Monthly Archives: February 2015

A million and one thanks

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This seemed like a good card to make at a crop. I was very thankful for a lot of things, but I’ll limit it to carding related items. I was firstly grateful that I thought I was well enough to attend having caught a cold/sinus infection/cough on the plane on the way back from Barcelona. In truth, I probably wasn’t well enough because I had a bit of a relapse this week, but I have the time to take it easy so it’s all good. Secondly I was really happy that my best friend agreed to attend with me after having made a single card in her whole life. As my brother pointed out, it was more about spending time together and relaxing and if she didn’t like making cards all day, it would be fine. As it turns out, Julia got really into it; we attended the technique class and learned 6 new techniques as well as making cards – we’ve already signed up for the next crop in April! I was also thankful for the three women responsible for all the fun – for details see their website. I was especially thankful to Melissa who put together the goody bags containing, amongst other things, some of the Birthday Bash DSP.

I absolutely love the blue and white swirly paper but it’s quite loud. For me. I think I got it out of the goody bag at least three times and then put it back before I managed to cut it and proceed with the card. I didn’t want to hide too much of the beautiful paper; the swirls on this sentiment (from the Stampin’ Up! Million and One set) seem to go with the DSP so it was a simple matter of stamping the sentiment and then cropping it with the ovals framelits and cutting the next largest oval in night of navy.

Stampin' Up! Million and One

I loved the DSP so much that, not only have I ordered some, I lined the outside of the envelope so that it can’t be missed!

Banner Blast

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Continuing the fun from the crop weekend, I actually won something! Normally I don’t win a thing, but this time I won the big bingo prize (which was money to spend on Stampin’ Up! – what a great prize!) and then I won a door prize consisting of the Stampin’ Up! Banner Blast stamp set (a previous sale-a-bration set) and the banner punch. I haven’t really played with banners before (and one of my friends thinks that banners are a bit odd) but here was a great opportunity. It seemed appropriate to make a card with my winnings.

Stampin' Up! Banner Blast

To start with I tried to stamp the flags in a straight line but after about three tries I realised it would be easier to punch them out and then stick them on the card. There was either a banner stamped not quite straight or a smudge. It worked much better using a ruler and the punched out banners (although it’s still not perfect but you probably have to be a card maker to really notice). I used many of the stamps from the set and stamped them in perfect plum and rose red; the rose red one is popped up with stampin’ dimensionals. The sentiment comes from the A Dozen Thoughts set. I really love the typeface. It is also stamped in rose red. The very vanilla piece is glued to a rose red base and the envelope liner is also in rose red from the regals Backgrounds DSP. The Backgrounds DSP collections are incredibly useful, since you always have the perfect match.

 

Love is Kindness

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One of the (many) great things about going to a weekend crop is sharing supplies. Sadly I was having one of those inspiration free days which occur every now and then. When that happens I usually make a copy of a card or just wait until the next day but on Saturday, I went to talk to some of my friends for inspiration. Barb had the Stampin’ Up! Love is Kindness set, which she hadn’t even used but she lent it to me. There is a sentiment on the stamp which means that the tulips are supposed to be upright but Brian King pointed out that they looked better lying down. It hadn’t occurred to me until I read his post but he’s 100% right! So I masked the sentiment and stamped the tulips in memento black ink on very vanilla. I used memento black because I was planning to use the blendabilities to colour the image and other inks would not hold fast.

Stampin' Up! Love is Kindness

I coloured the tulips in the two lightest shades of melon mambo. I outlined the petals in the darker colour as well as colouring in the small part of the third petal. Then using the lightest shade I finished the two biggest petals, blending the two colours together. For the leaves and stalks, I used wild wasabi but this time it’s only one shade. I decided to leave lots of space around the image and stuck the 5.25″ by 4″ card onto a base of melon mambo. I lined the envelope using the envelope liners framelits and the backgrounds DSP from the Brights collection.

Bordering Blooms for a one layer card

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My cards are usually simple because I like the clean look, rather than lots of embellishments and layers and clutter. I like to have open space. But they aren’t usually one layer cards – they are almost harder to do since you want enough interest in the card but you’re not using any layers to help. This one uses two sets from the Annual catalogue – the Stampin’ Up! Bordering Blooms and Yippee Skippee sets. The catalogue has a number of stamps with borders – which are easy to skip over – because they discontinued the wheel stamps. People would have issues getting the wheels to move in a straight line; I only tried a few times but I’m much happier now that I’ve “de-wheeled” my wheel stamps and made them into ordinary clear stamps. This card uses the final stamp from the Bordering Blooms set that I referred to recently that hadn’t previously been inked. Since I know that the border sets are easy to skip over, I wanted to highlight one on a card.

Stampin' Up! Bordering Blooms and Yippee Skippee

The base is blackberry bliss, one of the 2014-2016 in colours and one of my favourites. I love the richness of the colour. I used the embossing buddy before embossing the border in gold. This is actually the third attempt – the first two didn’t have the border in the right place so I have some embossed borders to use up on another card or two! I then embossed the sentiment from Yippee Skippee also in gold. I dry embossed the envelope flap with the large polka dot embossing folder, although you can’t see that in the picture. I struggle to photograph the metallics – somehow the top of the card is more blurry than the rest. I’m not sure quite how that happened. But, as the sentiment says, life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful!

 

Fabulous You

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At the weekend, I attended another crop. It was two days of fun; time with old friends and new, learning techniques, being inspired and borrowing and lending things. Today’s card was created at the weekend and I borrowed Mitzi’s retired stamp set, the Stampin’ Up! Fabulous You. Mitzi stamped it in silver on black card stock and it looked very dramatic, but I wanted red shoes. So I picked up a piece of very vanilla and embossed the shoe in cherry cobbler. Since I’m intending this for my best friend’s birthday, I also added in the sentiment which seems appropriate. I had to create the card in secret because she was sitting right next to me so anytime she wandered off, I’d pull out the card and work on it. I think I got away with it

Stampin' Up! Fabulous You

I put the very vanilla card onto a base of cherry cobbler. I also lined the envelope with the cherry cobbler backgrounds DSP.