Celebrating Twins

Made for the ModSquad challenge to use patterned paper and also for a friend whose daughter has had twins. I cut out a large heart for the background and then using a Spellbinder die called Layered Happy Birthday, I cut out some balloons from other PP and added them to the heart. Using an unbranded double stitch rectangular die I cut the main panel and added a small scrap of marbled paper on top. I fussy cut two matching little bears from another small piece of PP, after stamping them and colouring in certain parts. I popped them up onto this and added a small fussy cut fairy above. Stamped the sentiment which I also fussy cut out. Added a few small gems here and there. Stamps and card stock all from Gina K. Designs my main go to place for ideas and purchases.

Heart Bloom – My sentiments Exactly challenge.

Used another of my gifted stencils to create this one. First brushed colour in circles using distress oxides. Sprinkled a bit of water and let dry. Using Mowed lawn I sponged through stencil to get design. When dry I added nuvo glimmer paste through stencil. I used a versamark pen and ruler to draw a line around edge of card stock and then added an old glitter embossing powder on top. heat embossed to give the shine at edge. Added sentiment to a piece of vellum and heat embossed in black. Two black gems added to each end. added entire piece to turquoise sea card stock.

A new beginning

I’ve been thinking about creating a blog for over a year now and am finally getting around to actually doing it. In order to showcase some of my cards I needed a place to upload them and display them for others to see so here is my first card for the year.

This card has been created for the monthly challenge at Gina K. Designs. We have to showcase a sentiment and cannot use others stamps on the card.

I stenciled Distress Oxides in several pinks using a lovely hand made heart stencil given to me by a great on line friend. I first masked off the area where the sentiment heart is. I stenciled the butterflies using another stencil from the same friend. I stamped the sentiment onto the die cut heart and traced over it with a gelly roll pen to add a bit of sparkle. I popped it up slightly offset over a black heart which I then glued in the masked off space. Added a few tiny bling gems in places. I added main panel to a black piece of card stock and then adhered it to the card front.

do what you love …

The challenge at Just Add Ink is to do a card with no stamping and if I had been thinking properly when I made the card I posted yesterday, I could have linked it. Instead I made another card using the same theme only this time I had more time to do it. I basically used the same die set from Hero Arts, but instead of a man on the surf board I used a woman. When cutting the main part of the wave I did 2, one in white and one in the darker teal. I offset the teal slightly when I added it to the white. Then I added the rest of the pieces on top. I also added some birds from this set too. As well, I added a sun which is die cut from a SSS die and clouds cut from and MFT set. I added a bit of silver sparkle to the cloud edges and a tiny bit on the wave curl. The sentiment comes from an idea-ology pad and seemed appropriate for the image. While I was die cutting I did some extra clouds and have fixed yesterdays card so it looks better, at least to me.

Thanks for looking and commenting. I appreciate it. Hope you have some sunshine too. It has been a lovely spring day for us here.

Surfs up!

I made the time limit with 1 second to spare and its a good job that perfection isn’t expected, because my clouds are a disaster. I don’t know how other card crafters get such perfect looking clouds as mine never look good, but doing it in a hurry is a recipe for no success.

Once I had an idea in my head and had picked out the CS and dies I began by die cutting the wave along with the surfer and board. I quickly attached the surfer to the board and then went onto the wave. Of course the fallouts didn’t fall out as they should and it took a minute to pick them out. Huge sigh of relief when that worked without damaging the die cut and I added the two coloured sections to the main white wave. Another minute wasted in trying to decide where the surfer would go and I decided in the ‘pipe’. I added some glue and tucked him under the curl and over the rest. Silly me he also got glued to the card front and the wave wasn’t yet attached. A frantic couple of minutes trying to glue the wave without pulling the whole thing off the card front. The timer is ticking and I still hadn’t done the sentiment or the clouds. A bit of sponging and a quick stamp of the sentiment and it was done. I shall have to fix the clouds before giving this to someone, but on the whole it isn’t a bad effort.

