Easter Card

Hello

Today I thought I would bring a little bit of Easter cheer to the blog.  Nothing like rainbows in pastel colours and cute bunny rabbits to lighten up the place a bit.

Materials needed:

• White card, vellum and a strip of pattered paper with flowers on it
• A rainbow of pastel coloured inks (I had pink, purple, green, blue and yellow) plus black
• A egg, bird and 'happy easter' stamp
• Watercolour paints and brush
• Flower shaped button
• Cream coloured twine

Directions:

1. Cut a top folding card base from the white card.
2. Stamp the bird on to a scrap of white card in black ink.  Colour with water colours (or pens, I'm just in a water colour phase), let dry then cut out leaving a small white border around the image.  On the vellum, stamp your sentiment in black.  I recommend Stazon ink for this as vellum doesn't like ink very much.  On your card base, stamp a row of eggs along the bottom in one of your rainbow colours.  Repeat up the card using a different colour for each row.
3. Adhere the patterned strip down the right hand side of the card.  Take the vellum strip and wrap it around the bottom section of the card so that the sentiment is centered.  Adhere the strip on the inside of the card.  Place dimensional foam on the back of the bird and adhere it beside the sentiment.  Thread the button with the twine and tie it off with a simple knot.  Use a strong liquid glue to adhere the button onto the vellum where it overlaps with the patterned paper.

That's it!  It really is a colourful card and I've enjoyed having it sit on my desk for a few days.  The stamping of the background does take a bit of time but with a stamp press or some lightly drawn guide lines it is easy enough.

Till next week

Stacey

Sympathy Card with watercolours

Hello

This week I present to you a sympathy card.  I've always found these difficult to make as you have to find the right difference between interesting and serious.  Recently I've been watching a few videos where water colouring has been used and I decided that I will jump on board and join the trend, using the softness that watercolour provides to create a sympathy card.

Materials needed:

• Black and white card 
• Watercolour paints and brush
• Black and embossing ink
• Clear embossing powder
• Heat tool
• Large flower stamp and 'with sympathy' stamp
• Pearl and blue coloured gems

Directions:

1. Cut the black card to form a top folding base.  Cut the white card to form a panel.
2. Coat the flower stamp with embossing ink first then the black ink, stamp on to the white panel and emboss with the clear embossing powder.  Do the same for the sentiment.
3. For the watercolours, use two shades of blue and one of purple.  Beginning at the top of the panel create a wash of colour with the lightest blue over almost half the panel.  Starting from a third of the way down add the darker of the blues blending the two together while moving down the panel.  Finally from the bottom, add the purple and blend up in to the darker blue.  Aim to have a third of the panel covered in each of the colours.
4. Either wait for the panel to dry naturally or dry it with a heat tool.  Once dry, take your brush and dip it into the lightest blue again, hold the brush over the panel and tap the middle of the brush handle on to your other hand so that small drops of colour fall and land on the paper.  Repeat this with the other two colours and then finally again with just plain water.  Let dry.
5. Add the pearls to the center of the flowers and the blue gems either side of the sentiment.  Adhere the panel to your card base using lots of dimensional foam tape.

That's it folks!  While this card is a bit more time consuming than the average card, it is rewarding in that the process is relaxing and easy (no painting talent required!).  I like the way this card turned out and I will be making it again.  It would be simple to mass produce in a variety of colours if you painted all the panels at the same time and came back later to assemble or even just assemble when required.

Till next time

Stacey

A cup of thanks

Hello

Today's card is a thank you card featuring a tea cup and the colours pink and green.

Materials needed:

• Stamps
• Button (two different sizes)
• A tea cup
• A small doily stamp
• A cup of thanks stamp
• Four shades of pink ink and one of green
• Pink and white card and green paper
• Green string

Directions

1. Create the card base from the pink card.  Cut a piece of green paper to leave a 5mm border of the pink base.  Cut a piece of white card to leave a border of green 2.5mm in size.  Using your stamps as a guide, cut another piece of white card large enough to accommodate the images and another piece of green paper to provide a small border again.
2. On the largest of the white pieces, stamp the doily image three times across the bottom edge in the darkest of the pink inks.  Clean off your stamp and repeat above in the next lightest ink filling up the entire piece.  If you reach the lightest shade and still have space for stamping then continue on with the darkest shade as I have done.  
3. On the smallest piece of white card stamp the tea cup and sentiment in the second lightest of the pink inks.  Adhere this to the smaller green panel and then adhere it to the larger white piece with dimensional foam.
4. Stamp one of the largest buttons and two of the smaller buttons in green ink on to the green paper and cut them out.  Wrap the green string around the bottom section of the card below the sentiment a few times and secure on the back with tape.  Adhere your buttons over the string with dimensional foam.  Finally adhere the white panel to the green paper and then on to the card base.

This card was a lot of fun to make but there is a lot of stamping involved!  I used one stamp set from the Rosie's Studio range for everything but the buttons.  This is a great card if you don't have a large supply of patterned papers and want to make the best out of your stamps.

Till next time

Stacey

Rainbow Birthday card

Hello!

During this week we changed seasons from summer to autumn and we certainly noticed it!  A massive storm blew over the country causing some decent damage and we had four days of just horrible weather.  Thankfully now the weather has calmed down and we have managed a few days of sun.  I'm not quite ready to give up summer yet so during this horrible weather I made a rainbow card to cheer myself up.

