Category Archives: Birthday

Paper Pumpkin August 2016 Alternate 3

3 Replies

Happy Monday! I hope that your week is starting off well – I assume it is if you’re in the UK since it’s a Bank Holiday. For me, a transplant to NJ, I’m off to work, looking forward to next weekend which will be a long one. But first, here’s my Paper Pumpkin August 2016 Alternate 3 which was inspired by CAS on Sunday’s theme this week of balloons.

Stampin' Up! Paper Pumpkin August 2016 alternate

I took one of the card bases and one of the pockets from the kit and used the Balloon Bouquet punch on them in different directions to get these fun coloured balloons. The balloon strings are from Balloon Celebration and are stamped in island indigo to match the DSP as is the sentiment from Cottage Greetings. I offset the balloons a little so that I could keep lots of lovely clean white space.

Next it was simply a matter of arranging the balloons and then gluing them in place, one at a time, to try to keep the bunch as I’d planned. Three of them are glued and the last two are popped up with dimensionals. A pretty simple alternate although it does use quite a few other products – hopefully you have them or some that will work if you want to try this out.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Happy Birthday to My Elegant Cards

26 Replies

Today is the second birthday of my blog, My Elegant Cards. It’s also my birthday; I never work on my birthday (after running foul of layoffs on it when I was 25) and so I had the time to start my blog then. To celebrate, I’m offering blog candy today (only to residents of the US). To enter, just comment on this post before Saturday 3rd September and I’ll put you in the draw. Here’s what you’ll win:

Stampin' Up! products for blog candy

Would you like a closer look at these? I thought so. The unused stamp set is from Sale-a-bration last year and it was one of the most popular offerings. I used my set quite a lot.

Stampin' Up! products for blog candy on My Elegants Cards

There are three stacks of DSP, each consisting of 12 pieces of a 6″ by 6″ stack, basically each is a quarter of a DSP stack. I thought that this could be like a mini paper and ribbon share. The first is from the retired Have a Cuppa DSP stack.

Stampin' Up! products for blog candy on My Elegants Cards

 

The next is from Playful Palette DSP stack from the current annual catalogue

Stampin' Up! products for blog candy on My Elegants Cards

The last stack is from Serene Scenery which is in the current catalogue and consists of photos on one side and patterns on the other. Here are two shots showing both sides of the paper.

Stampin' Up! products for blog candy on My Elegants Cards Stampin' Up! products for blog candy on My Elegants Cards

Finally the ribbon:

Stampin' Up! products for blog candy on My Elegants Cards

There’s quite a mixture here – we have retired daffodil delight seam binding ribbon, rich razzleberry 1/4 inch cotton ribbon and natural 7/8″ cotton ribbon on spools. Then I decided to go very share-like and have put a yard of various ribbons on card. Starting at the right hand side, I’ve got the silky taffeta duo from the upcoming holiday catalog (cherry cobbler and emerald envy) plus the 3/8 inch ribbon trio pack (delightful dijon, mint macaron and rich razzleberry). I realised that I had more card than planned ribbon so I added some retired pool party seam binding ribbon before the delightful dijon mini striped ribbon and the melon mambo stitched ribbon, both from the annual catalogue. Finally I filled the rest of the card with the wide watermelon wonder luxurious stitched satin ribbon.

So what do you think? A worthy birthday celebration I hope. Just leave a comment before Saturday EST and I’ll add you to the drawing. Good luck.

I’m off to go and play with my crafting stuff now.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Petals and Paisleys Specialty DSP

Leave a reply

One of the new papers in the upcoming holiday catalog is the Petals and Paisleys Specialty DSP and I wanted to really make a feature of it with this card.

Stampin' Up! Petals and Paisleys Specialty DSP and Watercolor Wishes

I cut a piece of the DSP to 5 1/8″ by 3 7/8″ and mounted it on a piece of very vanilla that is 5 1/4″ by 4″ and I then glued this to a night of navy card base. I then used rich razzleberry to stamp the sentiment from Watercolor Wishes onto a scrap of very vanilla. Next up were my new layering ovals framelits which I used to cut out the sentiment and also to provide a frame of night of navy. This I popped up with stampin’ dimensionals, leaving lots of the Petals and Paisleys Specialty DSP showing as was my original plan. At this point I felt as if something was missing so I added a few of the night of navy enamel shapes to a few of the flowers.

Stampin' Up! Petals and Paisleys Specialty DSP and Watercolor Wishes

Isn’t this DSP beautiful? I think this is almost my favourite paper in this pack – there’s a gorgeous night of navy and copper one which wins out. I’m going to play with that next even though I can feel reluctance to cut into it! I know we all do this, but saving the favourite papers and never using them just doesn’t make sense!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Fruit Stand DSP

Leave a reply

I really love the Fruit Stand DSP, especially the paper with the lemons and so I wanted to make it the star of my card.

Stampin' Up! Fruit Stand DSP and Endless Birthday Wishes

I think I achieved that with this super simple and quick card. It would be a great one for mass production using a variety of DSPs. This strip of DSP is about 1 3/4 inches tall and 5 1/8 wide so that I get a very small matt at the edges. I glued it to a mat of whisper white and then stamped the sentiment from Endless Birthday Wishes in crushed curry. This was a bit of a departure for me, a “colouring outside the lines” since the DSP is supposed to pair with daffodil delight. However, this piece looked happier with crushed curry. Hence the card base is also crushed curry.

To make my envelope match, I cut another strip of the DSP at 2 1/8″ by 6 and then glued it to the envelope flap and trimmed off the excess.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Cupcake Cutouts Framelits Dies

Leave a reply

I was not thrilled by the new in color, flirty flamingo but remembering how sometimes new colours take a little time to grow on me, I pulled it out, determined to use it. And I love how it brightened the cupcake and how the Cupcake Cutouts framelits dies really made it sing.

Stampin' Up! Cupcake Cutouts framelits dies and Sweet Cupcake

I stamped the cupcake liner using crumb cake stamped off once for the largest image, crumb cake at full strength for the next one and then soft suede for the most detailed stamp. For the cake itself, I used blushing bride stamped off once, then full strength and then for the detailed image flirty flamingo. It really brought the cake to life. I was so impressed that I chose to cut out my sweet sentiment (part of the cupcake cutouts framelits dies – there’s also the word wish) using flirty flamingo too. All of the stamped images come from the stamp set, Sweet Cupcake.

After cutting out all of the pieces of the card, I decided to start by stamping the sentiment putting the various cut out pieces in place to get placement. Once that had gone perfectly I glued the liner to the card base (if I’d thought ahead I could’ve just stamped on the card, but I guess it’s safer this way!) and then popped up the top of the cake with dimensionals. Lastly I added the die cut word to the card. And decided that the card was complete. I could’ve added some sort of embellishments in the lovely white space but it would have detracted from the star of the card – of which flirty flamingo is a big part. I challenge you to take a colour that you’re only lukewarm on, and make a card. It’s rather fun.

See you tomorrow,

Liz