Rae's May Projects

Hello, everyone! It's Rae with you today, sharing my May projects, including one with the amazing new BFS paper collection, Ombre Dreams!

"Sunshine after Rain" Card

I have used up nearly all of my Blue Fern Garden paper! In fact, when I made this card, I only had a mound of scraps to work with, so I decide to tear up some strips and make this layered design. 

I used some small Spring Iris chipboard pieces that I cut up. I usually prime my chipboard with gesso, but I decided to use white chalk ink, and it created a dull effect when I added some green paint. 

To treat this Petite Window, I used Martha Stewart crackle effect medium. Once it was dry, I added some light brown distress ink for a worn look to blend in with the rest of the card's tone. 

  Altered Notebook

I like to keep a notebook handy so I can jot down any scrappy ideas I have throughout the day. I was in need of a new one, and wanted to add some Blue Fern chippies to this canvas journal to make sure it looked AWESOME!

I just ADORE the Petite Windows! This is another from the set. I used the same technique I used on the window I put on the card. This time I added a cherub button I had in my stash.

Here's a close up of the Wild Flourish Bundle. I used one of my favorite techniques where I prime the chipboard with a heavy coat of gesso, and sprinkle with various embossing powders, making sure to leaves some of the gesso untouched, then dry with a heat gun. Once dry, I add different shades of mists, saturating the chipboard, and drying again with a heat gun to dry the "pools" of mists.

"Sunshine" Layout

I am so in love with the Ombre Dreams paper! I love the array of colors! When I saw the blues and purples, I knew I wanted to use those first, and add some grey for a pretty vintage look.

This layout is based on the May sketch.

Here's a close up of the bottom left corner. I used some silver metallic paint and black chalk ink on the bird cage from the Veranda Cage Set.

I painted the title, "Sunshine," from The Optimist Word Set with gesso and Glimmer Glam.

The purple damask shape is a negative piece from the Damask Panel that I traced on the Joyce's Dream paper, then cut and sanded onto the panel piece.

I used gray chalk ink and several colors of Silks acrylic glaze paints on the Spring Frame. I covered up the flowers with dimensional flowers, and added some blue pearls to the scallops.

Thanks for checking out my projects today!

Rae

WINNERS of our Ombré Dreams GIVEAWAY!!

I'm sure you've all been anxious to find out who were the winners of our Ombré Dreams Giveaway- but we didn't make you wait long {aren't we nice?!}. 

Today we are very happy to announce that FOUR lucky individuals will be receiving a complete collection of our gorgeous and well-received new paper line! Thank-you to everyone who entered, shared, followed, spread the word, and left such supportive and sweet comments regarding Ombré Dreams. We're so happy you like it!

Let's announce some winners now, shall we??

CONGRATS TO.......

#69 Wendy Williams Orme

#134 adziamar

#22 Theresa Petermann

#87 Jaya Raghuvanshi

***Please email me {erin@bluefernstudios.com} within 7 days to claim your prize!!***

Congrats to our lucky winners!

And thank-you once again to all who took part in our giveaway :)

Home decor using Chipboard- by Keren Tamir

Keren here today for you again on the Blue Fern Studios blog.

One of the things I love about chipboard is how versatile it is. You can create so many different projects and ideas. You can alter it and incorporate it to so many types of designs.

I really love experimenting with new ideas on how to incorporate chipboard into off the page projects and home decor and that's what I've done below in both my projects.

A Perfect Moment

- Shadow Box Frame -

Recently I created two identical canvases using these images of my children picking seashells from the sand. I gave away both canvases as mother's day gifts so I decided to create a new project with the same photos to hang up on my wall. 

The Seaside Treasures and the Seaside Seashells were the perfect chipboard pieces to use for this sandy beach scenery. I used all the different types of seashells and the corals from the sets.

Each shell was covered with two different shades of crackle paint. This allowed the shells to look more realistic. I used some real shells and sand that I collected during my trip, too.

The Coral shaped chipboard from the Seaside treasures set was covered in Shimmerz Texturez to create coral that is similar in texture and colour to the real one.

I used two little chipboard birds that are perched on each side of the shadow box. I inked them in brown fluid chalk ink.

Finally I used two clouds from the cloudy skies set and thickly covered them in white Dazzlerz to make them look like clouds. I edged them in brown ink to create a shadow.

The chipboard title was inked with two shades of fluid chalk ink, 

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Enjoy the Journey

- Door Hanger -

The second home decor piece I created was a Door Hanger for my scrap room. 

The project started as a tag but then I realized how cool it would be if I could use it as a door hanger for my door. That's why I attached two pieces of twine to the back.

