First Birthday card

I wanted to show you a card I made for a family member, who turned 1 this week. Here it is.

I usually struggle with childrens cards if I'm honest, so I was really pleased with how this one turned out. It is in Crumb Cake, Bashful Blue and Marina Mist. I used versamark ink to stamp the happy birthday background, then used it again on the Marina Mist cardstock and used white embossing powder. The image is also embossed in white, and was coloured using SU! markers. I'm afraid its from a retired set :-( I just recently go the decorative label punch, and I'm using it loads. I can't believe it's taken me so long to get it!

Card and gift in one

Trawling through Youtube the other day, I came across a video from Stamperdog, who demo'd a card which had a top note gift card holder on the front. I loved that idea, so I cased it, and here is my version.

 The card is made in So Saffron and Pear Pizazz, and using the teddy stamp from Every Little Bit and the Oval All stamp set. It also uses the To Note die, and to cut the slit for the gift card, I used the word window punch and the 1/2 inch circle punch.

I just have to add a note here to say that until early this week, I didn't have the Oval All stamp set. I bought the punches over a year ago, but despite Oval All being always on my wish list, I hadn't got around to ordering it. But on Tuesday, my dear friend and wonderful upline Karen came to visit and brought me not only the stamp I had requested for my birthday, but the much coveted Oval All set for me too. I was so pleased with my gifts, and count myself extremely lucky to have Karen in my life. She is truely a great friend.

A month!!

A whole month has gone past since my last post, what a terrible blogger I am. To make up for it, here's a commission that I made for a child who is being adopted. It's so hard to get 'Congratulations on being adopted' cards for the children who are moving on, and this is the second I've made.

I've used Basic Grey textured cardstock as the base, the Elegant Soiree papers, Baja Breeze cardstock, ink and seam binding ribbon, and the Elegant Wings embosslet. Stamp sets were Foz and Friends and Basic Phrases. The butterflies were cut and embossed in Very Vanilla, and then I brayered over them with Baja Breeze ink. I love the effect it gives them.

Anniversary

Today is our wedding anniversary and we have been married for 9 years now. It still feels like only yesterday. I can count myself extremely fortunate to have married a man who I continue to love, even after 20 years of knowing him, and to celebrate, I made him this card. 

It's in Whisper White, Basic Black and Real Red, with the Basic Phrases and I {heart} Heart stamps sets.

I also took the girls shopping after school yesterday for a rose bush to give him for our garden. I wanted a white one as we don't have any white roses, but I fell in love with this one instead. Isn't it beautiful?

At home, we couldn't think of anywhere to hide it from him overnight, so in the end, we put it in the front garden behind another plant, and guess what? Hiding it in plain view actually worked!! He didn't spot it there at all :-D

Family Birthdays

Yesterday was my lovely husbands birthday, so I had to come up with a card for him. Now men's cards I always find tricky, rather like a lot of people! I stood looking at my many many stamp sets.....

...and finally remembered that he had said he loved the Lovely as a Tree set. That made things a little easier. In fact, here is what I produced...

I stamped the tree in Soft Suede, then sponged it over with Old Olive and Garden Green. Then I used a piece of Old Olive cardstock and ran it through the Square Lattice embossing folder, and layered with a smaller piece of Soft Suede. The button was created using the Sweet Buttons cutting and embossing die, and I used crystal effects on it to make it shiny. Here is a better image of it.

He seemed pleased with it, and I thought it fitted the image and the occasion nicely.

Top Note

I needed to make a birthday card for a 12 year old, and was struggling a bit to come up with an suitable idea. Then I remembered seeing someone used patterned papers, weaved them together, and then cut them out using the top note die. I dug out some old papers and tried it myself and was chuffed with the results.

The card base is in Old Olive, and the sentiment is the Curly Cute set, which has been inked seperately and punched out with the large oval. I also used up some old Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon, although Early Expresso would have worked just as well. What do you think?

Build a Blossom

School holiday time and its really busy here! In and out, children staying over, etc etc, just waiting now for my littlest to be unwell, and that will top it all off!

Not had a great deal of time to play craft wise, but did have a lovely time with my new Build a Blossom stamp set and matching punch.

Here I've used one of my favourite colour combinations, Baja Breeze and Crumb Cake. I find they complement each other beautifully.