Category Archives: Birthday

Vertical Greetings for Pootles’ Colour Challenge

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It’s the third Pootles’ colour challenge already – I missed the second due to my business trip to Texas. This week the colours we have to select from are melon mambo, watermelon wonder, crushed curry and cucumber crush. I elected to use just three of them – watermelon wonder didn’t fit with my card. These colours gave me the chance to play with vertical greetings again – I’m really having fun with this set. In fact, Vertical Greetings was one of the sets that made it onto my “Must Buy Immediately” list!

Stampin' Up! Vertical Greetings and Detailed Floral Thinlits Dies

I carefully inked up the stamp with cucumber crush and crushed curry and then huffed on it before stamping. I then added the greeting in melon mambo. Are you wondering where the flowers came from? They are punched out of the Detailed Floral Thinlits dies and are a perfect size to decorate this tree – as are the crushed curry enamel shapes. Any time that I cut out the detailed floral thinlits dies, I save these little flowers. I then matted my piece of whisper white with a skinny piece of cucumber crush and glued that to a thick whisper white card base.

Stampin' Up! Vertical Greetings and Detailed Floral Thinlits Dies

The festive TIEF seems to mimic the rows of decoration on the flower pot so I used that to dry emboss my envelope flap.

I’d like to wish a  hearty welcome to my two new email subscribers. Thanks so much for inviting me into your inbox! Feel free to comment and introduce yourselves or ask any questions that you may have.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Fruit Stand Designer Series Paper

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On Friday I returned home after a week at one of our plants in Ennis, Texas. It was a really interesting week, I learned a lot, met a large number of really nice people and met up with my friend Rebecca (whom I haven’t seen in 12 years) a couple of times. As you presumably noticed, I had all my posts ready to go so that there was no interruptions but the one thing that was bothering me was that my Stampin’ Up! order was arriving the day after I left, on Tuesday. So yesterday, in between laundry and cooking, I found time to start playing. Usually I jump on the new stamp sets but this time it was the Fruit Stand DSP which insisted on being used first. I fully expected to be using the quieter sides of the the DSP, so this card came as a bit of a surprise to me!

Stampin' Up! Fruit Stand DSP and Watercolor Wishes

The Fruit Stand DSP is absolutely gorgeous and the peach (or is it an apricot?) needed to be the focal point of the card. So I snipped around it with my paper snips which was no big deal. I decided to leave a white border and layer it on white so I didn’t need to be terribly precise. After a fair amount of playing around with the reverse of the paper and various colour of cardstock, I finally decided to use tangerine tango. I cut down my top layer of whisper white to 4 3/4 by 3 1/2 inches and stamped the sentiment from Watercolor Wishes in tangerine tango using the cut out peach to help position it. Then I added a skinny mat of tangerine tango (1/8 inch larger than the whisper white) before gluing that to a thick whisper white card base. I then popped up the peach on a lot of dimensionals – the DSP is pretty sturdy, but I wanted to be sure it wouldn’t sag.

Stampin' Up! Fruit Stand DSP and Watercolor Wishes

I used another of my new products on the envelope – I dry embossed the flap with the petal burst TIEF.

I’m off now to go and play some more. See you tomorrow,

Liz

Designer Tin of Cards Flourish

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A friend of mine came over recently to make some invitations to an annual dinner party and we looked at cards I’d made to get some idea of what she liked. It was clear that fairly monochromatic, florals with texture were the way to go and she then invented what I’m calling the Sam Squishing Technique. “Could we”, she said, “glue the cut out onto the card and then emboss it”. I said let’s try it. And we ended up with the die cut looking embedded into the card. It’s really fun. So, as I told her, I’m stealing it! On Sunday, I got together with a few of my friends to make cards, I showed them the Sam Squishing technique and they approved.

Stampin' Up! Designer Tin of Cards and Elegant Dots TIEF

I cut the die cut from the Flourish thinlits dies in dapper denim and then glued it to a piece of very vanilla – I find that the 2 way glue pen is good for this. Then I dry embossed this with the Elegant Dots TIEF. It’s a great look. I mounted this onto a dapper denim card base and then worked on the sentiment which comes from the Designer Tin of Cards. I stamped it in dapper denim onto very vanilla (I really love these colours together) and then cut it out with a circles die. I cut the same size in dapper denim too. The blue circle is glued to the card front and the sentiment is popped up with dimensionals.

I used the same embossing folder on the envelope flap to tie it all together.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Designer Tin of Cards with Washi

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I mentioned recently that I wanted to use more washi and so this card started with the washi tape. In this case, it was from two suites – I have the floral boutique designer washi tape and the Pop of Pink designer washi tape. And I also wanted to use my Designer Tin of Cards set which so far hadn’t been inked up.

Stampin' Up! Designer Tin of Cards

I read on Pootles’ site recently that on the incentive trip, Pam Morgan demoed the Floral Boutique DSP and suggested treating the navy as a neutral – “navy and white and a pop of bright” and I thought that was an excellent idea. So after I’d put down a piece of the Floral Boutique DWT (Designer Washi Tape), I added a strip of the Pop of Pink DWT. I made both pieces long enough to wrap around the whisper white top layer. Well actually, the first piece wasn’t and I reclaimed that and used it on the envelope. Waste not, want not!

Next I stamped out the beautifully written sentiment from the Designer Tin of Cards set in night of navy on a piece of scrap which I cropped with a circle framelit. I cut another same sized circle from night of navy cardstock so that I could layer them.The night of navy one is glued to the card whereas the whisper white circle is popped up with dimensionals. To continue the pop of pink, I added three enamel shapes in melon mambo to coordinate with the washi tape.

To continue the idea of a pop of bright, I used melon mambo for the sentiment inside the card – this is from one of my favourite sets, Watercolor Wishes.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Floral Boutique DSP for Freshly Made Sketches

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Yesterday I was playing with the Detailed Floral Thinlits dies and I flipped to the catalog showing the Floral Boutique suite and was reminded how beautiful the Floral Boutique DSP is (that’s Designer Series Paper in case you’re wondering). So when I saw the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches, I decided to use this paper.

Stampin' Up! Floral Boutique DSP and Botanical Builders thinlits dies

Here’s the banner from the challenge sketch which ends today:

I decided to follow the sketch pretty much to the letter. I first cut a piece of the Floral Boutique DSP 2 by 4.5 inches and then a piece of whisper white just 1/8 inch larger for the mat. After gluing that panel to my night of navy card base, I made my flower. I cut out two flowers using the botanical builder framelit dies, one in night of navy and one in whisper white and layered them. I attached them together in the middle with glue dots and pushed the petals up so that there is a lot of extra dimension. Happily I have the new enamel shapes in regals and there of the larger circles were perfect as my flower centre.

Even more happily, I’d first cut my DSP at 2.5 inches wide and decided it was too big and so removed a half an inch. And this leftover strip made a perfect decoration for my envelope to make it match my card.

Stampin' Up! Floral Boutique DSP and Botanical Builders thinlits dies

I’m really not sure why I used to be so nervous of sketch challenges – they are my preferred type these days! I encourage you to have a go if, like I used to be, you move on rapidly when you see that a challenge is a sketch.

See you tomorrow,

Liz