Monthly Archives: October 2015

Acorny Thank You

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Firstly I’d like to thank the team at CAS Colours and Sketches for choosing my card last week as one of the winners. It’s definitely an honour to win since CAS is my favourite type of card.

I wasn’t going to get the Acorny Thank You set; it seemed a bit limited and why would I want acorns? But I’ve seen a few samples and decided one late night (a few glasses of wine may have been involved) to get the set and the matching punch. And I love them! They arrived yesterday and seemed perfect for the sketch challenge this week at CAS Colours & Sketches.

Stampin' Up! Acorny Thank You and Perpetual Birthday Calendar

The sketch that inspired this card is:

I looked through the (retired) colour coach for ideas and was happy to find the suggested combination of sahara sand, early espresso and my favourite pear pizzazz. I stamped a couple of images in early espresso on sahara sand and punched them out using my new punch and then made an acorn topper with another stamp and pear pizzazz. This was also punched out and then adhered to the acorn with snail. I then cut a template using one of the circle framelits (actually this was my second go, the first was too small) and used that to stamp the leaves in pear pizzazz from the Perpetual Birthday Calendar stamp set in a circle. I glued the first acorn on and then popped up the second one using stampin’ dimensionals. I cut a square piece of early espresso an 1/8 inch bigger than the sahara sand to give me a thin mat and then glued that to a pear pizzazz card base.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Peaceful Pines

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The Paper Players challenge this week pretty much screams Christmas and even though I’m not really focused on Christmas Card making yet, I went for it anyway.

Stampin' Up! Holly Jolly Greetings and Peaceful Pines and Christmas Greetings Thinlits

Here’s the banner which inspired my card:

I started by stamping the speckles in cucumber crush onto the same coloured card using the Peaceful Pines set and then cut it out with the matching framelit. I couldn’t resist cutting out the holes using another of the framelits. I cut out another tree in red – and trimmed the edges – and layered it behind to see how it looked. I then stamped some ornaments in crushed curry on crushed curry card stock and cut them out (again with the same set of framelits) but I didn’t like how they looked on the tree. Still, I liked how they looked behind the tree. So the little ornaments were glued onto the tree’s back using the fine tip glue pen and then I attached the red tree on top of them. So, I had my tree. Then there was a fair bit of playing with different colours of cardstock and different orientations until I decided to cut out the merry with the Christmas Greetings Framelits in real red. Now I could see where I was going and I stuck down my tree using dimensionals. Rookie mistake! I tried to stamp the Christmas (from Holly Jolly Greetings) in cucumber crush using my stamp-a-ma-jig for placement and of course the raised tree meant that I stamped it wonky. After using a knife to remove my tree – and scrape off the remaining pieces of dimensionals, I started again. This time I decided on Christmas in real red and added the crushed curry stars (also from Holly Jolly Greetings) before gluing the tree back on – again with dimensionals. The fine tip glue pen made quick work of adhering the die cut merry and then all that was left was to put the very vanilla piece onto a real red cardbase. Another clean and simple card, my favourite!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Sprinkles of life cone

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Here’s another card that I made at the last crop (and it’s not long until the next one!). I’d planned to spend some quality crafting time this morning but I’m off to a pig roast today and I’ll be going early to help. So I’ve made apple chili sauce and smoked trout pate; the latter made with the trout that my father caught yesterday and my brother smoked last night. Good stuff.

Stampin' Up! Sprinkles of Life

This is using the Stampin’ Up! set Sprinkles of Life which is this year’s charity set. Stampin’ Up! donates $3 to the Ronald McDonald House Charities for every set bought. It’s a fun set and it helps a charity. Win win.

I stamped the cone in Delightful Dijon on very vanilla and then used the matching punch to cut out the scoops of ice cream after I’d stamped them in the same colour as the card. I used mint macaron, chocolate chip and blushing bride to make my Neapolitan looking ice cream cone. I decided that a real cone with this many scoops would not be perfectly straight so I angled some of them a little. The sentiment is from the same set and that’s also in chocolate chip. I glued this onto a delightful dijon card base. And for once, I’m using the new in colour stack to line the envelope.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

Remarkable You birthday

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I made this card a while ago for my friend Jacquie’s birthday; I know she’s received it so it’s safe to post it.

Stampin' Up! Remarkable You and Cottage Greeting

Jacquie’s favourite colours are orange and gold so the palette was easy. And the card is pretty easy too as long as you remember to use the embossing buddy to prevent any stray specks of embossing powder.  So after using the embossing buddy, I stamped the image from the Stampin’ Up! Remarkable You set, sprinkled on the gold powder and then heated the powder. It definitely helps to turn on the heat tool and have it heat up for a minute before starting to melt the powder. It’s also good to leave the card for a minute or two afterwards – I once smeared the gold embossing by touching it immediately afterwards. Then use the embossing buddy again – even if you already swiped it over all of the card – before stamping the sentiment. This one is from Cottage Greetings and seems appropriate for a birthday. I matted the piece of tangelo twist with gold foil before putting it onto a tangelo twist card base. Definitely one very orange and gold card! I stamped one of the flowers in tangelo twist onto the envelope as well.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Best Thoughts for the Global Design Project

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Sometimes I know the general direction that a card is going in, sometimes I have no idea. This is one of the latter occasions. I saw that the Global Design Project had a colour challenge this week and decided to have a go.

Stampin' Up! Best Thoughts and Cottage Greetings

Here’s the colour banner which inspired the card:

I decided that the pear pizzazz and the soft sky could be sky and grass and that I’d do some watercolouring. I had pieces of card of each of the colours out on my desk whilst I was thinking about what to do and the soft sky happened to have a circle cut out of it. So I used it as my template. I wet the piece of watercolor paper with water before adding colour – I messed up at one point and the aquapainter pushed under the card template and my circle wasn’t perfect. I was about to redo it, when I thought that the whole point of watercoloring is that is ISN’T perfect and added more colour around the circle to soften all the edges of the circle. Then I went on a search for an appropriate image to add. After discarding various flowers, I settled on the butterfly from the hostess set Best Thoughts which I stamped in archival basic black. I added full strength daffodil delight to the spots on the butterfly and a paler strength for the rest of the butterfly.  After framing the watercolor paper with a little pear pizzazz I added it to a soft sky card base. I had thoughts to pull out my greetings dies (again) but it was too heavy; Cottage Greetings was out (I’d been looking at the flowers) and I realised that the thanks would work well. It’s also stamped in my favourite archival basic black. There was a bit of a risk taken with this card – for some reason, I stamped the thanks last. It would have been much safer to have done that before adhering the pear pizzazz to the card base – there’s no way it will ever come off, it’s stuck on there with the mighty fast fuse! Apparently I’m taking risks today.

See you tomorrow,

Liz