Blue Blooms Birthday Card

This is a card I designed for Angela and Janet to make when they came round to me for a crafty afternoon some weeks ago.  I forgot to put it on the blog at the time so I'm just getting round to sharing it now.  Janet's favourite colour is blue so that influenced my colour choices and I opted for Pool Party, Island Indigo and Midnight Muse along with white.

I used a rectangle doily stamp which I've had for ages with the SU! Secret Garden stamp and die set and the Memory Box 'happy birthday' die.  I love mixing my old and new stash items!  The doily and the Island Indigo flowers were heat embossed with white powder and all the flowers are popped up.  After die cutting the birthday sentiment from Pool Party CS I glued a strip of Island Indigo CS to the card front, adhered the die cut over the top and finished off by dotting the i with a rhinestone.  

Here's the inside and the envelope.  Quite a fancy inside but then I am very partial to layered stamping!  I stamped the sentiment and leafy stem on top of the doily and then added two stamped and die cut flowers.  I am very happy to say Angela and Janet both loved the design and they had a very enjoyable time making their own cards!

Supplies:
Stamps: Hero Arts 'Rectangle Doily', SU! 'Secret Garden' set, Hero Arts 'Fabulous Birthday'
CS: PaperMania white square card blank, SU! Pool Party, Island Indigo, Midnight Muse & Whisper White
Ink: VersaMark, SU! Pool Party, Island Indigo & Midnight Muse
Tools: SU! 'Secret Garden' Framelits dies, Memory Box 'Grand Happy Birthday' die, heat tool
Embellishments & accessories: SU! white embossing powder, SU! rhinestone jewels, SU! Dimensionals

Ornamented Tree Merry Christmas Z Fold Card - 52 {C}CT March Colour Challenge

We've got a colour challenge for you at 52 {C}CT this week.  Please choose at least 3 of the colours from the graphic and some neutrals are allowed too.

 

For my card I opted to go with the dark blue, deep aqua and the red using SU! Midnight Muse, Bermuda Bay and Rose Red colours.  I made a 5 3/4" square Z fold card and adhered Rose Red patterned paper to the back panel.  I stamped the tree from the SU! Season of Friendship set, stamped the bird and added a curved silver glitter border as a snow bank.  I stamped tiny ornaments from the SU! Merry Minis set, punched them out and popped them up on the tree.  I added the sentiment, punched a circle for the top of the tree and popped up a silver star.   I attached the ribbon and the punched circles with the silver glitter snowflakes and added a tiny gem to each ornament to complete the front.

Here's the greeting panel inside the card - I thought an ornament suspended from the sentiment would be a nice touch! 

Here's the envelope flap.

Now it's over to you, please do join us this week at 52 {C}CT and make a Christmas card for our colour challenge, I'd love to see your creations!

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Season of Friendship' & 'Merry Minis' sets, 'Merry Christmas' from unknown maker, Hero Arts 'Holiday Cheer' clear set
CS: SU! Midnight Muse, Bermuda Bay, Rose Red & Whisper White, SU! Silver Glimmer Paper
Patterned paper:  SU! Rose Red paper from unknown DSP pack
Ink: SU! Midnight Muse, Bermuda Bay & Rose Red
Tools: SU! 'Merry Mini' punch pack, circle punches, snowflake punches, star punch
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Midnight Muse stitched satin ribbon, PaperMania tiny clear gems, SU! Dimensionals

 

March 2014 Card Group Projects

It was our card group meeting this afternoon and a happy time was had by all stamping, punching and die cutting!  I designed three cards for the ladies to make, two Easter cards and a birthday card.  I knew that some people wouldn't want to make Easter cards so I designed the two cards so that images and sentiments could be switched out and the ladies could choose which design to make.  I'm very good to them you know!

First up is a cute chick Easter Wishes card.  I used my new SU! Fringe Scissors and Pear Pizzazz CS to make the grass.  I coloured the chick with Daffodil Delight ink and a blender pen, coloured the beak with a Pumpkin Pie marker and paper pieced the eggshell.  After layering the image onto a Daffodil Delight mat I adhered it to a Primrose Petals Top Note die cut shape.  I finished off with a stamped sentiment and some punched flowers with gem centres.

 
Here is the non Easter version where in place of the chick I used a Memory Box Twisty Stalk die cut shape as a flower stem.  I snipped off the bottom of the stem and kept that to one side.  I stamped the sentiment and glued the left over stem piece next to it.  I  punched circles and flowers and added gems to the flower centres to finish off.

After the cute chick card I went for a classy Easter design.  I made a Pool Party A6 card, added the lace border die cut to a panel of Pink Pirouette CS and drew a black line with a Sharpie pen.  I stamped the cherry blossom image onto Pink Pirouette CS, stamped the egg outline over the top, fussy cut it and coloured the flowers with a Regal Rose marker.  I cut a black CS panel, used a decorative punch on each corner and popped up the egg.  I stamped the sentiment and floral element at the bottom of the card.  I punched and shaped three tiny Pool Party flowers and dotted the centres with the black Sharpie pen.  To complete the card front I added some of the waste black dots left over from punching the corners to the lace border.

Here's the non Easter version where instead of the egg I stamped just the cherry blossom image and used oval dies to mat and layer.

For both cards I cut a white panel for inside and stamped the floral element twice.

