A couple of mens cards

I tried using a different colour combination on this first card.  Not sure that I like it though

 I'm a lot happier with the one below

Playing with Christmas Prezzies

This is my first attempt at a pop n cut card using one of the cutters from my Christmas presents

 Close up of the sentiment and the middle.  Sentiment and cat stamp are from the same stamp set

 And a pic from a different angle to show the depth

Manchester Convention - Swaps and Card Candy

I've had a busy summer so haven't blogged as much as I should.  Hopefully I'll get more time now.

Here are my swaps and card candy.

I've used Chalk Talk stamp set and made it look more vintage using pinks and beige.

Wetlands Stamp set was used to stamp the birds and the grass. The rest of the scene is done using sponges and brushes. The flying birds are drawn with a marker and the highlighting with a white pen.

And here are a few of the swaps together. I'm new to 'painting' scenery with inks so the sky and water colour does vary.

I'm going to Stampin' Up convention in Manchester tomorrow, can't wait! There will be around five hundred card makers and scrap bookers to share ideas with. I will post some of the swaps when I return home.

Hearts A Flutter

Here are two more of the cards I made at Easter. They are both made using the stamp and matching die set called Hearts A Flutter.

The heart was stamped using heat and stick powder then sprinkled with dazzling details glitter. I cut out the heart with the matching die.

The rest of the stamps and dies are bunting shapes. I decided to revert to my usual vintage colour scheme for the second card. I added a few flowers using Boho Blossoms punch. The embossed border at the bottom of the card just balances the design.

En Francais & Summer Silhouettes

Over the Easter weekend I've been having a play with my card making stuff. Here is a card design I call 'buckle' as it fastens a like a belt in a buckle.

The 'belt' trellis is stamped in soft suede using Summer Silhouttes on to crumb cake card, the sentiment is from petite pairs. The background of the topper is En Francais stamped in soft suede. I have overstamped the foliage, flower stem and the flowers using a stamp-a-ma-jig. The foliage is old olive, the flowers are stamped using primrose petals.

The inside of the card is decorated with embossed paper. I run a sheet of prety in pink paper through the square lattice embossing folder. I rubbed the primrose petals ink pad over the embossed areas to make the raised areas darker pink.

Established Elegance

I designed and made these two cards a while ago but haven't had time to blog, sorry. The typewriter card was the first card, here it is.

I used Early Espresso ink and card. The Typewriter and letters are stamped on whisper white using letter it and established elegance stamp sets. The lace behind the letters is called crochet trim. The newsprint is torn from 12 x 12 paper called first edition speciality. I rolled two edges over to make it look a little more worn. I embossed a small piece of very vanilla card with square lattie embossing folder and daubed the edge with early espresso ink. The ribbon is crumb cake, finished with three basic pearls.


Here is a slightly different version using the same stamp sets.

The letters are a bit squashed on this card and they hide the lace but I like it. The ribbon I used on this crad is soft suede which is slightly darker than crumb cake. I used smaller pearls and put them in the centre of the flowers.

Male18th Birthday Card

I've made this card for my nephew.  Its not his birthday yet but the chances of an 18 year old lad reading card blogs is highly unlikely !

The background behind the car is stamped using the two background stamps from clockworks. The inks are marina mist, baja breeze, pool party and old olive. I have varied the intensity by stamping some images twice without re inking. The car is from need for speed. I stamped three images with island indigo without re inking.

The image is matted on riding hood red and tied with retired lucky limeade ribbon. The DSP is twitterpated. I embossed the lucky limeade card with the chevron embossing folder to look like tyre treads. The sentiment is teeny tiny wishes, the numbers from number it, both in island indigo. It needed a bit of something to balance the design so I added three rhinestones. Hope he likes it!

Male Birthday Card

Heres a birthday card that I made for my Father in Law

This is a flip card that I made using Fanfare DSP, stamped with French Foliage text and post mark using Soft Suede ink.
The greetings and centre are stamped from Apothecary Art set.  The ticket is stamped from Thats the Ticket set.  Lace is Crochet Trim, fastened using a pin from Vintage Trinkets
The centre is cut using Labels Collection Framelits

This pic shows the card fully open

This image shows the card stood up with the centre flipped

And another with the card folded as it would fit in the envelope

Happy Birthday Kat

Heres a card that I've done for Kats 40th birthday

I wanted to make a vintage style card and use a faux patina technique (embossed background)

Excuse the picture quality - didn't have time to set up the light tent before I sent the card

Notepad Bag Tutorial

I wanted something different for one of our Team swaps and came up with this to dress up an A7 note pad.

