Personalised Wedding Card

The trickiest thing about this card was doing the alphabet stamping. It's a simple card and I'm happy with the result. Except for the bow. I have to get a bow tying device.

The cardstock was a shimmery white in real life which isn't caught by the camera here.

Materials:
Cardstock: Shimmery White, Blushing Bride
Ink: Tuxedo Black, Blushing Bride
Stamps: Happily Ever After, Sally's abc's, both by Lawn Fawn
Accessories: Striped organza ribbon, Basic rhinestones
Tools: Nestable square dies, dimensionals

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2012 everyone!
This card is for my Mother-in-law who is in hospital again and we will be visiting her tomorrow. It's quite similar to my last card but I tried a few different techniques on this one.

I did consider colouring the flowers in different shades and tints of purple but since this is a 'get well' card, I wanted it to look more colourful than monochromatic.

Materials:
Cardstock: Shimmery White, Concord Crush, Whisper White, Watercolour paper, In-colour 2010-2011 DSP: Concord Crush.
Ink: Wisteria Wonder, Memento's Tuxedo Black, markers - So Saffron, Melon Mambo, Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink and Old Olive, Versamark.
Stamps: On The Mend by Lawn Fawn.
Other:  Basic Rhinestones, clear glitter embossing powder, dimensionals, sponge, Pink Sorbet baker's twine by The Twinery.

Tips and Tricks:
1. Bandaid background - I clear embossed the bandaids. If I had distress inks, I would have used them for the background colour but I don't so I used a sponge and ink pad. I also used the same technique on the flower panel.
2. The vase is paper pieced.
3. I used the Pretty in Pink marker to add rosy cheeks to the flowers.

Stuff Ups:
1. The bandaid stamping is pretty terrible - unevenly spaced, overlapping in parts.
2. The embossing is terrible too - I missed bits and smudged the Versamark when I was sponging. Fortunately most of those bits are covered by the flower panel.
3. I seriously need a lamp because the lighting in my craft room sucks!!
4. On my first attempt at making the flower panel I tried watercolouring the flowers but I guess I didn't let the Tuxedo Black ink dry long enough as it started to run when the aquapainter hit it.

Pink, Purple, White.

I will admit that this card was a struggle to create. While it is quite simplistic, getting the creativity together at 11:30pm on Christmas Eve, when I was bleary eyed with the need to sleep, was difficult. Still, it came together in the end.

That centre panel went through a miriad of different things before it ended up with a great whopping Prima flower as the centrepiece. I stamped two other panels before this one - the first was a rainbow tiered birthday cake with stars and streamers around it - but the colours didn't work. The second featured 2 step cupcakes but that wasn't working for me either. Even with this panel I played around with rhinestones before trying the piercing in the corners.

Materials:
Cardstock: Whisper White, Shimmery White, Wisteria Wonder, not sure which pink, Pink Passion maybe - sorry, it's old cardstock.
Ink: Chocolate Chip.
Stamps: Bake Me a Cake by Lawn Fawn.
Other: Big Shot machine, dots embossing folder, paper piercing tool, mat pack, dimensionals, Prima rose, clear button, Pink Sorbet baker's twine by The Twinery.

Tips and Tricks:
1. I used the guide in the mat pack to pierce the corners of the white cardstock.
2. Gluing down the flower was surprisingly difficult. 2-way glue didn't work, glue tape didn't work. I ended up using dimensionals and just hope that it has survived!

Stuff Ups:
1. The layers are not aligned properly - I was too tired to see straight.
2. I've spoken about the drama I faced with the stamping.
3. Getting the flower to stick.

Pleasant Surprises:
Just the fact that I finished a card at all and it's not totally hideous - it was looking that way for a while there!

A Little Birthday

I don't have much of a call for kids cards as there simply aren't many kids in our family right now - only two. This card I designed for the youngest kid - he has just turned two. I must get some more kid oriented stamps for future years.

This card was inspired by a set of decorative brads I bought featuring cute balloons and birthday cake slices. I didn't end up using any of those on the cover! The blue stars and the big round brads are from that set though.