For the final card I went for an elegant symmetrical design on a 5 1/4" cream square card base.  I stamped the doily in Elegant Eggplant ink onto Very Vanilla CS and layered onto a Wild Wasabi CS mat which I glued to the card front.  I then inked up the flower from the SU! Morning Meadow set with VersaMark ink, stamped it twice, heat embossed each flower with Grape embossing powder and punched them out with the Pansy punch.  I snipped between the petals, shaped the flowers a bit, layered them together and popped them up on the punched circles in the centre of the doily image.  To complete the front I added Elegant Eggplant punched photo corners.

As I didn't put a sentiment on the front I decided to have one inside the card.  I used the fancy frame and birthday sentiment from the Morning Meadow set - plus my trusty Stamp-a-ma-jig! 

Supplies for cards 1A & 1B:
Stamps: SU! 'A Good Egg' set, Penny Black 'Easter Wishes', Hero Arts 'Wishing You Well'
CS: PaperMania white A6 card blanks, SU! Primrose Petals, Daffodil Delight, Pear Pizzazz & Whisper White
Patterned paper: polka dot paper from Andrea Jayne 'Hot Diggity Dog' paper pad
Ink: SU! Early Espresso, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie
Tools: SU! Top Note Bigz die, SU! Fringe Scissors, Memory Box 'Twisty Stalk' die, Woodware circle punch, Woodware flower punch
Embellishments & accessories: SU! rhinestone jewels

Supplies for cards 2A & 2B:
Stamps: SU! 'Easter Blossoms' & 'A Good Egg' sets, Hobby Art 'Happy Birthday'
CS: SU! Pool Party, Pink Pirouette, Basic Black & Whisper White
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, SU! Regal Rose, black Sharpie pen
Tools: 'Lace Edger 2' Joanna Sheen Signature die, flower punch from SU! 'Itty Bitty Shapes' punch pack, Fiskars corner rounder punch, Petite Oval Nestabilities dies
Embellishments & accessories: 3D foam tape

Supplies for card 3:
Stamps: SU! 'Hello, Doily', SU! 'Morning Meadow' set
CS: PaperMania cream square card blank, SU! Elegant Eggplant, Wild Wasabi & Very Vanilla
Ink: SU! Elegant Eggplant & Wild Wasabi, VersaMark
Tools: SU! plain & scalloped circle punches, SU! 'Pansy' punch, SU! 'Photo Corners' punch, heat tool, Stamp-a-ma-jig
Embellishments & accessories: Stampendous Grape embossing powder, SU! Dimensionals

 

Blazing Poppies Just Thinking Of You Card

This is a card I made after borrowing the IndigoBlu 'Blazing Poppies' stamp from my friend Angela.  Heat embossing is a technique I taught to Angela and Janet recently and our next card making get together will feature the split negative heat embossing technique.  I learned how to heat emboss very early on in my card making journey - many, many moons ago - but I still remember the thrill of that first "ooooohhh" moment!  It's been lovely that through teaching two newbies I've rediscovered a love of heat embossing and seeing those raised, shiny images!   

I combined a favourite technique with a favourite colour combo of red, black and white.  The Real Red card base measures 5 3/4" square.  I stamped the image in VersaMark twice, once on Whisper White CS and again on Real Red CS and I heat embossed the images with black powder.  I fussy cut the red poppies, inked the edges with Cherry Cobbler ink and popped them up.  The sentiment circle is also popped up.  The fancy edge was made with a new border die from Joanna Sheen and I embellished with clear gems.  To complete the card front I added two tiny red butterflies with black gems.

Here's the inside and the envelope.  I stamped just a portion of the poppies image, cut it out with a circle punch and used Real Red ink and a blender pen to add colour to the poppy. 

Supplies:
Stamps: IndigoBlu 'Blazing Poppies', 'Just Thinking Of You' from SU!
CS: SU! Real Red, Basic Black & Whisper White
Ink: VersaMark, SU! Cherry Cobbler, SU!blender pen
Tools: Joanna Sheen 'Lace Edger 2' Signature Die, circle punches, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, heat tool, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: SU! black embossing powder, rhinestone jewels, Dimensionals, Papermania black gems

 

Circles & Snowflakes Joyful Christmas Wishes Card - 52 {C}CT March Sketch Challenge

It's sketch time at 52 {C}CT and here's the layout we'd like you to use for your Christmas cards this week.  It's an intriguing one!

As soon as I saw this sketch I thought of my Circles Decorative Strip die so I got that out and cut two shapes, one from Real Red CS and another from Old Olive CS.  I trimmed the two shapes to size, laid them onto my white panel and drew inside the 5 larger circles with a pencil.  Then I punched Real Red and Old Olive 3/4" circles, glued those over my pencil marks and glued the die cut shapes over the top.  I stamped the sentiment and then got busy punching out 15 white snowflakes.  I stacked 3 snowflakes together to make them a bit more chunky and then I adhered them inside the circles.  I put large gems in the snowflake centres and added more gems to the smaller circles.

I had enough of the two Circles die cut shapes left over to decorate the inside of the card and the envelope.  I'm quite happy how this turned out, quite a bright and contemporary Christmas card I think!

I hope you'll take the opportunity to add a Christmas card to your stash by playing along with us at 52 {C}CT this week.  I'd love to come and take a peek at your creations!

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Joyful Christmas' set
CS: SU! Real Red, Old Olive & Whisper White
Ink: SU! Real Red & Old Olive
Tools: Sizzix 'Circles' Decorative Strip die, X Cut snowflake punch, 3/4" circle punch, 1/8" circle handheld punch, Stamp-a-ma-jig
Embellishments & accessories:  SU! rhinestone jewels