Early Expresso with Joy of Noel and One Horse Open Sleigh Fun Fold Hello. Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and the Art with Heart Colour Creations Blog Hop. We are working though the Stampin' Up! colours in alphabetical order, focussing on one colour each week. This week’s Blog Hop is featuring on a deep brown called Early Expresso. Early Expresso is one of the Neutrals Colour Family and is a warm rich brown. The colour would be a lovely neutral when used for trees, wood, earth and is great colour to dig up for fellas. Early Expresso is produced in Stampin' Up!'s card-stock, both A4 & 12"x12"; Classic Stampin' inks (ink pads & re-inkers); Stampin' Write Marker; Watercolor Pencils; Neutrals Designer Series Paper as well as One Horse Open Sleigh, Traditions of St Nick and Fresh As A Daisy DSPs; All About Autumn SDSP; plus Cosy & Bright and Sentimental Rose card kits. Early Expresso ink, Stampin’ Write Marker and One Horse Open Sleigh DSP have been used in the creation of these projects plus a range of non-Early Expresso bits and pieces. I am trying to build my Christmas card stash and so wondered how I would go featuring Early Expresso as it is a colour I use in-frequently, usually for trees/wood and the like. In checking out the DSPs that incorporate Early Expresso I decided to use the One Horse Open Sleigh DSP and remembered a fun fold that Rachel Tessman, a lovely US Demonstrator, had demonstrated recently. Also, I saw a quilting fabric that combined an Early Expresso type colour with Pool Party and Balmy Blue within a roses design so wanted to try a floral style card too. Here it is: CARD 1 The One Horse Open Sleigh DSP (it’s an online exclusive) has an Early Expresso woodgrain design and it was torn and used with some Dry Brushed Metallic Speciality DSP for the card background. The Very Vanilla card base was stamped with the textural stamp from the Joy of Noel stamp set in White Craft ink. While it could be seen when the ink was wet the effect disappeared when the ink dried. Partial stamping was added to the woodgrain DSP. A Very Vanilla card front was cut using a mid-sized Deckled Rectangle die. The label was stamped with the larger floral spray in Early Expresso Classic Stampin’ ink. A little Early Expresso splattering was added to the label with a Stampin’ Write Marker. The spray was stamped again on a separate piece of Very Vanilla card-stock, but this time in Versamark ink and heat embossed with Gold Emboss Powder, the Embossing Accessory Kit and a Heat Tool. This second spray was coloured with Lost Lagoon, Pool Party, Balmy Blue and Blueberry Bushel Stampin’ Blends combos together with the Colour Lifter. Some leaves and berries were fussy cut. Some of the leaves and berries were laid over the same shaped leaves/berries that had been stamped in Early Expresso. They were adhered in place with Mini Dimensionals and touches of Multipurpose Liquid Glue. NOEL (from the Joy of Noel stamp set) was gold heat embossed and die cut with the coordinating die from the Joy of Noel dies. Some Foam Adhesive Sheet was added behind the sentiment prior to die cutting to give the letters added dimension. I had a water-coloured flower left over from a previous project and added it to the card to give extra interest and dimension. It had been created using the Paper Florist dies and coordinated with these berries. Some Iridescent Basic Pearl Jewels were coloured with the 500 Stampin’ Blend to give them a vanilla tinge. They were scattered around. A triple Linen Twine bow was tucked under the flower with a couple of Glue Dots. A Very Vanilla card-stock panel was partially stamped with the Christmas arrangement in Early Expresso ink. A left over strip of woodgrain DSP was adhered partially over the stamping and down one side. A Very Vanilla C6 envelope was also stamped with the same stamp in Early Expresso ink. Earlier today, before writing this post, I checked out a Stampin’ Up! Facebook post where they used some similar products to this card but kept the colour combo to neutrals. I love their neutral toned design - it’s worth checking out if you have time. It’s interesting how similar projects are created independent of each other but with similarities. It has happened to me before. One could say, “great minds think alike” or even “There is nothing new under the sun”. CARDS 2, 3 & 4 As mentioned, the One Horse Open Sleigh DSP is gorgeous. Each 6”x6” sheet has a winter scene on one side and a more subtle design on the B side. While we don’t have wintry snow scenes - especially for Christmas I thought this DSP would be brilliant for my overseas friends. I wanted a way to show the beauty of the scenes and so ended up with what Rachel Tessman called an Autumn Hidden Scenery Z- fold. I converted Rachel’s measurements to suit our A4 sized card-stock. A card-base was chosen to suit the DSP design and it was cut, scored and burnished. The Scenic DSP was trimmed into 3 panels and a 4th piece was cut to the same size from another piece of DSP that coordinated with the scene. The pattern chosen for the card pictured above was a bit dominant so I embossed some Vellum card-stock with the Snowflake Sky 3D Embossing Folder to tone the DSP down. Another piece of the card-stock used as the card base was cut and folded in half before being trimmed with a mid-sized square from the Stylish Shapes dies. The die was positioned so it wouldn’t cut the fold off but would add the stitching all around. One size smaller square die cut 2 Basic White squares for each card. The front square was stamped with Early Expresso ink to coordinate with the scene. The card above was stamped with trees from the Grassy Grove stamp set, where as the two other cards were stamped with a twig wreath from the Cottage Wreath stamp set. A coordinating die cut wreath from the Country Wreath dies cut Basic White card-stock. Both the card shown above and the one below were coloured with Old Olive ink and a Blending Brush. Wreaths were chosen as both cards had snow covered houses as part of the scenes and so I thought of wreaths for their front doors. Sentiments were stamped with coordinating colours and fussy cut. They were added with Mini Dimensionals. Gold pearls from the Festive Pearls were added to each card for that bit of shimmer. A piece of Red & Gold Dotted ribbon was deconstructed and then some of the strands were tied into a bow for card pictured above. The other 2 cards had Linen Twine bows added with Glue Dots. The second Basic White Stylish Shape square was stamped with a sentiment and image to coordinate with the overall card design. Early Expresso ink was used for the Petal Pink card pictured above. There is room for a brief personal message, but if you are long winded (like I tend to be) a message could also be written on the back of the card or a separate sheet added within the envelope. A Basic White C6 envelope was also stamped to coordinate with the card it will hold. Here are each of the cards opened to show the gorgeous wintry Christmas snow scenes. Thank you for dropping in to check out my Early Expresso cards. I hope you liked them and found something of interest. I do so appreciate you. There is more Early Expresso creativity so continue with the blog hop. Just click the "next" graphic below to be taken to the blog of a special lady, Rachel Palmieri. I am looking forward to checking out Rachel’s creation. I do love seeing everyones' projects - there is always so much inspiration. I do hope to see you next week when we will be featuring Flirty Flamingo as we continue the weekly 2023-2024 Colour Creations Blog Hop series. Stay well, stay safe and be kind to yourself and others. Andrea 💕🐾 If you find a broken link or would like to view the full list of participants go to Catherine Proctor’s blog @ What Cathy Made. Cathy is our brilliant Art With Heart Team Colour Creations Coordinator. She is a wonderful lady. Check out her delightful creation while you are there. If you live in Australia, don't already have a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and would like your own copy of the new Stampin' Up 2023-2024 Annual Catalogue and or the September-December Mini Catalogue then let me know and I will be delighted to send them to you. Please don't hesitate to make contact with any other queries about these projects or Stampin' Up!. #colourcreationsbloghop #stampinup #stampinupaustralia #stampinupsouthpacific #stampinupdemo #handmadecards #stampinupdemonstrator #papercrafting #artwithheartteam #valleyinspirations #onehorseopensleigh #joyofnoel