LIM - Diecuts

The ladies at LIM are asking for 'Diecuts' this week and this is my entry. A simple card (put together quite quickly!) using the Circles Collection Framelits and the Beautiful Wings Bigz die. I chose Pistachio Pudding, Pink Pirouette and Whisper White for the colour scheme, one of the butterflies cut from Vellum cardstock, the ribbon is the Stretch Ruffle Trim and the sentiment is from Bring on the Cake.

Have a great weekend and try to stay dry!!

Margaret x

Butterfly Sponging

If you are a regular visitor to my blog I'm sure you'll know by now that I'm a 'plain and simple' girl (in more ways than one!!!) so today's card is not my usual style but, sometimes, you just have to push the boat out a little.
Not a quick card by any means but a good one if you need to take your mind off other things for a while!
I started by cutting the large butterfly form the Beautiful Buttterflies Bigz die in both cardstock and copy paper. Using the card mask, I fixed this to a piece of Whisper White with post-its and sponged through the aperture with Wisteria Wonder. After removing this mask I positioned the paper mask over the image (again fixing with post-its) and pressed down onto the En Francais background stamp which had been inked with Elegant Eggplant.
This is where my design changed - I was going to use the sponged & stamped butterfly as the panel but it looked a little flat so instead I carefully cut this out using sharp paper snips. I then repeated the sponging step onto another piece of Whisper White but this time using Elegant Eggplant. The cut butterfly was then positioned on top of this image using a thin line of wet glue down the centre of the body, to enable the wings to be folded upwards, and some Basic Pearls added.
I won't bore you to death by explaining how the card was put together as it's self-explanatory but the Elegant Eggplant cardstock panel was stamped with the butterfly from Bloomin' Marvelous, the sentiment is from Curly Cute and the ribbon is Wisteria Wonder Ruffled ribbon.
I apologise for the lack of posts this week but, because I have been busy making things, I've been too busy too blog!!! Hopefully I'll have a lot to show you next week :0)

Beautiful Butterflies

I got the idea for today's card from an American demo, Tami White, who had CASE'd hers from an 'unknown' demo! I started by cutting a mask from the Beautiful Butterflies die using acetate, which is a brilliant tip in itself. When making masks before I have always used a card scrap, however by using acetate not only do the sponge daubers glide much more easily but you can clean the mask and re-use. Anyway I digress. The mask was fixed to a piece of Whisper White card using a tiny bit of re-positionable glue runner and, using sponge daubers, I added Bashful Blue, Marina Mist, So Saffron and Pumpkin Pie to colour the butterfly. Leaving the mask in position I then used an image from Pocket Silhouettes and stamped in Basic Black. The butterfly was cut out by hand and matted onto a piece of Whisper White which had already been stamped in So Saffron with the small butterfly stamp from Cottage Garden. This was placed on a mat of So Saffron and Marina Mist before fixing to a card blank. The sentiment is part of a stamp from Create a Cupcake, inked with a marker pen and punched with the Modern Label Punch.

Card with a difference

It is my lovely sister Linda's birthday today and, of course, I have been asked by all of the family to make cards for her. I always find it so difficult to make several cards for the same person so, after making everyone else's, I was looking for something a bit different for mine. I came across a gorgeous flip-flop card on Dawn's blog (a fellow member of the Pink Ladies) which can be found here, and decided to have a go. Dawn is a lovely lady who makes some beautiful cards and 3D items, so do go and pay her a visit and I promise you won't be dissappointed.
I found a template of a shoe on the internet and drew this onto a folded piece of Wisteria Wonder cardstock (a new 'In Colour available from 1st Oct) and cut out, then made 2 straps from strips of cardstock and glued on. Ooh sorry before I glued the straps in position I stamped the flip flop with a stamp from Trendy Trees. I added a butterfly to the front of the straps, made from the Beautiful Butterflies die and Beautiful Wings Embosslits die with a row of small Basic Rhinestones down the centre,  and a tiny flower from one of the Itty Bitty Shapes punches to the side of the straps. The faux stitching was done with an Elegant Eggplant marker and the inside of the card was a piece of Whisper White cut slightly smaller than the original template size and stuck on - again with some faux stitching added. I made a box to put the card in from plain white cardstock with a piece of Elegant Eggplant cardstock on the top, and added paper ribbon and a paper bow made from Whisper White cardstock stamped on both sides with a stamp from Baby Blossoms (sadly only available until 30th Sept). If you would like to know how to make the paper bow then a tutorial is available on YouTube here. I gave Linda a Stampin'Up! voucher as a present, all ready for her to spend in the new catalogue on October 1st, and put it in a matching handbag gift card holder which I will show you tomorrow.