too bad for a weekend’s worth of play time, right? Thank you for visiting today. If you liked seeing me back on the blogosphere, please let me know in the comments.

For more Spring Inspiration, keep hopping over to Karen’s blog.

Thanks! Have an awesome week everyone!