Yesterday I was playing with the Detailed Floral Thinlits dies and I flipped to the catalog showing the Floral Boutique suite and was reminded how beautiful the Floral Boutique DSP is (that’s Designer Series Paper in case you’re wondering). So when I saw the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches, I decided to use this paper.
Here’s the banner from the challenge sketch which ends today:
I decided to follow the sketch pretty much to the letter. I first cut a piece of the Floral Boutique DSP 2 by 4.5 inches and then a piece of whisper white just 1/8 inch larger for the mat. After gluing that panel to my night of navy card base, I made my flower. I cut out two flowers using the botanical builder framelit dies, one in night of navy and one in whisper white and layered them. I attached them together in the middle with glue dots and pushed the petals up so that there is a lot of extra dimension. Happily I have the new enamel shapes in regals and there of the larger circles were perfect as my flower centre.
Even more happily, I’d first cut my DSP at 2.5 inches wide and decided it was too big and so removed a half an inch. And this leftover strip made a perfect decoration for my envelope to make it match my card.
I’m really not sure why I used to be so nervous of sketch challenges – they are my preferred type these days! I encourage you to have a go if, like I used to be, you move on rapidly when you see that a challenge is a sketch.
Firstly I’d like to say Thank You very much to the team at CAS on Sunday for picking my recent card (a Paper Pumpkin May 2016 alternate) as a favourite. It was wonderful to go to the site to see this week’s challenge to find that I’d been chosen. And on a special day for me…
Happy Anniversary to me – Stampin’ Up! anniversary that is. Two years ago today I signed up to be a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator and what a fun two years it’s been. As I’ve mentioned previously, my sister Caro is a demo in the UK (where we originate although I’m in NJ now) and she told me about Stampin’ Up! and how much fun it is. She further claimed that the colour coordination between paper and ink means that anyone can make cards. I insisted that this was not true and that I, having the creativity of a brick, would be unable to make any, so to prove this I bought a kit. After I’d made my six cards in one sitting (in between run to the computer to show her them on Skype) I signed up on the spot and had to wait, impatiently, for UPS to bring me my starter kit. Yesterday I made my 834th card, so I guess you can say, it’s working out for me! Yes, I number them. I don’t really know why except as a mathematician, I like data that has to do with numbers.
So, to celebrate my Happy Anniversary and to hopefully make it happy for someone else, I’m offering some blog candy. Although I’ve made 834 cards, I haven’t sent anywhere near that many (although I’m doing better than last year) so I’m offering a dozen of my handmade cards. All you have to do is to comment on this post before Saturday 4th and to tell me why you like creating cards.
Here’s a photo of the blog candy. I’ve packaged cards like this before, click here to see the details.
Finally, welcome to my new email subscriber, I greatly appreciate that you like my blog enough to want my posts in your inbox. Feel free to add a comment and introduce yourself.
I hope that everyone is having a great Memorial Day or Bank Holiday Monday.
I bought a Perpetual Birthday Calendar and started working on it last year but what with my Spanish trips and then starting my new job I didn’t quite finish it. A couple of weeks ago, I offered a class to make the project and hilariously two of the attendees had last minute birthday related surprises that meant that they couldn’t make it. We rescheduled to a Sunday afternoon and spent a happy time playing with the kit. I had already done 9 of the months but although everyone followed my January sheet, by February they were choosing other coloured hearts (included in the kit) and by March they were off doing completely their own thing. It was really fun. Encouraged by the group, I started making a few additions to my previously “completed” months as well as finishing the missing three months which I’ve posted recently. And yes, as per our “rule” of whether it was a good stamping time, we ended up with glitter on our faces.
I was going to say that there were quite a few additions to these half dozen months, but on reflection I find that all but three of the nine that I’d already completed had something added! I posted about December recently so nothing has changed there, but for November, I added the N which I first dabbed onto the mossy meadow ink pad. I then put the sticker over the banner and used the clear Wink of Stella to give it some glimmer and shine. I felt that August was a little plain so I added the clear Wink of Stella to the blackberry bliss butterfly and then a few of the sequins that came in the kit. Yes. I used sequins!
I jazzed up July a little by adding some of the stars that I cut out of silver glimmer paper with the confetti stars punch – it was easy since they’d already been cut out for December. April is one of the months that was left unchanged. For March, after seeing what James did, sequins had to be added to my March page.
I blogged about September and October recently since they were two of the unfinished pages. June and January haven’t been altered from their original state but who knows what might happen when we get together for the others to complete their calendars!