Materials:
Cardstock: Shimmery White, Gable Green (retired), Real Red, Pacific Point, Whisper White.
Ink: Pacific Point (ink and marker), Pumpkin Pie (marker), Real Red (marker), Daffodil Delight (marker), Chocolate Chip (marker), Versamark, Stazon black.
Stamps: None that are from Stampin' Up.
Other: Pumpkin Pie taffeta ribbon, Lattice embossing folder, big shot machine, Paper piercing tool, mat pack, sponge, dimensionals.
Non Stampin' Up: Fiskars clear stamps - Cookies, Cake & Ice Cream stamp set, Put On Your Party Hat stamp set, Square scallop punch, Doodlebug Designs brads, Fiskars Cupcake border punch.

Tips and Tricks:
1. The scallop squares have Pacific Point ink sponged around the edges to liven them up a little. The squares are also popped up on dimensionals.
2. The stamps on the scallop squares were all stamped in Versamark, then Stazon black, then heat embossed. I find that makes colouring them in easier. The images were all coloured in with markers.
3. Shimmery White is a lot thicker cardstock than Whisper White so I always choose it for a card base.

Stuff Ups:
1. The main reason for the green panel is that the lattice embossing folder doesn't reach to the bottom of the card and I needed a way to hide it.
2. I was going to have more of the green colour in the stamped pictures on the scallop squares but I forgot that I didn't have a marker in that colour. Thankfully there is a little green in those big brads to tie it in better. I also used the green inside the card to make a layer to cover up the back of the brads and that unembossed portion.
3. I kind of wish I used a different colour than green so I could make that cupcake border stand out more. It looks a bit grass and picket fencey to me. Having said that, using blue or red would be too much. Orange would make the ribbon pointless....yellow maybe? Brown?

A bright birthday

The best thing happened today. I dropped into my favourite stamping store (Stampit in East Vic Park) and they had a sale on Prima and Ki Creations - 50% off it all! I was like a kid in a candy shop and stocked up on all the Prima Flowers and Pebbles that I wanted. You can be sure to see a lot more of those in the future, starting today!

I made a card for my Mum's birthday but I wasn't completely happy with the way it turned out. I had to look to the internet for inspiration as I was suffering from brain burnout. I'll post the card I designed at a later date, but for now here is the card I was inspired to make:

No top note die or modern label punch, aren't you proud of me??
The colours are much bright in real life but that's what bad lighting and bad photography will do.
The card that inspired me to make this is from Ivanka's Card Studio.

Materials:
Cardstock: Basic Black, So Saffron, Melon Mambo, Crumb Cake and Shimmery White.
Ink: Stazon Black.
Stamps: Curly Cute.
Other: Big shot machine, Vintage wallpaper embossing folder, dimensionals, mini glue dots.
Non Stampin' Up: Flowers (Prima Flowers - Raspberry), Blue rhinestones (BoBunny Jewels - Barefoot & Bliss).

Tips and Tricks:
1. This card is pretty straight forward - simple layers and the shimmery white card is dry embossed with the vintage wallpaper embossing folder.
2. The flowers are adhered to the card with mini glue dots.
3. The sentiment is popped up on dimensionals.

Stuff Ups:
1. The sentiment took me ages today because I couldn't stamp it perfectly so I kept redoing it, then I'd get it right but cut it crooked and have to start over. Sooo frustrating!
2. I tried using basic black ink but it kept bleeding through the cardstock. Stazon gives a much crisper result, however, it does stain your stamp.
3. I need to buy new blades for my paper trimmer so the layers are a bit straggly around the edges.

Mother's Day

I simply adore this Mother's Day card, however, I cannot lay claim to the gorgeous design. This design is by the incredibly talented Angie Brown from Stampin' Dreams. I loved it from the second I saw it and knew it would be perfect for my Mum for Mother's Day. It also has a lot of elements to it and not a lot of stamping.

The main differences between my card and Angie's are that I didn't have the same sentiment stamp as Angie so I lowered the placement of the bird and branches, and popped my sentiment up on the modern label punch out (my fave!). Also my white embossing powder was clumpy so I chucked it out (it was useless) and as a result I don't have that pretty detail on the bird's wing. I used plain old Versamark instead.