Materials:

• Black and white card
• One swirly border stamp, one 'Happy Birthday' stamp, a bird stamp and a balloon stamp
• A selection of inks in rainbow colours plus black and embossing ink
• Felt pens
• Gold gel pen
• Gold embossing powder
• Three gold star embellishments
• Corner rounding punch

Directions:

1. Create the card base from the black card and round all four corners.  Use the white card to create a panel for the front.
2. Using the border stamp, stamp in the order of the rainbow from the left edge of the white panel.  Stamp and emboss the 'Happy Birthday' towards the bottom right.  Stamp the bird on top of the word 'Birthday' and then add the balloon so it appears that the bird is holding on to it.  Colour in the bird and balloon with the felt pens.  Draw small gold stars with the gel pen on to the balloon.  Create a dash line border around the right section of the card with the gel pen and adhere the stars.  Round all four corners of the panel and adhere to the card base.

That's it for this weeks card.  Hope you have a great week.

Till next time.

Stacey

Stenciled Cards and Card Pouch

Hello

Today I feature four square cards I made with a new stencil I brought.  Stencils are big currently in the card making scene and I certainly wasn't going to miss out on this trend.  The cards below only show the center of the stencil I used as its full size is 15cm x 15cm.  Coming up soon will be a card that uses the full stencil image.

oooooh pretty!

Materials needed:

• White card
• Stencil
• Inks in various colours (I used three colours on each card)
• Sponges
• Glitter paper
• Metallic markers or sharpies

Directions:

1. Cut white card into 10 x 20cm, score at 10cm and fold to create a 10 x 10 card.  You should get two of these from one A4 sheet plus a piece left over.
2. Using the left over piece from the white card, begin sponging on your colour starting from the center with the lightest and moving to the darkest at the edges.  Trim around design leaving a small border of white.
3. Using a similar colour of metallic marker or sharpie, draw a border with a ruler around the front panel of the card base.
4. Cut a similar colour of glitter paper to 8 x 8cm.  Adhere the stenciled piece on top of the glitter paper and the glitter paper on top of your card base.

These cards are really cool and once you get into the groove of stenciling it really doesn't take long.  I wanted to keep the cards as a set so I made some custom envelopes and then searched round the internet for something that I could make to put the cards in.  This is what I found: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/cardpouch/

and this is what I created based off the tutorial:

As you can see, I created yet another stenciled image and once again used the glitter paper.  I think that it helps tie it all together.

That's all for this week,

Till next time,

Stacey

Be Mine?

Hello!

Once again sorry for the delay, I was travelling during the weekend and since then I've just been a bit lazy.
Today will be the last of the valentine cards the next post will likely be a birthday card as I have a few birthdays coming up.

Here is the card:

Materials:

• Black, pink and white card
• Silver embossing powder and embossing ink
• Heart border punch
• Alphabet stamps and a heart on stems stamp
• Silver and pink gems
• Water colour pencils and a paint brush
• Silver gel pen

Directions:

1. Make the card base from the black card.  Punch the heart border along the bottom of the front of the card.  Cut the pink card about 2cm thick and adhere on the inside of the card to show through the punched design.  Cut the white card to fit on the front allowing room for a small border of black to show around the sides and top.
2. Stamp the hearts on stems and spell out 'be mine' with the alphabet stamp.  Cover in embossing powder and heat set.  Using a purple and two different shades of pink water colour pencils, gently add colour to the white card slightly overlapping the colours.  Using the paint brush and a small amount of water, brush over the pencil to create a smooth colour wash and to partially blend the colours together.  Let it dry fully.  Create a border with the silver gel pen and adhere several gems to appear to float away from the top of the hearts.  Adhere the panel to the card base with dimensional foam.

It took a bit of time and effort for me to make this card but I am pleased with how it turned out.  I love the pop of pink through the punched border and the gems floating away in the breeze.

Til next time

Stacey

Tutti Frutti Valentine

Hello!

Sorry for the delay this week!  Today I have a confession for you...... I did in fact make a card ready for posting on Saturday, however I thought it wasn't good enough and to top it off I stuck the main panel on to the card base wrong so that instead of opening on the right it opens on the left!  After that I gave up and took some time to reflect.  I've been trying far too hard to create lovely valentine cards that I just ended up getting myself in to a right state.  It took 3 hours on Saturday to make a card that I wasn't even happy with!  So I took a couple of days and waited for inspiration to strike, and it did! I stayed away from the pink and frilly and only used hearts as an accent rather than the main feature to make this card:

I love this card!
Materials needed:

• White card and orange patterned paper
• Embossing ink, black, red and yellow ink
• Clear embossing powder
• An orange stamp, a heart stamp and letter stamps
• Colouring pencils
• Orange glitter glue

To make this card:

1. Create card base from white card.  Cut orange patterned paper to leave a 0.5cm border of white.  Cut a piece of white card to leave a 0.5cm border of orange.
2. Using the orange stamp, first ink with the embossing ink and then the black directly on top.  This is because we want the embossing ink to end up on top for the powder to stick to when it is stamped.  Stamp several of the orange images on to the paper using the embossing ink with black ink combo.  Cover in clear embossing powder and heat set.
3. Using the pencils, colour in the oranges.  I made a couple of them to look like lemons in order to break up the orange.
4. Using the red and yellow inks with the letter stamps, carefully stamp 'tutti frutti valentine' around three of the orange images.  Using the same inks, stamp the small heart in the gaps around the oranges (I actually only did this step because I accidentally created a couple of smudge marks with ink that was on my fingers and I wanted to cover them up!).
5. Adhere the white panel on to the orange paper with dimensional foam and then the orange paper to the card base with regular adhesive.
6. Add glitter glue to the inside segments of each orange and try not to knock the card on to its front until its dry (like I did, oops!).

And there you go, while I had enough troubles making this card, I didn't get nearly as flustered as the previous ones because I had a goal in mind for the end result.  Which is surprising given that it is particularly hot here today, so excuse me while I go melt.......

Till next time.

Stacey