A Touch of Grace

Moving along in my bridal series I’d like to share my flower girl, she’s just so adorable to me.  The image is from Inque Boutique’s Flutter By, Butterfly, such a beautiful set, I just love it! I haven’t provided a link to Inque Boutique because the company has been sold and I don’t know who the new owners are.  I did read Stephanie Bernard’s blog and I’m so very sorry the new owners chose not to have Stephanie come on board, that will most definitely be their loss.  I met Stephanie at CHA in July and she is totally adorable. 

I stamped the flower girl twice, colored both images, and placed one on top of the other for dimension. The images were cut out using a craft knife.   I placed her on dimensionals again and adhered her to the card.  The butterflies are from Kitchen Sink Stamps and are on dimensionals as well.  All images were colored with Prismacolored pencils.  I added Dazzling Diamonds to the dress for added sparkle.  The little bow on the front of the dress was colored twice and placed on dimensionals as well.  It doesn’t show in the photograph, but this card has a lot of dimension. 

• Stamps:  Inque Boutique; Kitchen Sink Stamps, SU (sentiment)
• Paper:  SU DP, Whisper White, Basic Black, Carol’s Rose Cottage DP
• Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black
• Accessories:  Dazzling Diamonds, Dimensionals, craft knife, silver cord, Cuttlebug tag, Hero Arts bling, Lavender Moon Ribbon (Papertrey, Ink), small circle punch (for tag)

I’d like to share some of my favorite tools with you.

I recently purchased this Glue Glider Pro and absolutely love it.  Years ago I purchased an ATG gun and tried unsuccessfully to use it.  It was just way too heavy and bulky.  It was also very difficult for me to load the refills.  Although the ATG gun is a wonderful tool, it just didn’t work for me in card making.  When I saw this tool, it reminded me of the ATG gun so I decided to give it a try.  Boy am I glad I did!  Living in Florida the humidity factor is really difficult with a lot of the adhesives on the market, they don’t adhere well; not so with this little gem.  It’s lightweight, easy to use, never skips, goes on rather smoothly . . . needless to say I was instantly smitten and wrote to my friend, Joan, and advised that I had found the adhesive of my dreams.  Joan now carries the Glue Glider in her store, Joan’s Gardens, as well as the refills.  And this little tool won’t set you back an arm and a leg, it’s very affordable . . . another bonus!  I’ve taken a picture of a refill, please excuse my poor photography, but I think you get the gist of what it looks like.

In a previous post, I used the Perfect Layers tool to show how I place layers/panels on my cards perfectly and have gotten a few questions regarding that tool so I thought I would share it with those of you who are not familiar with it.  Stampin’ Up! no longer carries it in their catalog.  So for those of you who have it and have never used it . . . LOL . . . maybe this will help. 

I’ve taken some close ups to show the different size panels that can be made.  My favorite is 1/16″ and since most dies don’t come lower than 1/8″, this is a perfect tool for me.  As you can see from the close ups, the measurements start at 1/16″ and go up to 5/8″.  There are lips on both sides of the tools giving you up to 8 options in size. 

It’s very easy to use once you get the gist of it.  You lay your photo or panel on a cutting board and choose the measurement you want to use, in my case it’s usually 1/16″.  Lay the tool down on top of the image and abut the lip to the edge of the image and then use a craft knife to make the cut.  You’ll definitely want to use a cutting mat when using this tool.  I always tape my image down with a non-tacky tape so it doesn’t slip when I’m cutting.  I get perfect layers every time.

Oops, excuse my fingerprints  . . . LOL . . . well at least you can tell that I do use this tool alot!  This photo shows that I have punched a large tag from my SU punch.  Now if I want to go even larger all I have to do is tape down the punched tag, line up the tool on the left side of the tag and catch it on the lip.

As you can see in this photo, I’m working around the tag, cutting all the sides by lining up the tool on the edge of the tag abutting up to the lip.

And here is the finished tag.  It looks slightly off at the top, but that’s only the angle of the photo, I tried to get perfectly over the tag for the shot, but couldn’t, I had to come in at a slight angle.  With the perfect layers tool, I can make take any punch, as long as it as straight sides, and make whatever size I want.  I could go on and on building up the size, a punch or die can’t do that!  And that’s why I love this tool!