Happy Birthday Sophie

It was my gorgeous sister in law's birthday last week, and as is traditional, I had completely forgotten and had to whip a card up quickly to get in the mail in time to reach her.  It just wouldn't be a birthday without a last minute card, after all it's not like I have all the stuff lying around ready to make cards... um, well, I probably do.  I'm just forgetful and slack.

Anyway, happy birthday Sophie!

Images © 1990-2012 Stampin' Up!®

Supplies used:

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Sentiments
Cardstock:  Rich Razzleberry, Pool Party,Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake
Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Crumb Cake

Other:Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder, Beautiful Wings Embosslit, Apothecary Accents Framelits, Large Oval Punch, Scallop Trim Border Punch, Basic Pearls

Pop Out Butterfly

I promise this will be the last butterfly for a little while but I had to share it because it really does look pretty darned cool (well, that's my opinion, and this is my blog so I get to say what I want so there LOL).

This is another of the cutout butterflies which I made a while back, this time in a colour combination pinched from a recent ColourQ challenge (I can never organise myself to do these challengers during the set time frame, but it's a nice colour scheme no matter when you do it, right?)

Images © 1990-2012 Stampin' Up!®

Supplies used: 
Stamp(s): Mixed Bunch, Creative Elements
Ink: Lucky Limeade, Wisteria Wonder
Cardstock: Basic Gray, Lucky Limeade, Whisper White, Wisteria Wonder, Tempting Turquoise
Other: Beautiful Butterflies Bigz Die, Beautiful Wings Embosslit, Scallop Trim Border Punch, Pearls Basic Jewels

Shabby Chic, and a Sneak Peek!

Historically I have had trouble recreating the beautiful "shabby chic" look in my cardmaking.  No matter what I did, it always ended up looking like something made in cutting & pasting time at the local kindergarten (okay, that might be an exaggeration).

So I was delighted with this card ...

I was inspired by this card at Splitcoast stampers - isn't it gorgeous? - but went a little further with my trim using the Scallop Trim Border punch.  The grungy look on the embossed layer was created by swiping my Crumb Cake inkpad vigorously over the inside of the Vintage Wallpaper Textured Impressions embossing folder - the ink caught in the edges of the design and it looks kind of worn and faded.

The colours are little washed out - the base and butterflies are Pink Pirouette, which in real life looks so pretty with teamed with Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla and Old Olive as shown here.  I also sponged the butterflies with Pink Pirouette ink to highlight the embossing on the wings.

And you might notice a little something lurking in the background there ... see the Crumb Cake shape behind the leaves?  You can't see just how pretty it is, but come next month you will ... yep, it's a new product coming in the Autumn-Winter Mini (released April 1).  Mmmm, framelits ... I am going to have so much fun with these!

Want to know more?  Contact me!

Images © 1990-2012 Stampin' Up!®

Supplies used:
Ink: Crumb Cake, Pink Pirouette
Cardstock: Pink Pirouette, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Old Olive
Other: Vintage Wallpaper Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, Scallop Trim Border Punch, Beautiful Wings Embosslit Die, Little Leaves Sizzlit Die, Labels Collection Framelits Dies

Inspired by ... myself!

A week or so ago I posted a card I was particularly happy with, using the Creative Elements set.  I liked it so much I made it again to send to my darling sister-in-law (waves to Sophie) for her birthday, but this time I paired my new favourite colours Pool Party and Island Indigo.

Oh, and everything goes with Crumb Cake.  I can't recommend this "colour" highly enough.

To bling this up just a little, I added a weeny little half-pearl from the Basic Pearls set (note to self - get a pair of fine-nosed tweezers to handle these ones - the medium and large sized ones are fine, but the tiny little ones are insanely small).  It fits perfectly at the centre of the design on the butterfly's body.

Images © 1990-2011 Stampin' Up!®

Supplies used:

 Stamps: Creative Elements 
Ink: Pool Party, Island Indigo, Crumb CakeCardstock: Crumb Cake, Island Indigo, Pool Party, Very Vanilla

Other:Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker, 1-3/4" Circle, Scallop Trim Border Punch, Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder, Basic Pearls

Vintage Violet

I have been drawn to making softer, more "vintage" style cards lately, although sadly I don't really have much in the way of current Stampin' Up! supplies to do this with (better rectify that - there are some lovely "olde worlde" styles in the current 2011-12 catalogue).

Fortunately one of the stamp sets we received at the Stampin' Up! Convention back in May was Creative Elements, which has 8 decorative, collage-y style stamps you can mix and match for the perfect vintage look.

I've used Wisteria Wonder again (with a touch of Concord Crush) and teamed it with Crumb Cake - because just about everything looks good with Crumb Cake.  The butterfly was inked with Wisteria Wonder, then I used my Basic Black marker to colour the body and rolled just the edges of the stamp onto my Concord Crush inkpad to shade the wings a little.

And here's a closeup of the butterfly and flower.  As you can probably imagine, it took more than a little time to cut around the petals of that flower, but I like to think the effect (popped up on Dimensionals) is totally worth it :-)


Images © 1990-2011 Stampin' Up!®


Supplies used:

 Stamps: Creative Elements 
Ink: Wisteria Wonder, Crumb Cake, Concord Crush 
Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Concord Crush, Wisteria Wonder, Very Vanilla

Other:Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker, 1-3/4" Circle, Scallop Trim Border Punch, Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder