Another one with "She's All That"

This card was partly inspired by a technique shown by Beate Johns on her blogsite as well as on the splitcoaststampers website. The grid lines on this card are made by scoring every 1/2" across your paper and then again in this case at a 90 degree angle from the first parallel set of lines. After scoring, I stamped my background stamp over the indentations.

Here's the details...

I used my Coluzzle cutter kit to cut the large circle in white, then stamped the girl in Soft Sky. After that, I scored the grid, then used my Canvas background stamp and unevenly stamped Apricot Appeal ink over the girl. Then I sponged the edges of the circle with more Apricot Appeal ink. To finish off the circle, I added a few flower outlines in more Apricot Appeal using the "Wonderful You" stamp set. The scalloped edge is made from punching out 1/2" circles from Purely Pomegranate cardstock and adhering them to the back of the circle. "Life is good" was stamped on whisper white cardstock in Purely Pomegranate ink and was punched out using my small oval punch. The edges of the oval were sponged with Purely Pomegranate ink before putting it in my Pewter Hodgepodge hardware oval label. The left side of the label was attached to the card with the matching brad from the hardware kit while the right side was attached with a piece of Purely Pomegranate double stitched ribbon. The base of this 5x5 card was made with Apricol Appeal textured cardstock to which I added a strip of Soft Sky designer series paper along the bottom of the card.

Hope you like it! Thanks for looking.

Make a Wish

I was able to take another photo of this card and re-upload it. It's a bit easier to look at, don't you think? I still don't understand why the other photo wouldn't stay upright!! CRAZY!!

A very strange little glitch here, requiring you to view this card with your head tilted 90 degrees to the right!! I don't know why this has happened. I even tried turning it on its other side before uploading it, but then it actually stayed that way! Annoying, I must say! I do apologise, but have no control over the issue, so you'll just have to consider it a new way to experience a card. LOL!!


I really like this colour combo - bright and cheery. On this 5x5 card, I used Old Olive, Apricot Appeal, Pumpkin Pie, and Bashful Blue cardstock. The background is stamped with the "Stems and Silhoettes" stampin around jumbo wheel in Old Olive ink. The girl (stamped in old olive) and sentiment are from the "She's All That" set in the current mini catalogue. I used my ticket corner punch on the bashful blue cardstock and made the pumpkin pie scalloped edge using my 1/2" circle punch and tucking the circles just under the edge of the apricot appeal cardstock. The ovals are punched using the large and small oval stampin' up punches. I also used stampin' dimensionals behind the matted girl and again to raise up the ovals with the "make a wish" stamped on them. Finally, I used my striped Pumpkin Pie grosgrain ribbon to accent the card.

All and all, I think I like it (she says, with a sideways glance)

(:

A wedding card for Daniel and Tammi

The wedding colours were in navy blue and gold. I didn't have any gold, so yellow was the next best thing. I had a hard time with the colours at first, which is actually quite funny since my own wedding colours were navy blue and banana cream yellow! LOL!

I used Night of Navy and Barely Banana cardstock. The wedding girl from the "She's All That" stamp set was stamped with Versamark ink and embossed with Clear embossing powder (which I embossed twice to make a smooth finish). The background is stamped with my "Wonderful You" stamp set with the outline in Apricot Appeal and the solid flowers in So Saffron. I used Vanilla 5/8" wide grosgrain ribbon for the accent and a stamp from the retired set "Love Matters" for the sentiment on the front.

Note: you can't see in this photo very well, but the base Night of Navy cardstock is actually slightly larger than the Barely Banana cardstock layered on the front, revealing a 1/8" border of Night of Navy.

The Barely Banana cardstock is torn by hand on the bottom and applied with SU Dimensionals to the base cardstock as is the image of the wedding girl over that in the Night of Navy.

I'm happy with how it turned out in the end. I hope Daniel and Tammi like it, too.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

My Mom's birthday fell on Mother's Day this year, so she received 2 cards! (that's how special my Mom is). For this card, I used the ribbon weaving technique shown by kwernerdesign. I chose Purely Pomegranate 15/16th" satin ribbon (now retired...*sniff*) for the weaving. The card base is Chocolate Chip cardstock with a layer of another sadly retired designer series double sided paper called "Brocade Background". In this case, a sheet of Prints Designer Series paper in River Rock would also work beautifully.

