Flowers for Mom

Happy Mother's Day! We are celebrating in Canada today. I made this peek-a-boo slider card for my mom. From the front you see an inner message of Happy Mother's Day - a wonderful calligraphy stamp by Quietfire Design. I chose to stamp in a warm brown to coordinate with the Stampin' Up! long-retired designer papers.

The front floral is a stamp, stencil and die set by Pinkfresh Studio called Slimline Floral Notes. The spray measures about 8.25 inches but I cut it apart to fit this A2 sized-card. I used various inks to stencil in the shading.

The fun part of this card is that when it is opened, there is a middle panel that slides across and a new sentiment appears in the cirle inside. It's kind of magical!

This is another stamp from Quietfire Design. The peach paper is ribbed so the stamped image was affected a bit.

I learned how to do this card by following the tutorial here: https://youtu.be/fuhTKf5WiYM?si=P0AYvDPruvxfYVIs. Next time I will use a smaller circle like the originator as I see how that might work a little better.

Here is a view of the card from above.

Mom said it is "creative" and "lovely" so I am glad I tried this out. Besides the floral die, I used Spellbinders graduated circles for the apertures. I am entering this in the Die Cut Divas May Challenge for Celebrations.

Sketch Challenge - Modern

As promised in my last post, here is a more modern take on the sketch challenge at the Build Your Stash Holiday Cardmakers Facebook Group. The sketch was:

My card this time features skinny strips of patterned Lawn Fawn papers that I cut and glued to get the background.

Rather than a circle, I used an ANCIENT Cuttlebug die, possibly one of the first I bought, with a matching embossing folder for an ornament made from one of the Lawn Fawn papers. I heat embossed the corner sentiment in super fine white, which is a Waltzingmouse Stamp (retired).

Same sketch, two very different cards!

Vintage Santa

I have made a vintage Santa card for the month-long sketch challenge at the private Build Your Stash Holiday Cardmakers Facebook group. They have a blog for inspiration, but the gallery of cards submitted for this sketch is over on Facebook. I always struggle to remember that's where we need to go to enter a card! Here is the sketch.

When I saw this I immediately thought of the cover image for a Pink Paislee 8X8 inch pad of printed cardstock that I have loved to use over the past decade. It was called City Sidewalks and I am down to my last three sheets, and the cover, which featured snippets of all the paper styles in the pad. So this card is a bit of a cheat because all the "brickwork layout" in the background was done for me!

The Santa and girl is a paper coaster I re-purposed here in a nod to the Peace on Earth Day challenge at Jingle Belles to create a holiday card that features re-cycled, re-used or up-cycled elements. A red ribbon and tiny ruby gems were accents. The sentiment seemed best stamped in red.

I have a modern version of this sketch card coming in a second post. Very different vibe!

Addicted to CAS #306

 

I cannot say I am "addicted" to Clean and Simple Cards but I greatly admire them. I struggle with them, but the current challenge is a postage theme and I am a sucker for mail-related items. Some of my first red rubber stamps way back when were postoids (faux postage) and quite artsy. Still have 'em!

I ended up with TWO cards from this challenge - using a positive die cut and negative. First up - Stampington & Co's Large Cancellation stamped in soft grey and framed with the leftover scalloped
frame from another postage project.

I diecut the Pinkfresh blooms out of the background, and then inlaid the diecut back into the hole, and added purple bits to the blooms.

A little dry embossed hello strip serves as the greeting.

My friend Sandy Phillips recently posted a swap card where she deckle-edged the negative space from die-cutting to frame the "hole"and I thought it was a great idea. 

I used microglitter in shades of lilac and green to fill in the negative space. This is called Burnished Velvet Technique. I burnished (rubbed) the glitter into double-sided tape and in real life it sparkles quite nicely. Some Waffle Flower postage stamps finished off the card.

*Challenges:  Addicted to CAS #306; Addicted to Stamps & More #515.

Doggone Birthday Card

Here is a sweet and simple dog-themed birthday card, perfect for a fellow who likes dogs. I fussy-cut the dog out of white cardstock, and the cake. Coloured with Copic markers.

 

I am entering this in the Seize the Birthday blog challenge for Anything Goes.

Sentiments

 

At Splitcoaststampers the Way to Use It Challenge was to use Wise Words. I have two cards to share.

The gold-foiled sticker provided the "Go with your heart" sentiment on this faux carved wood background with a popped-up butterfly.

This is the sentiment I usually use for baby cards, but it worked well for this pet sympathy card, too. Thanks for visiting.

All White - 52 Christmas Card Throwdown Challenge

 

The current challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown is:

I think the secret to a good all-white card is to go one of two extremes - either super smooth, clean and simple - or lots of layers and texture. Guess what I went for? I ended up making two cards. I will show you the one I entered in the challenge first, but it is was not my first attempt.

This is a combo of a snowflake frame embossing folder and a die cut "JOY" all in white cardstock. I blinged it up with pearls but i did not have any that were loose. I had to cut these apart from a long embellishment border, peel them off the adhesive backing and glue them down. It was tedious, so I won't be doing that again.

My first effort - while technically all-white - proved that not all white items are the same shade of white! 

The background was white vellum that I ran through a Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder. The white cardstock I used for the JOY had a slight shimmer to it that reads pale grey in the photo, and the letters were in white glitter cardstock but the glitter looks a little green in real life and pink in the photo. I added extra layers of glittered holly, flowers and berries. Once I saw the photo, I knew I needed to make a second one that was truer all-white.

I am also entering this in the Anything Goes Challenge at Love to Craft Challenge Blog.