Stamp set is from a Hero Arts card kit and clouds are created with a SSS stencil. Anyone with a good idea of how to repair my clouds please share. Thanks for taking a look, I appreciate your time.

Easter floral bouquet

I had these daisies already coloured sitting on my desk waiting for me to do something with them. I also had the organdy ribbon but it wasn’t long enough to tie into a bow so instead I folded it narrower and added it as shown. I used some gold thread to add the Easter egg tag and to shape the ribbon at the same time. Mounted the panel onto some black before adding to the embossed piece. This panel is using some StampinUp DSP which I dry embossed and added a black trim to the edges with a pen. Stamps used are all GKD but from several sets.

I’m not feeling that inspired at the moment. Probably a residual feeling from a week of toothache, but I have a few card commitments so will do my best to get them done this week.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Easter Blessings

This card uses three stamps, one from StampinUp and two from older GKD sets. The rest of it is die cutting and a bit of fussy cutting. I coloured the basket, bow and tulips with Inktense pencils. The rabbit is made from 2 small oval die cuts that I shaped a little by hand for the feet and a small circle for the rabbit body. Originally I intended to keep the basket handle but it broke so I cut off the bow and used it alone as you see in photo. I added the rabbit body to the basket and then the flowers behind. Last was the feet which are popped up on foam tape. The tail is done with Cosmic Shimmer fluffy stuff and I added the pads of the feet with Sakura glaze and some sparkle.

This card worked better than expected and I’m happy with the result. We managed a bit of garden clean up this morning but the showers started so couldn’t do as much as our original plan.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a good weekend.

Friend birthday

cardz4galz Challenge #195

Welcome to our new challenge at Cardz 4 Galz and we hope you have fun with the spring flower theme. Although roses are probably not a flower one would choose as a spring flower I have 2 in my garden that flower very early and one has a wonderful scent.

The stamps are from 2 sets, one is a Penny Black floral set and the other is an MFT sentiment set. I also used a swirls debossing die from Altenew and a stitched frame die from Paper Rose. Using Versamark I stamped the images and then heat embossed them in gold. Then I used some Distress inks as watercolour and added colour to them. I did 2 layers for each to add strength and fussy cut them before gluing together. Using a rose gold shimmer stix dauber I went over the background piece as I felt it was quite stark but didn’t want to add colour. I also added some shimmer to the roses.

It is a simple card but I think quite effective visually. Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it.

Spring Daffodils

Getting one card to work for two challenges is always a bonus so I’m pleased with this one. I had seen a Pinterest post with an idea similar to this card and I loved the simplicity of it. This is my version of the idea. First I embossed the background piece with a folder from Creative Expressions and added it to the card front. Using some StampinUp PP I cut the banner pieces using an unbranded die set. Then I stamped the daffodil from Daffodil Daydream, a StampinUp set and using Inktense pencils and a bit of water I coloured it. The sentiment is from Itty Bitty Basics, MFT. I used a Hero Arts Infinity oval set to cut out the flower and popped it up onto the banner. I added a few Pops of Color dots and called it finished. It was very quick to make.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

welcome baby cards

Two cards from one Die

The diagonal stripe die used here is one I’ve had for a while, but cannot find the label for at the moment, so I have no idea who made it. I decided to do two frames in both the blue and the turquoise and paper piece them. The one on the left is paper pieced flat and the one on the right has about half of the fallout strips popped up with foam tape. This is why you see a small amount of the white background card. Stamps used are from Itty Bitty Basics at MFT, and Hampton Art for the sentiments. The Panda comes from A.I. as do the tiny paw prints. The baby shirt and stork are die cuts from a set called Baby by Little Bee and the heart is from Hero Arts. I coloured the Panda with Inktense pencils and Sakura Glaze pens. Although I don’t need baby cards right now, I may need them later so they will go into my stash for the time being. I kept the images I added over the die cut, fairly simple as the diagonal stripes are quite strong.

