Mixed Bunch Birthday

The other day I showed you a gift box with cards that I had made for a friend so today I thought I would show you the co-ordinating birthday card to go with it. I masked off the left side of a square card blank with a post-it note before stamping a flower from Mixed Bunch in Rich Razzleberry (the ink was stamped off before stamping onto the card to get a lighter shade) and then added some leaves with a stamp from the SAB set, Bloomin' Marvelous, in Certainly Celery. I then added a strip of Sycamore Street (again SAB) before fixing another flower, which had been stamped and punched using the Blossom Punch, with dimensionals. Some Basic Pearls were added for the flower centre and a sentiment from Made for You in Rich Razzleberry.
The Made for You set is a lovely little sentiment set containing 3 stamps - 'especially for you' 'thank you' and happy birthday' in a really nice font and is a bargain at £10.95 for wood mount or £8.95 for clear mount. If you would like to order any of the supplies used (or indeed any others) please do not hesitate to contact me. (Details can be found at the 'Contact me' tab at the top)

Thank you for stopping by today and I'll be back soon x

Box of Cards

This is a gift box I have made for a friend and is done using one of the SU Kraft boxes, Rich Razzleberry Cardstock and a sheet of Sycamore Street DSP from the SAB freebies. (in case you didn't know - SAB finishes on 22nd March so only a few days left to get your hands on some free products!) The flower on the top is made in exactly the same way as the one on the Spring Box I posted a while ago which can be seen here.
I wanted to fill the box with some handmade cards and you can see those below. I won't go into detail about these as I used so many different stamps etc and a list of all those will have you nodding off!! The cards are just 3" square so are much smaller than they seem.

If you would like to order any products and possibly get your hands on some SAB goodies, please do not hesitate to contact me (for details see Contact tab at the top). If you are considering becoming a Stampin'Up! demonstrator yourself, but would like to know more, I would be happy to have a 'no-obligation' chat and explain everything to you. An ideal way to make money doing something you love!

Card Swapping!

I was recently asked by Jane, a regular visitor to my blog, if I would like to take part in a card swap group which started this month. Jane has organised a group of 10 crafty ladies so that we each make a card and, once a month, we send it to the next person on the list (and when it's our birthday we get a card from everyone in the group!). The idea behind this is to get inspiration from fellow crafters whilst at the same time getting to know each other. I will, of course, be posting both the cards I make and the cards I receive and here is my first 'make' which hopefully Alison will have received by now!
As the cards need to go through the post I needed to make a fairly flat card and this is what I came up with. The colour scheme is Raspberry Ripple, Crumb Cake and Naturals Ivory, stamp sets are Bloomin'Marvelous, Pretty Petites, A Word for You and Tiny Tags along with the Scallop Square, Square and Jewelry Tag punches. As I wanted to keep the card flat I paper pierced a scallop border down the card just to add a little bit of detail as well as a couple of Basic Pearls.
If you would like to join the group and get a card through the post each month then please contact me and I will pass on Jane's details to you.

Matching Pair

This is another matching set which was one of the projects we made at a class I held last week. The treat holder holds three Ferrero Rocher chocolates.
I used the Oval dies (available in the Spring Mini) to make both the card and the outside of the treat holder and a small open top box held the chocolates inside the Scallop Ovals. The colours used are Perfect Plum and Certainly Celery for the leaves, which were punched with the Bird Builder punch. The flowers are a stamp from Bloomin' Marvelous, the sentiment on the card from Bring on the Cake and the sentiment on the box is one from Itty Bitty Banners cut with the co-ordinating die. Perfect Plum Taffeta ribbon and some Basic Rhinestones were used for the finishing touches.

If you would like to order any of these products, or any others in the current catalogues, please do not hesitate to contact me, and don't forget you only have until 22nd March to get those free SAB goodies with a spend of £45.

Less is More and Pink!

Oh dear there is a colour challenge at LIM this week and, as you can see, it involves PINK! I have to admit that I don’t like pink – and I like working with it even less. However this is a challenge site and it was very definitely a challenge for me this morning. I have come up with two cards and in all honesty I don’t like either of them but am posting them just to show you I tried :0)

What do you think?

For this card I used the butterfly stamp from the SAB set, Bloomin’ Marvelous, and stamped in graduated colours using Rose Red (stamped off first to give a shade of pink), Melon Mambo and Pretty in Pink onto Whisper White cardstock. I added some paper piercing under the butterflies using the Essentials Paper Piercing pack (another SAB freebie) and this was matted onto Naturals White cardstock which also had two rows of paper piercing. A piece of Pretty in Pink Taffeta ribbon was placed over the join before layering onto a Crumb Cake card blank. A few gems and part of a sentiment from A Word for You were added to finish the card.

