The flower on this card was made using the new Fancy Flower punch from Stampin' Up! It was made using the same method as the one in the video in this post, except I only did three layers, and the flower has been left open in the centre. Before spraying the punched shape with water, I inked the edges with Melon Mambo. The pink centre is a shape from the Boho Blossoms punch. The leaves were made from the Fancy Flower punch. I cut each petal apart like pie wedges, then used my paper piercer and mat to score veins, before adding around the flower. The outer points of the leaves are the inner points of the pie wedges.
The flowers stamped at the bottom of the image panel have Dazzling Diamonds around the centres for a little added interest - doesn't show very well, but you can just about see it if you enlarge the image. I used the 2-way glue pen to apply the glitter.
Card/Paper: Melon Mambo, Whisper White, Greenhouse Gala
Ink: Old Olive, Melon Mambo
Stamps: Ornate Flower, Sincere Salutations
Other: Filigree Flower Brad, Old Olive Satin Ribbon, Dazzling Diamonds
I'm quite shocked to see how long it is since I've managed to post to my blog! I knew it had been a while, but even so . . . Hopefully now the busy-ness is behind me, and I can get back to putting up cards regularly. I have a few in the wings, and am starting with the projects for last month's make and takes for my stampers ten members.
This first one has sparkle from the Dazzling Diamonds on the blue flakes, and silvery shine from the Platinum Shimmer Paint I used to ink up the silver snowflakes. Hard to catch it in the photo though - it may show up better if you click to enlarge.
I started by cutting a rectangular mask in a thin piece of card the same size as the image panel. I cut it in the position, and at the angle I wanted so that when I placed the mask over the image panel, the mask covered the whole of the image panel and I wouldn't get any stray ink where it wasn't wanted. I used 2-way glue to temporarily fix the mask to the image panel, then sponged Bashful Blue through the mask, putting more around the edges of the rectangle than in the middle. After removing the mask, I stamped the swirl stamp from Season of Joy three times. I stamped off the image first on scrap paper to lighten it.
The next step was to rub the whole image with an Embossing Buddy, before stamping the blue flakes. SU classic ink is fast drying, which is not suitable for embossing. However, if you ink up your stamp first with Versamark, and then straight to the coloured ink pad - in this case Marina Mist - and then stamp on the card, the Versamark will enable you to add embossing powder to the image. In this case, I used Heat'n'Stick, and when it was melted and hot, sprinkled over the Dazzling Diamonds. This is a very good way of getting the sparkle of glitter on an intricate image like these snowflakes. I did each blue snowflake individually so that the ink didn't dry on the first one, before I had chance to emboss it.
Finished off by applying the shimmer paint to the small snowflake stamp with a sponge dauber and stamping between the blue snowflakes.
This second card uses a stamp set from the new catalogue called Ornate Flowers. I love the shape of this particular stamp from the set. Here I have used my markers to apply three different colours before stamping once to create the image. Simply finished off with a bit of piercing and a little piece of knotted ribbon over the corner before matting onto Cherry Cobbler - one of the gorgeous new colours from Stampin' Up!
The designer paper is Greenhouse Gala, which co-ordinates beautifully with all of the stamps in the Ornate Flowers Stamp set. Just a little bit of piercing and a punched strip of Cherry Cobbler behind to decorate. Used markers again to ink up the greeting in two colours to match the flower. A quick and easy card.
Card/Paper: Pear Pizzazz, Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, Greenhouse Gala DP
We have plenty of these in our lawn - especially the buttercups. Not much in the way of dandelions though - the rabbits see to that!
This is one of the cards from my most recent class at my local craft shop. One of the ladies was a little worried when she saw all the flowers, but they are really simple to make - the trickiest part is getting them all to stay in place whilst you stick them to the card!
The daisies are just two layers of a Woodware 1" daisy punch stuck together, with a 1/4" circle of yellow crushed velvet card for the centre. After assembling the flower, we sponged a little hint of pink onto the tips of the petals with a sponge dauber.
The buttercups are an EK Success medium Retro Flower punch, with a very finely fringed and rolled strip of card for the centre. The leaves are a Woodware 1" Oak Leaf punch.
The background is stamped in Versamark with a flourish stamp.
