Author: Catherine

I decided to once again grab a Dylusions background … but this time it is the last one so there won’t be more of these bright and funky backgrounds to share unless I have a fun inky session! This time I went for a pretty and fun birthday card.

After trimming the green background down I added it to some yellow card to give it a frame and then using foam I added it to the card blank.

Next I die cut some foliage from some Cinnamon Cider and Petal Pink cardstock. Next I stamped and fussy cut a large floral image from an old Creative Stamping magazine set. I’ve not really used this set much and it is beautiful so may have to put it to good use again soon.

I coloured it quite loosely using my Stampin Blends in Petal Pink, Granny Apple Green, Just Jade and So Saffron.

Next I die cut the letters for Happy from the Cinnamon Cider and stacked them up three times to give more dimension. I then stamped the Birthday from Biggest Wish using More Mustard.

I added foam under the floral stamped image and also under the birthday part of the sentiment so this really has a lot of dimension.

I finished off with the gold flower embellishments from the stash.

It feels so good to have finally used up all those backgrounds made so long ago. So pleased I could find a use for them and could find a way to mix up my crafting a little.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! Welcome to my blog and todays bit of creativity is my playtime with a stencil and a blending tool.

I created this gorgeous little card using an old Stampin Up stencil and some ink … I kept it quite simple to be honest in terms of the stencilling … nothing too taxing… just did some simple inking through the stencil to the right hand side of the card blank. After removing the stencil I then inked around the area I wanted to place my focal cluster to give it some depth and then splattered some rose gold shimmer ink to give a bit of shine but you probably can’t see that in the pics unfortunately.

Next I added a white die cut. This hangs off the edge a little but as this is a slimmer design card blank (approx 9cm wide) it still fits in the usual envelope.

I then decided on my focal images and went for a Creative Stamping magazine kit I got a week or so ago with the cute daisy type images. I decided to colour them using my blending brushes rather than colour in with pens or paints…

… this gives a nice soft colouring blend. I then fussy cut them both out.

I added them adhering with Pinflair glue gel to give some dimension without having to add foam and then turned to the sentiment. I chose to ink and emboss the Woo hoo! From the Amazing Phrasing set but manipulated the stamp so it was on a curve rather than straight. Then used the same Calypso Coral to ink the background which gives it a bit of a gradient. I then fussy cut that out, again adding with the pinflair to give some dimension.

The Happy birthday was from the Cottage Rose set as its a nice simple font.

I decided to add gems but wanted some colourful ones so coloured them with my stampin Blends markers so they give a little pop of colour.

Really happy with this. The stencilling in the background really just adds some fun pattern without taking over. Love being part of this design team to remind me to use my stencils more often!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! Thanks for popping by to my bit of the Internet!

Today I have another design team contribution for Creative Knockouts challenge blog and our theme for this week is Birthday Wishes. We are sponsored this week by KLM Designs and I chose to use the lovely Woodland Garden Gnome image for my card.

I knew that she wanted to be dressed in soft greens and yellows and also surrounded by lots of foliage and so I set to with my colouring…

I coloured her in a mix of Stampin Blends and promarkers and then cut her out with a bit of a border of white.

Then I grabbed the Merriest Moments stamps, dies and the embossing folder and made a big cluster of pretty greens and yellows for the gnome to stand amongst.

There is plenty of dimension going on with foam between some layers and also that fabulous texture of the dry embossing. The embossed piece I added colour to the foliage using my stampin blends in a range of green colours (I also coloured the back of them as I knew that some might end up being seen on the reverse).

For the sentiment out came my favourite … Biggest Wish.

I stamped the birthday using the stamp platform to get an ombre look and the Happy I embossed in white over some cardstock I had coloured with the same stampin blends as some of the leaves in the background.

I decided to make a slightly different fold of card too by extending the back of the card with Soft Seam foam cardstock and having the cluster hang over the edge.

I corner rounded the edges too to soften the look. Inside I added one more flower and leaf die cut just to make it match… probably should have found a sentiment to stamp on the inside too but never thought of that till now!

