Love Machine

Here's another swing circle card. This one features some Cat's Pajamas clearly swanky stamps from Loving Mew. I went with the same layout as yesterday's card. I coloured in the robot with prismacolor pencil crayons (silver, black, and red). The little heart in the speech bubble in popped up on a dimensional. I liked the textured card base of yesterday's card, but I don't have any of the Basic Grey in a textured format. So I cut out the circles, then texturized them with Fiskars texture plates (check out instructions from Ellen Hutson here) . You can't really see the effect in the photograph, but I was just wanting something a little different.


Supplies:
Stamps: Loving Mew by The Cat's Pajamas
Inks: Palette Noir, Moulin Rouge
Paper: Basic Grey, White, Real Red
Accessories, etc.: Nestabilities, dimensional, brad, pencil crayons, texture plate

Spring Swing Card

I have really been on a circle card kick lately. It's nice to change up the shape of your canvas now and then. For this card, I used the largest scalloped circle nestability die and cut out 2 circles. I lined them up and punched a 1/8th hole punch through one of the bumps. This is where I put the brad which also acts as the hinge. Next, I stamped a small floral scene using Flourishes Fantasy Floral Garden. I added in a sentiment from Many Sentiments. The finishing touch was a small piece of knotted ribbon. I got this 5/8'' grosgrain from Michaels this weekend. It's American Crafts and was on sale (woot!). For the inside of the card, I adhered a small white circle waiting to be written on.

Supplies:

Stamps: Fantasy Floral Garden, Many Sentiments by Flourishes

Ink: Cool Caribbean, Certainly Celery

Paper: Cool Caribbean, Prism Light Green, White

Accessories, etc.: American Crafts ribbon, brad, glue dot, nestabilities

Vrooom!

I think these cars from gel-a-tins Vrooom! are the cutest. This card started with me wanting to showcase each of the vehicles in this set. The best way to do that was to make some background paper. I chose 4 colours and started stamping. Next, I figured a card this bright and with this theme would be best suited for a younger child. I stamped the word VROOOM several times, coloured in the letters to match the stamped paper, then embossed the number 6 over top. I also made some paper ribbon with a strip of black paper and white embossed Vroooms. The card ended up a bit busy, but I think it still works quite well for a 6 year old. I always like using this colour scheme for kids' cards.

Supplies:
Stamps: gel-a-tins' Vrooom, License Plate Letters & Numbers
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Real Red, Summer Sun, Only Orange, versamark
Paper: White, Black
Accessories, etc.: white, black EP, nestabilities

Eastern Themed Simplicity

I just recently received gel-a-tins' Asian Garden. There have been several Eastern inspired products that I have seen lately and this set fits well with that trend. For this card, I started out with the small image first. I cut out a rectangle, embossed it, stamped it with the bamboo leaves, then mounted it on a scalloped rectangle. I stamped the bird, cut it out, and placed it so it appeared to be flying away. I found a lightly coloured pattern paper from the DCWV Far East mat stack. I also made my own patterned paper using more of the bamboo leaves. I finished off the card with some double stitched olive grosgrain.

Supplies:

Stamps: Asian Garden

Ink: Rose Red, Old Olive

Paper: White, Olive, Rose Red, DCWV Mat Stack

Accessories, etc.: nestabilities, ribbon, pop dot

Gift Card Holder with Belly Band

I had a mission this weekend, my mom required a birthday card that also served as a gift card holder. I started with the basic shape of the card and the gift card first. I knew I wanted to use my slit punch as the card holder, so I started off with a piece of paper 4-1/16x3-15/16. I traced the card onto some scrap cardstock and used that as a guide for where to punch. This allows you to perfectly place the gift card without damaging it. The card itself is 11 inches long, with the middle panel being about 4-5/8 wide.

Next up I needed a colour scheme. I drew my colours from the gift card itself, first picking out burgundy, then 2 other colours from the same colour family, artichoke and saffron. I went with a floral theme since I knew it would make a nice pattern. I used PaperTrey Ink's Beautiful Blooms. Here is a photo of the card without the belly band on. The belly band is simply an 11x1-1/2 piece of burgundy. I wrapped it around the card to determine where to fold it, making sure to leave a little bit of give, but not too much. The label on the belly band covers the edges, and was made with circle nestabilities.

Here's the finished product. If I was really picky, I would've been a bit more aware of the off the page stamping. It doesn't match up, but it does the job.

Supplies:

Stamps: Beautiful Blooms, Paper Tray

Ink: Bravo Burgundy, Always Artichoke, So Saffron

Paper: White, Burgundy

Other: circle nestablities, slit punch

Smooch

I really love using this heart themed set, Hugs & Kisses, by gel-a-tins. This card actually started out as an experiment. I LOVE all the shimmery paper out there, but refuse to splurge. As you may know, I have made my own in the past. However, I usually spritz my shimmer concoction after all the stamping is done. This time, I wanted to see if the shimmer still shimmed through solid stamping. Well, guess what, it does. I really didn't expect this to work out. I figured my hairspray+pearl ex would repel dye ink, but no! Here's a close-up shot(be sure to click it for the larger version), you can see the shimmer a bit in this one.

Anyway, so this card all started by spraying some of my shimmer mist on white. I let that dry, then just started grabbing the jewel tones of red and pink and got stamping. I just kept stamping until my little square was full. I added a few layers, some 5/8'' burgundy grosgrain and a lovely nestabilified sentiment (3 dies were used to make that). You know, I do like making more complex cards, but sometimes, I just like how the simpler ones turn out. I'm all for stretching beyond the 'box', but why mess with something that works?

Supplies:

Stamps: Hugs & Kisses

Ink: Bravo Burgundy, Rose Red, Purely Pomegranate, Cranberry Crisp

Paper: White, Burgundy, Rose Red

Accessories, etc.: Oval nestabilites, 5/8'' burgundy grosgrain, hairspray+pearl ex shimmer mist, pop dots

Eat Cake!

When I was at Michaels this past week, I kept passing by these delightful cake stickers by Martha Stewart Crafts. The price here- 6.99! Not like I'd buy a sticker without trying to recreate it first, but still. This meant that I had a challenge for myself- to make a tiered cake. I thought about doing it all free-hand. Instead, I started with some oval dies. I cut out 3 ovals in confetti white paper. To make them cake-like, I snipped off a 1/4'' from each side. Next, I took a bigger oval, and used it to trace a curved shadow at the top of each layer. I also outlined each layer with the grey marker while I was at it. I attached the 3 tiers, then punched out some flowers from this year's punch kit. I sponged them to make them a little darker than the cool caribbean scalloped plate I had set the cake on. Then, I attached some gelly gems in the centers. The card base was made using a regular card base and the largest circle nestability. When doing that, be sure to not completely have the die cut on the paper, you need to have some over the fold so that you don't just end up with 2 circles. The scalloped layer is the largest scalloped circle nestability, so if you were to turn the card over, you'd see that this layer is larger than the actual card.

Supplies:
Stamps: none!
Ink: Cool Caribbean
Paper: Confetti White, White, Cool Caribbean, Bazzill
Accessories: Circle and Oval nestabilities, trio of flowers punch, gelly gems, pop dots, cool grey marker

Welcome Little All-Star

I needed to make a baby card today. There were a few guidelines I was given: it needed to have blue and yellow, it was for a boy, the parents are football fans, and the gift is somewhat sport themed as well. I knew I wanted to use the All*Star image from Sporting, but I needed to make it more for a baby. My last resource was going to be snap stamps, but first I looked through all my clear sets. I came upon this one from a Studio G set, it says Welcome Little One. Well, that was easy enough to alter, I just didn't ink up the "one". Yay, the perfect message: Welcome Little All*Star. The rest of the card is pretty basic, even though it took a while. First I had to die-cut out the stars (these are nestabilities) from thinner chipboard. Next I painted them with a few coats of yellow or light blue acrylic paint. Next, once dry, I covered them with mod podge and glitter. Again, let them dry, and finally I could attach them to the card base with ultra sticky tape. Due to a miscalculation, I had the wrong size of a yellow star leftover, so that went on the envelope.

Supplies:
Stamps: Sporting, a Studio G baby set
Ink: Yoyo Yellow, Bashful Blue craft ink
Paper: white, thin chipboard
Accessories, etc.: star nestabilities, acrylic paint, mod podge, glitter