Love by Mel Connell

Welcome to my very first blog post as part of the 2014 Couture Creations Design Team. 
Firstly I want to thank the Panel for choosing me to be apart of this adventure over the next twelve months, and i am so thrilled and excited to be working along side Kerrie and all the other ladies on the team this year. 

So when my Design Team kit arrived I was overwhelmed and delighted with my box full of goodies and had a hard time deciding where to start. So I went with what I loved first. I love a doily, and I love me some snow!

I pulled out some white card stock, my Couture Creations Doily die, a sheet of printed paper from Couture Creations Sew Jo 12x12 paper pad and got to work. 

Cut the printed paper down to 11.5 inches squared and distress the edges. Adhere this into the centre of your card stock with even edges all round. 

Cut your self 4-6 doily's out of white card stock. Use your Couture Creations embossing stylus to help pop all the little bits out of the centres. 

Squeeze out a bunch of the Crystalina Glitzin Glam and use a paint brush to paint this over the enitre surface of your die cut Doily's. 

Pop a bunch of the Couture Creations 3D Foam Mini Dots on the backs of all your Doily's.

Using my Glamour Days Classical die I cut myself one from heat shrink plastic. Don't forget to pop all the centres out and punch a hole at the top for a jump ring. Use your heat tool to shrink the plastic down to size. 

You can see that I have added a jump ring and a bead and included it in a cluster of embellishments in the bottom right corner of my layout. 

 Matt your photos and gather a small collections of embellishment together. 

I added my die cut doily's to my background paper, then added my photos over the top. To make them stand up I added two layers of the 12mm Couture Creation Foam Mounting Tape. I stuck a small Couture Creations Gem in Seaspray in the centre of each doily. 

I completed my layout by adding a small scattering of embellishments and right at the end just to finish off I stuck down some clusters of Couture Creations Pearls in Moonlight. 

I hope you like my first offing here on the Couture Creations Blog, please share if you followed along and created a layout inspired by mine. See you next time. 

Couture Creations Products used today are:

CO723244 Ornamental Lace Dies, Elegant Motif
CO723711 Glamour Days Inticutz Dies, Classical
CO723547 12x12 Double Sided Paper Pad, Sew Jo
CO721985 Double Sided Tape, 6mm
CO721984 Double Sided Tape, 12mm
CO721964 Foam Mounting Tape, 12mm
CO723781 3D Foam Mini Dots
CO721955 Pointed Non-Stick Scissors
CO721954 LED Precision Tweezers
CO721957 15x15 Self Healing Cutting Mat
CO7211986 Handheld Essentials 3 Pack
CO721971 Glitzin Glamour, Crystalina
CO721989 Gemstones, Seaspray
CO721998 Pearls, Moonlight

Blog give away winner.

Good Morning All, 
I bet you all thought I'd forgotten about the blog give away. I hadn't I just got caught up with life and haven't had the chance to announce the winner until now. 

So are you ready?? 

The winner of the little give away is Scrapjack! Yay. 

Thanks to everyone who popped by. 

Mel xxx

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Couture Creations 2014 Design Team Announcement.

Couture Creations 2014 Design Team.

I am so thrilled to announce that I was chosen to be apart of the Couture Creations 2014 Design Team. I am so, so, so excited about this.
Go on over to the the Couture Creations blog to follow the links to all the talented ladies that have been chosen. There is a very diverse group of styles, and something for everyone.

During the Design Team try out process, i was obviously in my craft room late into the night creating things for my Auditions. I generally have at least one helper, sometime two ( my cats), but on this particular occasion, Olive decided the best place to have a little nap was right on top of the pile of finished layouts I had done.

As I have had a fabulous week this week, I wanted to share the love a little. So I have a little give away. 
It's so simple to enter. All you have to do is leave a comment. That's it, that's all it takes. Say anything. Tell me about your day, tell me about what you would make with these goodies, tell me about your pet, anything at all. I'll draw a winner on March 15th. 

Keep checking back for new work I will be putting up. I have been doing a couple of online course which I am yet to be brave enough to share here, but i might be soon. 

Mel xxx

Couture Creations Design Team Application Round 2.

So I have a step by step tutorial today for you using both Couture Creations Embossing Folders and Dies, and Core'dinations Cardstock.

The Core'dinations Cardstock and Couture Creations Embossing Folders are a match made in heaven. As the card stock has a different colour core, once it has been embossed and then sanded the pattern from the embossing shows in a soft distressed way.

