Mother's Day Card - One of a kind

Hello!

The cold weather has finally begun to assert its dominance this week so I've been trapped at home for the past few days with a tummy bug leaving me a lot of time to do crafty things.  Seeing as Mother's Day is only a couple of weeks away I have been busy crafting some goodies for my Mother and my Nana.
Here is today's card:

Materials:

• White and dark blue card
• Blue ink (salty ocean and peacock feathers distress ink) and embossing ink (versamark)
• Sponges
• Silver embossing powder (ranger)
• Three doily stamps (couture creations) and a 'one of a kind' stamp (sullivans)
• Glimmer mist (or just pearlized paint mixed with some water in a spray bottle like I used)
• Background stencil (memory box)
• Corner rounding punch (fiskars)

Directions

1. Cut your card base from the white card.  Cut a 2cm wide strip from the blue.
2. Stamp and emboss the three doily stamps on to the blue card and cut them out leaving a small border around the edges.  Stamp and emboss the sentiment on to the strip of blue card.
3. Secure the stencil over the card front with some low tack tape.  Using the two blue inks, sponge the colour through the stencil.  Before you remove the stencil, lightly spray the card front with the 'glimmer mist' (Be careful not to add too much like I did or areas of your stenciled design will run together as distress inks react to water).  Leave to dry or heat set.
4. Adhere one of your doilies to the card base at the bottom center.  Using foam adhesive, place the sentiment strip over the top portion of the first doily.  Adhere the second doily with foam above the sentiment strip, slightly overlapping it.  Add the final doily with foam again on the right side of the sentiment.  Round the top two corners

It didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted it to because of the stenciled image running together a bit, in all fairness its only the second time I've worked with distress inks so I'm still learning how to use them. I'm certainly happy with the outcome anyway and I'm still supporting slightly blue fingers because of it!

Don't forget to check out Confessions of a Card Maker on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ConfessionsOfACardMakerBlog

and be sure to check out my Pinterest boards for heaps of inspiration at http://www.pinterest.com/rorystar/

Till next week

Stacey

Yes, you guessed it! Added once again to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog at http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/ . Check it out!

Sympathy Butterfly Card

Hello

Happy Easter!

Sorry for being a little late in posting today, our internet has been down for a little over a day due to the storm that blew through yesterday.  It is only when you lose something that you realise just how dependent you have become.......

Anyway, today's card is a sympathy card with a pretty rainbow butterfly and an embossed vellum background.

Materials:

• Black and white card, vellum
• Embossing folder (Cuttlebug) and die-cutting machine (Cuttlebug v2)
• Gold embossing powder (Ranger) and embossing ink (Versamark)
• Watercolours
• A 'with sympathy' stamp (Rosie's studio) and large butterfly stamp (Kaisercraft)
• Gold brads

Directions:

1. Cut black card to form a top folding base.  Cut a piece of vellum to leave a small black border.  Emboss the vellum with the folder through a die-cutting machine.  Cut a small strip of black card for the sentiment which is wide enough to cover the width of the vellum piece.
2. Stamp the butterfly with the embossing ink and heat set with the gold powder.  Using a rainbow of colours, add the watercolour to the butterfly and leave to dry.  Stamp and emboss the sentiment on to the strip of black card.  On the vellum piece, stamp the top section of the butterfly and emboss with the powder so you don't have to cut around the antennae. Cut out butterfly.
3. Adhere the butterfly to the vellum lining up with the stamped antennae.  Adhere the black strip towards the bottom of the piece.  Using the brads, attach the vellum piece to the black base adding additional adhesive behind the strip and butterfly if you want to.
   

There you go!  I love the butterfly, it is so pretty and I'm fairly certain I will do many more butterflies like this one in the future!

Till next week!

Stacey

Again this project has been added to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.  Check it out at http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-animal-antics/

Easter themed Exploding box

Hello

Today instead of a card I have an exploding box!  If you haven't made one of these before you should because they are a lot of fun.  There is heaps of tutorials out there on how to make them so I'm not going to bore you with the exact process.  My box is actually a weird size so I'd just get myself all confused if I tried.

Oh yeah! that's right! mini creme eggs!

