Silver hearts

Greetings again - I am back again as I managed an afternoon in the studio - and I must say I really enjoyed it, so I hope you enjoy this post.

We were very excited to hear yesterday that a young lady from our church has become engaged - the proposal was all very romantic with the gentleman going down on one knee to ask her hand in marriage!!

I had something slightly different to this in mind when I started out, but I am pleased with this result.  The black, red and silver is quite dramatic, and are colours that my friend wears a lot.  

I had decided from the outset to make an easel card for the Cuttlebug "Be Inspired" challenge.   I  wanted to use this stamp from the Layers of Colors Joyful Noise set, and ended up using it this way, embossing it in silver on the black, rather than how I first thought.  The random hearts and the greeting are from stamp sets from The Warehouse (think Michaels in the States).  

The black layer of card was then mounted on a layer of thin silver metallic shim, and then onto a red base card.

The base of the easel is in white card, and I used a punched boarder as the 'stopper', and added silver rhinestones for a bit of bling.

Three silver embossed crosses from the Layers of Color 'Gothic Crosses' set were added  to remind them to keep Christ as the pre-eminent partner of their relationship.

This section was finished off with a red ribbon and bow.

To add a wee bit of bling to the front of the card I put silver rhinestones on the ends of the curls of the flourish, and on the dot of the 'i' 

This card was a real pleasure to make, and I do hope you have enjoyed the 'story' of it's construction.

I am entering this in these challenges


               Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge #90 - Easel Card
       Practical Scrapper - Border  Punches and Decorative Edge Scissors

Thank  you for calling in, and may your day be blessed.

Note of thanks

Greetings - I have been MIA for a few days, as we have had our Grandson and parents visit, and I even got into the garden today - I had to lift some tubers before they disinteregrated in the wet cold soil!!


I made this card a week or so ago, but have not been able to get back to my card making, so decided that I would post this project.

I wanted to make a card to thank some friends for some assistance they gave while I was away from home.  


The friends are a very musical family which did affect my choice of stamp - the images are from the Layers of Color set Joyful Noise.  I also wanted to use a technique that I saw on Stamp TV that is called  "Reverse Nestabilities", which gives dimension to a project, and potentially uses off-cuts from other projects.


I started with the warm red base, and decided to use the limey-yellow piece that had been used previously to cut out a scalloped oval from - I then took the piece of green which had had a plain oval cut out of it, and layered that behind the scalloped layer. 

The main image was then stamped and embossed on a piece of white card, and carefully positioned it on the main card base, while lining it up under the top layers.  A bit of a fiddle, but worth it. 


Once this was adhered, I then popped up the top layers on dimensional tape after attaching the bow. 


This card is has a Clean and Simple look to it, but the dimension gives it a special feel - the recipients also appreciated it.


Thanks you for calling by - I trust you have a day full of joy - we have, as we have had our first sunny day in nearly two weeks :-)

Multi-challenge result

Greetings to all my visitors from a chilly Antipodean Island - we have had a frost this morning with a cloudy day to follow, so I cannot really see it warming very much.

I spent Sunday afternoon in the studio making some cards to 'have on hand', and unfortunately, some of these need to be sympathy ones. [One of the joys of getting older :-) ]

I started with the challenge from Card Patterns which is a sketch challenge. As I had in mind a sympathy card I decided to go for muted colours, and initially started with a blue base, but after selecting the papers, I changed to a grey base to give the papers some more definition.

The photograph does not show the true colours, the stripped pattern has a more creamy coloured base, but the camera seems to have pulled the pink tones out.

I wanted to use the stamp from the Heartfelt Sympathy set by Our Daily Bread Designs for the centre piece, and chose the cream card not only because it 'fitted' the card, but also I had started to make paper flowers to use on the card,( which I later abandoned as they seemed too bulky), and the cream matched them.

I also had in mind the challenge from Our Daily Bread Designs to use multiple items on the card, based on an acronym of the word flowers, and some of the items needed to be used included lace, flowers, embossing, stitching and an ODBD stamp or something oval eg pearls.....

The stitching was done by piercing the card and then hand stitching using some metallic machine embroidery thread after sticking the lace on using double sided tape - a very easy way to gather lace I must admit.

The flowers were some of a set that I bought ages ago from a local store called the Warehouse (equivalent to Michaels) - they are a pressed fabric of some sort and have quite a bit of dimension, but no clearly defined centre so I added the pale blue half pearls.

After I had finished this card I discovered it could also be entered into a couple of other challenges!!  I was also very happy with the card in itself, and was even happier that DH liked it too - he very rarely comments a lot on my work, but was really positive about this card.

I was really excited to see the challenge over at Stamping Sisters In Christ - it is based  on Psalm 119 vs 105, 

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

I love the Word of God and know that I would be lost without it, in all senses of the word, and it truly is a light in my life.

Challenges that I am entering this in are:

Card Patterns Challenge #68

Our Daily Bread Designs Challenge #18 F.L.O.W.E.R.

Stamping Sisters in Christ Challenge #44 -Ps 119:105

Practical Scrappers Flower challenge

Thank you for visiting and walking through this card making journey with me.  May your day be blessed and full of joy.

Butterfly Congratulations

Greetings, and thank you for visiting my humble blog again. 

I managed to get going in the studio again yesterday and made this 'congratulations' card, which is well overdue, for a friend who has walked a half marathon - far far more than I have ever done, and I admire her for her achievement!!


This is an easel card - the second one I have ever made, and I must admit that I am very happy with the way it sits when opened and stood up .


