Seize the Birthday Floral

Spring is just around the corner! I was pining for some fresh green in my life. Here's a quick birthday card I made for a colleague. I like its simple, fresh look with a bit of glitter cardstock to punch it up.

The background vertical stripe played well against the Avery Elle Petals and Stems bloom that I fussy cut and lifted with foam tape. The sentiment is a stamp from Quietfire Design. It's a set of seven differently-lettered Happy Birthday sentiments. So practical - I reach for it often.

I am entering this card in the Seize the Birthday Anything Goes Challenge.

Purple Stippled Flowers

The optional "toppings" challenge at Seize the Birthday this week is Foliage. I hope my few leaves here and there count! For this birthday card I chose to use the Gina K Designs Stippled Flowers set. I embossed the blooms and die cut them, along with lots of leaves. The card design was based on a card Gina made for the launch of this set. She embossed in white but I chose gold.

I used Zig Clean Color Watercolor Markers and a water brush to colour them, then touched up with a purple Copic marker here and there.

Gina layered on a Swiss Dot dry embossed background, but I chose an Anna Griffin Poppy design. I popped a few of the flowers up with foam tape to add some dimension. I added a strip of tape and some purple glitter to the dividing border.

The sentiment is from a separate Gina K Designs stamp set, Bold & Blooming. I added a few pale purple Swarovski Crystals to finish it off. Thanks for visiting today!

2018 Spring/Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

Hello, blog! Long time no see! Here is my card for the 2018:

Today I have a chalkboard card. I forgot how fun these are! I used my MISTI stamp positioner to enable me to stamp and colour, then stamp again and emboss. I chose not to emboss the hearts so they would recede a bit.

I used chalk pencil crayons to add some subtle colour to the flowers and a slight drop-shadow to the "thanks" calligraphy. I drew the border by hand. I used striped washi tape as a temporary guide to help me space my dots in the border like this:

I used a sponge to smudge a bit of chalk ink in the corners and mounted with a few black and white layers to the front of a 5X7 inch card.

Thanks for stopping by. You can see LOTS more caffeinated cards at the official link up blog here. My card is number 860!

Rinse and Repeat!

I did the same Zig Scribble technique as my post from yesterday to make a sympathy card today. I used a pink and purple colour scheme, and white pearl embossing powder. The florals are Altenew's Peony Bouquet.

My uncle passed away recently and he was a gifted pianist. After masking the flowers, I heat embossed sheet music on the card front. On the inside, I stamped piano keys and this calligraphy stamp from Quietfire Design:

Here you can see the heat embossed sheet music a bit better:

I am happy I was able to create a card that reflected a bit of my uncle's gift for music with stamps I had on hand. These cards are always difficult to make, but this watercolour-ish technique makes it more enjoyable. The YouTube video where I learned this technique is here.

Color Throwdown #453

The Color Throwdown 463 challenge was this photo, which features some amazing yummy Mason jar drinks that inspired my color pallette.

I needed a farewell card for one of my staff and over at Splitcoaststampers, the Way To Use It Challenge was to heat things up. So I heat embossed these Altenew Peony Bouquet stamps with Silver Pearl Embossing Powder, masking as needed to add in leaves.

I worked on Bristol Smooth cardstock and used the "Zig Scribble" technique with Zig Clean Colour Brush Markers that I learned from "Cards by Regina."  This was So. Much. Fun! See her You Tube video here.

The Quietfire Design sentiment is stamped in Black Versafine ink and clear embossed. The fancy piecing on the right side of the card was necessitated by my cutting too much off. Decided to make it a design element!

Welcome Card

This week I have a new staff member joining my team and as is my tradition, I have made a card.  Unlike the orientation manual I put together for her, this card came together quickly, using scraps of metal in my Ten Seconds Studio scrap box.

I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder for the background panel and the flower is cut with the T!m Holtz Tattered Floral dies and embossed with the Swiss Dots embossing folder . A soft white velvet flower brad provided a different texture, and I added a purple Swarovski crystal gem to the center.

The sentiment is a Waltzingmouse Stamp and I used my new Spellbinders Fancy Framed Tags One set to create the tag frame. The leaves and ferns were punched out of metal, as well. The thin white mat and burgundy card are the only paper used in this almost all metal card.

I am so excited to have this gal joining our department so that I can go back to doing one job instead of two!

Bold and Blooming in Coral

I recently got the Bold and Blooming Stamp Set from Gina K. Designs. I really like it. Included are three large sentiments, for birthday and friendship, and this Thank You.

I heat embossed in fine detail white embossing powder and then coloured in with Zig Clean Color watercolor markers and moved the ink around with a damp brush. I added a few heat-set Swarovski crystals.

I am looking forward to trying this on kraft cardstock with pencil crayons and embossing in gold on black and painting with Twinkling H2Os. Lots of possibilities!

Hello

Who hears Adele right now? :-)

When I made my Mother's Day card, I also made a second card using the reverse combo of a paler background and more vibrant center panel. To soften the panel so the "Hello" would stand out, I laid a piece of pink vellum over top and stamped the Hello there.

This is an A2 sized card and I stamped the white envelope to match.

Happy Mother's Day

Here is a card for my Mom. I used Jennifer McGuire's instructions to use first generation and second generation stamping to create two cards at once. I will share the other card tomorrow. 

