You are so special to me

Happy Cardmaking Day for yesterday! I made this card card yesterday which was more of a happy accident than something I planned.




I printed a photo to hang on the wall yesterday using this canvas photo paper I found at my local Officeworks. It's slightly glossy and has a really lovely texture. This is the photo I printed and framed. I have a thing for roses but I can't keep them alive to save my life. Plastering them all over the walls is my compromise. :)

Later on I used the offcuts from printing the photo to create this card. I started with a Very Vanilla cardbase stamped in Vanilla Versacolor ink with the Envelope Pattern by Hero Arts.

I used the inkpad to paper technique (more Jennifer McGuire) to colour the canvas paper with Bundled Sage distress ink. I stamped the flower from Fiskars' "Petals from Scratch" set (which I think looks kind of like a coneflower) once on the green layer and then again in StazOn ink on an uninked piece of the canvas paper. I used the colours of coneflowers as my inspiration -



Picture found here- and blended Victorian Velvet and Worn Lipstick distress inks to colour the flower. I then swiped a little bit of Soft Peach shadow ink in the centre of the flower which blended by itself beautifully.




I created a banner which I then stamped with the sentiment (All Occasion Messages by Hero Arts) and popped it up on foam dots to complete the card.

Because the graduating colour effect using the blender tool is my favourite technique (at the moment!) I think it fitting that I enter this card into this week's Wee Memories challenge (to use your favourite technique)

I couldn't resist adding this one to the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes challenge.

Have a good one!

Just a note

Happy Thursday! I don't know about anyone else, but I really can't wait 'til Friday this week! Is it just me or did this week crawl by? Hmm, maybe it was just me :)

I'm here to share a card that's been sitting in my head ever since I saw this Moxie Fab World Trigger image:

I love that cute fabric envelope! It's so dainty and sweet! I just had to recreate it for the challenge, so here goes:






For the background I used a plaid pattern out of the 'Isn't it Romantic' 6x6 paper pad by Inque Boutique. I really wish I had a plaid stamp so that I could have made the card more monochromatic (like the inspiration image) but then I couldn't have also entered this card into the Wee Memories challenge for this week - to use patterned paper. Just for extra fun I'll enter this into the Simon Says Stamp challenge for this week which is Anything Goes!

 The rolled rose was made out of a circle cut from the same paper as the background (using a technique demonstrated by the awesome Jennifer McGuire in her Inspiration Showcase!). I glued it down with glossy accents and popped a little half pearl in the centre of the rose.




I distressed the edges of the white stitched layer to make it look a little worn and uneven - like fabric! I stamped the sentiment with Versafine Black Onyx ink using a sentiment from Kaisercraft's mini stamp set called 'Thinking of you'.
Thanks for taking a peek! I'm sure I'll be back on the weekend (yay, can't wait!)

Thanks

Happy Friday to you! I haven't been near my craft desk all week, so it was great to just sit down and play the time away, a luxury I don't normally get on a weeknight because usually it's a case of having dinner, then a shower, then going to bed!

So anyway, on with the card as that's why you're really here, right? :)

This week's Wee Memories challenge is to NOT use patterned paper. I'm kind of patterned-papered-out after the last card I made, so this was great timing!




I've been taking Jennifer McGuire's Technique Showcase, an online card class - which is full of so many techniques that I'm going to try out in the weeks to come. The flower on this card wasn't made using of the techniques from the class, but I felt inspired by the class to experiment and see what happened!



For the flower ("Flowers" cling set by Hero Arts) I used watercolour cardstock with Turquoise Versacolor (pigment ink). After cleaning the ink off the stamp with a baby wipe I used the ink as a colour wash by swiping the baby wipe across the stamped image.

The background was created by painting the teeny tiny flower stamp from the 'Just wanted to say" set by Hero Arts with some "Heavenly" Twinkling H20s and stamping it randomly around a piece of watercolour cardstock.




I painted the flowers with "Heavenly" Twinkling H2Os and glued the flower together using glue dots. The sentiment is from the "Just wanted to say" set by Hero Arts.

Here's one more picture to show the shimmer:



Well that's it from me, I'm beat! I hope everyone has a lovely and relaxing weekend - I know I will be!

Your Kindness is Truly Appreciated

I'm happy to report that the garden is looking better since I gave it a bit of attention this weekend, but I'm aching all over right now because of it :( And boy was it hot! If this is a preview of Summer I don't want it!

I did have a chance to make another card this weekend. I have to admit I spent alot of time on this (I think I got up and walked away about five times). I decided to play along with the sketch challenge at Lily Pad Cards and combine it with with the Easy Craft Projects challenge - to use 6 patterned papers on a project.