If you have landed here from Monica's blog - welcome! For those starting here - welcome also! Just follow the link at the end of this post, then keep following the links and you will end up back here again. The blog is set to start at ten o'clock this morning (6th June), so please bear with us if you are reading soon after it starts - it may take a while to make sure that the posts are all up and the links are all working correctly!
This is what the hop is all about - showcasing products in three new colours for us here in the UK from Stampin' Up!
This is what I have made using them so far (click on any of the pictures to enlarge them):
This first card is a make and take from my last Stamper's Ten meeting. Quick and easy one. The card base is Rich Razzleberry. The background is French Filigree stamped in Versamark and embossed with clear powder on Whisper White card. A strip of Rich Razzleberry punched with the Scallop Edge punch. A piece of the Cottage Wall designer paper (available whilst supplies last) stamped with a greeting from Cheer and Wishes in Rich Razzleberry. The leaves behind the flower are the wing from the 2-Step Bird punch in Old Olive card. Finished off with a Rich Razzleberry flower made using the Scalloped Circle punch, and the 'spray and scrunch' technique. I did a little video to show my stamper's ten members who couldn't attend how to do the flower. It's not a new technique - I've seen it in many places on the web, but it was a nice simple one for me to cut my teeth on for my very first video! So here it is in all it's glory - unedited and very basic!
I used exactly the same technique for the large flower on this second Rich Razzleberry card, but before spraying the Whisper White scalloped circles, I sponged the edges on the front and back of the shapes with Rich Razzleberry ink using a sponge dauber. Once the flower was finished and nice and dry and firm, I then inked the very edges again with the Rich Razzleberry to give a little more colour. Hopefully it looks like a carnation!
The little flowers are punched with the Boho Blossoms punch, and have little flat backed pearls for centres. The leaves are from the 2-Step bird punch. Greeting is from Sincere Salutations, and the designer paper is also from the Cottage Wall pack. I used the 1/2" circle punch to shape the corners of the Whisper White panel. This card was one that I did for the In Love With Stamping Design Team challenge - the June Sketch Challenge.
Still with the spray and scrunch technique I used different punches and made these two flowers:
This time the colour is Melon Mambo which makes such a pretty pink on these flowers. I punched out three shapes using the SU butterfly punch from Whisper White, and then sponged some Melon Mambo ink in the centres - just very roughly. Then sprayed and scrunched - being a little more careful this time with the scrunching as the butterfly shapes are not very wide in the centre. This time I left the shapes to dry before edging them with a little more Melon Mambo ink, poking a hole in the centre and gluing them in a stack to a little punched circle. Then poked a hole in the centre for the brad. This was all for a bit more strength in the middle due to the narrowness there. The centre is made using two of the flower shapes from the Boho Blossoms punch - spraying and scrunching them also before adding the brad and then the larger flower underneath. The small flower is three layers of the largest Boho Blossoms punch flower, edged with Melon Mambo ink and sprayed and scrunched. I used the Melon Mambo Polka Dot ribbon, but turned it over for the plain side. More Cottage Wall paper, and another Sincere Salutations greeting. A little piercing in the corners to finish.
A little light relief from the flowers -
This is another card for the In Love With Stamping June Sketch challenge. This time using the new Soft Suede colour and Lovely as a Tree stamp set, along with Old Olive. The tree is stamped using Soft Suede and coloured in using Old Olive and Soft Suede with a blender pen. The background is stamped using the leaf stamp from the set. The greeting is from Occasional Greetings. Finished off with some Linen Thread and Vintage Brads for a more masculine card.
And if you're still with me . . . Soft Suede again, but in feminine mood:
This card was for the technique challenge on In Love With Stamping, which was stitching - either real or fake. I chose to do real on this card. First I drew the swirls lightly in pencil, then used my pricking mat to help me prick the holes evenly along the lines. Erased the lines before stamping the leaf design from Vintage Vogue, then stitched over the top with cotton embroidery thread. The flowers were stamped in Soft Suede too, using the 'rock'n'roll' technique, and stamping off the first inking three times to get a much lighter colour before rolling the edges on the Soft Suede again for full strength on the edges. I gathered the polka dot ribbon with thread before wrapping around the card and taping the ends to the back. So far my favourite colour combination with Soft Suede is Very Vanilla as on this card - very soft combination.
Well, I think I got a little carried away with cards there! Hopefully you're still with me, and ready to hop on to the next blog which is Carol's blog here. She has some absolutely gorgeous projects to show you!
