Sizzix has a new product called Paper Leather Sheets. You can use this product to emboss, stamp on, add shape to die cuts and stitch. In the project below, we've used the leather paper as a book-binding. The grey leather paper was embossed with Tailored embossing folder from Tim Holtz. The folder gave us our 1 inch cuts and a centre line to follow for folding. Each page in the book was made by die-cutting Sizzix tag die 660280. The pockets were made by scoring each tag at 2 1/2 inches from the bottom and folding up and gluing the pocket.

All of the papers used for the book came from Sizzix paper pad Fox Tales.

Each of the pockets holds a small note which is folded to 3 x 5 inches. The front and back cover were also cut with the tag dies out of a heavier mat board. The bottom 2 and 1/2 inches was cut off of each heavy tag to match up with the pages. The front and back cover were covered inside by another tag, and outside with printed paper.

Some of the papers are printed in black and white, so you can colour them yourself! Consider this your adult colouring book!

Now that spring is finally here, I am sure we can be looking forward to a number of muddy days. These cute boots from Impression Obsession at least bring some colour and flowers to the season! In the sample below, the printed paper is from Magenta, and the boots were coloured with Tombow markers. The slit underneath the boot layer was made with an exacto knife. The bracket on the right hand side was made with a stitched bracket edger die from Frantic Stamper.

Sometimes it's nice to have a different closure on a card. This one is not difficult to accomplish and yet I feel it really adds to the finished look of the card. The stamp used on the bottom right is also from Impression Obsession. Happy Spring!

Sometimes it is handy to have some cards made up ahead of time! This technique is so easy and lends itself toward cards for differnt occasions. First you want to lay down some low-tack tape at the top and bottom of what will be your colour band to mask off the area. Distress this area with your favourite colour or colours of Distress Inks. In the samples below, you may not be able to see that other images have been stamped tone-on-tone on the colour band. This just adds a bit more interest to that area.

When you are ready to stamp your main image, you will need to pull off the top or the bottom piece of tape, depending on the direction your main stamp is going. In the cards above, the bottom piece of tape has been removed. Stamp your main image in black, and add your salutation in the bottom right-hand corner. These cards would be nice to make as a quick hostess gift. These are also great cards for mailing because there are no embellishments. If you had a number of cards started with the colour band and the image stamped, you could always add the salutation as needed.

We borrowed this card design from Jennifer McGuire's blog. A white panel has been covered with Blueprint Sketch Distress Ink. Then the hydrangea flower from Impression Obsession was white embossed on the panel. The blue colour was removed with water, and some of the Picked Raspberry Distress Ink was added to create the purple shade.

Because of the water reactive nature of Distress Inks, you'll be surprised how much ink you can remove with the water. The leaf has been white embossed and coloured in the same manner.

Creative Medium Metallic and Iridescent are creamy pastes that can be stenciled, spread, or dabbed on for gorgeous texture and colour. The iridescent colours are an interference colour that shows up best on dark backgrounds. A light background colour will leave you with a pearl looking finish and very little colour. You can add drops of pigment reinker to create a two-tone effect, as well as many other options for changing the available colours.

In this page below, we used the Iridescent medium to add tissue paper (which had been coloured with Stazon Inks) to white cardstock.

Here we used the Iridescent Paste coloured with reinker to stencil a busy image. More colour was added with Stazon Inks and Delicata Metallic Inks and some Pico Embellisher for splatter.

Again using a stencil, and some Iridescent Paste, we created the look below. Stazon Ink has been added to the surface as well as Copper Delicata on the black background.

In the design below, we have used one folded card at 4 3/4" x 6 1/2", and a layer that is 4 1/4" x 6". Then we started with low tack tape one inch wide on either side of the layer. Abandoned Coral Distress Ink was used to colour the centre of the panel in varying intensities from dark to light. Stamp the carnation at the bottom of the layer and colour with Abandoned Coral Distress Marker and Peeled Paint Distress Marker. Remove the low-tack tape and use a decorative border die to cut the panel into three pieces as shown. Some decorative clear gems were addded to the layer. Each of the three panel pieces has been lifted with foam tape.

The florals on this set from Friskars are lovely botanical images. You have a poppy, a peony, a carnation, and some differnt buds to choose from. Stamping some flowers this time of year will hopefully get our spirits up looking forward to spring!