When I began this colour challenge I had no idea where I was going with this design, and it evolved as I was working on it. As well I have to improve my card stock supplies as I’m running out of quite a lot of colours. I would have liked a lighter blue but don’t have anything the right shade. As both cards fit the challenge I’m letting the Design Team decide which they like the best.

We have lovely spring weather today and we managed to spend a couple of hours outside cleaning up some of the winter mess and pruning a few plants. Apparently there will be more of the same tomorrow which is nice. I hope everyone has a great weekend and thanks for stopping by. I appreciate all of you.

flying seagull fun fold

This shows the card lying flat … kind of

card standing up

Having seen this fold on Instagram from Sue Stampfield I checked it out more fully by looking at her online blog. She has the full tutorial including a video and I basically followed that. In her examples she used some beautiful DSP, but I wanted my card to work for two challenges so I did it a little differently. To achieve the rainbow effect I inked up some mineral paper and added it to the card front after I had dry embossed it with a Darice Swirly Vines folder. This helped me to meet the challenge at CYHTP and of course the fun fold meets the challenge at Creative Creases. The side panels at each end use some patterned coloured vellum adding to the rainbow effect and I found a scrap piece with the polka dots in my stash that was just the right size to cut down for this project. The smile die is quite old and is from SSS. I remember buying this after seeing Jen McGuire do a demo using their new set and I got this along with the stamp set at that time. The butterfly is one I’ve also had for ages and I think is likely Memory Box but I’m not sure. Unfortunately I’ve lost a part of the die as it came in 3 parts. The base wings, the filigree part and the antenna and body. I’ve mislaid the antenna part and will have to pull apart several drawers to see where it is. I didn’t have the patience to do this today so I hand drew mine and fussy cut. Too bad I don’t have the die as the antenna would be much finer.

I wish the makers of dies would print the company name on dies – it would make life easier. I wanted to show a photo of the card closed as the sides fold up behind the main piece, but mine wouldn’t stay closed and I gave up. If you look at Sue’s blog you can see how it looks there.

I’m quite pleased with the end result and it isn’t a difficult card to make especially if one uses mainly DSP designs. The ones from StampinUp can give lovely scenes as you will see if you follow the link.

Challenges entered:

Anything Goes With A Twist of Rainbows

Anything Goes with a Fun Fold for Creative Creases #52

Have a great day everyone and thanks for stopping by. I appreciate it a lot and love to read the comments.

eggstra special

For the ink blending challenge at AAA I used a feather stencil so that I could also add the card to the stencil challenge at Crazy is our Fame, Stencils are our Game.

The stencil is from The Crafter’s Workshop and it has 4 feathers on it but I only used one. To ink blend I used a brush and distress oxide inks in Blueprint sketch, Seedless Preserves and Tattered Rose. I added two Easter Eggs and the sentiment from a GKD/Clair Brennan set. I decided to leave the eggs with no colour except for a few dots of pink on the borders of one. I did add some Perfect Pearls to the feather, before the ink had dried, for some shimmer. I can’t get more CAS than this.

Thanks for stopping by.

what is it?

Don’t ask me where this die came from as I have no idea and I’ve had it for a long time but rarely used it. For some reason it fell into my hands when I was searching for another item and I decided to do a test cut in white. It reminded me of a butterfly when cut. Then I had the thought that if I cut out with scraps in rainbow colours I could use a Jen McGuire technique and offset them as I put them together. It works for this challenge and it still reminds me of a butterfly but you can decide what you think. The sentiment is from a Hampton Art set and the embellishments are from Trinity stamps. Although you can’t tell from the photo, they are rainbow iridescent pearls.

Our house guests left yesterday and with today being one of those gray dreary ones, apart from a walk with the dog, I’ve stayed in my craft room. Thanks for popping in for a peek.