The background was first generation stamping. The center panel is second generation, so it is paler. The flowers are AlteNew Vintage Roses. The sentiment is by Verve.

I decorated a coordinating matte envelope using a Paper-Garden.ca Pop Tone Pink Lemonade A-2 envelope. This is a Canadian website and they offer volume pricing. My local stamp store has closed so it is nice to have a mail order option.

Have entered this in these challenges:

Allsorts Challenge - Ring a Ring A'Roses

Crafting with Dragonflies - Flowers/Mother's Day

Crafty Calendar - May Flowers

Burnished Velvet Thank You Cards

I think my favourite thing to do with my Silhouette Cameo is to make "die cuts" in cardstock and back them with tape, then burnish micro fine glitter into the tape. This fills the holes with glittery goodness that is soft as velvet and does not rub off.

This glitter technique is called Burnished Velvet and in real life these cards have a lot of wow factor. For the first one, the tulips, I backed the cardstock flower with white cardstock covered in double-sided tape and rubbed in iridescent glitter to create a glittery background. I wish this showed up better in the photo. (All photos expand if you click on them.)

Stamp: Stamp-it Australia

The tulip design was a cut file from the Silhouette store, as is the peony below. Here is what it looked like in the store:

Here is what I made with it:

Stamp: Waltzingmouse Stamps

I tried to do a little shading with a few pink shades of glitter. I need to practice that more. Basically I masked off sections of the flower (I used the Cameo to cut the mask from the tape liner) and sprinkled on the darkest hue in the centre, rubbed it in, then added the lighter sections. 

I used a milkshake straw cut on a diagonal as a scoop to pick up the glitter and place it (mostly) where I want it. The technique is magical because the glitter looks a bit dusty until you burnish it with your finger. Then it comes to life and really sparkles.

It is Administrative Professionals Day on Wednesday so these two cards are going to the people in my office who really deserve much appreciation for all they do for all of us!

You can see more Burnished Velvet cards by clicking on that label on the right hand side of this blog. You can find out how to do the technique here: Be Creative tutorials.

More Carved Wood Panelling

Earlier today I posted a card with a new-to-me technique of creating carved wood panelling as a background. It was actually the second card I made. Here is the first. 

All the stamps are Gina K Designs stamps. The frame label is from a retired GKD set, but the roses and sentiment are from Old Country Roses, a current offering. If it looks familiar, it's because it was designed by Claire Brennan, formerly of Waltzingmouse Stamps, who is now designing for Gina K. Claire is designing new sets and also re-issuing some of her old WMS stamps under the new label. So if you missed out before, this is good news!

Kat at Kat Scrappiness says we can enter her contest more than once so I am throwing this one in the ring, too. 

Flowers for WMS Fanatics Challenge

The Waltzingmouse Stamps Fanatics Challenge is Flowers. There's almost two weeks to play, and the theme is broad, so I hope folks will join in. They can even be Christmas blooms, like poinsettias or chrysanthemums.

I made this card to pop into the post for someone very special. I don't know if I am the only one, but it seems the more a card means to me, the hardest it is to get "just right!" I stamped and heat embossed flowers and leaves in clear on white cardstock, then went around the leaves with green Distress Inks and around the flowers with orange and yellow Distress Inks. Wiped the excess off to bring back the shine of the embossing.

The "miss you" is an electronic cut file that was cut out of the cardstock on my Silhouette Cameo. I cut a few, glued and stacked them together, then added black glitter to the final layer and nestled it back in the words-shaped hole. It is securely embedded, but also raised up a bit due to the layers and the glitter. Neat effect. I echoed the black with a very narrow border of black cardstock cut with my Perfect Layers tool and affixed to an olive card. And here it is upright:

Hope you'll play along, too! Thanks for stopping by.

Zingy WMS Fanatics Challenge

 

The 30th Waltzingmouse Fanatics Challenge is to use at least three of the zingy colours found in this photo:

What a pretty Christmas ornament. But I ended up using some of the colours (lilac, bright pink, lime green and purple) for a birthday card.

Maybe a tad too many sequins?

Lots of foam tape to pop up the bouquet.

My background was made with strips of Memory Box papers cut and glued to create a Bargello effect. Then I ran it through my embossing machine to add a little texture.

There is still a bit of time left to play, so pop on over and check it out. Here's one last look:

4.25 X 5.5 inches

WFC Colour Challenge and Faux Enamel Dots

Look at these fun tropical colours the Waltzingmouse Fanatics chose for us this fortnight! Love those little birdies. 

Here's my card, featuring Nordic Spring and Big Day - Today stamps from Waltzingmouse Stamps:

The really fun part of this card, besides the RIOT of colour, is the  faux enamel dots technique. They have been popping up all over, but I have not seen any in my local stores. Lindsay, the Frugal Crafter, to the rescue. Her video on her blog shows how to make these fake-aroos out of paper and embossing powder (two things we all have on hand). The neat thing with this technique is your dots will always perfectly match your paper.

 

I am needing a lot of birthday cards all of a sudden, so this is also being entered in the current Seize the Birthday challenge which asks for flowers (note the tulip border). Thanks for stopping by. Let me know if you try this technique.