Hello and welcome to a new week! We are continuing our Q and A Design Team series which is a way for us to give you an introduction/reintroduction of the Design Team members.  The fun twist is everyone is sharing their favorite color combo(s) to use when creating.

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Q1: Tell us more about you, your family and where you live.

A: I’m Julie and I’m the DT Challenge Coordinator for Your Next Stamp. I live in Connecticut, located in northeastern USA, where it is currently snowy and cold, the perfect weather for paper crafting!  I am married and have 3 children.  My daughter is 11 and my twin sons are 7.  Frequently you will find one of the kids with me crafting away.  One of my sons is an expert with the Cuttlebug.  I can usually get him to help me whenever I am doing something that requires mass production.  My project for today needed 48 die cuts and my assistant did a great job!!!

Q2: When did you join the Team at Your Next Stamp? 

A: I was introduced to YNS by Kerri Michaud, who was on the design team for several years.  I started off as a guest designer for YNS in August 2011. I then joined the Challenge Team in May 2012.   In November 2014, I took on the role of coordinating the challenges.  That means I am the one who picks the sketches and color combos.  Be sure to let me know what you want to see in the challenges;  sketches with more elements and layers?  are there colors that motivate you?  I would love to hear what you like best about sketch and color challenges!

Q3: What are your favorite Your Next Stamp images?

A: Can my answer be that I love all of the animals???  The Smiley Happy Critters make me happy!  If I can only choose one set, then it has to be the Funny Farm Crew.  I have created more cards with that set than any other YNS set.  It may be because there is a pig in the set and I have a son obsessed with pigs :>)

 Q4: What are your favorite color combos? 

A: My old standby is light aqua.  If I can’t think of what to do, I usually pull out the aqua paper.  Did you know that light aqua is considered a neutral?  I am only kidding, but if you play around with color combinations, light aqua works so well with tons of other colors.  Aqua and red, aqua and pink, aqua and yellow, I could go on an on!  My other favorite color is yellow because it is cheery and warm.  For today’s project I decided to combine both light aqua and yellow which results in the best color combo (according to me!).

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I have 2 projects to share with you today.  The first features 42 of the die cut balloons!  It also features another thing I enjoy doing, baking.  Today I needed to decorate a birthday cake and one of the easiest ways to do that  is to pull out some paper!

 

The banner hanging over the cake was created with the YNS Balloon Trio Die Set.  Each balloon was created with 6 die cuts that were folded and glued together resulting in a 3-D balloon.

 Of course you can’t have cake without presents and so I also made a card for the Birthday girl.  The balloon on the card is fuller, because instead of a full sphere, it was glued down so that it is only 1/2 of a sphere.

YNS Supplies:  Funny Farm Crew Stamp Set, Funny Farm Sentiments, YNS Balloon Trio Die Set, Tiny Stitches – Stitched Line Die, Airmail Die, Notebook Edge from Back to School Die Set

My card is based on the current sketch challenge – #6.  You can play along with the sketch and color challenge HERE.

If you would like to make your own balloons or other 3-D shape using dies check out the picture tutorial at the end of this post.  If you like the cake, HERE is a link to a good You Tube video on creating an ombre rosette cake.

Sue will be continuing the DT series next Monday so stop by to see what her favorite color combos are.  Thanks for dropping by today. Smiles, Julie

 

 

Special thanks to my assistants for helping die cut the balloons and model the dies in the pictures throughout the tutorial!