This card is just a little one - 10.5cm/4" square to showcase the flowers that was demonstrating at my local craft shop today. Made with an X-cut punch called Sun Flower, and a rolled fringed strip of paper for a centre, they are very easy to make. The leaves are actually a snowflake punch - Martha Stewart Glacial Snowflake. I just punched them from green card, folded them in half and tucked them in behind the flowers. Makes a nice little bit of greenery without being too heavy. The embossing folder is a Cuttlebug one called Textile.
I also demonstrated a couple of other flowers made from the same punch, along with a few from different punches, but they haven't made it on to cards yet. Too many flowers - not enough hours lol!
The other card from my April class at my local craft shop. This was the afternoon class - it was supposed to be a respite from the concentration of constructing the lily bouquet from the morning class, but the large carnation type flower proved to be more tricky for some of the ladies than I thought! Once the petals have been curled - the easy part - they take on a springy life of their own, and it needs a little taming to get them to behave when constructing the flower! But everyone got there in the end, and all had beautiful carnations on their finished cards.
The carnation is made from die cut scalloped circles, and is a variation of the flower I made for my cardboard cake using my trusty Stampin' Up scalloped circle. This flower has more layers, and I cut between the scallops so that I didn't cut any scallops in half - so two of the quarters had three scallops on them, and two of them had four scallops. In constructing the flower I used the three and four scalloped pieces randomly. The paper is peachy coloured printer weight.
The fern leaf is a Leone Em Rock Fern punch, and the other leaves are from a Sizzlit Flowers, Branches & Leaves set. The smaller flowers use an EK Success Medium Daisy and a Woodware Mini Daisy punch. And the same Martha Stewart border punch set that we used in the morning class - Double Loops.
Some more flowers from a Leone Em punch - this time the Lilium Feather punch (large). They are very simple to make. Punched from plain white printer paper (90gsm), and then watercoloured using markers scribbled onto a piece of acetate and picking up the colour with a water brush. Other punches used are the Leone Em New Ash Family and a Woodware Mini Daisy. The edging on the background piece is a Martha Stewart Double Loop punch.
All the card used is Bazzill. The little flowers are made from pale yellow paper. Here's a closer look. I think the card is 5 1/2" square, but can't remember exactly - it's at the shop where I gave the class in April so I can't measure it!
People have been asking me about tutorials for some of the things I have posted recently - and not so recently! I do intend to get back to doing tutorials, but at the moment fitting it in is a bit of a problem. I'll do my best to work my way through the requests, but have a lot on over the next few days. Hopefully I can begin to get to it next week.
The flowers on this card were inspired by Angie of Penny Flowers blog. She makes the most beautiful flowers and cards. I used her idea for making a flower out of a tear drop shaped punch. The fan is a stamped image - Creative Expressions Large Fan - which was stamped onto card, coloured, and then cut out and folded to add a little dimension.
Maybe I'll manage a fourth day of posting tomorrow? lol!
As promised, here is the afternoon's card. This is called a surprise pop-up card. The idea being that when you pull on the tab, you expect the inside to slide out, but instead the front of the card pops up, revealing the hidden message.
The leaves are two different sizes of birch leaf punch, and the flowers two different sizes of a six petal flower shape. The large ones have little sun shapes and pearls for the centres, and the smaller ones just have liquid pearls. The fern is from the Leone Em Maidenhair fern punch.
The green backing card is stamped with a flourish stamp and Versamark ink.
Here's a side view of the open card to show the way it pops up.
I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted. I really don't know where the time has gone to. I do have quite a few cards to show you, and thought that I would kick off with this one, from the morning of my last class at my local craft shop.
I'm not sure how pleased the ladies were when I told them that they had about 160 of these tiny flowers to shape and stick on the card cones that we made! The punch used for both the leaves and flowers was the Leone Em Daphne and Lilac Combination. The flowers are punched from two slightly different shades of lilac paper, shaped and then the two shades randomly mixed when sticking the flowers to the card cones. The full instructions for making these flowers are in Leone Em's Floral Punch Craft V.
Hopefully the card that we did in the afternoon will be up tomorrow!