Here's the sketch from Lily Pad Cards:

Inspired by the sketch, I used four strips of patterned paper from the Secret Bird Society collection 6x6 paper pad by Kaisercraft (my favourite set, but I've rarely used it!) cut a circle with a Spellbinder's die (5), and the bird and leaves are cut out of one of the papers, so that makes 6 patterned papers on one card! Phew :) Choosing the papers and arranging the strips was the hardest part of creating this card. I went with the most complimentary patterns that aren't overly busy.


I stamped the sentiment from the biggest sentiments set I own - Truly Appreciated by Hero Arts.





I popped the little birdy up with foam dots to make him jump off the page a little, and the leaves wanted to curl up a bit by themselves which is always a nice look.

So are multiple patterned papers your thing? If you are like me and you think two patterned papers on a card is plenty, perhaps you should take up the challenge by Easy Craft Projects as well, you never know where it will take you!

Thanks for taking a look, and have a great day!

Hello + Work in Progress!

A simple one-layer mini card to make it just under the wire for this week's Wee Memories challenge to make a one layer card. Susan from Simplicity wants us to colour our one-layer cards, and I'm also playing along with CAS-ual Friday's challenge this week to create a mini card.



I'm all about the mini cards these days and I love one-layer cards, so these two challenges were made to be combined in my opinion! Here is what I came up with:





I printed the flower from Mujka Chic's Contemporary Design Elements from myGrafico on thick lightly textured cardstock (I can't remember the brand) that measured 4" x 6". I eyeballed it to come up with the correct placement of the flower on the cardstock and ran it through my printer.



 I stamped the sentiment from Simple Messages by Hero Arts in Versafine Black Onyx ink before doing any colouring just in case I had a mishap (it happens rather often unfortunately...)

I then coloured the flower using a combination of Prismacolor pencils (Lilac, Lavender, Salmon Pink, Parma Violet, Canary Yellow, Spanish Orange and Burnt Ochre) as well as Light Orange to accent the polleny bits in the center of the flower. For blending I used a stump sponged with Zest-it blending medium. I took pictures as I went (fun!) and put them together in a collage:

Click on the picture above to see it a bit closer!

Thanks for looking, and I hope you've found some inspiration in this week's challenges! I might go and brave the heat outside and tidy up the garden a little bit.

Enjoy your day!

love u

My husband doesn't like using emoticons, or text-speak such as 'c u l8r'. He writes his SMSs [texts] with perfect spelling, grammar and punctuation, whereas he's lucky to get one from me with a capital letter in sight. He's a punctuation- and grammar-phile, so the cards I make with the stamps in the Notched Tag Die and Stamp set by My Favorite things will drive him absolutely crazy [I mean crazy in a good way of course :)] Not a capital in sight and lots of text-speak. he he he.




I created a pattern down on one side of my ATC-sized card using the dotted background stamp in the set (these stamps are so cute and little, perfect for little mini cards as well as tags!) in Versacolor Raspberry ink and laid a white ribbon around the card and tied it into a bow.

I stamped the sentiment and then die-cut two little hearts from the coordinating set of dies. I sponged them with Versacolor Raspberry and fixed them to the card. I adhered the panel to a card (front panel measures 4 x 3") and that was it!

Thanks for looking, and I hope you have a great day!

One of a Kind

Happy Wednesday to you! I'm so glad that the week is half over - I can't wait for the weekend!

I was quite productive and crafty over my holiday - most of the cards I will be sharing within the next little while will be those I created during that time. Here's one I created just for fun - no challenges or occasion in mind.




I started out with a piece of cardstock from a watercolour pad cut at 2.5 x 3.5 inches that I was going to use to make an ATC (Artist Trading Card). I stamped a background using the leaves from Inkadinkado's 'Leaves' set in Vanilla Versacolor ink.
I think it sat on my craft desk like that for about 2 weeks. Last week while at my craft desk working on something else inspiration hit and I finally knew what to do with it (as you can tell from the photo above I abandoned the ATC idea). I stamped the leaves again a piece of watercolour card (same kind as the ATC) using Pinecone, Umber and Sand Beige Versacolor ink and I cut out them out using my new Cutterbee scissors (great tool I should add). I arranged them how I wanted them to appear on the card and taped them together on the back. I wrapped a piece of twine a few times around the stems of the leaves and taped the ends to the back of the ATC layer. I popped the arrangement of leaves up with foam dots to give the card some dimension and then stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts' 'All Occasion Messages' set in Pinecone Versacolor ink.




The last thing I did was adhere the ATC to the card which measures 4 x 6 inches (scored on the longest side at 3 inches). It's my new favourite size card - it's easy for me to remember when cutting up cardstock, it fits the ATC with a nice mat and I have envelopes that it fits into perfectly - win, win, win!

I used Canson cardstock for the card base, and watercolour card from a pad for the ATC and leaves. I think the different card types add alot of interest and texture and once I got going it was such a fun and easy card to make that I made another one using another abandoned ATC which I will post tomorrow!