I used two papers out of the Blue Fern Garden collection: Love Letters and Timeless.

The Grand Balloon was used as the main focus of this project. I primed it with gesso and then painted it with Shimmerz paint. Then I stamped it in black using a script stamp. Finally I inked it in two different colours of fluid chalk edgers: blue jeans and summer field.

I applied the same treatment to the title enjoy the journey. However once I had inked it, I rubbed some of the ink off to give it a worn out look.

So next time you give tags to people for a celebration or simply for any occasion, you could add a piece of string or twine in the back. That way people could display your beautiful tag by hanging it on a door or on the wall instead of it just going in a drawer.

How is that for a practical use?

Hope you enjoyed my home decor creations today.

Have a wonderful day!!!

Keren

The Colors of Blues and Browns by Joyce

Greetings everyone, this month I found inspiration in the colors of the blues and browns found in the Blue Fern Garden papers.

The Love Letters Paper was used on this layout:

Most of the flowers in the layout were made with a die cut and the Parlour paper,  the bike surrounded by the flowers near the photo is the Penny Farthing cycle chipboard.

 

Here's a little mixed media tag using the Signature paper as the base, with lost of stamping and gesso on top of the reverse side of the paper which was then torn into strips. The little fussy cutting ribbon came from the Calling Cards paper. The Apothecary jar was treated with some white paint, fiber paper, and blue mist applied with a fine paint brush, then it was placed on top of one of the many Ever After Frames.

And, finally here's a greeting card using one of the Calling Cards, applied on top of the back side of the Parlour paper.  The little humming bird was treated with white paint, script stamp, and some blue mist.

 

Thank you for stopping by and allowing me to share my design team creations with you.  I'll be seeing you again on June 17th with some creations from the new Blue Fern Studios Ombre Dreams paper collection. 

Save Those Punch-Outs Tutorial

Hello, Blue Fern fans! Jackie here today with a little tutorial about using those little bits of chipboard you might normally recycle.

I don't know about you, but as soon as I get an order of chipboard, I tend to punch out the little extra bits of chipboard. The pieces that I don't think will find use as design features on a one of my projects I put into a Ziploc bag to be used to add height in my layering later on. Those that I feel I will use go into another bag. But recently I've started looking at those castoff pieces in a different light, as parts of a whole.

Take the Garden Window set.

You might normally punch out the flourishes and set them aside (I did), but they make wonderful additional details to your piece.

If you are planning on reassembling your chipboard pieces, you want to be sure to use media that will just coat the top of the piece and not cause the sides to change dimension. For this reason I chose to use embossing enamel rather than paint.

I prefer my embossing ink in a dabber so that I have better control of where it goes (using either the dabber top or by removing the top and painting the ink on).

Cover your main piece with one colour of embossing enamel and heat emboss.

The white is pretty stark, so once it had cooled I went in with several colours of chalk ink to add some depth, making sure to heat set each colour before I added the next.

 I then heat embossed the insert pieces in a different colour of embossing enamel.

Here's what the finished piece looks like:

And my layout:

Some closeups:

From the Heart Set, misted.

A piece from the Shabby Brick Panel, treated in the same way as the Garden Window.

I love the shutters that go with the Garden Window - they seem very Old World to me. I've added the sprigs from the All Natural Set, treated with the same colour embossing enamel as the punch outs for some continuity and to give the impression of a window box. The "Click" is from the Picture Perfect Set.

The masking on the Parlour paper from Blue Fern Garden was done using Ceramic Stucco, which gives amazing texture and accepts other media beautifully - I coloured mine with mists and chalk ink.

I love the way chipboard pieces add so much interest to your flower clusters.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope that you'll start looking at those little throwaway bits of chipboard in a new light!

Watching YOU Put Our Designs to Work!

We've been on the search once again for projects around the web featuring our products...and like any good treasure hunt, we came up with riches! SO many gorgeous samples out there to choose from; we're absolutely blown away by the beautiful talent that has taken our designs and created such incredible things!

Here's a sampling of what we dug up:

Alain Grinchuk

 Caroleanne Wright

Debby Lewis

Elena Smoktunova

Kim Arledge

Marimari

Sandi Clarkson

 Tracy Christine Funk

Absolute pure gorgeousness!!

Thank-you wonderful ladies SO much for sharing your inspiration with us, and for loving our products as much as we do :)

If YOU would like to be featured in our monthly "WATCH" post, be sure to upload your projects to our gallery {HERE}; include a blog link too so we can make sure everyone else can find you! Thanks so much and we wish you a beautifully creative day!