Category Archives: Congratulations

Seaside Shore Shaker Card

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I was inspired to make a shaker card – my first outside of a class I think – by the sketch at this week’s Freshly Made Sketches.

Stampin' Up! Seaside Shore - By the Shore DSP - Hello You Thinlits dies

Here’s the banner which inspired my card

I decided to change the orientation of the card because I wanted a die cut word for my sentiment since it would be going over the window sheet circle. The whole window sheet made me think of a fish bowl which is where the fish from Seaside Shore became a part of the card! I love the By The Shore DSP and this one looks so much like water, getting darker as you get further from the surface. So with all the decisions made, it was all about construction.

I used my circles dies to cut the aperture and then a larger one to cut a circle of the window sheet. This I glued to the back of my piece of very vanilla using fast fuse. Next I stamped the fish from Seaside Shore in archival basic black, coloured their stripes with a daffodil delight marker and then cut out them out. About this time, my friend Bilma stopped by and I learned that someone that I worked with about 15 years ago is about to retire. So this card was perfect and will go to Joe on his retirement.

I cut a piece of the By The Shore DSP that would fit under the top very vanilla layer, ensuring that it was big enough so that you don’t see any of the base of the card at the edges. I glued on the daffodil delight die cut congrats before positioning the fish since I didn’t want them under the word. Next I glued on the fish. After using the foam adhesive strips, I’m a firm believer in shaker cards. Previously it was hard to build the wall to keep the sequins in, but now with the bendable foam adhesive strips, it’s easy. I easily made a circular wall, used the embossing buddy to ensure the edges weren’t sticky (looks like I needed to do more of that) and then picked out the small sequins from a tin of two sizes and snowflakes from the holiday catalogue back in 2014. All that was left was to take the backing off the foam strips and fix the top layer to the rest of the card. In the event, I actually used dimensionals for the parts of the card not next to the opening and that was an error since they are about half the height of the foam strips. Next time, I’ll just use more of the strips for the rest of the card.

Here’s another view, with the card carefully propped up to show that there really are a lot of sequins in it!

Stampin' Up! Seaside Shore - By the Shore DSP - Hello You Thinlits dies

I added another fish to the envelope so that it coordinated with the card. I’m definitely going to be making some more shaker cards soon, they are really fun to make and they are fun to look at too.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Playful Backgrounds

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As promised yesterday, here’s a card using another of my new sets, Playful Backgrounds. As the name says, the set’s purpose is to make fun backgrounds and although I have done that today, I’ve made it the main interest on the card – since this is the first time that I’ve used it.

Stampin' Up! Playful Backgrounds and Floral Phrases

The colour scheme comes from The Paper Players’ challenge this week – here’s the banner which inspired my choice

The set consists of 4 different patterns and I’ve used two of them to create my fun background using cherry cobbler and dapper denim. The outlines stamp is purposely made not to fit perfectly over the solids. So after making my own DSP, I glued my piece of whisper white to a dapper denim base. For the sentiment, I reached for the set Floral Phrases which was still out on my desk and stamped it in dapper denim. I used the retired ovals collection to cut it out and intended to have a larger oval in cherry cobbler to frame it. It was too big (I need the new layering ovals thinlits) so I used a sponge dauber and added just a hint of cherry cobbler to the edges to soften the look.

To make my envelope match, I used the Playful Backgrounds stamps on the flap as well. Perfect coordination!

Today marks my sister’s 100th blog post and she’s offering blog candy (although only to UK addresses). It would be great to get her a lot of visitors today, so if you have the time, please pop over to see her blog. And yes, for those of you that thought I’m in the states, I am. I’m in NJ. She and are live quite a way apart.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

 

Detailed Floral Thinlits Dies

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Happy Friday! And apologies to those who tried to order Paper Pumpkin yesterday using the amazing 31 hour deal where new subscribers pay only $5. The 31 hours started on Thursday at 5pm MT and hence was not active yesterday morning. I was in training this week for 4 days and I was so focused on yesterday being the last day of it, that somehow it felt like Friday. And so yesterday’s blog post encouraged you to sign up. Well now you can! Just click on the Paper Pumpkin button in yesterday’s post and use the promo code of ONEDAYDEAL.