I finished off the front with some pale yellow sequins from the stash.

Love how this little gnome worked well amongst the over the top amount of flowers and leaves. So cute! I also love using a Christmas and winter themed set for something very different.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

There have been a few changes at Happy Little Stampers and so now we have an Anything Goes Birthday challenge and I’m happy to be on the Design team for this one.

I decided to grab those Expressions in Ink papers that I put aside after failing the sheet load of cards challenge last month and use a couple to make two cards for this months design team contribution.

I used Old Olive as the contrast colour for the mount on the square piece (one of which is a triangle as per the original design on sheetload of cards) and added the sentiment and the die cut from the same Old Olive cardstock. I did also add a panel of the pale Papaya shimmer vellum underneath so that gives it a fancy frame!

Both cards are very similar with the colours and the leaf die cuts but with different papers they look different enough for me to be happy (I never like making the same card more than once).

For the envelopes I used some leftover strips of the cardstock to add a little panel on each.

So off to see what other birthday creations the team have been making … and I encourage you to come and join in on the challenge.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Yesterday was my Mum’s birthday and I wanted to share the labour of love that was her birthday card with you.

I had the idea that I wanted to do a wreath design as the main part of the card so I started by stamping lots of leaves from different sets in all the greens. I kept to mainly lighter coloured greens rather than very dark ones after all it is August not winter and wanted it to be bright!

I decided, even though these could be die cut, to fussy cut instead…. after all that is more relaxing and cam be done sat on the sofa…

Then I put together some on a circle to decide if the different styles and types of leaves went OK together… and decided as there were so many types and styles it did…. oh I also coloured in the images from Splendid Thoughts as they were outline images so used stampin blends to colour them.

I decided I wanted more but this time the die cuts from Splendid Stems as something to break up the images…

I decided this was a good mix of the delicate die cuts in solid colour and the stamped or coloured images.

Next to decide how to finish the card and I had a couple of ideas I tried out. By this time I had stuck the leaves together onto a thin ring of scrap paper so that was complete but all other elements are just placed in half finished form to give me an idea of how they look.

I was torn between keeping it green and white and adding in bright colours… bit went for the yellow as it is my Mum’s favourite colour.

So I found some yellow ribbon in the stash for a bow, fussy cut the Stampendous sentiment that I had stamped with blended yellow and coral inks, cut some more Playful Alphabets and coloured them with So Saffron stampin blends and added the little flowers I had bought in a pack from Hobbycraft many years ago.

Then to decide on the background … I went with a Kraft card base in 8×8 as I had one in my stash and the originally planned white 7×7 was a bit too small … but actually I think it frames it nicely.

Then I added a mount of the So Saffron cardstock.

The white base I decided to blend some So Saffron on and do some splatters of green and coral ink to complement the colours in the rest of the card.

I added a foam panel behind this to raise it off the So Saffron and then put foam behind the wreath and a double layer under the middle of the sentiment to support it.

This gives the whole card so much dimension. I love it!

Inside I added a panel of whisper white with some more blending and splatters with a panel of So Saffron on the edge. Then I added a little cluster of the leaves I had left over and added the little sentiment strip.

I decided to add wink of Stella to the mum letters to give them some sparkle and then called it finished!

A real labour of love… but my Mum is worth it!

Hope you like it too!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Good morning! First of August (which actually means Happy Birthday Mum but not sharing her card right now!).

Instead it is time for this months Craftyhazelnuts patterned paper challenge blog design team contribution!

Again I delved into the old Making Cards magazine stash and made these two fun modern cards.

I don’t often use ‘characters’ in my cardmaking, but these cute images I could see myself using and I LOVE the pretty papers that came in the kit.

I decided to team them up with lovely sentiment stamps also from a magazine set and stamped directly onto the main images. Then I decided to play with an old Sizzix die set of those flowers as they are sweet and modern and I think they worked with the images well.

Inside the cards I added more paper, and the same for the envelopes.

