Dimensional Bloom Happy Birthday Card - HOC March Photo Inspiration Challenge

Because there is a 5th Monday in March we have a 5th week photo inspiration challenge for you at HOC.  This challenge will run for one week only, you can use any card making style but you must use the photo as inspiration for your card design.  Photo inspiration challenges are great fun, it's amazing to see the different interpretations from everyone!

I used the very pale green, the darker green, the blue and white colours from the photo, plus I really liked the plates on the wall so I included circles in my design as a nod to the plates.  While searching in my stash for some textured CS for another project I came across the pale green CS which I'd forgotten I had.  It's gorgeous, it looks like watered silk!  Perfect for this challenge so I immediately pulled it out and set it aside. 

To start I made a 5 3/4" square card base with the pale green CS.  I nested two bloom dies on Lucky Limeade CS and ran them through my Big Shot using the Tim Holtz Dimensional Cutting Pad so that the centres of the blooms didn't cut out and remained attached to the CS.  I then used a circle die to cut out my Limeade piece and I cut a same size circle of Marina Mist dotty patterned paper which I glued behind the Limeade circle.  When the bloom is made dimensional by folding the sides up you can see the dotty paper peeking through from behind.  Using a sponge dauber I added Limeade ink to the dimensional bloom piece to add a little bit of definition, I layered onto a blue textured CS circle, glued it to the card front and popped up the sentiment banner.  I then shaped two die cut blooms, fixed them together with a Limeade brad and attached them to a pale green circle.  When I folded up the sides of the dimensional bloom I got some creases in the CS which, being a perfectionist, I didn't like the look of!  I punched two small blue flowers and glued them on to cover the creases - aah, much better!  Having placed the small flowers at North and South I then decided I'd add two more so I have flowers at West and East too - obviously my perfectionist side wanted the symmetry! A sprinkling of rhinestones and the card front was complete.

Here's a side view photo giving a closer look at the dimensional bloom.

Now onto the inside and the envelope.  Oh look, a new frame stamp features on the inside of my card!   It's a bit flourishy/damasky, it's classic, it's elegant, it's ideal for sentiments on the insides of cards - it was half price - so of course it had to go in my basket!  I stamped the sentiment, cut out the frame, layered it onto a Limeade mat and added punched flowers.  The final touch was a cheerful dotty bloom on the envelope flap.   

Please do join us at HOC this week and make a card inspired by that lovely photo. There is a ton of inspiration on offer from the rest of the DT so do check out their creations.  CAS, Cute and Fun, Classic and Elegant, Shabby and Vintage - the choice is yours, any of those styles goes!  I'm looking forward to seeing your interpretations!

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Itty Bitty Banners' set, PaperMania 'Urban Stamps 'Oval Frame' set, Hero Arts 'Fabulous Birthday'
CS: pale green textured pearly CS, Bazzill blue textured CS, SU! Lucky Limeade & Whisper White
Patterned paper: Marina Mist dotty paper from SU! Polka Dot Parade DSP pack
Ink: SU! Lucky Limeade & Marina Mist
Tools:  X Cut 'Bloom' Nesting Dies, Sizzix Tim Holtz Dimensional Cutting Pad, Woodware flower punch, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: SU! rhinestone  jewels, Dimensionals

 

Snowflakes Winter's Butterfly Card - 52 {C}CT March Pick A Previous Challenge

At 52 {C}CT we're asking you to Pick a Previous Colour Combo for this week's challenge.  We have a Colour Combos Archive that you can select from. I took a break early on in the year and missed out on a couple of colour combo challenges so I chose a combo I hadn't worked with before - this one from January 2014.

 

Pale blue, light purple and teal were the 3 colours I opted to use for my card, working with SU! Soft Sky, Wisteria Wonder and Bermuda Bay.  I stamped the sentiment and 3 snowflakes onto the white panel.  I inked up the Weathered background stamp with Bermuda Bay, stamped off twice and then stamped onto the panel.  I inked the edges with a sponge dauber and then decided to add some sparkle.  I squished some Dazzling Details glitter glue onto my craft mat, rolled my brayer over it a few times and then lightly brayered the glitter glue over the panel.  I layered onto Soft Sky and Wisteria Wonder mats and applied the panel to a 5 1/4" square white card base.  I then added some punched Soft Sky snowflakes and sprinkled on some rhinestones.

Here's a closer look at the sparkle.

Here's the inside of the card and the envelope flap with just some simple stamping.

I hope you'll have fun selecting a colour combo and making a card to add to your Christmas card stash!  Link up your creations at 52 {C}CT, I'm looking forward to seeing what you make!  

