Cupcake anyone?

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the lack of post last week – I wish I could say I had been laying in the sun relaxing – which I wasn’t and I would only have gotten sunburnt if I had –so it’s just as well;) Since Makeesha Byl extended her last challenge deadline I decided to concentrate on the cards I was making for an upcoming workshop. The hostess, an old friend from my Miss 5’s playgroup asked for cards for tween boys, which I have interpreted as about 10ish to 14 may’be? I finally got some designs worked out but not before a comment on my first effort from my DH along the lines of “for a boy? – you’ve got to be joking!”

Today’s card is not for a tween boy! Since I’m still pressed for time I decided to try and combine two Aussie based challenges. First a sketch challenge from Makeesha Byl and a colour challenge from the Just Add Ink ladies. Details for both are below.

The bold colours weren’t too scary as I have been using a lot of Pink Passion plus Turquoise or Green Galore for my daughters age group already – although adding the Saffron in took some thought. The inclusion of Pink Passion in the colour palette definitely meant I was heading for a girl card. To get some inspiration I flicked through my stamp folder (I photocopy the labels sheets for all my stamps before I mount them and put them in a little ring binder – a fantastic idea I picked up a few years ago from Tracy Harp) and found the perfect stamp – and here’s the result.

I started with a Pink Passion base, layered that with Tempting Turquoise and then Whisper White that I had stamped with Polka Dots in Pink Passion. (I wanted to balance all the strong colours with lots of white). The central panel features a paper pieced cupcake, with a So Saffron button and hot pink rhinestone as its finishing touch – oh and glitter of course on all the little dots on the pink cupcake top. Some hot pink taffeta ribbon tied in a knot and the sentiment stamped in Turquoise finish off the panel. Like the base it was matted on Turquoise and Pink Passion. Some more texture and bling are added to the card with a horizontal border of Turquoise layered with scalloped and crimped Green Galore and then a lovely band of glitter. Up in the top right are two punched Saffron flowers finished off with large pink rhinestones.

The inside was just finished off simply to match.

Hope you like it – thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: A Little Bit of Birthday Cheer, Polka Dots, Baby Button Bits (PaperTrey Inc)
Cardstock: Pink Passion, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White, Green Galore
Ink: Basic Black, Tempting Turquoise, Pink Passion
Accessories: DSP – Kaleidoscope, Petals and Paisley (R), from Petal Party scrap kit, Button Latte, Spring Bouquet (R) and Scallop Edge punches, pink rhinestones (Kaiser), pink taffeta ribbon from local craft shop, crimper, Tombow multi, Stickey Strip, Two way Glue Pen, Double sided tape, SNAIL adhesive, Dimensionals, Dazzling Diamonds.

Birthday Butterfly

Hi there,

When I saw the picture that Makeesha Byl had selected for her weekly challenge this week – I was initially stumped – no really I was. Here is her inspiration picture. (I'll edit Keesh's link in once its up).

The colour part was easy – I was figuring on Regal Rose, Rose Red and Tempting Turquoise and to use a butterfly or lots of butterflies. I would have liked to make a butterfly shaped card, or a stained glass butterfly but gave up both ideas as too hard for the limited time I have to hand (Monday night once the kids are in bed and what ever nap time Mr 2 has – unfortunately he is not a long sleeper). So this is what I came up with in the end.

A close up of the layered butterfly

I had a couple of inspiration sources, this sketch from Karen Giron Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge, as well as how she balanced her light and dark layers in her card for this sketch. Also I watched a video tutorial by Sarah Klass for covering and embellishing a head band. She made a ribbon rosette/flower and when I watched it was a case of – oh is that how you do that!! So I just had to incorporate that in too. I still need girl’s birthday cards so this challenge was a perfect fit for that.

Ok as briefly as possible I started with a Regal Rose base (4”6’ sq), cut a Rose Red layer to go on that. Found some dotty Turquoise DSP, and cut that into four squares, that were layered onto the Rose Red. Then a smaller panel of Regal Rose, with some Rose Red DSP (from 2008/2009?), then cut a large scalloped circle in Regal Rose and a white mat for it. Made a ribbon rosette from Rose Red double stitched grosgrain ribbon, layered that with a scallop circle of turquoise DSP, then (almost there…) layered that with a butterfly (Regal Rose base with Rose Red flowers), then added an acetate butterfly (stamped with white stazon, with the same flowers, wings bent up – and adhered with a medium sized clear rhinestone (whewww). Final touches – some turquoise satin ribbon and a white happy birthday rub-on.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out in the end. Although posting it might be a bit tricky – ah well you can’t have everything ;)

The inside was finished off to match the front, and the butterfly inside has three little rhinestones as its body to glam it up a bit.

Thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Flight of the Butterfly
Cardstock: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Whisper White
Ink: Regal Rose, Rose Red, White Stazon
Accessories: Petals and Paisley DSP (R), Rose Red DSP (R), Standard and Scalloped circle nestabilities (Spellbinder), Butterfly punch, Scallop circle punch,Acetate, 1” Rose Red double stitched grosgrain ribbon, Clear Rhinestone brad, Chit Chat rubon, rhinestones (Kaiser), turquoise ribbon (local craft store), Glue dots, dimensionals, Double sided tape, SNAIL adhesive.

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

Christmas trees in threes

Hi all,

yep I'm still trying to turn all my many ;) challenges every week into Christmas cards. So when Makeesha put up her weekly challenge, an inspiration one this week, see the pic below my first aim was to extract a Christmas card from it. Strangely enough I came up with an idea pretty quickly but couldn't find the time to actually put idea to paper till yesterday.

And here is what I came up with.

I wanted to use the primary colours in the picture and get some horizontal element in. So I rifled through my DSP stash and managed to find dotty Tempting Turqouise, Old Olive and Basic Grey DSP enough for one tree each. To provide a horizontal but neutral background I ran some Whisper White through my Distressed Stripes Cuttlebug folder. I just used my paper cutter to cut the trees to size and then punched out trunks using the slot punch. The trees were mounted on the Cuttlebug layer, the larger Olive one slightly overlapping the two smaller ones. below the trees I added some Old Olive ribbon, a white button latte button was added as a feature in the middle. I was sorely tempted to add more stuff - rhinestones, brads etc to the trees but I decided it would clash with the button so just added some Dazzling Diamond using the 2 way glue pen. The tree panel was layered onto some Old Olive and then onto a white card base. I stamped the mixed Christmas sentiment all the way round to form a border.

No inside as usual for a Christmas card

Thanks for visiting,

Kim

Recipe:All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Crazy for Christmas (R)
Cardstock: Whisper White, Old Olive, Tempting Turquoise, Basic Grey
Ink: Tempting Turquoise
Accessories: Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes folder, Petals and Paisley DSP (R), Basic Grey DSP, Old Olive wide grosgrain ribbon, Button Latte, glue dots, 2-way glue, Dazzling Diamonds, Dimensionals, SNAIL adhesive.

Turning Four Mojo

Hi there,

sorry about the lack of posts for the last week, but between work, being a Mum and looking after a sick bubba (and the accompanying broken sleep at night) I haven’t had much time or energy. I have had a few cards in the works and this is the first one for the Mojo Monday 75 sketch.


I liked the sketch but definitely found it a challenge to organize and plan all the layers. I decided to use the sketch to make a birthday card for the daughter of an old friend who will be turning four soon. Having learnt already from my daughter that glitter and flowers are especially attractive to four year olds – I knew I had to incorporate both. I dug my Blooming with Happiness set out of the cupboard and using the Petals and Paisley paper as inspiration went forth and created the card below.

In the end I actually decided to make my own paper, stamping Whisper white card stock with Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron and Pretty in Pink, and combined that with the pink P&P DSP. The dress I watercoloured using marker and an aquapainter, once dry, I coated all the pink flowers and bodice in crystal effects and then using the two way glue pen added glitter to all the Turquoise and Saffron flowers. The flowers below the central panel, I clear embossed, added a pink rhinestone to and mounted on a dimensional. This photo shows some of that detail.

Recipe:
Stamps: Blooming with Happiness, Whimsical Numbers, Birthday Whimsy
Card Stock: Whisper White, Pretty In Pink, Tempting Turquoise, Watercolour paper
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron, Pretty in Pink, Going Gray, Versamark, Black Stazon
Accessories: Scallop edge punch, 1 3/8, 1 ¼ and 1/8 circle punches, Tempting Turquoise and Pretty in Pink narrow grosgrain ribbon, Petal and Paisley DSP, Kaiser Pink Rhinestones, Clear embossing powder, Heat Gun, Dimensionals, Snail adhesive, Aquapainter