February had the clear Wink of Stella added to the heart – this new sparkly brush pen was a huge hit at the class, I can see why it’s currently on back order. May has had significant change – it felt as if there has been something missing on this page for a long time but I couldn’t decide what to add. I tried all sorts of shapes and even ribbon but nothing worked. In fact I only realised what I wanted this morning and finished it just before taking the photos. I cased my own idea with the double layer of flower cut out using the Botanical Builder Framelits dies where the bottom is melon mambo and then using the It’s My Party enamel dots as the centre of the flower. It’s extremely fortuitous that I used melon mambo on May because the enamel dots only come in three colours – mint macaron, crushed curry and melon mambo.
So there’s my new and improved Perpetual Birthday Calendar. I hope it inspires you to order the project kit and stamp set and gather a few friends and make your own calendars. The kit and stamp set together are only $40 (and of course you only need one stamp set between you) which puts you very close to a Sale-a-bration freebie. And very close to a whole load of fun!
This week at CAS Colours & Sketches it’s an ultra simple sketch – I encourage you to pop over and check out the inspiration and entries and to have a go yourself. It was hard to do because there was so many options with it but now I find I’ve made a couple more cards using it. I really love Chrissie’s card with the square having texture and between the sketch and her version of it, I was inspired to make this card.
I knew that I wanted to use the Botanical Builder Framelits Dies so it seemed appropriate to use the Vine Street embossing folder so that I had leaves to go with the flower. Vine Street is sadly retired, but I’m sure that you have something that will work. I cut out the square using one of the squares collection framelits and then I carefully placed it in the embossing folder so that it was lined up as I wanted it. The lining up would be easier if I’d embossed a full piece of paper and then cut it out, but I didn’t want to squash the embossing whilst cutting out the square. I first stamped the celebrate in melon mambo (yes, again, but the enamel dots only come in a few colours!) and then fixed the embossed square onto the very vanilla base with fast fuse. Next, using the Botanical Builder Framelits dies, I cut out two flowers, one in very vanilla and one in melon mambo. They are attached together with glue dots just in the middle of the flower. I used SNAIL all over the back of the melon mambo flower to keep it in place on the card so that the melon mambo really shows through.
The three small It’s My Party enamel dots were the perfect centre for the flower. I lined the envelope with the retired backgrounds DSP in melon mambo using the envelope liners framelits.
The challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches runs through Wednesday at 6pm east coast time and 11pm UK time. However since Jane is the hostess this month and she’s located in the UK, I’m guessing that in the US we have until 7pm having just sprung forward. The UK won’t do that until the end of the month. Best not to leave entering to the last minute though, just in case!
Yesterday I had a card class in which we played with the Perpetual Birthday Calendar kit – it was originally scheduled for Friday evening but due to a couple of unexpected birthdays, we moved it. The irony of this was not lost on us! As usual, we had a great time, glitter appeared on faces and clothing which has become our measure of a successful crafting time. I had done most of my calendar ahead of time so that I was available to help some of my more novice crafters but I had three months to go. We started with January because it’s the first year, but in retrospect we should’ve started with March since January and February aren’t terribly useful at the moment. But we’ll finish our other months soon (apart from Nicole who finished her entire calendar yesterday afternoon). Here’s my September page.
I first stamped the September in rich razzleberry and the leaves (both from the Perpetual Birthday Calendar stamp set) in pear pizzazz and mossy meadow. I used the two greens to cut out a leaf using the botanical builder framelits dies and glued them down. For the S, I cut out a rough square around the S and then pressed it onto the rich razzleberry ink pad. Once it had dried, I added that on top of my leaves.
We learned a few things during this class. It takes a long time to do the calendar because everyone has their own ideas and takes time to think about each month. Jacquie decided my beach like colours for March were better for August and switched. She also, along with James, wanted raindrop shapes for April – and they found what they could use in the Flower Fair framelets set. There was a lot more glitter and sequins on other people’s calendars than on mine (although some of my pages had sequins added to them yesterday). The Wink of Stella clear pen was very popular for adding a little sparkle here and there. All in all, our calendars were all different although we used the same colours as each other for each month – the colour choice is the hardest part apparently. And this has set us up for birthday card classes so that we can actually have the cards available to send!
It fits in beautifully with Shannon West’s movement, the one to actually send real cards. Her #Imbringbirthdaysback stamp is back in stock and only $12. Mine arrives in a couple of days and it will be adorning my envelopes from now on.
