Brightly Gleaming Scrappy Strips Christmas Card

The scrappy strips technique has taken the card making world by storm!  The craze was started by Bruno Bertucci who was inspired by a piece of aboriginal art.  Visit the blog post HERE to find out more.  There is also this video on YouTube which shows Bruno demonstrating the technique - at the 20.00 minute mark on the video.

Dena Rekow from the Creativity Cave featured this technique with one of her card layouts in her May 2020 Facebook Live class.  I've finally got around to trying out the technique and I thought I'd make a Christmas card.  Here's my card and envelope together.

I chose to cut strips from SU! 'Brightly Gleaming' patterned papers along with strips of  plain Mossy Meadow and Pretty Peacock CS.  I applied the strips to a panel of Very Vanilla CS, cut the panel to size and glued it to a mat layer of Very Vanilla CS which I glued to the front of a Mossy Meadow card base.  I stamped the sentiment in Pretty Peacock ink, cut it out with a Stitched Rectangle die and used the same die to cut out a copper foil rectangle.  I glued the vanilla shape to the copper shape, offsetting the two and I popped up the sentiment with Dimensionals.  I punched two copper foil dots and added those to the sentiment as a finishing touch.

Here's the inside of the card.

Here's the envelope.

What a fun technique and a great use for CS and patterned paper scraps!  In one of Dena's example cards she split the scrappy strips panel apart and stamped a sentiment between the two pieces which looked great and I definitely want to try that look!

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Greatest Part of Christmas' set
CS: SU! Mossy Meadow, Pretty Peacock & Very Vanilla 
Patterned paper:: SU! 'Brightly Gleaming' specialty DSP pack
Ink: SU! Pretty Peacock
Tools: SU! 'Stitched Rectangles' die set, circle punch
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Dimensionals
Ruth

Seahorse & Shells Happy Birthday Card

I've had the SU! 'Seaside Notions' stamp set for a few months and hadn't used it and I decided it was high time I inked up the stamps.  I love the look of the images, the style really appeals to me.  Oh dear, when I sat down at my desk to stamp I just couldn't get in the groove with these stamps, it was painful.  I don't colour images in very often and I don't practise enough so I'm not very confident.  I tried colouring with Stampin' Blends and watercolouring with inks and an aquapainter and I didn't like my results with those.  Then I tried watercolour pencils and a paintbrush and I stuck with those.  After colouring and fussy cutting the images I was having problems getting a layout together and as I was really frustrated by this point I walked away.

The next day I sat down to try again and things went more smoothly.  Here's my card and envelope together. I chose neutral, earthy colours and I think this would make a good masculine card.

Here's the card.  I stamped the images in VersaFine Vintage Sepia ink on watercolour paper and coloured by picking pigment up from watercolour pencils using a wet paintbrush.  I die cut two stitched rectangle shapes, one from Very Vanilla CS and one from Cajun Craze CS.  I stamped sand along the bottom of the Very Vanilla panel, stamped the sentiment and popped up the shells and seahorse.  I embossed the Cajun Craze rectangle with the 'Subtle' embossing folder to add a touch of texture and adhered the panels offset from each other.

Here's the inside of the card.  I stamped the sand dollar on the Vanilla panel, stamped it again on a Post It note, cut it out and used that as a mask and stamped the shell.  After stamping the sentiment I layered the panel onto a mat of Cajun Craze CS.

Here's the envelope front with just simple stamping.  There was absolutely no way I was going to attempt colouring images for the inside of this card and envelope after the struggles of the previous day!

I'm put off this set now because of the struggles but I'll try again - one day!  Maybe I'll get on much better next time or perhaps it's one of those sets that is not right for me and in that case I will pass it on!

