Hello everyone!
Erica here and I couldn’t be happier to share a couple of cards with you all! I hope you are as excited as I am about this new release. Let’s get to it, shall we?
Today I’m sharing two cards I made with the new Teacher’s Apple stamp set and the stitched Stitched Duo Speech Bubble Creative Die. These are so cute and that stamp set? It’s such a darling. As soon as I saw that apple, I knew I would use it over and over. And I really have! 19 times for these two cards alone. Oh yes, 19. I counted.
I wanted to different looks for these cards whilst using the apple as the focus. I also wanted to watercolour again. As always, I started out by cutting out two A2 sized stitched rectangles with the Lawn Fawn die cuts in water colour paper. Next, I stamped three rows of four apples on one panel in VersaMark ink and heat embossed them with Ranger Ink white embossing powder. My idea was to have two apples in a different colour to the rest and they were going to say ‘To a Special Teacher‘ and ‘You’re a Good Apple’ to each other. Super corny but cute, right? What teacher wouldn’t like that?
Once all the apples were stamped and heat embossed, I die cut the new Stitched Duo Speech Bubble Creative Dies and measured it on the card to make sure it would fit. The two middle bottom row apples ended up being the best fit, or actually the only fit as it turned out. That could have been a craft-disaster! The two chosen apples got faces stamped and I decided they would be green and the rest red. I got the ZIG Gansai Tambi 36 Colours out and coloured away to my hearts content. I kept the colouring quite loose on the apples to make them look natural.
While the first one was drying, I started on the second card. I already had my panel cut and ready to go. To start, I stamped a few apples to look like they had been stacked up in a big harvest pile on the base of the panel and I heat embossed those, again using white embossing powder. Then I stamped out another few using distress inks in reds and green to do some no-line colouring. These apples were then fussy cut and piled on top of the others using foam tape to raise them up from the others.
In the top left corner I stamped the ‘You’re a good’ sentiment in black and the ‘apple’ bit in red to make it pop. I debated long and hard over sequins or not on these cards and usually I’m all for them. However, I kept these sequin-free (shock horror!!) mostly to challenge myself to not be such a one-trick pony with my embellishments. If I make more of these cards, I will probably add a few…. Just one or two… Or five..
Before I loose the plot completely, I’m going to say bye for now with a full picture and I hope that these cards have inspired you to get this set or try one of these techniques. 
See you soon!
Erica
Teacher’s Apple Clear Stamp Set
ZIG Kuretake Gansai Tambi 36 Color Set
Very cute apple card…love the watercoloured look.