Floating Florals

Hey guys! I'm back after a month's hiatus. I really didn't mean to be gone that long, but sometimes you need a social media break, especially with everything going on in the world today. That and getting accustomed to a new 'normal' with the kids not being in school, husband being laid off, and focusing on crafting crafting crafting (and occasionally writing).
That being said, I hope to combine the two now that I have so many items to showcase.
I found this wonderful technique from the amazingly talented Jennifer McGuire. Her tutorial can be found here: https://www.jennifermcguireink.com/2018/12/floating-die-cut-frames.html
and though I don't know her personally, or professionally, I have followed her awhile now and I completely blame her for my new obsession with the company Altenew (and most others I haven't heard of and now need ALL their products!)
So not only did I get myself these Totally Tropical stamp and die sets, but I just had to CASE this technique for myself.

The awesome thing about this technique is that, though it can be a bit tedious, you can make a bunch of cards at once, and with the floating technique, you can also do an outer frame and inner piece and get 2 cards for one.
The stamp set is a layered set and I used different color families for each flower. I found this part the most tedious, each floral had at least 3 layers and I did a bunch at once to make a lot of cards. I believe this netted me 5 frames which, in turn, became 10 cards. To stamp that many flowers, especially when they are layers, it's best to have a stamping tool. I have a Stamperatus from Stampin' Up! and I know a lot of people use and swear by Misti.  If you don't have one of these tools, I would highly recommend that being your next purchase. It was so easy to line up each layer and just stamp, rotate the page, stamp, rotate. Then you line up the next layer and stamp, rotate ect. Then going ahead and cutting each piece out with my Big Shot. Again, for ease you could always scan and cut if you have one of those machines. When it comes to stamps with dies, I really like doing it the old fashioned way myself. So long as I don't have to fussy cut!
Now that we are done with the most time consuming part, we head into the more intricate part. Using a 4.25 x 5.5 base (or smaller if you wanted to layer it- mine are 3.75x5), you then take the pieces that you've cut out, cover the entire base with out overlapping any of the pieces. This is where it gets fun, and tricky.
You'll need a kitchen item- Glad Press and Seal NOT cling wrap, but the press and seal (its important). Press a piece of Press and Seal over your piece/base combo, carefully so as to not shift the pieces too much. Press all over and hard enough so you are sticking it to the pieces and the base. Then trim the overage (the Press and seal and all the pieces that hang over the edge of the base). I like to press the Press and Seal against the pieces again to make sure they are good and stuck, then peel the base away and set it aside. I keep my pieces/Press and Seal upside down and set it on my Big Shot. I then use a basic shaped die (I used the rectangle from the Geo Frames set from Altenew) and just cut through the pieces and the press and seal. You'll carefully peel the die away and gently place the 2 separate pieces down- you'll have a 'frame' and a 'center'. Then using some 3D adhesive (I like stampin dimensionals) place a bunch down on every single piece, but leave the gaps empty to achieve that floating illusion. I find I am not very good at lining up the frame with the base, so I don't bother turning the frame over, but I place the base along the frame while it's still upside down so as not to shift or screw it up (I've done that before). Then when the frame piece is adhered to the base piece, flip it back over and peel away your press and seal. VOILA! you now have a floating frame!
Another technique I learned was to cut a bunch of layers of a sentiment (like the YOU here from Crazy About You from Stampin' Up!- now retired). I cut 4 or 5 of them out, used a glue pen to glue them all together and then they were about the same height as the frame. Add some Stickles and Wink of Stella and you're done! The solid frame above was just framed with some cardstock layers and then used the THANKS sentiment from that same stamp and die set.
The color combination is Mango Melody, Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay- all available from Stampin' Up!
Make sure to swing by and check out their NEW in colors- now available for the 2020-2022 season.

Thanks so much for stopping by, hope you were inspired!

~Brandie~