I used an A4 sheet of Pretty in Pink paper.  I cut 2 x Top Note dies then used the largest Window Frames Collection Framelits dies to cut the shape (bottom right)
I cut three flowers from Boho Blossom punch
I used Dotted Scallop Ribbon border punch to cut the length seen on the top of the sheet.
I then cut a 55mm x 70mm rectangle

I scored two vertical lines, seen below at either side of the top and bottom points.  I then cut off these points as seen in the following picture

I then embossed the central scored area and the right hand side using perfect polkadots folder.  Take care not to line up the dots on the score lines as this tends to damage the paper

I trimmed off the top edge of the Top Notes Dies shapes (marked in pencil below)

This left hand image shows where to emboss and the right hand image shows the Hearts folder from Adorning Accents folders in place and ready to emboss.  Note that only one of these shapes was embossed - this is the front of the bag.

The rectangle was scored as below to form the hinge.  I then fancied up one of the long sides using Scallop Trim Border Punch

Heres the dimensions of an A7 notepad

The spine and hinge are on the Left (for right handed people).  I glued where the hatching is and attached to the back of the notepad

The plain Top Note shape was then glued to the back of the notepad.  The Frame shape was then glued as shown with the hatching (the area not embossed) and attached to the back of the Top Note Die.  The second Top Note shape with the embossing was then glued to the hinge

The handle was then adhered with red tape as a continuous circle under and the flap of the handbag lid. This makes it look really neat and tidy. (Thanks for the tip Chris!) The two smaller flowers were fixed to the front of the bag with a mini brad to hold the lid down.  The larger flower is then glued to cover the back of the brad

Heres the note pad open

Another Team Birthday Card

Excuse the quality of the pic.  It was taken with my phone camera

As you can guess, this was for a significant birthday for one of our team.

The background is Pretty in Pink paper embossed with Lacy Brocade folder

The DSP is from Tea For Two and Ive cut along some of the lines

Frame is embossed using Designer Frames folder using Crumb Cake paper (doesnt look like Crumb Cake in the pic though)

The 50 is stamped using Pretty in Pink paper and ink using Number It stamps

The leavers are lucky limeade and Little Leaves Die.  The larger flowers are Boho Blossom and the smaller are Itty Bitty Flowers punches.  Flowers are cut from Calypso Coral paper with a basic pearl centre

The ribbon is retired Calypso Coral

Team Birthday Cards

Here are a couple of birthday cards that I made for some of the ladies from our Stampin Up! team

The band and centre of the frame are from Birds of a Feather DSP
The frame is made using Designer Frames embossing folder, daubed with Crumb Cake ink

The bird and branch are stamped from the Language of Friendship on Crumb Cake paper and punched using Bird Builder

The flowers are punched using Itty Bitty Shapes

The ribbon on the band is Crumb Cake

Heres a card that I've made for my old neighbour, Julie.  Thats old as in ex-neighbour, not old in age.

The main background is stamped from Everything Eleanor and Lucky Limeade ink.

The band is from Summer Smoohes DSP.  The pleated ribbon is now retired.  Ive drawn faux stitching along the sides of the band using a Rich Razzleberry pen.

The bigger centre is cut from Rich Razzleberry paper.

The centre is stamped using Apothecary Art Stamp and cut using the matching Framelit dies.  The centre frame is coloured using an Aqua Painter pen (cross between a paint brush and a pen).  The pen was dipped in Rich Razzleberry ink to colour the flowers.  Some have a small pearl in the centres.

The greeting is from the Apothecary Art stamp set and cut out free hand

This Times Swaps

I have a SU training day coming up where we swap samples / ideas, as well as learning about the products and techniques.

These are my 'swaps' which are all based on a folded Bigz die called Two Tags.   The images show the folded and unfolded tag.  I'll not add blurb on all the inks, stamps and papers used.  If you want to know any of the combinations, ask in the comments.

Cheryl