Monthly Archives: December 2014

The Fancy Paper Players

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This week’s challenge from the Paper Players is fancy – here’s the banner:

This was quite a tough challenge since I tend towards the Clean And Simple type of card, but I was determined to give it a try. I really tried hard to use the All is Calm Snowflake embellishments. When that didn’t really work, I tried ribbon. And then tried to combine the two, but nothing was feeling right, TOO fancy perhaps. The Stampin’ Up! Wondrous Wreath set was out on my table from a couple of days ago and I decided to emboss it in gold. What a surprise, I know. After embossing it on garden green, I realised that my card stock was half an inch smaller than my regular card size and decided to add gold foil as a mat. Now this is looking fancy. I got a sentiment from Endless Wishes and embossed that in gold also.

The challenge says that if I think it’s fancy, then so do they, and lots of gold and green and mats is fancy for me. But I wondered about MORE. I coloured some rhinestones with the medium cherry cobbler blendability but whilst musing about whether this was a good idea, my mother peered over my shoulder, admired the green and gold and said – what about the plain sparkly things. I wasn’t sure, but held a medium sized rhinestone over the card with tweezers and she was impressed. And dared me to add one to each large circle. Twelve rhinestones?? On one card?

I decided to accept her dare. And I really like how the card came out, as did she. My father loved it too.

Stampin' Up! Wondrous Wreath

The rhinestones don’t look quite right here – here’s a close up at an angle to show them looking more sparkly:

Stampin' Up! Wondrous Wreath

I lined the envelope with the background DSP in garden green.

 

 

Holiday Home for Merry Mondays

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The Merry Monday challenge this week is to use gold, silver, white and one other colour.

I debated about this for a while – it’s not easy to combine gold and silver effectively. But then my eye fell on the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Home set, most of which I haven’t used. I have previously made a tag using night of navy with the santa and reindeer in silver and that seemed like a place to start. I realised that colouring some of the houses’ windows in gold would give the effect of that room having the light on, perhaps the children waiting for santa. This is the first time that I’ve used the houses from the Holiday Home set and thus the first time that I wished that I’d got the matching framelits. Instead, I had to deploy my paper snips!

Stampin' Up! Holiday Home

So after cutting out the houses stamped in night of navy on whisper white, I coloured in a window per house in gold. I then used my night of navy blendability markers to colour in the doors, going over the outside of the third door a couple of times to give a darker colour. I also stamped the wreath in night of navy figuring that it was dark at night and all colour from the wreaths would be missing. Before adhering the houses, I used the embossing buddy and then embossed the santa and reindeer in silver. I really like the houses and will have to use them more! I finished off the card by lining the envelope using the backgrounds DSP in night of navy.

 

Simple Merry Mini Punches

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A few days ago I made a blue and white Christmas card using the Stampin’ Up! merry mini punches. I bought these punches earlier in the year intending to make cards with a bunch of little trees. Finally I got around to it.

Stampin' Up! Merry Mini Punches

I used the same method as before – I punched out a tree in the middle of the piece of whisper white and then did the outside trees by putting the edge of the punch at the edge of the previously punched tree and punching again. I put a piece of gold foil paper under the last tree (yes, it really is gold although it looks brown in the photo). I then took the Merry & bright sentiment from the Good Greetings set and stamped that in the middle of the four green trees in garden green. The card didn’t look as balanced as I expected – I had thought that the gold tree would balance the sentiment so I added a rhinestone coloured with the medium cherry cobbler blendability.

To make the envelope coordinate, I ran it through the big shot with the flap in the On Point textured impressions embossing folder.

Stampin' Up! Merry Mini Punches

Here’s a better picture:

Stampin' Up! mini merry punches better pic

Finally Fab Friday Five

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I’ve been struggling with the Fab Friday challenge over the weekend; I find it tricky to use five colours on a card since I love the clean and simple style – even though the 5 colours look good together.

I was trying to go off in a non-Christmas direction but in the end, the Stampin’ Up! Festival of Trees set called to me.

Stampin' Up! Festival of Trees

I started by stamping the tree in old olive on crumb cake (2 colours down!) and then stamped the pot in cherry cobbler (three). I used the medium old olive blendability to colour in the lines on the tree where the tinsel or lights are – it is still noticeable but I prefer that it’s not stark white – or crumb cake. Then I took the coastal cabana blendabilities and coloured the baubles in the three colours along with the Stampin’ Write marker in bermuda bay (that gets me to 5 colours!).  I really like the variety in bauble colours.

Next I coloured one of the largest rhinestones in the medium cherry cobbler and put it on the top of the tree. To finish off the front of the card, I used Endless Wishes and cherry cobbler to add the sentiment. I put my crumb cake piece onto a cherry cobbler base.

Stampin' Up! Festival of Trees

To finish off the card, I used the On Point embossing folder on the flap of the crumb cake envelope – I’m so happy that Stampin’ Up! offers these.

Bordering blooms for thanks

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Today I pulled out a set that I got recently but haven’t yet used – Stampin’ Up! Bordering Blooms. Since I’m still somewhat stumped on the 5 colour challenge for Fab Friday, I went to the colour coach for inspiration instead. The coach suggested old olive, elegant eggplant and melon mambo. I played around with a few layouts and thought that I was going to drop the melon mambo but then decided to have just a couple of pops of the pink.

Stampin' Up! Bordering Blooms

I started by stamping the thanks sentiment in old olive in the lower half of the very vanilla card. Not recognising the sentiment? It’s from the Fabulous Four set but I cut off the “very very very much” part so that I can use them separately or together easily without having to bother with masking. Then I stamped one of the borders three times in old olive. The middles were done in the elegant eggplant leaving a couple of gaps – I merely inked up the border and put the edge next to where I wanted the gap. Then I cleaned the stamp REALLY well, tested that it was perfectly clean by stamping on scrap paper and then inked up a single blossom in melon mambo and stamped in the two spaces that I’d left. I matted the very vanilla on elegant eggplant.