I used two flowers from SU's Pretties kit and dyed them with my Purely Pomegranate and River Rock classic ink pads. To do this, I pressed the fabric flowers directly onto the ink pads using the back of a spoon. (My Purely Pomegranate pad was a bit dry for this technique, so I had to pause to re-ink it). After dying my flowers, I removed excess ink by pressing it between paper towel a few times until I was satisfied that most of it was blotted out.

Lastly, I used an Aged Brass Jumbo eyelet in the centre of my flowers with a clear rhinestone brad (from the Pretties kit) to finish it off. Then entire flower assembly was adhered with mini gluedots to the ribbons. If I had thought ahead, I would have tried attaching the flower to the ribbon-covered cardstock with the eyelet instead of using gluedots, but I had already attached my ribbon weaving accent with stampin' dimensionals.

I'm pretty confident my Mom really liked this card since she gasped when she opened it!

Mother's Day Cards

I made these cards for my Mom and my Mother-in-law for Mother's Day. The background is stamped in Versamark ink on Cameo Coral paper with my new stamp set, "Wonderful You". My Mom likes blue, so her card has a Brilliant Blue cup and matting. I used the 1/4" grosgrain ribbon and the 15/16" Chocolate satin ribbon to accent the card. The cup is coloured with SU Markers and blended with a blender pen. The cup is from the stamp set, "Pun Fun". Dimension is added to the card by using SU Dimensionals under the matting as well as the paper with the stamped image on it.



My Mother-in-law likes green, so I did the same card, only used Old Olive instead of the blue and I used the Old Olive Poytwill ribbon.



The one thing that makes these cards really fun (and is actually the reason I used the stamp that I did) is the Card Scent!! I brushed on "Espresso" scent over the edge of the matting and the coffee area of the cup. At first, I thought maybe I put on too much, but by the time my moms got there cards, the scent had become much more subtle and I think I could have actually used more scent. I'll have to experiment with it more.

Visiting Old Friends

I have been meaning to upload a few new cards, but have not been able to find my USB connecting cord from my camera...Grrr. So I thought I'd show you a few cards I did in the past that I still like. I hope you enjoy them as well. Each of these cards is made with SU products, but all of the stamp sets are now retired.




This is a baby card I made for my Uncle's little boy. I still love SU Classy Copper embossing powder and continue to lament it's retirement. That also goes for the Copper metal edged tags. Cardstock: Close to Cocoa, Brocade Blue (I think); Chocolate Chip 1/4" grosgrain ribbon; I did some peekaboo holes with tht 3/4" circle punch and matched the stamped images through the holes; I can't remember what the stamp set was called, but I believe it was a hostess set.

As a demonstrator, I'm always trying to come up with simple and quick cards to do for workshops in peoples homes. This card was one of my first simple cards that I actually liked. If I were to do it again, I know I would be forced to add to it and it wouldn't be as simple, but I still really like the basic elements, the colors, and the layout of this card. (I would definitely add a wider ribbon to start with). You can't really see it in this photo, but I used a direct ink to paper technique to make a suede-like look on the base card simply by sliding the ink pad over the paper maintaining a horizontal directing with each pass. Simple, but effective. This retired stamp set is "Lexicon of Love".

This last card I wanted to show you was done for a workshop as well. The card base is a retired little gift card (you can get them in other colors still) that, when closed, a tab slides in a slot. I used the retired set "Love Matters". The background is stamped with the much loved "Canvas" background stamp in Tempting Turquoise; the words stamped with Regal Rose ink. I used Tempting Turquoise, Regal Rose, and Very Vanilla paper. The image is colored with SU markers.

So, there's a few to fill the void until my camera USB cord is found. Even then, I haven't been doing a whole lot. I keep hoping that will change, but life is kind of getting in the way between being fatigued with pregnancy and all of the household duties (which now include the dreaded yardwork -- normally I like working in the soil, but we have sooooo many weeds)