Bright Birthday

Hi there, I'm still making cards just have been so busy I've not gotten around to posting them. Let's start with this one that I made back in April.

The layout was cased from another card. I have the picture of it but not the website or designer. I will add it as soon as I can find it.

This is how it was done -

Materials:
Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Brightside 6x6 paper (Lawn Fan)
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Stamps: Bake Me a Cake, Sophie's Sentiments (both Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Basic rhinestones, Lemondrop twine (The Twinery), iridescent glitter.
Tools: Beautiful Wings embosslit, square punch, 2 way glue pen, dimensionals, glue tape

Tips and Tricks:
1. This card is pretty straight forward. I used the 2 way glue pen to adhere the glitter to the cupcakes and butterfly. Here's a pic of the glitter, blurry I know but you get the idea:

Stuff Ups:
1. I'm not happy with the way I stamped some of the cupcakes. The cherry is lopsided and that swirl just doesn't look good.

Pleasant Surprises:
1. The butterfly looked great with the glitter on it and the twine wrapped around it to make the body and antennae.

3rd Anniversary

Happy 3rd anniversary to my gorgeous hubby! This is the card I made for him. It's very cutesy but he likes it anyway. The muffins were inspired by this card by Chari Moss.

Here's how I made it:

Materials:
Cardstock: Confetti White, Crumb Cake, old blue that was lying around.
Ink: Tuxedo Black (Memento), Crumb Cake, markers - Crumb Cake, Bashful Blue, Pink Pirouette, Pretty in Pink, Real Red, Basic Black.
Stamps: Love n Breakfast, Sopie's Sentiments (both Lawn Fawn).
Accessories: Hemp twine, Bevelled Window Panes, blue organza ribbon (Kaiser Craft), Basic Rhinestones.
Tools: Big Shot machine, polka dot embossing folder, sponge, mini glue dots, dimensionsals.

Tips and Tricks:
1. It's pretty straight forward - the embossed white layer was sponged with Crumb Cake ink around the edges.
2. I adhered the bevelled window pane with mini glue dots because I couldn't think of a better way to keep it in place. If you know a better way, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!
3. Those spots either side of the sentiment are rhinestones.

Stuff Ups:
1. The muffins are a little big to fit under the window pane properly.
2. The confetti cardstock is gorgeous - full of little bits so it looks recycled. Unfortunately one of those bits looks like a red splotch above the sentiment, oh well.
3. The glue dots show through the window pane.
4. Probably should have positioned the centre panel lower and cut the ribbon shorter.

Pleasant Surprises:
1. I like the blue cardstock. It was a bit flimsy but the colour is pretty.
2. The muffins are cute and my colouring in was not atrocious.

A little boy's birthday

It's been a while since I posted a 'Kate Original' card. (Obviously meaning I didn't copy or case it from anyone, it's my own creation, just a product of my crazy thoughts.) Here's one for you today! I made this card for a friend's son who turned 3 today.

Here's how it's made:

Materials:
Cardstock: Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White.
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Versamark, Tuxedo Black (Memento). Markers: Wild Wasabi, Soft Suede, Pumpkin Pie, So Saffron, Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Bashful Blue, Pink Pirouette, Basic Black.
Stamps: Monster Fun (Hero Arts. I borrowed this from a friend at our card making day - thanks Shauna!), Put on Your Party Hat (Fiskars), Admit One (Lawn Fawn).
Accessories: Maraschino and Cappucino baker's twine (The Twinery), Miss Nelly jewels (Kaisercraft).
Tools: Big shot machine, Top Note die, sponge, dimensionals, 2 way glue pen, glue tape, mini glue dots, sanding block.

Tips and Tricks:
1. The blue layer was stamped randonly with a Lawn Fawn star in Versamark. I sponged around the edges with Tempting Turquoise ink.
2. I trimmed up the white top note die cut to reveal the red one beneath. Then I sanded the edges of the white (I would have used my distressing tool had I brought it with me) and sponged around it with Tempting Turquoise ink.
3. The monsters and balloons were coloured in with Stampin' Up markers. After cutting out all the monsters and balloons, I used a black marker to colour the cut edges.
4. The balloons were adhered to each other one at a time so I got the right positioning on the card. Then I attached the twine to each balloon using glue tape. After that I attached the balloons to the card with dimensionals.
5. I tied up the balloon strings and stuck them in position with a mini glue dot.
6. The mini monster is on dimensionals too to make him stand out and look like he's holding the bunch of balloons.

