Another birthday card for my sister but I made this one for my Mum to give her. A simple 3-panel card using Cherry Cobbler and Crumb Cake along with the leaves from Summer Silhouettes and a flower from the Flower Shop set. The sentiments are from 'For my Family' and the flower on the banner is a punch from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack and a Basic Pearl.

Thanks for stopping by

Margaret x

Mother's Day

This is the card and chocolate box I made for my Mum for Mother's Day using a colour combo of Calypso Coral and Lucky Limeade. For the card I matted a piece of Whisper White onto Calypso Coral cardstock and punched an aperture with the large circle punch. I laid this onto a card blank and stamped the 'Mum' (from For my Family') and a retired sentiment so it could be seen through the aperture. I removed this from the card blank and stamped the leafy branch and flowers from Field Flowers and the tied a bow with some Calypso Coral ribbon (retired) before fixing back onto the card blank with dimensionals. The 'happy mothers day' from Teeny Tiny Wishes was stamped onto Whisper White and punched out with the Word Window punch.
For the gift I measured the chocolates and made an open top box and then made a wrap, slightly bigger than the box, to put round. A mat of Whisper White was glued to the front and decorated with the same stamps and ink.
On Friday it is Red Nose Day and, at school, we are having a fund raising afternoon so I thought I would make another of these sets (obviously for a different occasion) and maybe raffle it to raise a little bit of money for such a worthwhile cause - the other set does include a small bottle of wine with matching tag so hopefully I will be able to sell some tickets!!! I'll be back to show you that tomorrow.

Music for LIM

Whilst having a bit of a clear out in my craftroom I came across a piece of this cardstock, from the Natural Composition Speciality Designer Papers, and thought I would experiment. This paper (which is definitely more like cardstock) is one of those packs that you don't want to use because it's too nice so I haven't tried to do anything much with it before. It is a Kraft cardstock, clear embossed on one side in different designs (if you look carefully at the larger photo, you can just make out the embossing on the right hand side), so I was unsure whether you could stamp on it or not. Only one way to find out and, as it was the design with the music on it, I thought Less is More! In all honesty I hadn't even remembered there was a music design in the pack until I saw Vicky's entry last weekend (you can her lovely card here).
As you can probably tell, this took about 2 minutes to make and is in no way a show stopper but I just wanted to share, in case you didn't know, that yes you can stamp on it!
The sentiment is from the retired Happiest Birthday Wishes stamped in Basic Black and the 'nephew' is from For my Family. I know it should be 'happy birthday TO you' but try singing it, 'dear you' still works :0)
As the challenge is a one layer card I have left it like this but I think I will now cut it down and layer it onto a Neutrals Ivory card base as I think it looks a bit stark as it is.

Edited to add: After writing this yesterday and scheduling it to post today, I spent 5 minutes layering it up. In my opinion it looks a tad better now!

Masculine Tri-Fold

This is the card I have made for my Dad, who will be 91 next week!! I always struggle with cards for men but the French Foliage stamp set saves me every time. I decided to make a tri-fold card for a change and used Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla for the colour scheme. The stamped panel is Chocolate Chip DSP, from the Neutrals Paper Stack, and the leaves were inked with Chocolate Chip and stamped off before stamping onto the DSP. The sentiment is from Made for You and the 'dad' is from the For My Family set. I added a knot of Bakers Twine below the sentiment which had been punched with the Curly Label punch and inked around the edges.

Mixed Bunch Birthday

My apologies for being AWOL again! The saga still continues with Dad and, added to that, I've had a streaming cold for 10 days which doesn't seem to want to go - I think I must be looking after it too well :0) Hence not too much crafting getting done at the moment. However it is my sister's birthday today and this is a card I made for my Mum to give to her. I used a couple of the stamps from Mixed Bunch, which was available in the Summer Mini, along with the co-ordinating Blossom Punch both of which, I can tell you, will be making a reappearance in the brand new annual catalogue available from 1st October. I used one of the new In Colours, Summer Starfruit, which was stamped off to get some paler images. The sentiment is part of a stamp in the Happiest Birthday Wishes Hostess set, coloured with a marker and teamed with anotehr stamp from For my Family and punched with the Extra Large Oval Punch. A strip of cardstock punched with the Dotted Scallop Ribbon punch was added across the centre of the card, the central punched flower was added with dimensionals and Basic Pearls finished the card. I also added a bit of stamping to the envelope by using a post-it note as a mask.
Hope to be back soon, have a lovely weekend x

 

Still hospital visiting and still little time to blog, let alone craft! A very quick post showing you a card I made for someone a couple of weeks ago (couldn't show you until after her birthday!) It's quite self-explanatory if I just tell you the supplies I used and it also means I can get to bed :0)

Colour scheme - Baja Breeze and Whisper White, 'Nannie' stamped from Varsity Alphabet and cut out with paper snips, baby stamped with All in the Family, 'to my' from For my Family, flowers punched from Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, hearts punched with the Small Heart punch, Baja Breeze Seam Binding and Basic Pearls.