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Seaside Notions' & 'Fancy Phrases' sets
CS: SU! Cajun Craze, Crumb Cake & Very Vanilla, watercolour paper
Ink: VersaFine Vintage Sepia, SU! watercolour pencils
Tools: SU! 'Stitched Rectangles' die set, 'Subtle' embossing folder, paintbrush
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Dimensionals
Ruth

Soft Floral Tied Tags Front Birthday Wishes Card

The SU! 'Fancy Phrases' stamp set went on my wish list the moment I saw it in the catalogue.  I love the floral images, the style of the images and the beautiful sentiments.    On page 126 of the catalogue there are some samples of projects made with the set and one card really caught my attention.

I love the tone on tone stamping and the decorative element made with two punched tags, ribbon and a sentiment label.  I don't have the specific tag punch, ribbon and the embossing folder shown in the catalogue example but I CASEd the card using stuff I do have.  You can always substitute and it's good to put your own spin on a design when you CASE!

Here's my version of the card.  The card base is made with Soft Sea Foam CS and I stamped the background in Soft Sea Foam ink onto a panel of Soft Sea Foam CS.  I used the 'Scalloped Tag Topper' punch to cut two Soft Sea Foam tags which I embossed using the 'Subtle' 3D embossing folder.  I popped up the embossed tags on the stamped panel and I glued the panel to the card base.  I stamped the sentiment using Rococo Rose ink (stamped off twice for the background floral image)  and I made a tag using the 'Label Me Fancy' punch.  I threaded Garden Green Stitched Satin ribbon through the two Soft Sea Foam tags and tied a knot.  I glued the sentiment tag in place and added three rhinestone jewels to finish the card front.  

Here's a closer look at the tags element.  

Here's the inside of the card.

Here's the envelope flap.

Here's my card and envelope together.  An easy to make card, soft and pretty but with texture and an interesting decorative feature.

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Fancy Phrases' set
CS: SU! Soft Sea Foam & Whisper White
Ink: SU! Soft Sea Foam & Rococo Rose
Tools: SU! 'Subtle' 3D embossing folder, 'Scalloped Tag Topper' & 'Label Me Fancy' punches
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Garden Green Stitched Satin ribbon, rhinestone jewels, Dimensionals
Ruth

Two Summer Floral Birthday Cards

Dena from the Creativity Cave set a summer floral theme card challenge for her June 2020 Facebook Class group.  Floral cards are a firm favourite with me so I was very happy!  I knew I wanted to use the gorgeous SU! 'Blossoms in Bloom' stamp set.

The multi flower image is a very large stamp and I prefer to use it with my Stamparatus rather than handling a large acrylic block.  I knew I wanted to try introducing more than one colour to the flowers and to achieve that I inked the stamp with Petal Pink ink and then I added Flirty Flamingo ink around the flower centres using a sponge dauber.  I ended up stamping several pieces and I needed to clean the stamp between inkings to avoid Flirty Flamingo ink contaminating my Petal Pink ink pad.  I picked up a brilliant tip from someone on the web which has proved invaluable - cut the SU! shammy into smaller pieces then you have a smaller shammy to quickly clean stamps on your Stamparatus plates.  I bought a separate shammy, cut it into four pieces and this size works a treat.

I stamped several pieces and cut them into panels.  Unfortunately, I placed one of my panels too close to an open packet of baby wipes on my desk which resulted in one whole corner of the panel becoming wet but the wetness didn't spread to affect the stamped image.  I was well on the way to making the Congratulations card when I realised what had happened.  I decided to fussy cut the image and use that on another card and that's how I ended up making two summer floral cards!  Here are the two cards together.

 

Here's the Congratulations card together with the matching envelope.  I think the flowers turned out really pretty! 

 

Here's just the card.  I stamped the dotty flower centre twice using Mango Melody ink and I stamped the small flower using stamped off once Soft Suede ink.  I used full strength and stamped off once Granny Apple Green ink for the leaves. I used two Stitched Rectangles dies to create a frame and glued that over the stamped panel.  I added ribbon to the panel, stamped the sentiment and applied the panel on the wonk to the front of the Petal Pink card base - popping it up on Dimensionals.  Where there are summer flowers there are butterflies so I added a stamped and punched butterfly.  I completed the card front by sprinkling on three Champagne Rhinestones.  