Stuff Ups:
1. This is just a technicality but I don't like the streakiness of the markers. There's nothing I can do about that apart from buy Copics instead.
2. The cutting out the top note die cut could have been better (as always).

Pleasant Surprises:
1. The way the red and blue contrast. I like it.
2. The stamp set is so cute. I would have been lost without it!
3. Finally, a concept I had in my head was realised in the way I wanted it to be!!

Happy Easter

I have something different to show today - not a card! I decorated a tag. I've never used tags for anything so this was new to me. I'm only moderately happy with it. The concept was better in my head, the execution of it isn't great. Oh well, I tried!

Here's a closer view of the tag:

Materials:

Cardstock: Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise, Tangerine Tango, So Saffron, Pear Pizzazz (or Kiwi Kiss, not sure), Chocolate Chip and Pink Passion (I think it's retired).
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Versamark, markers - Tempting Turquoise, Blushing Bride, Crumb Cake, Wild Wasabi, Melon Mambo, Elegant Eggplant, Tangerine Tango, So Saffron.
Stamps: Greetings Eight (Stampin' Up), Jessie's ABC's (Lawn Fawn).
Accessories: Chipboard glitter tag (don't know the brand - it's so old!), Orange organza ribbon (Kaiser Craft), antique gold embossing powder.
Tools: Heat tool, embossing static pillow, dimensionals, big shot machine, sponge, lattice embossing folder (Stampin' Up), paisley and swirly embossing folders (Sizzix), polka dot and bubble embossing folders (Cuttlebug), paper snips, oval punch, glue tape.

Tips and Tricks:
1. I heat embossed the Happy Easter sentiment and bunny first.
2. Then I sponged around the tag and let it dry.
3. I punched and embossed the coloured Easter eggs (yes, that's what they are meant to be!).
4. After positioning the Easter eggs with glue tape I trimmed off the excess and sponged around the edges.
5. The bunny was added on dimensionals. Dimensionals are also used to adhere the tag to the jar.

Stuff Ups:
1. The overall result - just not thrilled.
2. The 't' in Easter is upside down. *sigh*
3. Maybe the Easter eggs should have been smaller so they actually look like Easter eggs.

Pleasant Surprises:
1. The bunny is cute and I managed to cut it out nicely.
2. The sponging on the tag itself was nice (just the tag, not the eggs).
3. The heat embossing turned out nicely.

A flowery birthday

Today's card took a long time to make and I'm pretty proud of it. I poached this card design from Vicky Hayes at Crafting Clare's Paper Moments. Her card must have been a lot smaller than mine because it took me so many stamped images to fill in all the white! This is for a friend of my husband and I:

This is a 6 x 6 inch card. I'm really liking this size of card but I'll have to buy some 12 x 12 inch cardstock as I don't have much of it.

Materials:
Cardstock: Concord Crush, Rich Razzleberry, Whisper White.
Ink: Concord Crush, Rich Razzleberry, Not Quite Navy, matching markers, Green Garden marker, Versamark.
Stamps: Sweet Summer (from last year's Sale-A-Bration?), Curly Cute.
Accessories: Basic rhinestones, silver embossing powder.
Tools: Paper trimmer, heat tool, aqua painter, kraft mat, glue tape runner.

Tips and Tricks:
1. I stamped and embossed the sentiment first because I didn't want to spend heaps of time colouring the flowers and then ruin the card with a mucked up sentiment.
2. Apart from the first row, I stamped the flowers randomly in all three colours. Then I stamped the leaves.
3. I put ink on my kraft mat and coloured each set of flowers with an aqua painter. I tried to get a gradient of colours within each set of flowers. I coloured the leaves and put a pale green wash in any blank spaces.
4. I dried the watercolours with my heat tool on the front and back to help stop the card from warping.
5. I coloured the flower centres with markers of the same ink colour.
6. I added rhinestones randomly around the flowers. The camera doesn't pick it up too well.
7. Then I layered it all together with a glue tape runner.