Apologies once again for lack of posts and also for the very brief post today. Back when I can x

Another card made for my nephew's birthday but this time from my Mum! Made from the Owl Builder punch with the wings and leaves from the Bird Builder punch. The corners of a piece of Whisper White were cut out using a circle punch then matted onto Chocolate Chip cardstock before positioning onto a white card blank. A metallic brad was placed in each corner, the retired birthday stamp was stamped in Chocolate Chip and the balloons, from the Hostess set Pedal Presents, stamped in Pacific Point and coloured with a blender pen. Mr Owl's waistcoat was punched from Crumb Cake DSP and the card was finshed with 'grandson' at the bottom using stamps from the For My family set and punched out with the Modern Label punch.

Well what a half-term week it's been weatherwise - persistent rain, gales & cold but back to work tomorrow so it's bound to change to warm & sunny, let's hope so anyway because I'm fed up with being cold in June!!

Have a good week and I'll be back soon x

Birthday Owl

This was made for the Mum of a friend at work who, apparently, loves owls. I used the Owl Punch to make the little character along with the Bird Punch for the wings and she is punched from Crumb Cake. Her dress is made from some retired DSP, just because it is pretty and matched the Rose Red cardstock I used for the heart, flowers and butterflies. The branches she is sitting on are stamped with a stamp from, the now retired Borderlines, stamped in Old Olive and then stamped again without re-inking to get the different shades of green. The butterflies were made with the Beautiful Wings Embosslits die and the flowers punched with the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack. The Happy Birthday is from a SAB set and the Mum is from For my Family. The card front is matted onto Old Olive cardstock and then onto a white square card blank. Some Basic Pearls were added to the centres of the butterflies and flowers.

Celebrating 80

Here is another card which I was asked to make for a very special 80th birthday. I used the Blossom Party die which, unfortunately, was only available in the Spring Mini but let's hope it makes it's way into the new main catalogue in October. This is a lovely die and one which I probably use more than any other as you can make so many different flowers using different layer combinations. The DSP is from the brand new Twitterpated available in the Summer Mini, the leaves are cut with the Little Leaves Sizzlits die (in Old Olive & Certainly Celery) and the tiny flowers are punched with the Boho Blossoms punch. 'Mum' is from For my Family, 'Happy' is a retired stamp and the 'th and birthday' are part of a stamp from Perfect Punches inked with an Old Olive marker. I cut the 80 from the Timeless Type Junior Alphabet dies in Old Olive and some Basic Pearls were added to finish the card off. The A5 base card is Old Olive matted with Whisper White. I made a bag to put the card in, decorated with leaves, some tiny flowers and the sentiments with handles made from Old Olive satin ribbon.

Simply Stampin' again

When I saw the colour challenge on Simply Stampin' yesterday I didn't know whether I would be able to produce anything that I was remotely happy with and here I am, back again, with a card using the same colours! It all began when last night I decided to play with a new stamp from the Easter Blossoms set and the colours just seemed to lend themselves to the pretty blossom. I stamped the branch in Early Espresso and then stamped again without re-inking to give a paler branch at the back and coloured in the blossoms on the front branch with Melon Mambo and the rest with Pretty in Pink. I was amazed at how quickly I managed to colour all those blossoms just by using a blender pen and ink pressed onto the lid of the stamp pad - I thought it would take ages! I wanted the butterflies to be more delicate than cardstock so I inked a piece of Vellum cardstock with Pretty in Pink using a sponge dauber, cut out the butterflies with the Beautiful Wings Embosslits die, and then lightly inked around the edges with Melon Mambo and fixed them onto the branch with a tiny dot of wet glue. The sentiment from For my Family was stamped in Melon Mambo and, to finish the card, I added a tiny Basic Pearl to the centre of each butterfly and three slightly bigger ones under the sentiment. The panel was matted onto a piece of Wisteria Wonder cardstock and positioned onto a white card blank. Maybe my Mother's Day card ready in advance!!