Supplies:
Stamps:  SU! 'Snowflakes' set, SU! 'Weathered' background stamp, Hero Arts 'Winter's Butterfly' & ''Holiday Cheer'  clear sets
CS: PaperMania white square card blank, SU! Soft Sky, Wisteria Wonder & Whisper White
Ink: SU! Soft Sky, Wisteria Wonder & Bermuda Bay
Tools: Fiskars snowflake punch, brayer, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: PaperMania rhinestones 

Hot Air Balloons & Clouds Card In A Box

So far, the card in a box designs I've made have all featured flowers and butterflies.  I needed a thank you card for a male and I wanted to make it a card in a box.  Well, flowers and butterflies weren't an option so I had to ponder for a while.  I bought the Memory Box Beautiful Balloon die recently and I decided I'd try the card in a box with that.  A little while ago I came across this wonderful video on YouTube from Pam Sparks featuring Memory Box embossable dies.  Huge thanks to Pam for the inspiration!  

I made the card base from Soft Sky CS first, rounded the corners with a punch and I then worked on my balloons.  I die cut 4 white and 4 black balloons and dry embossed the 4 white ones.  I applied ink to each white balloon with a sponge dauber while the die was still in place - I used Marina Mist, Old Olive, Daffodil Delight and Real Red inks.  I then stamped a dotty stamp over the balloons in matching inks, again keeping the die in place.  I glued the white balloons over the top of the black ones after snipping the white baskets off and I attached the balloons to the card base, popping up the blue and red balloons.  I die cut lots of clouds, inked the edges of each cloud with Marina Mist ink and applied them to the card.

A straight front on view.

View from the other side. 

A close up of the balloons.

Here's the back panel where I wrote my message.

The finished card fits inside a C6 envelope but I went the whole hog and made an envelope using the SU! envelope punch board and Marina Mist patterned CS.  I layered two die cut label shapes for a name label and added Marina Mist Candy Dots to finish off.  I'm chuffed to say this card was very well received - warm fuzzies all round!

Supplies
Stamps: SU! 'Made for You' & 'Curly Cute' sets, Hero Arts 'Cling Dots' background stamp
CS: SU! Soft Sky, Real Red, Basic Black & Whisper White
Patterned paper: Marina Mist dotty paper from SU! Polka Dot Parade DSP pack
Ink: SU! Marina Mist, Old Olive, Daffodil Delight & Real Red, Memento Tuxedo Black
Tools: SU! scoring board, trimmer & envelope punch board, Memory Box 'Beautiful Balloon', 'Puffy Clouds', 'Bistro Label' & 'Chadwick Label' dies, X Cut corner rounder punch, sponge daubers
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Marina Mist Candy Dots, Dimensionals

 

Split Negative Bloom Warmest Wishes Cards

I made these cards to introduce Angela and Janet to the Split Negative technique using heat embossing.  I've always made black and white Split Negative cards but Angela and Janet told me they are not all that keen on black and white cards - wait, what?!  Anyway, I went on the hunt for a dark coloured embossing powder that I could use instead of black and I found a lovely deep purple one.  So this card was made using Elegant Eggplant, Bermuda Bay and white - quite a striking combo but I really like it!  It was good to switch things up a little and try something new with the old Split Negative technique.

My Blooming with Kindness stamp set is wood mounted and I always use wood mount stamps with the Split Negative technique.  First I measured the wood block the bloom stamp is mounted on and I cut Elegant Eggplant and Whisper White CS to that same size - placing both pieces of CS in my trimmer together so that both pieces were cut to exactly the same size.  I inked the bloom stamp with VersaMark ink and placed the white piece of CS into my Stamp-a-ma-jig handle before stamping.  I then heat embossed with Grape embossing powder.  Using exactly the same process for the Elegant Eggplant piece of CS, I stamped the bloom and heat embossed with white embossing powder.  Using the Stamp-a-ma-jig ensures that both images are stamped in exactly the same place on both pieces of CS.  I stacked the two pieces of CS together, made sure they were perfectly aligned, placed them on my cutting mat and cut the pieces in half diagonally.  I ended up with 4 pieces that married up beautifully and I glued them to Bermuda Bay mat layers.  I made two Bermuda Bay A6 card bases, embossed two Eggplant panels, added the ribbons and glued the panels to the card fronts.  I then adhered the image panels and added the stacked stamped and punched buttons.  I masked the sentiment stamp with tape before inking as I only wanted the 'Warmest Wishes' part of the sentiment.  I die cut using a label die, sponged the edges and popped the labels up.  I completed the card front by adding some rhinestones.

Here's just one card on its own.