Stuff Ups:
1. My water colouring needs work. I thought it was going to take ages so I rushed a bit in the beginning.
2. Initially I added too much ink to my aqua painter and the colour separated on one of the flower heads, oops!
3. Either I didn't wait long enough for the water colouring to dry or I didn't put enough glue on the back of the layer because it has warped slightly on the finished card (bubbled up and not sitting flat).

Pleasant Surprises:
1. The overall look of the card is nice. It was becoming dodgy for a while there.
2. I think the colour combination is pretty. I would normally stay away from navy blue on this kind of card but it seems to work.
3. I made an envelope with my scoring board that turned out ok. I practised on paper first because I forget how to do it and that meant I didn't waste any cardstock.

Happy St Patrick's Day

It's not often that I make a card that I don't intend to give away but here's one. I want to keep this one for my own collection. It's not my design - I found the design at Card Scraps. I thought it was so simple yet cute!

Here's my very slightly modified, not nearly as good version:

Happy St Patrick's to you all! Have a great day!

Materials:
Cardstock: Garden Green, Crumb Cake, Whisper White.
Ink: Garden Green.
Stamps: So Happy For You, Teeny Tiny Sentiments.
Accessories: Green organza ribbon (Kaiser Craft).
Tools: Big shot machine, Top Note die, Lattice embossing folder, scissors, bone folder, tape runner, scallop oval punch, oval punch, paper trimmer, dimensionals.

Tips and Tricks:
1. Stamp the four leaf clover on the Whisper White card then cut with the Top Note die.
2. Run the die cut through the Big Shot in the lattice embossing folder.
3. Trim the die cut along the perforation so it fits nicely on another Top Note die cut.
4. Glue it altogether. Easy!

Stuff Ups:
1. The stamped image isn't as solid as I would like. If I had time I might have coloured over them with a marker.
2. I still can't tie bows properly or straight.

Pleasant Surprises:
1. Just that I feel it's strikingly effective!
 

Playing with a new stamp set

I broke out another unused stamp set today - Simply Soft. It features pretty detailed flowers and has 2 step stamps (I didn't 2 step them today though). This design belongs to Lana Harvey from Lana's Stampin' Cottage. I loved her card so much I didn't change anything except to suit my own supplies.

I made two colour variations:

We'll call this card 1.

And this is card 2.

Materials:
Cardstock: Card 1 - Very Vanilla, Lovely Lilac (retired Stampin' Up colour). Card 2 - Whisper White, Island Indigo.
Ink: Lovely Lilac, Island Indigo, Stazon black, Old Olive marker.
Stamps: Simply Soft.
Accessories: Victoria crochet trim, Basic Pearls, Blue organza ribbon (Kaiser Craft).
Tools: Big shot machine, Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, Top Note die, sponge, aquapainter, Beautiful Wings embosslit, mini glue dots.

Tips and Tricks:
1. I cut the top notes before stamping the images on.
2. I used an aquapainter to colour the flower heads and buds. I used an Old Olive marker for the stems and leaves.
3. The stamped top notes and Vintage Wallpaper layers are sponged with the feature colour (Lovely Lilac or Island Indigo).
4. I'm not good at tying bows so the ribbon is adhered in two parts. A length is cut and stretched across the front of the card. The ends are taped behind the card layer. Another length is used to tie a bow around the first part. Hey, it works for me!
5. Card 1 would look so much better with matching ribbon but I didn't have any.

Stuff Ups:
1. I would have used the 2 step stamps but forgot to use my stamp-a-ma-jig on the outline stamp. It was fun to aquapaint any way.
2. I would use Certainly Celery or another light green marker rather than Old Olive. I feel it is too dark for the look that I want.
3. The sponging is uneven but I can live with it.

Pleasant Surprises:
1. The overall look of the aquapainting is ok.
2. The way the organza ribbon matches the Island Indigo was a lucky surprise! It looks lighter than the cardstock in the photo but that's due to the nature of the ribbon versus the camera. In real life it matches perfectly.