Here's the procedure:

Materials:
Cardstock: Shimmery White, Bashful Blue, Night of Navy. You could use Whisper White but the Shimmery White is much thicker cardstock and I feel it makes for a sturdier base card.
Inks: Bashful Blue ink spot, Night of Navy ink spot, Versamark.
Stamps: Vintage Vogue, Teeny Tiny Sentiments.
Other: Big shot machine, Top note die, Whisper White satin ribbon, Modern Label Punch, Bird punch, sponge, stick on pearls, retired triple flower punch, dimensionals, 2 way glue pen.
Non Stampin' Up: Polka dots embossing folder by Cuttlebug, black permanent marker.

Tips and tricks:
1. I sponged around the edges of the top note die cut, bird body and modern label punch out piece using Bashful Blue ink.
2. I punched 7 branches out of Night of Navy cardstock using the bird punch. I trimmed them to fit the way I wanted and glued them down with the 2 way glue pen.
3. I coloured a basic pearl with black permanent marker to create the bird's eye.
4. I've mentioned it before, the satin ribbon frays as soon as you look at it so handle it as little as possible.
5. I used Night of Navy ink to stamp the sentiment. I didn't think Bashful Blue was powerful enough.

Stuff Ups:
1. As I said, I was planning to emboss the stamping on the bird's wing in white and then sponge over it with Bashful Blue but my embossing powder was clumpy and no good. It wouldn't stick properly to the Versamark.
2. The Polka dot embossing folder was a little too small for the layer size that I wanted so one end is a little bit sparse with dots.
3. My SNAIL adhesive is really hard to use. It just doesn't want to turn and it is starting to dent my cardstock. It's very disappointing. I also left my back up double sided tape at work so I had to use my precious mini glue dots on the back of the polka dot embossed layer. Using tape rollers can flatten your embossing so it's always best to use peel-the-backing-off it tape (known as Sticky Strip in the Stampin' Up world).
4. My layers are always skewiff, never proportional.

Wedded Bliss

Let's start with my favourite card. I made this last week for my good friend's Catherine and Anthony, to celebrate their wedding. I matched the colours to the colours Catherine had chosen for the wedding - the pink for the bridesmaids' dresses, grey for the groomsmens' suits and white for Catherine's dress. As luck would have it, she also had pearls on her dress, veil and accessories. Truthfully, I didn't think my skills were up to the task of making a wedding card. I am surprised and pleased with the results. I wouldn't have given them the card if I felt it was dodgy. This card makes it to the decent end of the scale.

Ooh, a scale! I should rate my own cards! Ok then, here's the scale: Disastrous, Dodgy, Decent, Delightful.

So if that's the scale, I'm gonna bump this card up to delightful. I don't think I'll create much better than this.

All photography featured in this blog is done by me and has a firm 'dodgy' rating.

Rating: Delightful.

To create this card I used products from Stampin' Up. I don't sell Stampin' Up but the colour coordination is something that can't be beat.

Materials:

Card stock: Shimmery White, Blushing Bride, Basic Gray.
Inks: Blushing Bride, Versamark, Versamark Silver Frost (I'll need to confirm that name).
Stamps: Punch Potpourri (hostess level 1) for the heart and Curly Cute for the word 'congratulations'.
Other: Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, big shot machine, silver embossing powder, Pearl accents, 2 step Bird punch, Whisper White satin ribbon, corner punch, dimensionals (foam adhesives).
The mini easel is from Jacksons Art Supplies.

Tips and Hints:

1. Stamp Basic Gray and Blushing bride card stock with the Versamark silver frost stamp pad. Cover enough to punch out a bird and a wing using the 2 step bird punch. The versamark gives a nice shimmer to the card stock. This will need a while to dry or the wing won't adhere to the bird.
2. Wrap a piece of satin ribbon around the 2 layers of card, just enough to reach around the back and stick it down on the back. Cut a smaller piece to tie on the front. Touch the ribbon as little as possible because it frays as soon as you look at it.
3. You might not see them but I used the smallest stick on pearls on the vintage wallpaper background to give the card a lift.

Stuff Ups:
Corner punch - sometimes it nips in too deep so you get a jaggedy bit on either side of the punch instead of a smooth rounded corner. I tried to round it off with scissors which worked this time but not always.
Versamark silver frost - I didn't wait long enough for it to dry so some sparkle came off of the wings.
Pearl placement - I put on too many and taking some off was difficult. They stick down too well!