It’s even more of a happy Friday for me because me Stampin’ Up! order arrived yesterday evening so I got to play. Not as much as I was planning due to last minute birthday drinks with a friend from work and then my brother playing The Magnificent Seven which distracted me. But I did complete 1.5 cards. Here’s the one that I completed using the gorgeous Detailed Floral Thinlits Dies and their partner, the Floral Phrases stamp set:

Stampin' Up! Detailed Floral Thinlits Dies and Floral Phrases

The Detailed Floral Thinlits Dies consist of three pieces – I used the two main pieces to create this beautiful top panel for my card in very vanilla. Once I’d cut those out, I used the accompanying set, Floral Phrases to stamp the sentiment in sweet sugarplum. This piece was then adhered to a sweet sugarplum card base. It’s an incredibly easy card to do and looks even better in person.

Stampin' Up! Detailed Floral Thinlits Dies and Floral Phrases

So now that you’ve seen the card, just scroll down and click on the Paper Pumpkin button. You’ve nothing to lose!

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Paper Pumpkin March 2016 Alternate 3

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Firstly I’d like to thank Hannelie for choosing my card as an honourable mention at CASology. With 74 other cards to choose from, I’m very grateful that she chose mine.

Today I’m playing with the Paper Pumpkin March 2016 set again, Pocketful of Cheer. I’ve been using bermuda bay quite a bit over the last few days to make up for some neglect but I wanted to demonstrate that the kit also has a fair bit of cucumber crush in it. Here’s my card using leftovers from one of the cards that I didn’t make as per the kit.

Stampin' Up! Paper Pumpkin March 2016 Pocketful of Cheer

I cannibalized one of the envelopes for an earlier card and I still had the flaps left, so I used the hexagon punch to cut out a few shapes. I then used one of the gift card holders (which obviously now wasn’t going to be going on the envelope) and got two hexagons out of that too. I then stamped a sentiment from the set in cucumber crush onto some cucumber crush card and cut that out (it’s easier to stamp and then punch) and punched out another cucumber crush hexagon for good measure. Then came the slow part of the card as I played with the placement (whilst talking to my brother at the same time, so very efficient multi-tasking) until I got the effect I wanted. I glued the hexagons down using the multipurpose glue with some of the shapes intentionally going over the edge. It was very easy to trim these with the paper snips since I could use the piece of whisper white as the guide. I then mounted this piece onto a card base of cucumber crush and finally added the hexagon with the sentiment which I popped up. It’s easier to put your card together, including gluing everything onto the card base before popping anything up so that you can get good pressure to ensure everything is stuck well.

We’re down to the last 6 days of Sale-a-bration so if there are any of the SAB sets that you want, you need to act quickly. It’s also a good time to stock up on basics since you can get freebies for buying things that you’d buy anyway throughout the year. I have a good stash of whisper white and very vanilla card now as well as matching envelopes. This also means that the sale on Paper Pumpkin is ending next week – and you don’t want to miss April’s kit because there’s a bonus free stamp set in it.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Paper Pumpkin February 2016 Alternate 4

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Here’s another alternative use of this month’s Paper Pumpkin kit and, as mentioned yesterday, more of the older in colours. I’m hoping that I’m going to need a congratulations card soon for someone on my team at work – it’s always good to be prepared, right? This card has a similar feel to yesterday’s layout, but side by side, they are quite different. They would be good together as part of a set to give as a gift.

Paper Pumpkin February 2016 Hello Sunshine

All three of the stamps are from the Paper Pumpkin set, Hello Sunshine. I stamped the congratulations in full strength blackberry bliss on very vanilla. The To You! is also in blackberry bliss, but stamped off once. I find that with such skinny letters they look black rather than the deep lush purple. The other sentiment is of course in lost lagoon which I adore with blackberry bliss. The mat is just 1/8 inch larger than the stamped piece giving a very skinny border. This is then mounted on a blackberry bliss card base.

It’s hard to see in the picture, but I again dry embossed the envelope flap – this time with lucky stars which I think fits the congratulatory nature of the card.

And that’s it for today! A very simple card and post. I hope you’re enjoying seeing the possibilities afforded us with a Paper Pumpkin kit. I have another card made (just waiting for some embellishments which are arriving this week) and another one halfway there. I’m enjoying the challenge that I like to set myself with these kits and think that it might be fun to do a similar idea with other sets – take one stamp set and make four different cards with it. I think we’re all guilty (I hope we all are – I know I am) of excitedly getting a new set, making one card and moving onto another set.

See you tomorrow,

Liz