May 2016 Card Group Projects

This afternoon we got together for our May card group meeting.  I can't believe we're in May already, this year seems to be hurtling by!  We had two birthday girls this month and they both bought home made cakes for us to enjoy with our cuppas.  Janet made simnel cupcakes and Sue made a chocolate traybake and both were very scrummy indeed!

The first card was CASEd from this design by Julie Davison, I really liked Julie's method of making a pop up card - different and fun!  I made a Marina Mist A6 sized card base, glued dotty paper to the bottom and drew a line above the paper with a Night of Navy marker.  I stamped the beautiful flourish from the SU! Timeless Textures set a few times in Marina Mist ink after stamping off once, stamped the sentiment and die cut the stitched square.  I die cut a larger Night of Navy stitched square, offset the two squares, added a white photo corner to the Night of Navy square and added a stamped and punched butterfly to the white square.

After watching Julie's tutorial video I made the pop up insert for inside the card.

Here's a closer look at the half circle pop up.

I love how the acetate makes it look like the butterfly is floating!

I stamped that beautiful flourish again on the envelope flap to finish.

The SU! Gorgeous Grunge set is such a great set to stamp with and I thought the Timeless Textures set would work alongside it perfectly so I bought that set recently and was keen to get inky with it.  You'd think stamping a grungy background would be so easy but I found I needed to experiment a fair few times to get a good mix of colours.  I also wanted the right amount of coverage so that the background wasn't too busy and the overall look was balanced and pleasing to the eye.  There were quite a few rejected backgrounds before I was happy!

I stamped the distressed edge image all the way around the Very Vanilla square in Crumb Cake ink and I stamped a honeycomb background image in Crumb Cake ink also.  I stamped Soft Suede splatters, coffee cup rings in Early Espresso ink and one large splotch - also in Early Espresso ink.  I inked the edges of the Very Vanilla square with Early Espresso ink, glued the panel to a mat layer of Early Espresso CS and glued that to the front of a 5 1/4" square cream card base.  I stamped the coffee mug in Early Espresso ink onto Crumb Cake CS and fussy cut it.  I stamped the coffee portion onto a scrap of Early Espresso CS and cut that out and paper pieced it onto the mug.  I stamped the oval, punched a small hole in it to make a tag and tied it to the mug handle with linen thread.  I thought 'Warm Wishes' was a good sentiment to go with a mug of coffee card!

A few stamped background images decorated the inside of the card and the envelope flap.

The third card design was another CASE of a card I saw while browsing on Pinterest.  I wanted an opportunity to use my new SU! Bold Butterfly Framelits dies and I loved this card made by Bibi Cameron so I decided to make my own version.  I made a Basic Black A6 sized card base, cut a mat layer of Whisper White Thick CS and cut out the large butterfly shape.    I glued the green dotty paper to the card front and popped up the mat layer.  I die cut the smaller butterfly from Whisper White Thick CS and I discovered that the inner pieces stayed put inside the shape.  I then cut a smaller butterfly from Basic Black CS, removed the inner pieces and layered the black shape over the top of the white butterfly shape.  I glued the butterfly body flat to the dotty paper but placed half a Dimensional under each wing with the backing paper left on so that the wings stay popped up.    I die cut a Basic Black Fishtail Flag banner, stamped the sentiment, fussy cut it and attached both to the bottom right of the card.  I completed the card front by adding some silver sequins.

Here's a close up of the butterfly element showing a lovely embossed edge around the butterfly shape.  Bibi used watercolour paper for her mat layer - using any thick card will give you that embossed edge and I loved that look so that's why I used Whisper White Thick CS for my mat layer.

  

Here's the inside and the envelope.  I used Woodware small and large punches to cut out the butterfly shapes.

Supplies for butterfly half circle pop up card:
Stamps: SU! 'Timeless Textures' & 'Papillon Potpourri' sets, Hero Arts 'Yummy Treats' set, Personal Impressions 'Extra Large Everyday Messages' set
CS: SU! Marina Mist, Night of Navy & Whisper White, acetate
Patterned paper: SU! Marina Mist Polka Dot Parade DSP
Ink: SU! Marina Mist, Night of Navy & Night of Navy marker
Tools: Memory Box 'Stitched Square Layers' dies, SU! 'Elegant Butterfly', 'Bitty Butterfly', 'Photo Corners' & 2 1/2" circle punches, Simply Scored score board

Supplies for grungy coffee mug card:
Stamps: SU! 'Timeless Textures' & 'Gorgeous Grunge' sets, Kanban 'Coffee Shop' set, Kaisercraft 'Honeycomb' background stamp, Personal Impressions 'Medium Everyday Messages' set
CS: SU! Crumb Cake, Early Espresso & Very Vanilla
Ink: SU! Crumb Cake, Soft Suede & Early Espresso
Tools: SU! oval punch, small handheld circle punch, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Linen Thread, Dimensionals 

Supplies for butterfly happy birthday card:
Stamps: SU! 'Itty Bitty Banners' set, Hero Arts 'Yummy Treats' set
CS: SU! Basic Black & Whisper White
Patterned paper: Core'dinations Light Green Small Dot paper
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Tools: SU! 'Bold Butterfly' Framelits dies, MFT 'Fishtail Flags Stax' die, Woodware butterfly punches
Embellishments & accessories: silver sequins, Dimensionals