Three times the inspiration

Hi there everyone,

Not quite sure what got into me this week, but in the little snippets of free time I managed to grab from work and looking after my two darling little munchkins I made three cards for Makeesha Byl’s first challenge for 2010. I must have really missed doing them – waving hi Keesh. This was a colour challenge – so here is Makeesha colour selection.


Card One

Sorry about the crooked card but it was the best pic

This was my original idea for the challenge. But it has evolved from my original concept. OK I started with a Very Vanilla base, stamped that with En Francais in Cameo Coral (originally I had planned to keep it plain but I struggle with keeping to the clean and simple). The image panel has four flower stems stamped in Chocolate Chip. The flowers are a mix between stamps and buttons, some of the buttons have pink rhinestones adhered and some are threaded with coloured thread and a couple of buttons I left plain. The finishing touch for the stamped buttons was some dazzling diamonds which gives them a real glittering glow. The top of the image panel I scalloped with the scallop edge punch and at the bottom I added a base of Cameo Coral, used the Apron Lace punch (originally I had planned for the lace pattern to be at the bottom but it just looked better this way so thats how it ended up). Then I wanted to try making a pleated ribbon embellishment to go over this. I started by putting on some double sided tape then carefully pleating my ribbon over. That attached the ribbon but it still needed to be stitched flat. This was my first time trying to sew on cards, and I like it! It won’t happen too often as I have to haul my machine out of a cupboard plug it in etc etc but it’s certainly worth it sometimes. The inside was just finished off simply.

Card Two

This one came to me in a flash of inspiration while I was putting my Mr almost Two to bed. I realized that the colours could work really well for a tree going through all the seasons. It was actually a very quick card to make. I just stamped my tree trunk four times then inked up the tree top, progressively in So Saffron and then Cameo Coral. I decided to add the sentiment to the “winter” panel. Then a quick punch, punch, punch, punch and I had my images. I made a Choc Chip base – its just a small note card really, about 3 by 3"2'. I scored a line up the top and two below where the tree panels would go. Then I added a Saffron brad to the o in “you” and mounted all the panels on dimensionals. To give the whole card a lift I added dazzling diamonds to all the little leaves on the trees – nice. The inside is just simply stamped with another tree.

Card Three

Another crooked card - sigh

This one was quite experimental for me, but I certainly had fun trying new stuff and I think it turned out quite well. I started by getting out a selection of grosgrain ribbons in Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla and So Saffron. I laid them out and decided on a transition from lighter to darker moving from top to bottom. I got a panel of cardstock the right size covered it with double sided tape then stuck all my ribbon down. Next more experimenting with the sewing machine – I stitched a border all the way around the panel. Tucked all the ribbon ends under and that was done. I decided to go a bit flamboyant for embellishments (not naturally me). I made three “poofy” paper flowers, I seen them on Dawn McVey’s blog recently and she made a little video and how she makes them. I used a mix between Vanilla stamped with Cameo Coral (mostly stamped with En Francais) and some Cameo Coral stamped with Cameo Coral. The biggest flower was made using my scallop circle punch, the two smaller one by using the smallest scalloped circle nestability die. There are five layers to each flower. I finished each off with threaded buttons. In the top left corner I added the sentiment – a rub on – it worked no problems although I was a bit nervous about transferring it to ribbon. To highlight that and balance the big flowers I added three buttons, two just threaded and one finished with a bow. I used DMC embroidery thread for all the buttons (I have quite a stash as my embroidery is a rather neglected hobby of mine at the moment). I didn’t check what the DMC numbers were – sorry. I was just trying to find the best match I could. Hmm I should mention the base, the ribbon panel was adhered to a base of Cameo Coral stamped with En Francais. Ok final touches , a couple of leaves to add to the flowers, stick everything down, glue dots for the buttons and I am upgrading the flower adhering method to sticky strip the double sided tape can’t handle the weight of the flowers in this heat – did I mention our air conditioning broke Saturday afternoon. Its already 30oC in the house at 1 PM today – urggghhhhhh.

Thanks for visiting and sticking through the post - see you soon I hope

Kim

PS: Cameo Coral is growing on me - who would of thought!

Recipes: All SU unless otherwise noted
Card One
Stamps: En Francais, Eastern Blooms, Everyday Button Bits (PaperTrey Inc)
Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Cameo Coral
Ink: Cameo Coral, Chocolate Chip, So Saffron
Accessories: Button Latte buttons, buttons from assorted craft pack from Spotlight, Kaiser Pink Rhinestones, So Saffron grosgrain ribbon, Scallop Edge punch, Fiskars Apron Lace punch, Two way glue, Dazzling Diamonds, DMC embroidery thread, Double sided tape, dimensionals, Tombow glue (stick buttons down), a sewing machine.

Card Two
Stamps: Trendy Trees
Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Cameo Coral
Ink: So Saffron, Cameo Coral, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: 1 ¼ inch square punch, So Saffron brad, Dimensionals, Two way glue, Dazzling diamonds

Card Three
Stamps: En Francais, Floral (R), Petals Pizzazz
Cardstock: Cameo Coral, Very Vanilla
Ink: Cameo Coral, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Grosgrain ribbon – Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, So Saffron, Scallop Circle punch, Scalloped circle nestability, Scalloped Edge punch, Chit Chat rub on, Assorted buttons from craft selection (Spotlight), DMC embroidery thread, Glue dots, silver brads, Double sided tape, dimensionals, a sewing machine, no dazzling diamonds ;)

An Amethyst Anniversary

Hi there,

I had two key inspirations for this card. Firstly I saw a striking card by Nancy Riley using this tent card format – that was the first time I really remember seeing a card like this. BTW I loooove that Dasher stamp – sadly we don’t have it here in AUS. The other inspiration was this card by Kirsty Brown, I really loved how she combined Upsy Daisy with Pocket Silhouettes.

So this card was my take on combining these two inspirations and it was for a special occasion, my Mum and Dad’s anniversary. This was a 50+ years anniversary for them – so they are well and truly beyond Amethyst but I used some artistic licence with the title.

A side view that gives you a glimpse of the inside

I started by looking up the tent card tutorial on Splitcoasters. I decided to go with a combo of (predominantly) Almost Amethyst and Close to Cocoa. So I cut a base of Almost Amethyst, (scalloping the bottom front edge prior to cutting the final length) and layered that with some Amethyst DSP from a promo pack in 2008 (?). The final touches to the base was some lovely wide retired Choc Chip satin ribbon (but I always felt that the colour was a better match to Cocoa). I’m not a big bow person but I decided to try and I must admit it did look nice. The final touch to the base was to stamp the sentiment, in Choc Chip, direct onto the Amethyst in DSP- I wanted it to be clear but not dominate the card – the top image panel is really what I wanted to feature.

OK now the image panel. I coloured direct to rubber with my markers for the Upsy Daisy stamp. Close to Cocoa for all the stems, a layer of Almost Amethyst over the flowers then highlights with Lovely Lilac, I blended those two colours using a blender pen. Then a lot of huffing on the stamp later I stamped it on Whisper White. To give it a setting I stamped one of my Pocket Silhouette stamps repeatedly below. I did stamp, the Close to Cocoa ink off once each time before stamping – so they didn’t over power the Upsy Daisy image. The finishing touch was to add a butterfly to fly above the flowers. So I inked up my butterfly in Almost Amethyst gently rock and rolling the edges in Lovely Lilac and stamped it on Whisper White. After punching it out, I was able to attach it using dimensionals, adding a purple rhinestone on the body to just bling it up a little. Having stamped the image I got out my circle nestabilites selected about the biggest size that would be appropriate for the top of the tent card (remember it has to fit in a standard card envelope). I cut the image out, then added a plain frame (I did do this before adding the butterfly!) in Close to Cocoa and then finished with a scalloped circle border in Almost Amethyst.

I was really happy with how it turned out, and importantly Mum and Dad liked it too!

Thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless other wise noted
Stamps: Upsy Daisy, Pocket Silhouettes,
Cardstock: Almost Amethyst, Close to Cocoa, Whisper White
Ink: Almost Amethyst, Lovely Lilac, Whisper White, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Circle nestabilities (standard and scalloped), wide satin Chocolate Chip ribbon (R), Scalloped Edge punch, Almost Amethyst DSP, Purple rhinestone (Kaiser), dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive.

My first suite challenge

Hello there again,

Yes, I got another challenge stuck in my head this week, I decided to have a go at Dawn McVey’s Raspberry Suite Colour Challenge for the first time. Here’s her colour pick.
I have some recently acquired Lemon Tart buttons (PTI) and found they match fairly well to SU Barely Banana or Saffron. I went with the banana, I also decide on using Baja Breeze as the aqua, largely because I had more accents that match with it, although I suspect a lighter shade of aqua might have been nice to use. Here’s the end result.

Ok starting with a Chocolate Chip base I added Barely Banana layer, then on the right hand side a Baja layer that had been cuttlebuged with the Swiss Dot folder. For the left hand side panel I stamped some Confetti Cream with tiny Choc chip dots (using PTI’s Polka Dots Basics). Over the meeting point I added a card length strip of Chocolate Chip that had been scalloped down the RHS. I added a strip of Baja satin ribbon over that. For the image panel I used another PTI stamp from Every Button Bits, I inked up three of the four flower stems and stamped it onto some Confetti cardstock. Two of the flowers are lemon tart buttons and the last is a Baja corduroy button with a smaller lemon tart button layered onto. All the buttons were threaded with linen thread, and then stuck down with Tombow glue. The button panel was layered on some Chocolate chip and then placed so that the scallop centre element added a decorative finish to its RHS. The sentiment is from SU’s Trendy Trees. I stamped it in Choc Chip on Baja then used the Word Window punch to punch it out, added a So Saffron brad to the “o” in you. The both panel and sentiment were mounted up on dimensional.

The inside was as usual finished off simply with some more flowers using punched cardstock and DSP for “button” flowers.

Hope you like, and thanks for visiting.

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Trendy Trees, Everyday Button Bits (PaperTrey Inc), Polka Dot Basics (PaperTrey Inc)
Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Barely Banana, Confetti Cream, Baja Breeze
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Cuttlebug Swiss dots folder, Scalloped Edge punch, Word Window punch, Baja satin ribbon (Valet Ribbon Originals), Lemon Tart buttons (PaperTrey Inc), Baja Breeze Corduroy button (R), So Saffron brad, Linen thread, dimensionals, Tombow adhesive, SNAIL adhesive, double sided tape.

Bold and Bright Mojo to start the year

Hello there,

It has been a long time since I’ve managed to squeeze in the time to do a Mojo Monday sketch challenge but once I got the idea in my head I had to get it out on to paper. There were two design criteria for the card, the Mojo sketch (#120) see it below and the customer’s requirements, the customer in this case being my soon to be five year old baby girl. This is in fact going to be her birthday card. The customer’s requirements – well lots of pink and lots of sparkle (bling to you and me ;).

Since I knew I was going to use pink I headed straight for Pink Passion and layered that Pixie Pink. To back off all that pink and add some texture I added a white layer that was cuttlebuged with a swirl pattern. For the big circle element in the sketch I wanted to make a flower using Pick-a-Petal. So I stamped the polka dot petals in Pink Passion (of course), to bling them up I used tombow to add crystal iris chunky sprinkles around the edges of each petal. To break up all that pink I added a chipboard flower in green. First I pressed it into my Green Galore ink pad, once that was dry I smooshed it into my Versamark pad, added Heat and stick powder, heated that and then finally added the Old Olive superfine glitter. A large white brad (from our past Spring mini) went in the middle and in the middle of that I added a hot pink rhinestone!

As per the sketch I added a scalloped panel at the bottom, also in Pink Passion, with some nice dotty Pixie pink DSP from the Petal Party scrap kit. The last panel was a Green Galore layered with some more dotty DSP this time from the Kaleidoscope DSP. The ribbon element of the sketch took some pondering as SU has no hot pink ribbon!!! Finally and to be honest in the middle of the night the thought came to me to use the wavy happy birthday from Stem Sayings. So that what I did and I liked the result. Finally some more pink rhinestones finish it off.

I haven’t run it by the customer yet but I’m pretty sure the big pink flower, bling and more pink will get the thumbs up and probably a big hug for Mum too.

The inside is just finished off with a little DSP some more petals and a bit of bling too.

Thanks for visiting.

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless noted otherwise
Stamps: Pick-a-Petal, Stem Sayings
Cardstock: Pink Passion, Pixie Pink, Whisper White, Green Galore
Ink: Pink Passion, Green Galore, Versamark
Accessories: Cuttlebug swirl folder, Scallop edge punch, Crystal Iris Chunky sprinkles, Olive superfine glitter, chipboard flower (On Board So Tweet), Kaleidoscope DSP, Petal Party Simply Scrappin Kit, Large white brad (R), Pink rhinestones (Kaiser), Tombow adhesive, dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive, double sided tape.

Wishes on a Wing

Hi there,

I know, I know that strictly speaking helicopters don’t have wings but it just wouldn’t have sounded the same as wishes on a propeller!

Onto the card, this is for some old friends of ours in the UK, as you can guess from the colours and presence of the helicopter there are some small boys involved too. The helicopter stamp actually comes to me courtesy of another small boy – my little almost two. I had just bought a little stamp kit from a toy shop for both my munchkins with the intention of perhaps bestowing them on their soon to be birthdays. The ulterior motive is so they have their own stamps and don't want to use Mummy's precious stamps and ink pads. As soon as I started this card I knew I wanted a helicopter for it, so Iucky I did!

It looks a bit brighter in real life - it was just too shady in the garden, when I was photographing it this morning, for the colours to really be true to real life. I did actually try a brighter yellow on the card but found I was happier with the effect of Barely Banana.

OK I started with a Tempting Turquoise (TT) base adding a strip of old Petals and Paisley DSP. Then I added a layer of Green Galore, I scalloped the bottom and added some DSP – from the new Kaleidoscope DSP. Then I added a layer of Barely Banana then Whisper White. At the top of the White layer I added a small strip of scalloped TT, and some TT grosgrain ribbon. Finally on the Whisper White I stamped the helicopter in TT, then again on some scrap White. I trimmed out the second, coloured in a small dot with my Banana marker and then stuck a clear droplet over the top. The paper toiled helicopter is adhered above the stamped image with dimensionals. The helicopter tows a “thinking of you” banner, tied on with some silver cord (R). The last touch is some piercing around the edges of the image panel.

The inside is finished off fairly simply – some scalloped TT with some Petals and Paisley DSP and a Green Galore helicopter heading up into the sky.

Thanks for visiting :)

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Trendy Trees, helicopter from kids stamp kit from local toy store
Cardstock: Tempting Turquoise, Green Galore, Barely Banana, Whisper White
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Green Galore, Barely Banana
Accessories: Scallop edge punch, Kaleidoscope DSP and Petals and Paisley DSP (R), Barely Banana eyelet (R), Silver cord (R), Clear Droplets (Kaiser), Tempting Turquoise narrow grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive

Happy New Year

Good morning everyone,

I hope you all had a nice New Years Eve, we had friends over for a BBQ which was really nice.

I thought I would start the year with a quick post with some of my development Christmas cards, the ones I made before I came up with my final design.

This first one isn't my favourite - I think it would have looked better with a larger sentiment.

I really liked the effect of the All About Christmas wheel (R) on this one, something I will keep in mind for next year.

This last one is my favourite but just wasn't so practical for mass producing - so lost out on those grounds.

I won't go into construction details, it should be fairly easy to see how they came together. All details are in the recipes below.

Thanks for visiting....and looking forward to hearing from you in 2010:)

Kim

Recipe Card One: All SU unless otherwise noted

Stamps:Tree Trimmings, Best Yet

Cardstock: Real Red, Old Olive, Whisper White

Ink: Real Red, Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Ski Slope DSP, Silver brad, Eyelet border punch, 1 1/4" Riding Hood Red Striped Grosgrain ribbon, Mat pack and piercing tool, Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive

Recipe Card Two: All SU unless noted otherwise

Stamps:Tree Trimmings, All About Christmas (R)

Cardstock: Old Olive, Bashful Blue, Whisper White

Ink: Old Olive, Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Holiday Thyme DSP (R), Silver brad, 1" double stitched Bashful Blue grosgrain ribbon, Eyelet border punch, Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive

Recipe Card Three: All SU unless noted otherwise

Stamps: Tree Trimmings, Short and Sweet

Cardstock: Real Red, Bashful Blue, Whisper White

Ink: Real Red, Bashful Blue

Accessories: Spellbinder Oval Classic and Scalloped Nestabilities, Ski Slope DSP, Kaiser Rhinestones, Scallope edge punch, Word Window punch, Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive