50th Cascading Card

Doves, hearts and ribbons - oh my! I was asked to create a 50th Wedding Anniversary card for a friend. I wanted it to be really special, and so I turned to the Dreaming Tree to find a design with some WOW factor to cut on my Silhouette Cameo. Here is the Doves Cascading Card:

Instead of the provided front embellishment, I used JustRite "Ever After" stamps for the frame and sentiment. I heat-embossed in gold. 

The panels were embossed in my Cuttlebug with a Poppy damask embossing folder from Anna Griffin. I highlighted the panels with Delicata Golden Glitz ink. I used rhinestones to embellish, and the highest portion features hearts in gold mirror cardstock and doves and a bow. The most amazing thing about this card, though, is it folds flat for mailing.

If you have a cutting machine and have not visited the Dreaming Tree site yet, please do. Their customer service is fantastic, and their cutting files are very well designed. I like that the access to the files you purchase never expires! Thanks for visiting today.

Wedding Pearls

Here is a card I made last week for my nephew Luke and his lovely bride, Morgan. It is white-on-white with pearly embossing powder to provide some sheen (and thus emminently impossible to photograph). The wedding was lovely... 

Stamps: Just Rite Lacy Background; Waltzingmouse Stamps Big Day Additions

Flowers: Marianne dies; Martha Stewart pine branch punch; Label: Tim Holtz On the Edge Brackets die; Pearls and brads: Recollections; Pearl White EP.

Personalized Wedding Card

My daughter is of an age where weddings are the main social activity, it seems. Consequently, I am called upon to make wedding cards. Where possible, I try to incorporate papers or motifs from the couples' wedding invitations. My thinking is, if they picked it out for their special missives, surely they must like it!

The silver embossed paper above once held the invitation, which I carefully removed. I slid in some black cardstock and mounted a lacy oval cut from silver cardstock. I thermal-embossed the greeting in silver on more black cardstock and cut it to fit the inner oval. Et voila - a meaningful, personalized wedding card.

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Stamps

Ink: Ranger Embossing Ink

Accessories: Silver Embossing Powder, Spellbinders Floral Oval Die

Cardstock: Black Recollections, Silver

The Best Thing

Needed a wedding card and I saw this sentiment stamp in Michael's and thought it was great.

I stamped it in Delicata Golden Glitz ink and matted it with gold and white papers. I stamped Tim Holtz's flourish stamps for the background. This is a 4 X 9.25 inch card.

Here you can see the shine of the Delicata.  A nice effect without embossing. 

I decided to do a second version on gold cardstock and used white Versamagic chalk ink for the background flourish and white heat embossed the sentiment, matted in white. So now I have one wedding card in my stash!

For the Lovely Bride

I recently attended my niece's lovely outdoor summer wedding. Living a day's drive away meant I was not able to be involved in all the wedding planning and pre-nuptial fun, including a wedding shower. I wanted to send her something in those days ahead of the Big Day that let her know I was thinking about her; hence this card.

 

The dress image and sentiment are from the Waltzingmouse Stamp set You're Lovely. It was surprising how much this dress looks like the one my niece wore July 14! The floral oval is a die cut made with a Spellbinders metal die. I sponged and stencilled Distress Ink to provide some peach-toned shading.

In the close-up above, I am hoping you can see the detail I added to the gown. I doodled swirls all over the dress with a clear glitter pen to create a shimmery texture to the "fabric." 

The designer paper is from DCWV's Coral Couture line and the flowers have a subtle shimmer, as well.

Thanks for visiting today. I hope your summer is filled with lovely events and cherished memories like mine!

New Beginnings

It's the monthly Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Party, and the theme is New Beginnings. How lovely for April, don't you agree? I decided to make a wedding card.

Rhinestones are clear and sparkly in real life!

I started with this pair of cameos from the Cameo To Go set, stamped in Mango Madness Versamagic Chalk Ink on blue matte coated cardstock. I surrounded them with a label border from the Rescue Remedies set. (I cut away the sentiment from the inside of the stamp to leave the border. That's one of the nice things about excellent quality photopolymer stamps like those from Waltzingmouse - you can cut them apart and not worry about them tearing.) I cut this couple out with a Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Four die, and created a mango mat (cream cardstock rubbed with the same chalk ink) with the next size up.

Finished card 5.5 X 7 inches.

The background for this card was made by pouncing the mango chalk ink over the flat (unraised) side of an embossing folder, then running cream cardstock through my Cuttlebug. This impressed the ink on the lower level of the cardstock and left the relief (raised) areas free of ink. There is probably some clever name for this technique, but I can't think of it right now!

Besides the gratuitous bling of the rhinestone flourish, the other feature of this card is the "reverse rosette" placed in an oval window in the lower half of the background. I got this brainwave in the middle of the night and took time off work this morning just so I could try and execute it!

I glued three of the smallest strips from Tim Holtz's Mini Rosettes die set into one huge Slinky-like oval. Using the tip I shared in this post, I corralled the Slinky in a Creative Memories oval cutting template (thick acrylic) to arrange it to my liking.

Inside oval template.

Here's an angle shot of the reverse rosette peeking out around the edge of the oval background. I added a slim melon oval (cardstock coloured with the same ink) to set it off.

Compact Sentiments set, embossed mango ink.

This reverse rosette made the bottom of the card quite thick, so to balance the depth of the upper portion of the card, I stacked two layers of foam tape and affixed to the underside, which matched the rosette depth perfectly. This card will not be mailed so I won't be getting dirty looks from the postmistress!

