A Bronto sized birthday

Hi there,

I bought a present for my nephew’s first birthday months ago, wrapped it up in some really cute dinosaur patterned wrapping paper but then almost forgot to make his card now that his birthday was only days away!

So using the wrapping paper as inspiration I started out with a Wild Wasabi base (yes its retired but I still have plenty), layered that with Pumpkin Pie and then ran some Whisper White through the Cuttlebug using Tiny Mozaic Texture folder. It has, if you use your imagination, a bit of a reptilian texture. Well if you remember I said the wrapping paper had a dinosaur pattern and I had the perfect stamp to go with it. I stamped my brontosaurus (ahh that what they called them when I was a kid – but admittedly that was quite a while ago) in Pumpkin Pie, rolling the edges in Tangerine Tango. I used my circle nestabilities to cut him out and then to cut a Wasabi mat. I had a vague memory of a recent Mojo Monday sketch being three (circle ?) elements across the card and decided to try and do something like that. So my big bronto went in the middle, I punched out a Pumpkin circle and then a small Wasabi one and added them to the upper left. To the left side of that I stapled a small tab of Wasabi ribbon. The bronto has his head turned and I thought kind of looks like he might be saying happy birthday so I made a sort of speech bubble for him. Finally I added two palm trees on the bottom right. The last thing I did and then mostly undid was added some orange glitter to the bronto. It just looked too stark in this big stripe around the edges - so I kept scratching with my finernail till I had most of it off (orange glitter everwhere -of course). In the end, I hope, it just gave him a bit of a glittery mottled look around his edges. The inside was finished off simply with some more palm trees.

Thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted

Stamps: A Little Birthday Cheer, Whimsical Numbers (R), Prehistoric pals

Cardstock: Wild Wasabi, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White

Ink: Pumpkin Pie, Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Cuttlebug folder Tiny Mosaic Texture, Circle nestabilities, 1 1/4 and 1 inch circle punch, 1/2 inch circle punch, Striped Wild Wasabi ribbon, Orange superfine glitter, Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive

Coffee and Cake

Hi there,

well for a change this card isn’t for a challenge and isn’t a Christmas card. That’s because I actually made this card for my husbands birthday earlier this year. So with out any more ado here it is. Almost closed..

Almost open - up pops the wiper!

And with a hidden extra message panel.


I started out with two premises. Firstly that I knew my hubbie would like something interactive, and secondly that he really likes his coffee. Fortunately not long before I was going to make the card I saw a tutorial Beate Johns had posted about a wiper card. Think of a car windscreen wiper to give you an idea of the motion. It’s a bit hard to show through just taking pictures of a card (watch the video Beate did) how it works but it’s quite fun. For the basic dimensions and how to put one together (very simple) just get the details from Beate’s tutorial. I knew I wanted to use a Chocolate Chip and Riding Hood Red combo for the card, so for the main panel I started with a Chocolate Chip base, then added a layer of Vanilla , then some striped RRH pattern from the Washington Apple DSP. For the first of the two accent panels (only visible when you “open” up the card), I used the same layering but for the second I went Choc Chip, RRH then a layer of different DSP from the Washington Apple DSP. I used this same DSP pattern to underlie the actual pop up wiper, which has a little birthday cake on it. I loved being able to use my new Choc Chip glitter on the ends of the candles! For the main image panel I used the coffee cup from Pun Fun, kindly lent by my good friend and talented crafter Sam. I stamped that twice, once on a Vanilla panel, then again on some scrap Vanilla. I wanted to create a saucer for the cup, so I masked the coffee cup on the panel. Then using some scrap, which had an oval punched out from it I just sponged Choc Chip ink over till I got the colour depth I was after. I trimmed out the second coffee cup after I had coloured in the bottom part of the pattern, using a Ruby Red marker. The Vanilla panel was layered onto RRH and then Choc Chip. I mounted it up on dimensionals carefully placed at the edges, as, since the card doesn’t have an inside as such, I added a little pull out message panel that tucks in under the coffee cup panel. So you can actually pull it out I made a little handle using the Designer Label punch, a jumbo brass eyelet and some ribbon. To balance out the handle I added brass brads and ribbon tabs to the top and bottom corners on the opposite side of the panel.

I’m pleased to say that my DH was very happy with the end result and so was I.

Thanks for visiting.

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless noted otherwise
Stamps: Pun Fun, Party Hearty, Birthday Whimsy (R)
Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Riding Hood Red
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red, Ruby Red marker
Accessories: Washington Apple DSP, Small oval punch, Designer Label punch, Large Brass brads (Bo Bunny), Brass Jumbo Eyelet, Riding Hood Red Striped Grosgrain ribbon, Chocolate Chip glitter, sponge, dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive

Three times a flower

Hi there,

the Creatalicious challenge this month was to use only scrap DSP (of which I have an abundance) and to make a flower. Deciding on the DSP, for me at least, was certainly going to heavily influence my cardstock colour choices. But I ended up going with Bella Rose scraps and here is the result.