 

Here's a closer look at the butterfly.  I used the small butterfly from the 'Butterfly Wishes' set and inked it with Petal Pink ink but added Flirty Flamingo ink to the edges with the sponge dauber.  I stamped the small antenna (from the 'Butterfly Gala' set) direct to the panel using Soft Suede ink.  After punching the butterfly I shaped it a bit and adhered it in place by gluing the body flat to the panel but popping up the wings with a Mini Dimensional cut in half.    

Here's the inside of the card.  The sentiments for this card come from the SU! 'Peaceful Moments' set.  So classy when the fonts on the front and inside match up!

 

Here's the front of the envelope.

 

So I had my fussy cut floral image as a starting point and as I was considering a layout and playing around with positioning I thought I'd cut around part of the floral image to create a shaped card front.  Here's the card and envelope together. 

Here's just the card.  I applied temporary adhesive to the front of the card blank, placed the floral image where I wanted it and then fussy cut the card front 'tracing' the stamped image with my scissors as it were.  I placed a strip of patterned paper on the inside which shows through due to the cut away front.

 

Here's the card open so you can see the cut away design.  After cutting the card blank I removed the image and temporary adhesive and then repositioned the stamped image in place popping it up on Dimensionals.  I stamped smaller flowers and leaves on the left hand side - again inking the flowers with Petal Pink ink and adding Flirty Flamingo ink to the centres with a sponge dauber.  The flower centres were stamped in Mango Melody ink.  I stamped the sentiment onto patterned paper, layered that on a mat of Soft Suede CS and placed it on the card.

 

Here's the inside of the card.  After the riot of flowers on the card front I decided to use the patterned paper as the main decoration for the inside and envelope.  I was kind of over the inking and stamping by this point I think!

 

Here's the front of the envelope.  I popped up the name label.

 

I didn't intend to create two cards when I sat down at my craft room desk but the wet wipe issue proved to be a happy accident and I'm pleased with how both cards turned out!

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Blossoms in Bloom', 'Peaceful Moments', 'Butterfly Wishes' & 'Butterfly Gala' sets
CS: SU! Petal Pink, Soft Suede & Whisper White (regular & thick)
Patterned paper: SU! ''Best Dressed' 6" x 6" DSP pack
Ink: SU! Flirty Flamingo, Granny Apple Green, Mango Melody, Petal Pink & Soft Suede
Tools: SU! 'Stitched Rectangles' & 'Stitched So Sweetly' die sets, 'Butterfly Duet' punch, Stamparatus, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Granny Apple Green Textured Weave ribbon, Champagne Rhinestone Jewels, Dimensionals
Ruth

Merlot Baubles Flourish Christmas Card

I'm tending to use mainly Stampin' Up! products these days for my projects which is made easier due to the fact I can no longer be tempted by visits to local craft stores.  The Glitter Pot in Burgess Hill where there were always so many tempting goodies closed down several years ago now which is very sad but probably better in terms of managing the size of my stash!  On an ongoing basis I'm trying to whittle down my crafting stash as, of course, I have more stuff than I need or can use! 

There are some products that I just can't let go of and the IndigoBlu 'Baubles Flourish' stamp is one of them.  I also keep lots of SU! products after they've been retired as I have real difficulty letting my favourites leave my craft room! It's all very well keeping them but they do need to be used and that's a struggle too.  So having decided to keep the 'Baubles Flourish' stamp I felt I should at least make a card with it!

Here's the card and envelope together.

I opted for a simple design but that allows the gorgeous image to shine.  I used SU! Merry Merlot and Whisper White as my colour combo.  This beautiful stamp is large and I find it so much easier to stamp with using my SU! Stamparatus stamp positioning tool.  I don't have to wrestle with a large acrylic block and if the image doesn't stamp perfectly (which can happen with larger images) I can stamp again to achieve a perfect image.  The 'Merry Christmas' sentiment from the SU! 'Perfectly Plaid' set was the ideal choice I thought as the swirly design goes well with the flourish.  I placed tiny silver nailheads on the baubles as a finishing touch.

Here's the inside of the card and the envelope flap.  The 'sending you a flurry of warm Christmas wishes' is one of my most favourite sentiments ever and the snowflakes included in the stamp image gave me the perfect opportunity to use it on this card!

I've been trying to make multiples of Christmas cards this year and I'm thinking I may need to make more of this design.  Hmmm, let's wait and see if that thought turns into reality!

Supplies:
Stamps: IndigoBlu 'Baubles Flourish', SU! 'Perfectly Plaid' & 'Flurry of Wishes' sets
CS: SU! Merry Merlot & Whisper White
Ink: SU! Merry Merlot
Tools: SU! Stamparatus, SU! circle punches
Embellishments & accessories: tiny silver nailheads 
Ruth

Golden Honey Bee Gift Tags

Wilko are currently selling gold metallic plant pot hangers in the shape of a bee and I bought one for a pot in our front garden a while ago.  On Friday we had a socially distanced get together with friends in our back garden and it was so lovely to see them in person after so many weeks of lockdown!  I decided to give my friends a bee pot hanger as a little 'just because' gift.

Here's my bee pot hanger in place.

I wrapped each bee pot hanger in tissue paper, placed them in cello bags and made gift tags for the bags.

Here's a closer look at a gift tag attached to a cello bag.  I used polka dotted tulle ribbon and gold sequin trim.

Here's a closer look at the front and back of my gift tags.  I used gorgeous gold foiled patterned paper from the SU! 'Golden Honey' DSP pack - I cut a panel of the paper to decorate the scalloped rectangle tag and I also die cut bees from the paper.  I die cut the honeycomb using gold foil sheet and I popped that up.  I stamped the sentiment in Mango Melody ink which is a lovely honey colour.

My friends were delighted with their little gifts I'm very happy to say!

Supplies:

Stamps: SU! 'Fancy Phrases' set
CS: SU! Whisper White & Gold Foil Sheet
Patterned paper: SU! 'Golden Honey' DSP pack
Ink: SU! Mango Melody
Tools: SU! 'Detailed Bee' & 'Stitched So Sweetly' die sets, Crop-A-Dile
Embellishments & accessories: SU! white polka dot tulle ribbon, gold sequin trim, Dimensionals
Ruth

Snowflake Merry Christmas Cards - Set Of Ten

Recently I've made an effort to make multiples of Christmas cards and I've surpassed myself by making ten of this design!  I found a stash of SU! white velvet paper that I bought last year and so I thought I'd actually use some of it - together with some patterned paper I've been hoarding.  It feels good to use stuff!

Now that I've made multiples of some card designs I'm in the groove with organising myself and preparing everything before I move onto assembling the cards.  For this card I die cut all the snowflakes first, next I worked on the sentiment die cuts and then I cut the card bases, white CS pieces and the patterned paper strips.

Here are my ten cards and envelopes all together.  Snowflakes are a favourite motif of mine for Christmas cards and it made me happy to see a pile of snowflake cards all made ready to go in my Christmas cards box!

Here's just one card.  The snowflake patterned paper is from the SU! 'Season of Cheer' DSP pack which came out in 2015 - oh my word, I have been hoarding it for a while!  I'm sure I have some older patterned papers in my rather extensive paper stash!  The card bases are made with Night of Navy CS and all stamping was done with Night of Navy ink.  The large and small white snowflake die cuts were cut from white velvet paper so they are delightfully fuzzy!  The sentiment labels are all popped up on Dimensionals.

Here's how I decorated the insides of the cards and the envelope flaps.  I punched 1/4" circles of Night of Navy CS to go in the centre of the snowflakes on the envelopes.

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Flurry of Wishes' set
CS: SU! Night of Navy & Whisper White
Patterned paper: SU! 'Season of Cheer' DSP
Ink: SU! Night of Navy
Tools: SU! 'Snowfall' die set, SU! 1/4" circle punch, Spellbinders 'Labels Trio' die set
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Dimensionals
Ruth