Just a parting shot of the lower half of the card featuring a greeting from the Compact Sentiments set. Sure, I might have got a similar effect using ruffled lace instead of pleated paper for the frame, but I enjoyed the challenge of trying this out and seeing if I could make it work! Thanks for sticking with me this long. Now head over to the blog party and see what other New Beginnings are being celebrated!

Framed reverse rosette.

"Simple" Wedding Album

It's been a looooong time since I have made a book from scratch. I enjoy it, but it takes time, which seems to be at a premium. So I had to fight back panic when asked to make a wedding photo album for my dear friends' daughter. The challenge (besides being a Very Important Piece) was that the bride was in the UK and I am in Canada and her mom is in the US. So soliciting user requirements was problematic. How big should it be? How many pages? Style? Colour? All these things are difficult to determine long distance. Here is what I made:

Finished wedding album, 9 X 13 inches.

Karen wanted a simple, clean album with "Our Wedding" on the front cover. Landscape orientation. Dark blue, with dark blue pages. Silver accents. Originally she hoped to have her wedding party and guests (it was a small affair) sign directly in the book with a silver pen. I advised her to use loose slips of paper instead, so that if someone made a mistake, a page would not be ruined, and giving her the freedom to place their greetings wherever she'd like.


As I had no idea how many pages she would need, I decided on a post-bound album (two posts) with extenders and extra pages that could be removed if needed.

View from top of spine and hinged pages.

The posts are recessed under flaps so when one opens the album, they are not visible, but easy to access. The covers, spines and returns are made from Davey board, covered with navy blue bookcloth. The insides were covered with petal-inclusion handmade paper.

Album opened (inside back cover on right).

A project like this takes a lot of pre-planning. I'll admit I created a mock up from cereal boxes.  I used Canson Mi-teintes paper that I cut down from 19x24 inch sheets for the inside pages. I knew I needed to hinge the covers and the pages so when the pages are turned they would lay flat. This meant the page needed to be cut apart, spaced out and then hinged together again.

Enter self-adhesive black linen hinging tape that I acquired from Quietfire Design. (I also got the four silver colour corner guards from there.)

I needed to get the hinge space accurately and consistently measured before I laid down the tape. I discovered my Perfect Layers Tool was, well, perfect for this task. I wanted all 20 pages to be the same.

Lipped Perfect Layers Tool for spacing.

Removable tape in place.

Removable tape helped keep the paper from shifting.

Hinging tape laid down (both sides).

I made the piece of paper to the left extra wide so I could fold it back on itself before punching the two holes for the posts and inserting into the spine. This is to create extra space between the pages to accommodate the bulk of the photos, notes and mementoes that would be inserted. I also created a pocket page for the last page in the book for any other items (napkins, copy of vows, etc.).


When I made the cover, I created an opening and inserted a piece of pewter that I hand-embossed. The font was the one used for the wedding invitation. I found a free font service and was able to type in the words and have them converted to the font. As my printer is not working (updated my iMac software and lost printer functionality in the process!)

I pulled the title up on my iPad and traced it off the iPad screen with tracing paper! Where there's a will, there's a way!

Pewter insert.

I wanted to include a card that was simple and elegant to match the style of the album. I used Waltzingmouse Stamps to silver emboss the text on a scrap of the same paper used for the inside pages of the album, then die cut the label with a Spellbinders Nestabilities die. I ran around the edge with StazOn Silver Metallic Ink. I dry embossed the Scrollwork frame in my Cuttlebug. 

I used a metallic silver and dark blue layer to frame all with my Perfect Layers Tool.  I wasn't able to present this gift in person, but I have since heard that the happy couple were pleased with the album. Now I can relax!

Wedding Cards

This little tiered wedding cake from Stampin' Up! got star billing on this wedding card I made recently.

What made it special is the background panel of ecru flocked flourishes. That came from the bride and groom's wedding invitation, allowing me to personalize their card in a unique way. The cake is stamped on a Marianne die cut which is accented with small ecru pearls.

This last card (above) was made for a bridal shower. The stamps are from the same Stampin' Up! set. I put tiny pearls along the hem of the gown. I die cut and embossed the background, then patted Versaamark over the raised area and swished Perfect Pearls over all.

Two Different Wedding Cards

My friend Mar came for a visit and requested two wedding cards from my studio. I asked her what style: vintage? elegant? country? etc. As I did not know the recipients, she needed to provide some guidance. She decided on elegant for one (above) and country for the other (below). Like most stampers, I like a challenge, but for an elegant wedding card, I was a bit stymied. My selection of overtly wedding-themed stamps is a bit skint, so I went to one of my favourite inspirational cardmaker blogs, Sharon Johnson's No Time To Stamp and browsed for something I could manage. I ended up CASEing her beautiful card here. So thanks, Sharon! Cuttlebug pressure embossing and pearly thermal embossing meet with a Nestabilities layered heart and some sheer ribbon. The word "Love" is the first word in a Stampington & Company Scandal sentiment stamp. It is good to use just part of a stamp sometimes!

I don't have much in the way of "country" style stamps, so when I saw this Memory Box nesting birds stamp in my local stamp store I decided it would work. It's not too country cute, so I think I can get a fair bit of use out of it. I got the pre-printed ribbon at the same store. Just a little watercolouring and some blue Swarovski crystals seemed to be enough.