Materials needed:

• White and green card, chevron rainbow patterned paper and acetate 
• A rainbow of pastel coloured inks plus embossing ink and black
• Gold embossing powder
• Heat tool
• A egg, flower, butterfly, bee and 'happy easter' stamp
• Colouring pencils
• Mini Easter eggs
• Hot glue

Directions:

1. Create your box from the white card.  Cut the green card slightly smaller than all the sides of your box and the chevron paper slightly smaller again.  Adhere them to the box.  Cut a small strip of acetate about 5mm wide.
2. Stamp the eggs and flowers on to scraps of white card (embossing them with clear powder if you wish) with the selection of coloured inks.  Stamp three eggs in embossing ink and gold emboss.  Stamp the butterfly and bee in black and colour with pencils.  Cut out all the images.  On a piece of white card stamp the 'happy easter' and cut to create a banner end.  Cut two small slits into the base of the box big enough for the acetate strip to slide through.  Make sure you position them parallel to each other and with a sufficient gap in between so that the cup for the eggs can fit in between.  Thread the acetate through and create a fold on both edges about 5mm in then adhere the butterfly to one side and the bee to the other.
3. Make cone for the eggs out of the green card by cutting a two circles, one larger than the other.  Cut from the outside to the center on the largest of the circles, do the same to the smaller circle but cut an additional small circle out of the center.  Adhere the circles in to cone shapes by overlapping on of the cut edges over the other.  Using the hot glue adhere the smaller circle to the underside of the larger circle to form a stable base, then hot glue the whole thing to the base of the box.
4. Decorate the inside of the box with your eggs and flowers reserving one of the gold eggs for the lid.  Adhere this gold egg to the left side of your sentiment banner then adhere the whole thing to the lid.  Hold all the sides together with one hand and slip the lid on top.  Take the lid off and watch your box 'explode'!  Do this as many times as required.......

Till next time,

Stacey

Once again this week I've added this project to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.  Go check it out at http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/ 

Cupcake shaped birthday card :)

Hello

Today I present to you a cupcake shaped birthday card.  A long time ago my mother gave me a pack of pre-made cupcake shaped card blanks by Rosie's Studio.  I thought they were pretty cool so I put them away for safe keeping and never touched them again..... until yesterday.  Surely I'm not the only one who hordes precious craft supplies right?

Ohhhh yea! Cupcake!
Right so the rose is made of paper and I made mine based off of this youtube tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir8_Tldxbh0
While I certainly didn't put as much effort into mine it is still super pretty.

Materials:

• A cupcake card base (or make your own from pink card), white card and pink heart patterned paper
• Gold embossing powder
• Pink ink and embossing ink 
• Embossing ink pen
• 'Happy Birthday' stamp and a circle pattern stamp
• Paper rose

Directions:

1. From the heart patterned paper, cut out the frosting for the top of the cupcake.  From the white card cut the base of the cupcake and a circle.
2. On the white base, draw a handful of lines with the embossing pen and heat emboss with the gold powder.
3. For the circle, stamp and emboss the 'Happy Birthday' in the center and stamp the circle pattern in pink.
4. Assemble! Begin by adhering the cupcake base directly to the base, then the 'frosting' with dimensional foam.  For the circle put dimensional foam on the bottom half and regular adhesive on the top half and place over the join between the frosting and base on the right hand side.  Adhere the rose to the top left of the card.

So that's it for this week.  I hope you received some inspiration.

Till next time

Stacey

Edit: Just a quick note to say I've added this card to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge at http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/
Check it out if your interested!

Cute fox bag

Hello

Today I have a quick post to show you all this adorable fox bag I made today.

I used a combination of Pootles Papercrafts tutorial for the bag (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JCXaiGuHqU) and the template from February's edition of Papercraft Inspirations which you can download from here: http://www.papercraftinspirationsmagazine.co.uk/category/blog/templates-issue-122-papercraft-inspirations.htm

Papercraft Inspirations is a magazine I buy every month (though being in NZ we are three months behind).  I love it because it's affordable, comes with cool gifts and provides me with lots of inspiration.  So check it out!.

Till next time.
Stacey