Simple finishing touches of some rhinestones made these cards cute but simple and I love how they turned out!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

A few weeks ago I cut up papers and did stamping with the intention of making a sheetload of cards challenge but then never really finished it (plus messed up the cutting for the template!) So I shared the four I did at the time and put things aside for another day’s play.

Well I decided to grab the pouch that had all the bits and pieces in it and have a go at making some more and managed four more.

Two are pink and two are peach … but all make cute thank you cards!

These pale Papaya ones I used the flower images I had stamped and die cut. As I don’t have Pale Papaya ink I used a mix of retired colours (Crisp Canteloupe and More Mustard) and some Calypso Coral as these all worked with the Pale Papaya.

I mounted both of these onto the Mossy Meadow card blanks I had made. This gave a nice frame to the cards.

The pink ones I actually have a mix of pinks going on as I ran out of the Polished Pink cardstock so had to use a random other bright pink from the stash.

As these also had the pop of Pale Papaya in the patterned paper I used the same peachy themed colours for stamping the flowers … and one of them also got a few of the smaller flowers stamped in Melon Mambo.

Love how summery and bright these cards are… perfect for saying a cheery thank you!

I love too the gold foiling in the papers … really makes them special.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I’m still working my way through using those Dylusion backgrounds I made years go at a class with Dyan Reaveley… only a few left after todays project I am sharing with you.

I am basically doing a similar design to the cards I shared last week (or thereabouts) where I embossed the Snow Crystal background stamp but this time I changed the powder I used to a white glitter one. I rarely use this powder as glitter isn’t usually my thing, but I thought this stamp was the perfect one for a glittery finish!

I decided to go for square 5×5 cards so cut the Dylusions panels down to 9.5cm square (I had originally thought to do 13.9cmx9.5cm panels for an A6 card but changed my mind… hence the cm sizing!)

Two of the cards I mounted onto the black panels, and two I decided to emboss the card blank front using a snowflake embossing folder.

For both cards I used sentiments from the Christmas to Remember stamp set … I love how varied these sentiments are.

Once again I chose to add the iridescent snowflake embellishments to finish off.

Love these and glad I decided to make more using those backgrounds for my own stash as the others went to the swap recipient.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I am still working my way through things on the desk and trying to clear the decks a bit. I find whilst products are on my desk, or half used supplies, I can’t seem to settle on new stuff until I’ve used it up. I constantly want to grab for the same stuff.

In this case it is these Dylusions backgrounds. I’ve had them for years bit now seems to be the time to put them to use or get rid… and that is just not an option!

So I grabbed a couple of them that were more decorated than most with added doodles and some black edges. I added more black with a bit of black stamping (Gummiapan alphabet text stamp) and also grabbed a smaller piece of one and did the same on that).

I added black around the orange piece and then some white dots to make it coordinate.

I mounted the smaller panel onto the top of the other and then looked around for more supplies to finish this off.

I settled for some flowers stamped and fussy cut (again these were already stamped on the desk from some other Christmas themed projects) and then punched a jar from black scrap cardstock to turn it into a feature.

I decided Cinnamon Cider was the perfect card base colour so used a half sheet of that to make the card blank. It wasn’t a full sheet so I felt fine in then also stamping onto the bit left over to create the sentiment which I then fussy cut out and added to the card with a bit of foam in the middle so it had dimension.

Quite a funky and mixed media style card. Love it!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Had a play with a little trellis stencil this weekend and made this cute card with Cottage Rose stamps.

I started with the stencil and put some versamark through it and then added Baked Texture embossing powder and heated it up. This left a lovely verdigris type colour and texture.

I then stamped the image in Soft Suede and then used some watercolour pencils to colour it in. When I had finished colouring I then die cut it.

I decided to add some inking to both the stencilled panel and the sentiment panel but decided the card needed more so grabbed some Crumb Cake and embossed it with the Old paper folder. Again I added ink.

I added the stencilled panel with foam underneath and then added some twine and some pearl gems to finish off.

Happy crafting!

Catherine