Feature Friday: Concord and 9th Christmas Cheer Turnabout Stamps

Feature Friday: Concord and 9th Christmas Cheer

Hello and welcome to Concord and 9th's Feature Friday! I am so so excited to be a Guest Designer for Concord and 9th's release this month, it is such an honor. This Friday we are featuring the Christmas Cheer Turnabout Stamps and the coordinating Ribbon Banner Die. This is my first Turnabout stamp, and I love it so much!

You can use this stamp to fill the card using up to four different colors, but for my two cards today I wanted to show that you can use it using just one color and add some color to the background for a lovely background.

My first card, I stamped four times with embossing powder and heat embossed with white powder. I then used a watercolor smooshing technique to add color for a wintry background. I used distress ink colors Peacock, Salty Ocean and Seedless Preserves.

I then die cut "merry" using the die that you can get for free with a $60 purchase. I die cut it twice from white card stock and layered them up to create a bit of dimension. I then die cut the banner die from black card stock and cut one of the banners off to create one banner. Then I white heat embossed "Christmas" using a sentiment on the Christmas Cheer Turnabout Cards. I adhered them both onto the card, and added sparkly clear Nuvo Drops on top of the "merry" to create some dimension, and some pearlized Nuvo Drops to emulate snow.

For my second card, I wanted to make a card in less than 10 minutes, and this turn about stamp is perfect for that. I wanted to make a pink Christmas card, so I stamped it in a dark pink four times, and then ink blended some lighter pink on the bottom of the panel. I then filled in some of the images with varying shades of pink and red for some brighter color, and then die cut the banner dies from shimmery pink card stock and heat embossed a white sentiment from the Christmas Cheer Turnabout stamp. Added some Nuvo Drops for accents and it's done!

I hope you liked this Feature Friday and got some inspiration! Make sure to check out the other Guest Designer's too and shop this new release! Thanks so much for stopping by!

xoxo Meghan

Styling Busy Backgrounds on Cards

Styling Busy Backgrounds with Split Card Design

Hello and welcome back! Thanks so much for joining me today! Today's post will focus on how to style a card with a busy background you have created. Often times we create a beautiful background but are not quite sure how to style it or give it a good focal point. In this post, we will be focusing on type of style - there will be future blog posts that will be about different ways to style intense backgrounds.

We will be looking at two cards today - one with a bright colorful background and one with an intricate but neutral-colored background.

First up is a bright and layered background. I made this background by stamping eight layered sunflowers from the Hero Arts' September monthly kit onto white card stock. I die cut them out using the coordinating dies, and layered them over a 4 1/4 and 5/12 white piece of card stock. Any sunflower petals that overlapped from the card stock, I cut off and then used to fill in any gaps around the edges of the card as needed.

After making sure all the sunflowers were adhered securely (if you use a liquid medium, make sure it is fully dry before the next step), I cut out about 1 inch of the sunflowers in the middle of the card. I then glued the two remaining pieces onto a 4 1/4 and 5 1/2 white piece of card stock, leaving the gap I cut out in the middle. (I used the piece I cut out to create a second card!). I then cut two strips of 1/8 inch gold glitter card stock to glue up against the edge of the two sunflower pieces.

I then stamped the sentiment "sending you sunshine" from the My Monthly Hero Kit in the center of the white space. I used a small ink blending tool to blend a light aqua on the edges of the white strip for some added color. Finally, I added some Lucy's Cards gems to the center of each sunflower and on either side of the sentiment.

This style allows the sunflowers to stand out while also allowing the sentiment to be clear and uncluttered. It also gives the card a broad focal point. The next card's background is on Kraft paper with intricate white embossing. Another busy background, but more neutral and is not necessarily the main point of the card.

For my second card, I trimmed about half an inch from the top and the bottom of the panel, instead of cutting a strip from inside the card. This allows me to cut the card in half where the center of the stamp is, to act as a radiating focal point. I then glue the bottom panel to the bottom edge and the top panel to the top edge of the 4 1/4 and 5 1/2 white piece of card stock using craft foam, to give it some dimension.

I then stamped the layered flower bunch and a leaf from a SSS Stamptember collaboration with Clearly Besotted, and fussy-cut it out. I then added the flowers and leaf to right edge of the white strip to create a focal point for the card. I put a piece of foam tape behind the flower to make sure it wouldn't buckle in the mail.

I then stamped the sentiment from a SSS stamp set in black in the white strip, and addedWink of Stella and Lucy's Cards gems and sequins to the flowers and around the flowers to emphasize the focal point. I then used an ink blending tool to blend a light brown ink on the edges of the card to give the edge some definition.

This technique works well if you do not have die cut sentiments but want a busy card. There are many other techniques for busy backgrounds and I'll explore those later. I hope you liked these cards and hope you liked this design! Thanks so much for stopping by!

xoxo Meghan

Guest Designing for The Ton Stamps' October Challenge 2017

GUEST DESIGNING FOR THE TON STAMPS OCTOBER CHALLENGE

Hello! I am so excited to be the Guest Designer for The Ton Stamps' October Challenge this month, as I won the August Challenge. I absolutely adore The Ton Stamps' products, so it is a delight to make a card for this challenge!

This month's mood board is absolutely gorgeous - I love the pink and brown color combination and how lovely coffee or hot chocolate is in the Fall. I was so excited when The Ton came out with a layered carnation stamp set because I love carnations and The Fresh Cut Carnations stamp set is just gorgeous. I decided to use them to create a background and add in the butterfly image from the Hug in a Mug stamp set as a filler between the flowers.  I then blended a pale brown with an ink blender to create a vintage, autumn look on the edges of the panel.

I then added a strip of Kraft paper to help create a focal point for the cup of coffee, and placed some copper leaves from the Petal Cut Peonies Standalone Die set for some shiny neutral accents.

Finished off with some Wink of Stella accents, and some rhinestones, and this card is complete!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you play along with this month's mood board challenge!

xoxo Meghan

Introduction Post

Introducing Me and my blog

Hello! I’m so glad you’re joining me today! My name is Meghan Peterson and my Instagram account is @periwinklestudio. I started the account to document my own creative projects and to see what other creatives and artists were on Instagram. Just over a year later, I am fully immersed, and have discovered so many amazing companies and people I never would’ve heard of without Instagram. I decided to create a blog to share my projects, my techniques and my thoughts on card-making and happymail and just being a creative person. This is a very exciting and scary step, but I hope that you will follow along and will like what you see!

A little bit about myself, and then I’ll get onto my mission for my blog. I’m a 90’s baby, born and raised in Southern California to my awesome midwestern Mom and Dad. They always say I was born a Californian, but raised Midwestern. I absolutely adore the beach and the ocean but always longed for seasons as a child. So for college, I went to a school in the Northwest where the leaves changed color in the fall and snowed a little in the winter! I majored in English, minored in Economics and took as many classes as were offered in Education. I’ve volunteered in elementary school classrooms for a few years and LOVE IT. Kids are the best.

I’ve been making handmade cards since I was 3, and would hand deliver them to my friends or leave them on the table for my parents. But I didn’t really get into it as a passion until I was 9 and my friend and I made a “card stand” outside her house. For my high school Econ Fair, I sold my handmade cards to fellow students and was the most successful “business” there. I’ve been seriously into ornate cardmaking since I was in junior high, but it wasn’t until I found Instagram and the amazing products and companies and inspiration that I think I really hit my stride in card-making. I grow and get better every day and I am so thankful for that. And all because I just wanted a place to document my projects and follow talented people! I love cats and dogs equally, but have only had cats growing up. One day I hope to have a backyard big enough for a big dog (or two!). Right now I (at my parent’s house) have 2 cats, Violet and Stella Luna who just turned a year old. My boyfriend and I met at school, both in the same major but because he was older we never met in class! We met at my campus house because my housemate’s boyfriend was his suitemate. We’ll have been together 4 years this year and I am so grateful for such a kind, funny and amazing guy. We just recently moved to Oregon for him to go to law school, and I am so excited for his dreams to start coming true and helping in any way I can (besides dating me 😉).

My friends and family are my world and I believe that love, light, truth and kindness is the purpose of life. My passions include anything creatively visual – cardmaking, watercolor, mixed media, flipbooks and pocket letters and journaling. I also love creative writing and have even won some awards! I play three musical instruments, and love almost any kind of music, from Top 40 to classical to big band jazz. I don’t have much money to travel yet, but travel is so important to me – this world needs to be explored! Not just to see the beauty of nature but to understand different cultures and love all humans. I also love anything girly: make-up, clothes, shoes, etc. I love going shopping, hiking, bike riding, nature walks, taking photos, and watching the sunrise.

My Mission For This Blog:

To start off, I know that this blog will evolve and change over time. I may end up focusing on one specific thing and go deep or expand it to many topics. I hope that it will continue to get better and I will work hard to do that. But at this point in time, right now, this is my vision and purpose for my blog. I hope that you will come along with me and help tell me what you like and what you need more or less of, so that I can make this blog as helpful as I can.

Right now, my purpose is three-fold: to share my projects as potential visual ideas or inspiration; to share how I did things and share techniques; and to share my opinions and what I’ve learned about certain methods or organization or budgeting for creative supplies. I will be in a learning process about filming and editing videos so I hope to overtime deliver higher quality videos. They will be sporatic at first as I try my best to figure it out but I hope to make them more regular. I will try to share visual inspiration cards more often with many photos. And I hope to share anything I’ve learned that might help you make decisions.

I promise to never promote any product that I don’t like or use often. I hope one day to be lucky enough to be on a design team for some of these amazing companies but even then, I will only share what I really like, whether it has been given to me or not. Right now, everything I’ve bought myself (or asked for for my birthday 😉). I will disclose if any product has been given to me. If I am ever lucky enough to have affiliate links, I will disclose those too. Everything I share will be my true opinions – otherwise how can I help you with your decisions without honesty?

This mission will be posted in the My Mission section of my blog and I will update it as needed!

I hope you will come along this journey with me and that you will enjoy it! Please feel free to contact me, or comment on posts! Thanks so much for reading all of this, have a great day!