Just a reminder that there are three Sale-a-bration products that won’t be available after Monday. There will be three new products (which I’m ordering on Monday!) but the stamp sets Hello, and Sky is the limit and the gorgeous perfectly artistic DSP won’t be available. Here are some of the cards that I’ve made with the retiring products. Click on the pictures to get to the details
So what are you waiting for? Check out the catalogues to the left and $150 will get you the three Sale-a-bration products.
Balloons? Again? Yes. Well Jane, one of my fellow Design Team members at CAS Colours & Sketches, really likes them you know. Balloon Celebration is one of my favourite sets at the moment and I love that it comes in a bundle with the punch. Actually this is the card that I made at the crop when I was contemplating the colour challenge (which just finished) but half thinking about the sketch challenge and made one that would fit both. Oops! It went through a few iterations – there was a slightly fuzzy stamping of the balloon strings which I declared not perfect. My friend Julia, sitting next to me said it was good enough for her and saved it from the scrap heap! I have a cut down version too which I’ll share soon. I just have to warn you, there’s a lot of melon mambo!
Here’s the banner which inspired my card:
Fun isn’t it? The circles are all slightly different sizes. I hope you’ll pop over to the challenge blog to check out the other DT’s inspiration and to have a go yourself. I used to avoid sketch challenges, now I’m really enjoying them. Try it out, you might like it.
I decided to stick with a square card because that seemed to balance the sketch nicely. I had the colours already in my head – melon mambo, pink pirouette and pumpkin pie and stamped the bubbles in the same colour as the card. I punched them out with the balloon bouquet punch and then looked back at the sketch. Three different sized circles. So out came my paper snips and I reduced the size of the pink pirouette balloon a bit. Julia was using soft suede on her card and I decided to be really different and use that for my strings and sentiment rather than using my usual black. I think the softer look really adds something – I’ll have to try that more often. Then it was a simple matter of attaching the balloons – the top one on both bunches is popped up with dimensionals for added fun. I can’t believe how rarely I used dimensionals when I started card making, the added, um, dimension really can make the card more exciting.
The card was square so out came the envelope punch board and the regular whisper white card stock. I love that we can make (almost) any sized envelope. Well, 66 different sized ones of them at least.
I probably should have added a warning to yesterday’s post about today’s because I know that some people are going to be stunned by today’s card. Remember how in December I was determined to use a single enamel dot? It caused much hilarity at the crop as I worked hard to incorporate a dot. So putting five on a single card is quite a large step! Don’t worry, I’m not going to go crazy with embellishments!
I didn’t exactly plan this card, it just happened. Sometimes they are planned completely and sometimes they’re not at all. I’d cut out a couple of the Happy Birthday using the Party Pop-Ups Thinlits dies out of mint macaron and melon mambo and cut the edges off planning to use them on the card front somehow but inspiration didn’t strike the day that I did that. As they were both sitting on my desk, I wondered about offsetting them slightly and this is how the card was born. And then, because I was using mint macaron and melon mambo I got out the It’s My Party enamel dots and wondered. It did give me the idea of using crushed curry for the mat (since those are the three colours of the enamel dots) and I didn’t really need another sentiment to go with the big Happy Birthday and there was a lot of space left. Decision made. I quickly started adding a couple of dots. I like the happy confetti look that it’s added. The envelope is lined as it often is using the envelope liner dies and the retired backgrounds DSP from the regals collection. I do have the new collection but I had this one already cut out and with a sprained ankle I am restricting jumping up to use the big shot as much as possible. Actually I eventually had a little occasional table brought to me and put the big shot on that so that everything is at hand.
I was going to say that tomorrow’s post will be late – at around 8am, but I’ve been pretty late most days this week. Blame the ankle. 🙂
Unusually there’s no ink used to make this card, but here’s the rest of what I used.
Here’s another card that I made at the crop, I’m not sure where it came from. It just evolved.
This is one of my favourite sets, Lighthearted Leaves and I decided to stamp one of the images in the archival basic black three times. I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to ensure that I had them lined up and spaced the same. Then I looked at the card and decided to mark each leaf with the white gel pen. Actually I practised first on the grid paper to be sure that I liked the look. Which I obviously did – it’s quite a fun look. I matted the piece of watermelon wonder in basic black and contemplated a sentiment. And left the white gel pen to dry whilst we came home from the crop. In the end I decided it didn’t need a sentiment and placed it on a watermelon wonder card base. This is the first time that I’ve used the white gel pen and I like how it adds interest. Just be careful and test it on scrap paper first to ensure it’s flowing and be careful of the drying time. The three days that I left it may have been excessive!
I’ve been fancying the Berry Basket Bigz L die for a while so when it was on special last week, I pounced. Then of course as soon as it arrived, I had to make a basket. I grabbed the nearest card stock which happened to be Watermelon Wonder and made a basket. You cut out the die twice and then put the two main pieces together with a strong glue – I favour fast fuse for this. Don’t forget that you need to snap to break the tape and you need to alternate the direction. If you always go the same way, it will stop working and you will get very frustrated with it. Trust me, I know this!
You then take the two edge pieces that you want (there’s a scalloped and a straight piece) and fold and glue them together and then attach them to the box. It’s easiest to do this with the box upside down. I put little bits of fast fuse on the box and then added the edge because I don’t want to see a staple ruining the look of my box.
Then it was time to decorate and I decided to use the botanical builder framelits dies. I cut out most of the flower pieces in delightful dijon and watermelon wonder and built flowers using glue dots. I also attached them to the box with the glue dots. I’m going to fill it with some blank notecards and envelopes and a few other goodies to give to a friend at work.