Thought I might go mad and post another card! This is one that I did a class for at my local craft shop last month. The lace panel is a Hero Arts stamp, Lace Frame, stamped in Versamark and embossed with white powder. The flowers are simply made using two layers of a five petaled flower shape, with a mini daisy centre. Each flower was glued onto a narrow card stalk, and then the stalks fixed together in groups of three before mounting onto the card. The leaves are also punched, and then mounted in threes to a stalk before fixing in place on the card. The vase is also a punch. The original shape wasn't quite wide enough, so I punched out a shape from card, then placed it onto a folded piece of scrap paper to use the contour to trace a wider shape. Cut out that shape and then unfolded and used as a template to draw around on the blue card for the vase. Then dry embossed with a folder before curving slightly and fixing over the bottom of the stems with silicone adhesive.
Well, this is a very belated posting, but I'm determined to catch up with things! We had a very enjoyable evening at our last stamper's ten meeting, thank you ladies! There were only five this time, as a few couldn't make it, but still pretty loud! I think the unveiling of the Mini may have had something to do with it . . .
I have had a couple of requests for pictures of the event - a little tricky, as the moment the camera comes out, people start hiding! Anyway, here is a group shot of everyone hard at work on their make and takes. I put some new light bulbs in, as the others were fine for dining, but not crafting, so we had much more light last night - but it still didn't improve the colour of the walls!
These are the two cards everyone is working on - both of them using new products from the Mini. Firstly the bird house uses the gorgeous new two step bird punch, and a design shamelessly cased from Monica - although I did change it a tiny bit, just to say I had put some effort in!
Second card is this one using the new Vintage Vogue set, in a Mellow Moss and Rose Red design - not pinched from someone else this time!
I have also finally updated the Challenge Showcase blog with the last couple of month's worth of lovely entries. My apologies to everyone for the huge delay on this - and thanks to Ruth for the nagging! You will see that the March section has already been started - but there is only one card so far, as that's all I've received to date!
There are many reasons why my blogging has been absent over the last few weeks, one of them being these:
100 of them! A simple gate fold design in ivory hammer finish card. The blue frame on the inside is Stampin' Up! Brocade Blue card, with a printed insert to match. The hearts and squares were dry embossed to the bride's design - I cut out multiple shapes in cardboard and stacked them together to create my own embossing die. Then stenciled the hearts in Brocade Blue ink. The centre heart on the outside of the invite has a clear Swarovski crystal on it. All tied closed with a Cornflower Blue satin ribbon. The 100th bow took a lot less time to tie than the first - I was just getting the hang of them! They seem to have gone down well with the recipients - so I'm pleased about that!
Off to catch up with some more tasks that I am behind on, and hopefully it won't be another six weeks before I'm back with another post. I do already have the cards to show you!
It was our stamper's ten meeting last night and what a yummy treat we had! One of the members - Alex - brought a delicious, gooey chocolate cake that she had made especially for us! I'm sorry - I just have to show it to you!
So . . . now you've wiped the drool off your monitor, here are the cards we made:
This one uses the gorgeous Baroque Motifs set, along with Old Olive, Elegant Eggplant and Very Vanilla card. The flowers were stamped in Elegant Eggplant on a separate piece of card and cut out before gluing on top of the Old Olive stamped flourish. The flowers were also stamped in Old Olive ink on the Old Olive card strip. Finished off with a scalloped strip of Elegant Eggplant, same colour of ribbon and birthday greeting from Sincere Salutations.
This one is a complete case of a card by Helen, but it's such a lovely card I had to do it! So simple too. The stack of presents from the SAB Happy Moments set was stamped in Basic Grey ink and then watercoloured with the crayons and aqua painter in Night of Navy and Ruby Red on Confetti White card, which takes watercolouring very well. Then it was cut out and had some silver elastic cord added before being mounted on a piece of kraft with dimensionals. A little bit of white doodling around the edges with the white gel pen, before matting with more Confetti White, and then mounted on to a Night of Navy card base. The greeting was stamped in Night of Navy and then punched out with the Word Window punch, glued on to the card base, and finished off with a Night of Navy brad.
We also made one of these - a little gift pouch decorated as designed by Monica . Aren't they cute? We made the design on the left filled with the mini eggs. The one on the right is an exact case of the one done by Monica, and has a few crafting goodies in it. There's no gluing involved in making these pouches - just folding, and then the decorations stuck on. The paper on the left hand pouch is from the Tea Party designer paper set, and the one on the right from Tea and Crumpets.
Lots of my members are too far away to come to the meetings, so they receive the ingredients for the make and takes in with their orders - along with a challenge pack to enter into a prize draw for free goodies. Sorry - no chocolate cake in the orders though!