Finally a sideview, its quite bulky not something you could post easily but good if you can hand deliver!


Which I've got to say I was pretty happy with. So the Bella Rose DSP was one of my starting points, the other dictated the card shape, which ended up being square. Why square? Well I wanted to make a large sort of flower medallion to go in the middle of a decorative square scalloped frame. So starting from the outside in I first used my scallop edge punch to make a decorative punched internal border. This idea I first saw back in May, on Aussie blogs, after it was demonstrated at the 2009 convention. In the middle I wanted to construct my flower, and I decided to have a go at making a fan fold flower. I saw the tutorial on Beate Johns blog, once again watching the video really helps you get the idea of how to make the flower. By measuring the amount of space I had inside my Kiwi Kiss scalloped square I knew I wanted to make my fan fold flower no bigger than 3 inches. This meant starting with a strip of DSP about 1.5 inches wide and 12 inches long, after I had scalloped the edge. (Remember the final flower is twice the width of the starting DSP). Luckily enough I had the perfect scrap to use covered with a tiny rose pattern. I made the flower as per the tutorial and then decided I liked Beate’s example so much I would make another smaller one to overlay the first. I used the reverse of the DSP for this one, a Kiwi pattern that tied back in to the Kiwi scalloped square. To finish off the centre I added a small Pink Pirouette felt flower and a large green (Ice) rhinestone brad. I layered the scalloped Kiwi square/ fan flower onto of some Riding Hood Red to provide some contrast to the large Rose DSP I used over the RHR base of the card. It took some scratching of the head to finally come up with the idea of offsetting the whole flower panel on the card base and then adding a scalloped oval sentiment panel on the bottom RHS to balance it out. Finishing details include piercing of the scallop pattern on the square, adding brads to three corners a little red pearl to the sentiment, some Kiwi satin ribbon across the scalloped square, tied with a hitch (?) knot and finally faux stitching around the outside edge of the card. I used white gel pen to connect the pierced holes, so the effect is pretty subtle but nice.

Thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Oval All
Cardstock: Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White
Ink: Kiwi Kiss
Accessories: Bella Rose DSP, Felt Fusion Too, Ice Rhinestone, Mat Pack and Piercing tool, White Gel Pen, Kiwi Kiss satin ribbon, Scallop edge punch, Scalloped Oval punch, Large Oval punch, Red brads, Red pearl (Kaiser), Tombow multi, SNAIL adhesive

An Ornate Trimming

Hi there,

Well once again its time for me to load my entry for Makeesha weekly challenge – this week a sketch. Here’s the sketch.

I’m still on my Christmas card crusade so the type of card was easy to decide on, and this is what I came up with.

I’ve been doing a lot of fairly white cards lately so I decided to try something a bit richer and more ornate. With that in mind I started off with a Real Red base, on the top I added a new Cuttlebug folder I aquired recently- Victoria in Baja, which gives a nice ornatish effect that ties in with the broad stripy Ski Slope DSP (I really love this DSP - for some reason Christmas ones are often so dark and muted but this has lovely bright patterns). I also decided to crack open some new Spellbinder dies - Labels 9 which I thought would suit the feel. So I cut out a large red label 9 shape then the next size down in white (making sure it was just big enough to fit my Tree Trimming ornament on). To get the white border on the red layer I left the die on and traced around the inside edge with a white gel pen. I was quite happy with the effect. I simply stamped the largest ornament in real red on white and then trimmed it out, mounting it on dimensionals in the label 9 panel. Before doing that I did add the ribbon and white brad. The sentiment I stamped then punched out with the curly label punch, just doodled around the edges with a red marker and then slipped the end under the ribbon. Three little red pearls (timely aquired only just on Sat) finished off the card. My overall feeling about it is that I do like it (90%)but I feel like something isn't quite there but I haven't been able to figure out what that factor is. So it will just have to stay as is.

Thanks for visiting.

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted

Stamps: Tree Trimmings, Short and Sweet

Cardstock: Real Red, Baja Breeze, Old Olive, Whisper White

Ink: Real Red ink pad and marker

Accessories: Ski Slope DSP, Spellbinders Labels 9, Curly Label punch, Cuttlebug Victoria folder, Wide Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, Narrow Real Red grosgrain ribbon, White gel pen, Red Half Pearls (Kaiser), Small white brad (Bo Bunny), dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive