Something old something new

Hi there all,

back this week with another combined challenge. I decided to use the colour combo that Makeesha Byl posted as her challenge this week together with the Just add Ink vintage challenge. See Keesh colour pic below and do go check out the DT examples for both challenges they are just awesome!

The colour combo said boy to me and at first I was thinking of a birthday card, but having just found out a recently that a friend is expecting a baby boy I had babies on my mind. Then when I put babies and vintage together I decided to try and put together a vintage pram gift "box". So here it is.

I started by cutting out two scallop circle using my BigZ die, then I cut out a bit less than a quarter to give the pram shape. Then I "vintaged" the scallops up by first stamping with Linen and then EnFrancais (both stamped off once first), lastly I sponged all the way around the edges - all with Bashful Blue. I made up the template for the pram body, on the run so to speak. I wanted it to be big enough so that you could tuck a little gift in there (some baby socks or choccies for Mum) although you might want to reinforce the wheels depending on the load. So its about 2 inches wide, and I made sure I had a little hood as part of the inside box too. I stamped all over the box body with Linen and En Francais and then stuck it all together with sticky strip. Remembering to add some Red grosgrain as the "hand" of the pram. Some pleated red grosgrain on top of the hood finished off the box. Next I stamped the baby stamp from Punches Three in Real Red and just sponged around with Red and Old Olive, added some star brads and Old Olive branches as a bit of a garland, then stuck that onto the pram with dimensionals. Lastly the wheels, I punched out four Real Red circles, used my bone folder to score, a bit of spoke pattern onto each and then added a large green button, tied with linen thread on. I attached the wheels using sticky strip.

I must admit I was really happy with the end result (and so are my kids they have been trying to steal off with it to play ever since I finished it).

My exploration of 3D will continue Thursday this week when I am part of an ESAD Mothers Day Blog Hop so please tune back in then.

Thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe: All SU! unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Punches Three, En Francais, Linen (R)
Cardstock: Bashful Blue, Real Red, Old Olive, Whisper White
Ink: Bashful Blue, Real Red, Old Olive
Accessories: Scallop Circle BigZ die, Two Step Bird Punch, Wide Oval Punch, 1 3/8 inch circle punch, Wide Real Red grosgrain ribbon, Star Brads (The Paper Mill), Ripe Avocado buttons (PaperTrey Inc), Linen thread, sponge, Dimensionals, Sticky strip, bone folder

Vintage Fifth Avenue

Hello there everyone,

I’m coming to you today (as usual) with Makeesha Byl’s weekly challenge. This week it was a colour challenge, the combo sounded interesting but what to do with them. This was Keesh’s colour pic.

For some reason the colours made me think vintage - may’be because they were all slightly muted tones. I wanted a big flower feature and the only rose I have is Fifth Avenue Floral – quite modern in style – so what could I do but vintage it.

I started by stamping the large rose three times in Ruby Red onto Very Vanilla. Then I inked up my Linen background in Ruby Red, then stamped it off twice then stamped over the roses. Next I inked up my En Francais in Ruby Red, stamped off once then stamped over the roses. I trimmed the flowers so the final one would have three layers, then using a sponge dauber I added depth with Ruby Red around the edges of the petals. I also sponged the edges on the back side so that when I curled the petals a bit you would get glimpses of the Red. The flower layers were mounted on top of each other using dimensionals. The final touch was to add some little vanilla pearls to the centre. The flowers was mounted onto a Very Vanilla panel that I had stamped with first Linen and then a tiny script text, in Mellow Moss. I distressed the edges and sponged around them with more Mellow Moss. Some little leaves, for the rose, were also stamped onto this layer in Mellow Moss. I used some of the Bella Bleu paper for the panel down the bottom, distressed and sponged, separating that from the upper panel with a border of Brocade Blue. The bottom edge had been punched with the Eyelet border punch. Over the top I layered ruffled Vanilla grosgrain ribbon, that was sewn on. All of these panels were layered onto a large Brocade Blue layer, again distressed and sponged, then that was attached to a the Very Vanilla base, sponged around the edges with PTI Chamomille ink. The final touches are a largish Vanilla grosgrain bow, with a nice big button tied with linen thread and an oval silver hodgepodge frame, to house the sentiment (Mother). The crystal effects I put over it has unfortunately made it a rather blurry. Perhaps I could argue that this suits the whole vintage effect? It is readable and I do like the lacquered layer (mind you I also can’t remove it without destroying the card!!). I might try using some red stazon on acetate and laying that over and see how that looks. End result I kind of like it which is a good end for something that is not my normal style and somewhat out of my comfort zone. So thanks for the challenge Keesh (and the bonus – I have one Mothers day card done already!)

Thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Fifth Avenue Floral, En Francais, Botanical Blooms (R), Linen (R), Background Text Style (PaperTrey Inc), Mother stamp from local stamp store
Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Brocade Blue
Ink: Ruby Red, Brocade Blue, Mellow Moss, PTI Chamomille
Accessories: Eyelet border punch, distressing tool from Cutter Kit, wide Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon, Bella Bleu DSP, Silver Hodgepodge, Pearls (Kaiser), button (Spring Rain from PaperTrey Inc), Linen thread, Crystal Effects, dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive, Double sided tape, Glue dots

Relax

Hi there,

Well the title does not describe my week so far but I hope it describes the two cards I made for Makeesha’s inspiration challenge. That’s how her image struck me, very natural light earthly colours, soft and calming. Here’s her pic.

Who wouldn’t want to cuddle up to those pillows on a couch for a snooze!

My first idea was to make a square card, and I did, but I struggled with it, and somehow I still feel not quite 100% happy with it. So my “official” card is this one.

My first thoughts were to use a combination of Kraft, White and Sahara, with white embossing and the eyelet border punch to give some decorative detail. That basically sums up the recipe for both my cards. The basic points to note are that I first stamped the grass side of Inspired with Nature in Sahara onto the top Sahara layer, then using white craft ink stamped the daisy side over the top and then embossed using white embossing powder. To accent, I used the eyelet border punch down both sides but on different layers. The final details are to add some white taffeta ribbon and some pewter hodgepodge. My cunning plan here was to connect up two of the eyelet punch holes to make a slot to feed the ribbon through. A big pewter brad with ribbon fed through underneath finishes off the bottom. I didn’t want the sentiment to detract too much from the image which is why I have just left it on a Sahara layer, but raised it and added a brad to give it some impact.

OK now here is the second card, I’m slowly getting the hang of making two at one time, not that hard when you have all your stuff put really.

The main thing to note here is that I first stamped Upsy Daisy in Sahara and then, offset it and stamped again with white craft ink. Once again I embossed using white embossing powder. The shadow effect is kind of neat! The final details on this card include some piercing, Kraft and White Taffeta ribbon, pewter hodgepodge. I also stamped off the Linen background stamp in Sahara before stamping most of the white layer. The white just seemed a bit too strong when I was putting the card together and I wanted to tone it down a bit.

Enjoy

Finally to finish, thanks again to Sam, for lending me Inspired with Nature and her eyelet border punch. You can't half tell that my next order from the catalogue is going to be big!

You can find the links to the cards from the other design team members here. Sorry I don't have time to link separately this week, in fact this post will be scheduled to post itself while I'm away - I hope.

“You’re on my mind”
Recipe:
Stamps: Inspired with Nature, Upsy Daisy
Cardstock: Kraft, Whisper White, Sahara
Ink: Sahara, White craft , Eyelet border punch, white embossing powder, pewter hodgepodge, white taffeta ribbon, dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive, Stamp-ma-jig, cropodile.
Accessories: Eyelet border punch, white embossing powder, pewter hodgepodge, white taffeta ribbon, dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive, Stamp-ma-jig, cropodile.

“Thank You”
Recipe:
Stamps: Upsy Daisy, Linen
Cardstock: Kraft, Whisper White, Sahara
Ink: Sahara, White craft
Accessories: Eyelet border punch, white embossing powder, pewter hodgepodge, Kraft and white taffeta ribbon, piercing tool and mat pack, dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive, Stamp-ma-jig.

Be Happy

Hi there,

this week as her inspiration challenge, Makeesha, had a lovely girly bedspread. Here's the pic.


My card for the challenge has turned out bigger than Ben Hur, not my original intention - it just worked out that way. The actual dimensions are 13.6 square or 5 3/8 inchs square. My original concept was to make a card with only the scallop circle ( from Pepe's Paperie). It has very similar dimensions to a carousel note I suspect. However I discovered that I had bought only one, rather than ditch the idea completely I decided to back the circle with a square card. Here's the card.

I started by trawling through my DSP stash and could not find any red check anywhere!! But I did come across this old bit of retired green check, and actually if you look at the photo there is quite a bit of green check in it too. The DSP was Celery, my scalloped circle matched to Pretty in Pink and to those I added Rose Red and Baja Breeze to make up my colour complement. Aside from the DSP I also wanted to use some chipboard flowers I had in my stash. When I started covering the chipboard, to my delight, I discovered that even the chipboard sizes match the SU punches. Anyway I played around (alot) with what colours where, crimped some leaves, added glitter (of course). I do like the way the Baja chipboard layer came up with it. Did lots of piercing, and on the scalloped circle used my white gel pen to do faux stitching. Added, ribbon, brads and a button (did the little thread of cardstock through the button trick). Then finally added three lady bugs. Ok the inspiration pic only had butterflies but where you have butterflies you get lady bugs - right! And they matched up with the dotty DSP too!

Then I finished it off with some punched flowers on the inside.

All I had to do then this morning was to wait till the clouds vanished put shoes on Mr 1 who was dying to get out the door and take the card into the garden to take some pic's.

Recipe (All SU unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Linen, So Many Sayings, Winged Things
Card Stock: Pretty in Pink, Baja Breeze, Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Rose Red
Ink: Rose Red, Baja Breeze, Pretty in Pink, Versamark
Accessories: Sarah DSP (retired), Rose Red DSP, Blosson Scallop Circle (Pepe's Paperie), Mat pack and piercing tool, White Gel Pen, Crimper, small Filigree brad, Pretty in Pink brads, Button Bouquet, Certainly Celery Twill, narrow Certainly Celery grosgrain ribbon, 1" Rose Red double stitched grograin ribbon, Glue dots, Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive, Double sided tape, Heat and Stick powder, 2 way glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds, and a lot of punches!

Paisley Petals

Hi there,

Makeesha set a colour challenge this week (sorry I can only get it to link to the whole blog today ? not the actually post). Here are the colours she picked.

I'm not quite sure why any more but for some reason I decided to go back to my Pick a Petal set - perhaps because its been all of three weeks since I've used it. On pondering - possibly in the middle of the night as we are still up every night with a coughing Mr 1 the thought occured to me to kiss the Paisley stamp onto the solid block petal - so thats what I did. Almost by accident I kissed the same spot and got the same flower motif - and that decided me to try repeating that on all the petals. You could almost say this card is a homage to a couple of our retiring backgrounds - Paisley and Linen, which actually only came into my possession yesterday afternoon - fresh from my retiring list order.

I have a very grumbly Mr 1 at my feet so I'm going to have to try to wrap this up quick. A couple of points to note - the petals are all clear embossed - very hard to see in the photos and the Linen background is also over sprayed on the edges with red marker using the colour spritzer tool.

The end of the petals are also up on double thick dimensionals as you can see below which really lifts them off the card.

Finally the is how I finished off the inside.



Recipe:
Stamps: Pick a Petal, Paisley, Linen, So Many Sayings
Card Stock: Real red, Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Whisper White
Ink: Real Red, Blue Bayou, Versamark
Accessories: Word window punch, 1" circle punch, Double thick dimensionals (from Kmart), 1" clear round button, Tombow Multi, Snail adhesive, clear embossing powder, Heat Gun, Scallop edge punch, Colour Spritzer tool and Real Red marker, Piercing tool, Clear Kaiser rhinestones