Art with Heart Colour Creations Showcase - #47 Smoky Slate

Smoky Slate with Hand Penned Petals

Hello. Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and the 47th Colour Creations Showcase by members of the Art with Heart Team. After tonight, we have 3 colours plus the new In Colours to complete our showcase of Stampin' Up!s amazing collection of colours.

This week we are showcasing a versatile colour, Smoky Slate. It is a light grey and as one of the Neutrals Colour Family, it is able to be used with so many other colours and in various ways. I love grey with pink so have chosen this as my colour combination to showcase Smoky Slate.

Smoky Slate has been produced in Stampin' Up!'s card-stock, both A4 & 12"x12"; Classic Stampin' inks (ink pads & re-inkers); Stampin' Write Markers; Stampin' Blends, Designer Series Paper including the In Good Taste DSP; and the new Smoky Slate Textured Ribbon.

As I was planning for tonight's blog hop, I wanted to use one of the new bundles from the newly launched 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue. I so love the sketchy nature of the Hand Penned Petals stamp set and the coordinating dies are delightful. I also wanted to use one of the Scalloped Contour dies as I wasn't pleased with the project I blogged last week and felt I hadn't shown these dies well - I wanted to redress it this week. Having made a start, I separately watched a replay of Emma Goddard's Sunday night Facebook live. One of Emma's layouts was similar to what I had in mind. I'd like to say "great minds think alike" however, I don't put myself in Emma's league. I did think of changing tack but my week has gone somewhat haywire and time was limited so decided to CASE a couple of other elements of Emma's card by adding some blending and stamping to the background as well as the positioning of the ribbon. Thanks Emma for your inspiration. You are amazing.

As mentioned, to create the background for the card front some Soft Succulent Classic Stampin' ink was applied with a Blending Brush to the centre of a piece of Basic White card-stock. A little stamping also was added using stamped-off Soft Succulent Classic Stampin' ink. This panel was then dry embossed using the Tasteful Textile 3D embossing folder. At the same time the top Basic White panel was similarly embossed.

The Basic White background panel was adhered to the Smoky Slate card base. A mid size Scalloped Contour die was used to cut a Smoky Slate panel. The slightly smaller embossed white panel was adhered directly to the scalloped contour panel.

The floral spray from the Hand Penned Petals stamp set was stamped twice onto Basic White card-stock in Smoky Slate Classic Stampin ink. The stamped floral sprays were coloured with Stampin' Up!s amazing Stampin' Blends. The colours used were: Smoky Slate, Soft Succulent & Petal Pink combos and a touch of Light Polished Pink. I am delighted that all of the new In Colours have coordinating Stampin' Blends - I can see more colouring in the future. The 3 larger flowers were fussy cut from one  spray while the other floral spray was cut out using the coordinating die.

The 3 larger flowers were hand shaped and adhered to the full spray, with a little glue at the centre. A piece of gorgeous Soft Succulent Open Weave ribbon was tied around the centre panel ending in a bow. Then the coloured flower spray was adhered on top with Dimensionals. The whole panel was added to the centre of the card background with Dimensionals.

To finish the card front design a sentiment from the same stamp set was stamped in Smoky Slate ink onto a scrap of Basic White card-stock. It was fussy cut into 2 pieces and adhered with a mix of tiny pieces of Dimensionals and Multipurpose Liquid Glue. My fingers felt HUGE as I tried to layer tiny pieces of Dimensionals - looking at the sentiment I had chosen I had to keep saying to myself "anything is possible"! Some In Colour Soft Succulent Jewels were the finishing touch. These jewels are amazing.

To create the card inner, the floral spray was stamped in the corner in Smoky Slate ink and a little Soft Succulent ink was lightly blended at the edges. The C6 Basic White Envelope was decorated in the same way.

Thank you so much for visiting Valley Inspirations with Andrea. I loved creating this card to share with you. I hope you like it too.

As mentioned, Stampin' Up's 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue was launched this week. If you are in Australia and don't already have a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and you would like your own copy of the Catalogue then let me know and I will be delighted to send one to you.

Catherine Proctor is our delightful host of the Art with Heart Colour Creations Showcase. If you haven't finished visiting all of the team's colour creations, you can visit/revisit Catherine's page at What Cathy Made, where she hosts the links to the participating blogs so you can find everyone's Smoky Slate creations. Checking out everyone's creations and their interpretation of the amazing Stampin' Up! colours is always a treat and I am sure there will be inspiring Smoky Slate projects on show.

I hope to see you again next week when members of the team share projects that hero So Saffron from the SU Subtles Colour family.

Stay well, stay safe and be kind to yourself and others.

Andrea 💕🐾