I started by deciding on the base colour, and found some printed vellum that I have had on hand for some time - the print is of hibiscus flowers and as there are a lot of pink tones in it, it does not dominate the card as they are adsorbed into the red.  I tore the bottom of the vellum to add some subtle texture, and stamped and gold embossed the word congratulations in the lower right corner.


The ribbon and lace are of the same pale lemon colour and toned in well - the base that the butterfly is sitting  on is a pale lime/lemon coloured card with a slight sparkle in it.  It was cut using a Spellbinders Classic scalloped oval, which I then sponged the edges of with Memento Pear Tart ink.  This done I decided a wee bit of visual texture was required so  stamped one of the leaves from the acanthus leaves set from Layers of Color inside the oval in Memento Bamboo Shoot green.


The butterfly is another Layers of Color stamp from the Joyful Noise set.  This was stamped and embossed in gold on white card, and then painted using Twinkling H2O paints.  I mounted this on dimensional foam tape, and added a 'flight path' using some Zva crystals.

I wanted the base to echo the card front, so punched the edge of the white liner  with a lacey boarder punch from Fiskars and popped a wee white half pearl in the centre of each repeat, tied a narrow pale lemon ribbon around the base mat and added a bow, and then placed two tiny pearls as 'stoppers' part way up.


I really enjoyed creating this card, and I hope you enjoyed the journey with me.




I am entering this in the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge #58


May your day be filled with joy and blessings, and thank you for calling by.

Cards with a difference!!

I have spent another few days with DD being a doting Grandma - and this time we did some card making together - but these are somewhat different cards!!

They were given a black and white card to sit beside Lydia when she is being changed, and before we traveled, DD asked if I could take my punches up, and explained why.  


Before I left here I made a card using a dark (Hunter) green base and some blue, white and yellow foam images on it, which Lydia enjoyed as soon as she set eyes on it, spending long minutes gazing at it!

When we arrived I was shown some black and white images that they had found on the internet here and had printed out. 


It was these that we made into cards.  We mounted them onto black card (one image on either side) and then laminated them.  Here is a selection of the cards ready for laminating.












In addition to these cards,  which have some thirty images, we made some other large (A4) sized ones using the punches.  The idea of these is that they can be attached to cot ends or in front of a car set or the like, rather than just beside a changing table or the like.






Again we kept to the simple black and white images, and made them double sided.  The shapes here were made using the punches I had taken with me, and the ones below using my colcuzzle cutting system.
As you can tell, this young lady has parents who are very keen on making sure she has the best possible start in every way!!  And a Grandma who will aid and abet them all the way.




Her cousin will also have a set of these cards in due time - I just hope his parents don't read this post.....


I do hope you have enjoyed this post about cards of a different nature, and please excuse the rather odd layout - blogger does not want to co-operate with me over this !!


Have a blessed day.

A case of another card

Greetings to all my visitors - thank you for calling by.

This morning I saw a blog post on Patter Cross's blog which immediately inspired me to use some papers that I had bought yesterday.  The resultant card is, I feel a reasonable 'case' - where you take the concept of a card and change elements on it to make it your own.

I changed the colours to purple and green to start,  then changed the image, to the 'fleur-de-lis stamp from the Layers of Color set Acanthus Leaves, which was stamped with Brilliance Pearlesence Thyme ink. I changed  the ribbon and bow to  some sparkling ric rak. I also embossed the greeting. The image panel was distressed and sponged but not stitched onto the base.

I then added some pearls to the top left corner, the top of the feature panel and the base of the leaves.

Thank you Patter for the inspiration, and I hope you have enjoyed this visit.

Have a blessed day!!

A 'self challenge'

 I wish you the warmest of greetings on this cold, bleak day here.

I am home again for a few days, and although I got my fingers inky on Sunday, I cannot showcase that effort as I have sent the cards off without taking a photograph of them :-(, so I have chosen to share a card I made some time ago. During the construction of it I 'challenged' myself to use only two colours of ink.

I started with tearing a piece of a page out of a dictionary - it's all right, the dictionary is very old and incomplete!  It was purpose bought at a garage sale for me by a friend who knew I was looking for one to recycle, and the texture of the pages is 'just right' for taking the ink when sponging and stamping.

I sponged the edges with Tim Holtz distress ink in tea stain.  Using the emboss resist technique I stamped in clear embossing ink and clear embossed an image from Layers of Color Acanthus set. This done I then sponged Memento Bamboo leaf ink over it.  The effect was not as dramatic as I would have liked, rather interesting would describe it.

The page was then mounted on a pale lime green base card which I had already sponged the edges of using the green ink, although it does not show well in the photograph.

I had some small pieces of metallic gold card on my desk, and I used this to stamp and gold emboss the large butterfly from the Layers of Color Flutterescent set, and also the sentiment, on.  The corners of the sentiment panel were rounded using a punch, and the edges run over the tea stain ink pad.

The butterfly was cut out and mounted on some foam dimensional tape, and  the trail added using gems from an un-named set. I deliberately positioned it low on the card to show the image on the background, but was not happy with the overall balance of this.

It was at this point I decided to limit my colours to those I already had on the card, so after selecting a smaller butterfly from the same set, I decided to use a variation of the 'rock and roll' technique to colour the stamp.

The inks were dye inks and I wanted to emboss the image, so I loaded the stamp with versamark ink, then touched the image on the small green pad and followed that by rolling the edges of the stamp onto the tea stain ink pad, then embossed using clear embossing powder.  I was very pleased with the results, and the butterflies balanced the card without distracting from the focal image.

I enjoyed experimenting and challenging myself with this card, and I hope you have enjoyed the results, if not the journey.

Thanks for calling by, and I wish you a blessed day.