For the insides I inked the bloom stamp with Bermuda Bay ink, stamped off twice and then stamped the bloom onto the white panel.  I masked the sentiment stamp again in order to get just the 'on your birthday' wording and I stamped in Eggplant ink.  I stamped the beautiful bloom on the front of the envelopes in full strength Bermuda Bay ink to finish off. 

Angela and Janet were so taken with this technique they want to do it all over again next time they come to me for a crafty afternoon!  We talked colour options and Angela has chosen to try black and white (yay!) with Wisteria Wonder next time but Janet is sticking with blues (her favourite) so her card will be made with Night of Navy, white and Pool Party.  I'll share those here on the blog later on. 

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Blooming with Kindness' & 'Button, Button' sets
CS: SU! Elegant Eggplant, Bermuda Bay & Whisper White
Ink: VersaMark, SU! Elegant Eggplant & Bermuda Bay
Tools:  SU! Lacy Brocade embossing folder, Spellbinder's Labels Trio die, SU! 1" circle punch, heat tool, Stamp-a-ma-jig, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: SU! white embossing powder, Stampendous Grape embossing powder, SU! Whisper White organza ribbon, SU! Bermuda Bay taffeta ribbon, rhinestone jewels, Dimensionals

Flower Garden Happy Birthday Card-In-A-Box

On Saturday I had my friends Jan and Wendy round to make a card and I designed this card-in-a-box for them to make.  These are taking the card making world by storm, there are loads of card-in-a-box examples on Pinterest!  It was great fun, I really enjoyed putting this together!  Tanya has an excellent card-in-a-box video tutorial on YouTube HERE.  I followed Tanya's measurements so that the finished card fits inside a C6 envelope.  Monica Gale also has an excellent card-in-a-box video tutorial HERE - Monica's version fits inside a 6" square envelope.  I used Monica's measurements for my first card-in-a-box which is shown on this blog post - along with some fabulous examples from my talented friend Lesley!

After cutting and scoring my Crumb Cake CS piece for the card base I stamped the SU! Hardwood stamp several times using Soft Suede ink.  I just LOVE this stamp!  I then used my Hero Arts & Sizzix 'Flower Garden' stamp and die combo set.  I stamped the flowers, bees and the ladybird onto watercolour paper, die cut them and added colour with inks and a waterbrush.  I added Glossy Accents to the ladybird body and Star Dust Stickles to the bee wings.  I also added tiny gems to the bee eyes.  Using a dauber I sponged Soft Suede ink around the back panel and the fold down flaps to add a bit of definition.  I punched a strip of Old Olive CS using a grass punch and wrapped it around the 3 sides.  I glued my crossbar pieces inside the box and attached my flowers.  I punched 2 small strips of grass to cover the front of the 2 crossbar pieces.  I popped one bee up onto the back panel, I attached the other 2 bees to strips of acetate and adhered them inside the box.  I popped up the ladybird at the bottom, popped up the sentiment and added a die cut and embossed butterfly.   

Here's a side view. 

Here's a close up of the flowers and bees.

Here's the back panel and the envelope.

This photo shows the card-in-a-box folded up on top of the envelope.  When making these you need to be mindful of placing your elements so that the card fits inside your chosen envelope.  As I was working on the card I kept checking the placement against the envelope and I did need to reposition a flower and a bee!

After Jan had finished making her card she was not 100% happy with how she'd stamped the wood effect on the fold down flaps as there was a bit of a gap towards the top.  So she decided to punch more grass and glue that to the top of the flaps.  What an effective solution - it looked great!  Only thing was - she glued the grass pieces to my card instead of her own!  Bless her, she was mortified but I assured her I was more than happy with the end result.  Jan only realised when she'd glued two grass pieces on and found herself thinking "I know I was adding these grass bits to cover up gaps - but where are the gaps?"  We did have a good chuckle about it!  When the 3 of us get together we craft, we eat lunch and, of course, there's lots of chatting and laughing.  There well may have been a distraction somewhere along the line methinks!

Supplies:
Stamps: Hero Arts/Sizzix 'Flower Garden' stamp & die combo set, SU! 'Hardwood' stamp & 'Itty Bitty Banners' set, Penny Black 'Great Day'
CS: SU! Crumb Cake, Old Olive, Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo & Whisper White, watercolour paper, acetate
Ink: VersaFine Spanish Moss & Onyx Black, SU! Baked Brown Sugar, Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo, Old Olive, Pool Party, Primrose Petals, Real Red, Smoky Slate & Soft Suede
Tools: SU! score board, SU! paper trimmer, dies from Hero Arts/Sizzix 'Flower Garden' stamp & die combo set, SU! Beautiful Wings Embosslits die, Martha Stewart Grass border punch, circle punches, waterbrush, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: Ranger Glossy Accents, Star Dust Stickles, rhinestones, SU! Dimensionals