If you would like to keep up to date with all that happening and for the newest releases from Couture Creations sign up for the newsletter here, and like them on Facebook here.

If you would like to know more about Core'dinations cardstock, check out their website here.

"US" Step by Step Tutorial:

By Mel Connell

You will need: 

• Three different Couture creations Doily Dies. I have used Ivy Set Doily Dies - CO723222, Blossom Yarn - CO723114, Damaris - CO723477 and Mimi - CO723476.
• One Couture Creations Embossing Folder. I have used Large Damask Flourish - CO723449.
• 4 sheets of Core'dinations Cardstock. All the same colour. 
• 2 sheets of accent cardstock. I have used Kraft but you could use black or white also. 
• An assortment of flowers.
• one colour of embossing power to suit your colour theme. 

1. Cut 9 squares of Core'dination Cardstock at 5" square. 

2. Fold all nine squares corner to corner to create a cross through the centre of each piece. I used my bone folder to make crisp sharp folds. Open all nine pieces back out flat. 

3. Fold all four corners into the centre point. Again use your bone folder to get sharp folds. Repeat on all nine pieces.

4. Place each folded pice inside your embossing folder and run through your machine to emboss. Emboss all nine folded pieces of cardstock. 

5. With some sand paper, sand over the embossed design. The top layer of the Core'dinations cardstock will come away and reveal the inside colour. Sand all nine pieces. Sand the side with all the folds only. The back doesn't need to be done.

6. With some craft glue add a small drop on the inside tip of each folded flap of cardstock. When gluing down, push the card away from the centre point slightly so the cardstock creates a small pillow. Hold in position for a second until the glue grips. Repeat this for all four flaps on each piece of card stock. Do all nine squares. In the third picture here I have put a black marker dot to show you the centre and how the tips are set back slightly when glued in place.

7. From one sheet of your accent cardstock cut a square 11 1/4". glue or double side tape all nine pillows into the centre of this square. You should have a small board around all four sides. 

8. Border Punch around the outside of your remaining piece of Core'dinations cardstock and adhere in the centre your pillow piece. 

9. Add some adhesive bling or gem brads to the centre of each pillow. 

10. From the second sheet of accent cardstock, cut your self three doily's and three flourishes using your Couture creations dies. 

11. Heat emboss the three flourishes. I coat each piece and heat set twice to give a thick smooth finish. 

12. Mat your photos with the accent cardstock. Adhere into place on your layout background, your photos and the three doily die cuts. 

13. Adhere into place your selection of flowers and sprays.

14. Adere your three Heat embossed flourishes onto your layout. 

15. Add your title, any smaller supplementing words and embellishments as required. 

I do hope you enjoyed my little tutorial. I'd love to hear from you if you created your own page following these steps. 

Don't forget if you would like to keep up with Couture Creations latest releases and all the gorgeous creations that are on their blog, sign up for their newsletter and like them on Facebook. Links at at the start of this post. 

Couture Creations 2014 Design Team Audition.

Good Evening All,

Welcome to my Audition blog post for the Couture Creations Design Team.

I have a couple of projects that I have created using some of Couture Creations gorgeous Dies, and also some of their embossing folders coupled with some easy, but effective techniques.

So here we go....... I have long been a die junkie ( as my close scrappy friends know) but have been in awe of the Couture Creations dies that I have. They cut so amazingly well, and with such fine detail they are just beautiful.

The die cuts on this layout are simply cut from car stock in black and white. The Couture Creations dies left a very crisp finished edge on all the cuts.

Couture Creation Dies used: Celestial Doily Die- CO723220, Ivy Set Doily Die - CO723222, Heirlooms - CO723490.

I have cut all the die pieces out of black card stock for this layout but have used some silver building wax to highlight the embossing on the scallop circle and the Celestial die cut.

Couture Creations dies and embossing folders used: Celestial Doily Die - CO723220, Damaris - CO723477, Mimi - CO723476, Bossa - CO72501,  Large Damask Flourish - CO723449.

Couture Creations Die used: Tattered Lace Doily Die - CO723223.

I used the Couture Creations Embossing folder to emboss foil tape and then layered up washes of acrylic paint over it, then sanded it back to give this a weathered tin feel.

Couture creations dies and embossing folder used: Marant - CO723505, Mimi - CO723476, Large Damask Flourish - CO723449.


I do hope you like them, please stop by the Couture Creations Website to see the full range of beautiful dies and embossing folders that they have to offer. You won't be disappointed.