If you would like to join in the fun either in person or as a distance member, I have two places left in the group that has just started. Click here for more details, and use the contact me tab above to reserve yourself a spot.
Card/Paper: Lovely Lilac, So Saffron, Old Olive, Orchid Opulence, Whisper White, Creamy Caramel Textured, and Close to Cocoa Textured Ink: Lovely Lilac, Close to Cocoa, black marker, white gel pen Stamps: Inca Stamps Happy Birthday, Season of Joy flourish, Polka Dot background stamp Other: So Saffron Grosgrain (retired) Card Size: 15cm x 10.5cm (approx 4" x 6")
This teddy is from a digital class design (Bear for All Seasons) from Paper Punch Addiction. I had to adapt my teddy a bit as we don't have all the SU punches over here that they do in the US. So he's a little rounder than the original design - bit like me really! But he looks happy enough. He has quite a few extra little round pads floating around on the floor here - it was quicker to punch more than to search for the ones I kept dropping! Sponging the edges of those was pretty fiddly, but worth it in the end. Of course he has some flowers - I like to get flowers on a card whenever possible!
Card/Paper: Real Red, Very Vanilla, Groom Speciality Paper Ink: Black Stazon Stamps: Wonderful Words Other: Real Red 5/8 Grosgrain Ribbon Card Size: 15cm x 10.5cm (approx 4" x 6")
This is the second make and take from our stamper's ten meeting last night. I really like the Real Red and Very Vanilla together. The black Groom speciality paper is so thick, it's more like a lightweight card really - click to enlarge and see the lovely embossed pattern on it.
We used the Eyelet Border punch on the vanilla card, and the Heart to Heart punch on the black to punch out the hearts so that the red from a strip placed underneath shows through. Finished off with a quick stamped greeting and a wrapped bow.
Card/Paper: Bashful Blue, Whisper White Ink: Basic Gray, Pretty in Pink Stamps: Happy Moments Other: Bashful Blue Double Stitched Grosgrain Ribbon, Whisper White Taffeta Ribbon, Soft Subtles Watercolour Wonder Crayons Card Size: 15cm x 10.5cm (approx 4" x 6")
This is one of the cards we made tonight at my stampers ten meeting. The flowers were stamped using Basic Gray ink, having first been stamped off once to soften the grey. Coloured in using the crayons and picking up the colour from the tips of the crayons using either a blender pen, or an aquabrush according to the preference of the member. On this card I have used an aquabrush. The colours are Pretty in Pink, Bashful Blue, Lavender Lace and Certainly Celery. The tags were made using both sizes of the Tag punches. All of the white card was sponged around the edges with Pretty in Pink ink and a sponge dauber. The white ribbon was threaded through holes punched in the tags, before wrapping onto the card on top of the blue ribbon. Then a short length of ribbon was tied in a knot and stuck on top of the tags using a glue dot. The tags were arranged before popping a foam dimensional behind each one to keep them in place.
We made another card which I'll put up tomorrow.
I am starting a new group in February, so if you would like to join in, click here for details.
Another class at the Glitter Pot on Saturday - full, with lots of lovely ladies, and a gent in the afternoon. There was a fair contingent from the Imag-e-nation forum - better known as the 'rabble at the end'! Very enjoyable - thank you to everyone! This is the card we made in the morning. There were some mutterings along the lines of working them too hard, but in the end nearly everyone finished their card by lunch time! Hopefully they enjoyed it along the way.
The Stampin' Up Idea Book and Catalogue is full of great ideas for cardmaking, scrapbooking and papercrafting. To view the online version click on the image. To return here use your browser's back button. As long as you are in the UK, you can place an order with me at any time. Just use the contact me tab at the top of my blog. Also contact me if you would like to order a paper copy of the catalogue.
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The flower on this card was made using the new Fancy Flower punch from Stampin' Up! It was made using the same method as the one in the video in this post, except I only did three layers, and the flower has been left open in the centre. Before spraying the punched shape with water, I inked the edges with Melon Mambo. The pink centre is a shape from the Boho Blossoms punch. The leaves were made from the Fancy Flower punch. I cut each petal apart like pie wedges, then used my paper piercer and mat to score veins, before adding around the flower. The outer points of the leaves are the inner points of the pie wedges.
