Pretty chocolate for you

I’ve had such a good week. Sleeping in, crafting, playing with the kids and I’ve also won 2 awards for my cards!  I was a top pick at Just Add Ink for my blue butterfly card and I was also a Cut Above winner at Paper Players for my Here for You card.  I was so excited to be chosen by these two great sites.
I have been making more cards using the grid technique to give to my daughters’ violin teacher.  I’ve made them all slightly differently, please leave me a comment and let me know which one you like best.
I found another challenge site this week too which looks fun.  It’s called Stampin’ Celebration and the challenge for this week is chocolate and flowers.  I decided to use the grid technique and use pip and choc chip and of course flowers.



This one has a more vintage feel to it than the other cards I think.  I used pip to sponge onto the vanilla and stamped in choc chip. This is similar to what I did with the other cards, but this time I also wheeled over the entire piece with the very vintage wheel using crumb cake.  It is subtle, but made the card more “vintagy” and lovelier I think.

Ingredients :
Stamps : Because I care, elements of style, friendly words wheel, very vintage wheel, all a flutter
Card : pink pirouette, very vanilla, crumb cake, shimmery white
Ink : pip, choc chip, crumb cake, stazon
Other : aquapainter, pip taffeta ribbon, mini glue dots, hodgepodge hardware, scallop trim border punch, sponges

Monochromatic Flutter

The challenge at Just Add Ink this week is Monochrome and I love monochromatic cards so just had to play along with this one.  Monochromatic means using tones of the one colour, but in card making I assume it means to use one plus a neutral.  I did cheat slightly though because I used black to stamp the butterflies and coloured their bodies with choc chip.  I’d still class it as a monochromatic card though – Hopefully they do too!  I decided to use my favourite Stampin Up colour, Baja Breeze and its darker shade Not Quite Navy with vanilla as my neutral.




I used the grid technique on the background piece using baja to sponge and NQN to stamp the images.  I stamped the butterfly in choc chip on the vanilla piece but also stamped them onto shimmery white with stazon and then watercoloured them only using Baja, NQN and a touch of choc for the bodies.  Then I cut them out and stuck them on top of the vanilla piece using mini glue dots.  I realised that you can really bend the shimmer white card and it gave the butterflies a lot of extra dimension.  Plus it gives them a pretty shimmer.
So as you can imagine after doing all that it was not a quick and easy card.  But the hardest part about it was tearing my background grid piece!  Stamping 411 have another wonderful sketch challenge this week and I decided to incorporate both of these challenges into the one card.  It meant that I had to tear my background though and it was hard for me to do it because I really liked how it was.  Anyway I am very happy with the end result I think it actually looks really nice torn now, thanks Stampin 411 for making me do it!  I just finished it off with a birthday sentiment which I stamped with NQN and clear embossed.

Ingredients :
Stamps : because i care, all a flutter, elements of style, music notes wheel, friendly words wheel, sincere salutations
Card : NQN, very vanilla, Baja breeze, naturals ivory, shimmery white
Ink :  baja breeze, NQN, stazon, choc chip, versamark
Other :  mini glue dots, aqua painter, sponge, clear embossing powder

I was having trouble rolling the wheels straight and evenly and I remembered a tip I’d read once and decided to give it a try.  Instead of holding the handle and pushing away or toward yourself, you put the handle down on the table and roll it back.  Amazingly I found it heaps easier and it worked really well for me.  Unfortunately I can’t remember who had this tip to give them credit, but next time your “wheeling” give it a try!
Kathy

Black magic challenge

 

 

The challenge at Just Add Ink this week is a colour challenge.

You needed to use bashful blue, sahara sand, blushing bride and pear pizzazz.

These colours do look very pretty together and it’s great to be challenged to use different colour combinations.

Watercolour pencils are not exact Stampin’ Up colours but the green I used for the swirly leaves is extremely close to the pear pizzazz colour.

There was also a great sketch challenge at Stamping411 this week and I decided to combine the two. So it is a double challenge with a black magic twist.

I still didn’t challenge myself to do the black magic technique on something other than a flower BUT I thought I had enough challenges for one day!

 

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Elements of Style, All a flutter, Occasional greetings

Card : Bashful blue, sahara sand, black, white, blushing bride, vellum cardstock

Ink : stazon, white craft, bashful blue and choc chip marker for butterfly

Other : big shot, finial press folder, white pen, bashful blue taffeta ribbon, hodgepodge hardware, watercolour pencils,

Flutter notepad

 

Just thought I’d show you a little notepad I made, well decorated actually, for Rose.  She’s the friend my daughter gave the 5 side-step card to and I thought a little notepad with her name on it might be appreciated (plus the present just looked like it needed “something extra”).

I used another new stamp for me called All a Flutter, isn’t it a beautiful butterfly!  I also used Confetti for the background, it is one with lots of tiny letters, appropriate for a notebook I thought.  I also used lots of ribbon from my pre-Stampin Up days and some retired cardstock (as I was sure Rose wouldn’t care!)

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : All a flutter, confetti

Ink : stazon, cameo coral, choc chip

Card : cameo coral, blush blossom

Other : ribbons, aquapainter, big shot, timeless type alpha, rhinestone