 

My second card uses Create a Cupcake stamp set and co-ordinating punch. The frosting was stamped in Pink Pirouette onto Very Vanilla cardstock and the cake case was punched from Pretty in Pink DSP. The sprinkles and bow were stamped in Melon Mambo as was the sentiment from Bring on the Cake. This was matted onto Crumb Cake and then onto a Naturals Ivory card blank before adding two tiny butterflies, cut with the Beautiful Wings Embosslits die.

Please feel free to criticise – I promise I won’t be upset :(0

Come back tomorrow for another Simples Sunday card but, until then, have a great weekend x

Simples Sunday

My 'Simples Sunday' card this week is very minimal and uses Neutrals for it's colour scheme. The little butterfly from Bloomin' Marvelous (a SAB freebie) was stamped onto Very Vanilla in Crumb Cake, Soft Suede and Early Espresso, and then punched out with the Bitty Butterfly punch (available in the Spring Mini). A knot of Crumb Cake Taffeta ribbon was fixed to a Crumb Cake panel and a sentiment, also from Bloomin' Marvelous, stamped in Early Espresso. The panel was fixed to a Neutrals Ivory card blank and the butterflies and basic pearls added - SIMPLES!

If you would like to purchase any of these, or any other, products then please contact me. You can find my details on the 'Contact me' tab at the top of the page.
Maybe you are considering becoming a demonstrator yourself - if so then now is the time to take the plunge. During SAB the starter kit is 25% bigger, a massive £162.50 worth of product for only £99. If you would like a no-obligation chat about being a demonstrator then please feel free to give me a call.

Simples Sunday x 2

Can you believe it's Sunday again -where has that week gone??
Well I have 2 cards to show you this week using graduated colours, not CASE'd but inspired by several talented demo's out there in blogland.

Both using Sale-a-Bration freebies - the Bloomin' Marvelous & Pretty Petites stamp sets,the Ribbon & Button pack (although I didn't use any buttons!!) and the Petite Curly Label punch.

For the top card I used the butterfly stamp with Pool Party, Tempting Turquoise and Island Indigo and Basic Rhinestones. The sentiment is from Petite Pairs and if you would like to know how the 'label' was made see at the end of the post.

The bottom card uses the flower and leaf stamps with So Saffron, Coral Calypso and Cajun Craze.

For both cards I inked the stamp in the lightest colour first, stamped then stamped again for an even lighter colour then proceeded stamping the other two colours. The Certainly Celery leaves on the bottom card were stamped off first as I only wanted a very light image.
Now back to that label. I stamped the sentiment onto Whisper White and punched out with the Decorative Label punch. This was then inserted back into the punch and cut again. The Island Indigo was done in the same way but using the punch the other way round. Very difficult to describe in words but I hope you can see what I mean from the photos below.

Well that seemed to be a very long post today and I'm sure it took me longer to write this than to actually make both cards!! Simple to make but, it would appear, not so simple to explain!!!
Enjoy the rest of the weekend and come back soon 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)

Kraft & Creme and a Happy Birthday at LIM

It's a beautiful sunny day here but my day is not going at all well! I got up late which has completely thrown me and, whilst having my 'wake up' coffee, I popped on to the Less is More site really hoping for a challenge that DIDN'T inspire me - that was the wrong thing to do! This week's challenge is Kraft & Creme, definitely my sort of colours, so off to make a card instead of doing the things I should be doing :0)

I used Crumb Cake and Very Vanilla with a strip of Crumb Cake DSP to make a very simple card. The flower was cut with the Floral Fusion Sizzlits die and a punch from the Itty Bitty Punch Shapes pack, and the leaves are from the Bird Builder punch. Some Bakers Twine was tied around the panel and a sentiment added. The sentiment is from Pretty Petites and punched with the Petite Curly Label punch, both from the current Sale-a-Bration promotion.

As it is LIM's second birthday I decided, whilst I'd got all the supplies out, I would make a birthday card for the lovely ladies who tirelessly set the challenges each week and take the time to visit every one of us and leave a comment. So, thank you for the past 2 years ladies and here's to the next two!!!!

Supplies used - Letter It and Memorable Moments stamps, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla & Naturals Ivory cardstock, Crumb Cake taffeta ribbon, Basic Pearls and Labels Collection Framelits