Inkyfingeredcat

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

Yesterday I shared cards made for a swap … well I made 8 in total but these ones I kept to a more traditional look.

I decided to use patterned paper, to add some ink blending and splatters and then stamping and fussy cutting to create the focal images.

I’ve been using the Christmas Season set a lot for foliage recently so decided to change it up for these and used the foliage from the retired Peace and Joy which has been a favourite set for quite a while but mainly for the words. So decided to give the other stamps a little more attention!

I stamped each leaf 4 times and chose a different ink for each leaf type (the Holly stamp is a pair of leaves so I ended up with 8 in total!).

I blended ink on the white panels in a slightly different way for each and then splattered with a darker ink. Then I made my little clusters of leaves.

I decided to raise each topper panel up on foam and then add strips of paper underneath the sentiment (from the In the Pines) set. I then added pearls to the images along with a little more stamping using the accent type stamp from the Peace and Joy set.

The patterned paper is from the stash and I love how these coordinating packs work well together. I then chose to use Cherry Cobbler as the base for the card blank.

I also added some twine to these two to add a different texture.

Hopefully the recipient in the swap likes the two different styles I chose to make up the 8 cards.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I’ve joined in with a swap to make Christmas cards using 2 techniques on the cards and here are what I made…

Now the backgrounds themselves are those Dylusions backgrounds I made years ago with Dyan Reaveley using Sprays and paints and stencils … so I guess technique number one is using stencils!

Then I heat embossed the amazing Snow Crystal background stamp in silver on to each of them. This is a stunning image nd embosses beautifully.

I then embossed the sentiment onto black four times and cut it out using the Christmas Greetings dies. On two I just kept it simple, but on the other two I added a little bit of the gingham ribbon to step them up a little.

On all of them I added the little iridescent snowflake embellishments to add some more sparkle.

I added them onto black card bases and inside I added a white panel onto which I stamped Merry Christmas in black to keep it simple.

Super happy with how these came out. Love the shine of that snowflake against the super bright and fun backgrounds.

Entering these into the Christmas in July Challenge at Dream Valley Challenges

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Was beginning to wonder if I would get round to making a tag or not for this months UK stampers forum tag swap … but then inspiration struck whilst playing with this months Creative Stamping magazine which I treated myself to this past weekend.

I stamped the floral image which was the reason I bought the magazine in the first place and decided to colour them in using soft yellows and greens and then fussy cut the image.

The magazine came with a stencil and so decided to ink through the stencil with versamark and then I was going to get a pearl embossing powder but spotted the Seth Apter Baked Texture rust powder and grabbed that instead … and wo was I happy with the result. I forgot how cool these powders were to play with.

I then grabbed some of the die cuts I spent an hour cutting from scraps the other day and layered those under the floral image.

I decided to grab the baked texture embossing powder and a scrap to make a little strip … but this time multiple layers of versamark and the powder to get the different effect and this went across the tag and under the sentiment.

Finished off with ribbon, twine and some pearls.

Love how easily this came together once the stencilling was done … it was like all the pieces were there and waiting! Nice to get a new stamp set to play with too … been a while since I bought a magazine and must admit I have a real thing about floral images at the moment.

Entering this into the Summer Flowers challenge at Sir Stampalot

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Yesterday I shared with you the 10 tags I made for the challenge of use scraps to make tags … well as the challenge is to make 20 tags I chose to also make 10 Christmas themed ones.

This time I started with scrap cardstock as the base and then grabbed the Christmas box and used papers I had already cut into and the images I had already either die cut or stamped and coloured on other projects and never got around to using.

I did have to stamp a few extra sentiments and the two stars for the Tidings and Trimmings set were new inags, but otherwise all of this was using bits leftover from other projects or things sitting on my desk

Hopefully the swap recipient likes what I made, I’m looking forward to seeing what I get in return.

Happy crafting!

Catherine