When I was making a card for a challenge at CAS Colours & Challenges a few weeks ago, I messed up my stamping and was about to start over when I realised it was salvageable. Not for the sketch challenge that was running at the time, but definitely as a birthday card. I’d stamped the sentiment on my square card and the balloon strings on the left and then blurred some of the strings that were to be on the right hand side. So I cut off the right hand side of the square card going back to a more standard rectangle. And nobody would have known any different. Except, of course, I just published that fact to anyone who cares to read this!
The sentiment is from Suite Sayings and I especially love this one. It’s stamped in archival black on whisper white as are the balloon strings which are from Balloon Celebration. Then, because I was also working on a colour challenge and got hooked on the colours, I used melon mambo, pink pirouette and pumpkin pie to stamp the balloon bubbles onto the same colour card.
These were then punched out with the balloon bouquet punch which not only matches Balloon Celebration, but is sold in a bundle with it for 15% off. I arranged the balloons and glued them down using the multipurpose glue.
The envelope flap is dry embossed with the spring flowers embossing folder. I think it’s retired now sadly, but it’s a really fun pattern.
Picture Perfect is one of the new sets that arrived in my order last week and so I was itching to play with it. I find that on the first use of a set, I go very simple, just to check it out. This set is a multi step stamping 2 for the starfish, 4 for the humming bird. I started with the starfish since there are less colours to pick for that!
Last night I was talking to someone on Facebook and she is such a nice person, I was inspired to create this card for her. I’ll hopefully get it in the post in the next day or two now that I’m more mobile. I’m actually able to drive without pain now (being my left foot and I drive a manual transmission) although moving too much gets me time on the sofa with an ice pack reducing the swelling. But it’s tremendous progress and I’m happy.
I started off trying so saffron and pumpkin pie for the starfish stamping the pumpkin pie first so that it’s easier to line up the so saffron but the yellow was overpowered so I switched to hello honey. I covered the starfish in clear wink of stella to give the impression that it was just out of the water.
I then fussy cut out the starfish (does anyone else keep typing fuzzy but accident for fussy??!) and, after stamping the sentiment in hello honey, popped up the starfish on dimensionals. There’s a full sized one in the centre and little tiny strips at the end of each arm. I then glued the whisper white panel to a pumpkin pie mat and mounted that on a hello honey card base.
I lined the envelope with the backgrounds DSP in hello honey using the envelope liners framelits.
Here’s a fun set that was added earlier this month to the list of items you can earn for free during Sale-a-bration. My order that arrived a couple of days ago had the two new sets so you’ll be seeing the Party Pants set soon. But today, it’s Pedal Pusher. This card was one of the “let’s start with a stamp and see where it ends up” variety. I wanted to use the bike and was pretty sure I wanted to use my aquapainter but even so I started by stamping the bike in archival basic black rather than using the stazon. There’s not much watercolouring over the black so I figured it would be safe from bleeding.
The really fun thing about the Pedal Pusher set is that it has a basket stamp and several options for what to include. I of course had to start with the wine! The grapes fall over the edge of the basket – I didn’t stamp it quite perfectly so I just added a grape to fill in the gap with my stampin’ write basic black marker. It worked perfectly.
I then did a pale wash of mossy meadow for the ground, trying hard not to make it too neat and tidy. Not that I’m claiming that I’m neat and tidy by nature (my sister and others who know me are probably giggling) but I like symmetry and things to visually be neat. Then I used a less watered down shade of mossy meadow for the bike frame and mudguards. Since I’d started with last year’s in colours, I grabbed hello honey for the basket and watered it down a little for the bread and then finished with a very watered down blackberry bliss for the grapes.
The sentiment is from Enjoy the little things which is a set intended for Project Life but it seems perfect for cards too. I stamped off once so that the blackberry bliss sentiment would be closer to the grapes in strength. The mat is blackberry bliss and it’s on a card base of mossy meadow.
I definitely need to check my supplies of the card stock in the in colours and get any extras I need by the end of next month. If I’m going to stock up on them, it makes sense to do so now so that I can get freebies from Sale-a-bration, right? 🙂
Ann asked me if there’s a trick to ensuring that washi tape doesn’t pull up from the card if you don’t wrap it all the way around although she wonders if it’s due to living in a dry climate. New Jersey is definitely not dry but I haven’t had any issues, so I reached out to Eimear (my unofficial upline) to see if she had either although the UK isn’t really dry. We agreed that the best thing to do would be to use some glue on the end – and that fast fuse would stop it (and anything) moving. When I say unofficial upline, it’s because my sister introduced me to Stampin’ Up! but since she lives in the UK I couldn’t be part of that group. But Eimear’s adopted me and I’m part of her Facebook group. Both Eimear and my sister Caro have blogs and are taking part in a blog hop today. I know that they’d be thrilled if you dropped by especially if you left them a comment.
Have a great weekend and I hope that you have some time to craft. I’m off back to my kitchen table to play some more.
The Paper Pumpkin February 2016 is really spawning a lot of cards for me. I’m having so much fun playing with the kit – and I’ve been saving the actual kit itself to play with my friends in a couple of days. And even so, I’ve made a lot of cards with it. Here’s a card using one of the spare embellishments and a few of the extra leaves.
I put the embellishment on very vanilla and added a few of the leaves to the card. I then stamped the sentiment (from the same kit’s stamp set) in pear pizzazz. Next I had to wait several days for the pearl embellishments to arrive! They turned up with the new Sale-a-bration items on Wednesday night. It’s amazing how exciting it is to get a box from Stampin’ Up! When my pearls arrived I added three of the biggest to the flower and then glued this to a pear pizzazz base. The envelope is unusual – I finally managed to put glue on the side of all the words and actually display the larger dots. The designer series paper stacks are incredibly useful for envelope lining as well as for using on cards.
I had to laugh yesterday. My brother, Martin, is a computer geek through and through and yet, when I showed him my card he commented on the washi tape. As in – he recognised that I’d used washi tape and he knew what it’s called. He can mention DSP without blinking too. I guess living with a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator rubs off a bit. I’d love to see what kind of card he’d make, but it’s not his thing – he’s more likely to be in the basement playing with wood. But he can talk the talk! He hasn’t learned the names of the colours though. Not yet. 😉
So it’s Thursday which means it’s time for a new challenge at CAS Colours and Sketches. It’s a sketch week.
and here’s the sketch banner which inspired my card
I don’t think I’d have made this card without the sketch and I’m very happy with it, so thank you Stef! It’s also the first time I’ve used two different washi tapes on a card so that’s cause for celebration too.
I put down the two strips from the It’s My Party Designer washi tape and then used a piece of watercolour paper to stamp the birthday cake from Endless Birthday Wishes. It seems to me that substituting a birthday cake for the flower makes a lot of sense. Which would you prefer?! I suppose my bathroom scale would prefer the flower, so it’s lucky that these are calorie free. I used my aquapainters to colour in a pale melon mambo cake with darker trim. It wasn’t dark enough so I used the melon mambo stampin’ up! write marker to emphasize the decoration on the cake. I cut it out with my paper snips and used fast fuse to stick it to the card. Since it’s nigh on impossible to cut around the candles and lights, I cut off the candles and stamped them on the card and then added the cake on top.
I then stamped the sentiment, also from Endless Birthday Wishes in melon mambo on the whisper white card and then glued this to a melon mambo base.
Any questions, feel free to email me at lizbaileycards@gmail.com. Take a look at the other inspiration from the design team and have a go yourself.
And a hearty welcome to my new email subscriber. I’m so glad you joined in the fun.
