Triple Z

 

This is another z-fold card I made using the SAB dsp and my new triple treat flower and punches.

It has a boho kind of look which doesn’t translate particularly well in a photo unfortunately.  It does look prettier in real life.

I really like the band on this one.  I used the tasteful trim die to cut the border pattern from peach parfait and I did some faux stitching on it too.

 

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : oval all, triple treat flower

Card : confetti white, peach parfait, white, everyday enchantment dsp

Ink :  crumb cake, suede

Other : big shot, tasteful trim, beautiful wings, oval punch, 5 petal punch, fancy flower punch, boho punch, everyday enchantment brad, mat pack, white pen

 

This paper pack is really gorgeous and is free with a $100 order!  Please email me if you’d like to place an order :)

 

Kathy

Retiring Butterflies

At Just Add Ink this week we have a gorgeous photo to take some inspiration from.



I had been asked to make a retirement card for a teacher at the girls’ school and I decided to use this photo challenge to inspire me.




I chose similar colours to the bags in the photo for the butterflies and I really liked the way it turned out.  I would never have chosen them myself, so hurray for the challenge!  I also angled the butterflies in the same way as they have with the bags and I have used more and bigger butterflies at the bottom and got smaller and smaller and less and less butterflies as they go up into the sky. I then just used one rhinestone on the biggest butterfly of each colour, to mimic the silver beads on the bags.
I attached them with mini glue dots and lifted the tops of the wings upwards.

Ingredients :
Stamps : none!
Card : white, black, poppy parade, pool party, regal rose, limeade
Ink : none!
Other : big shot, beautiful butterflies, beautiful wings, elegant bouquet ef, rhinestones, vintage wallpaper ef

As this was a card for the whole staff to sign I made it a very big one but I’m sure it could be recreated to make a smaller card with fewer butterflies. I always feel a little stressed making cards on behalf of the school and I wasn’t sure what they had in mind exactly for a teacher’s retirement card, but I found the Irish blessing which I thought was beautiful and all those beautiful butterflies just fit with the blessing perfectly.  I think it was appreciated by everyone.
Please take a look at what the rest of the JAI team have created this week and let the photo inspire you to create something beautiful.

Kathy

Just for you

This week at Just Add Ink we have a colour challenge for you.


At first these colours said “male card”  to me, but instead I decided to go very soft and feminine.


I also decided to try some techniques that I hadn’t attempted before.
One was the spotlighting technique.  I used the tag to highlight an area of the stamped image.
The other was the faux mother of pearl technique. I’ve included this second photo because you can see the shine a little more .  It is done on glossy white with frost white shimmer paint and also sponged with soft suede to make it darker.  here is the great tutorial by France that inspired me, if you’re interested in trying it out.


Ingredients :
Stamps : Elements of style, very vintage wheel, teeny tiny sentiments

Card : naturals ivory, very vanilla, glossy white, cherry cobbler, soft suede

Ink : stazon, white craft, suede, crumb cake marker,

Other : crochet trim, jumbo eyelet, oval punch, linen thread, pearls, frost white shimmer paint, scallop trim border punch, beautiful wings, hodgepodge hardware, blender pen


I was tempted to send this card to my good friend Rita in the US, who is also a stampin up demo.  She has repeatedly said how much she hates this stamp, yet it’s one of my favourites.  I’d love to be able to convince her that it’s gorgeous.  I decided against trying though, I know everyone has different tastes (but how can you not like this one?)  :)
Instead I gave it to my daughter’s violin teacher with a gift card as a thankyou for all her help with the Hobart Eisteddfod this year.  No prize this time unfortunately (there were so many brilliant young soloists!!!) but it was a wonderful experience for her and her teacher is so generous and giving of her time and knowledge I hoped this might show our appreciation of her.
Kathy

Fancy Folds Blog Hop JAI 74

 

MULTI-FLAP CARD WITH POCKET

Wow!  My first ever blog hop! How exciting!  I hope you enjoyed seeing Jo’s Tri-fold (Z-shape) card and are keen to see another fancy fold.  I decided to try something new, it’s called a Multi-flap card with pocket and I LOVE IT!

I think the only problem with it is that it’s a bit hard to photograph.  But anyway this is the front of the card.

 

Then when you undo the beautiful satin bow and open the front flaps, this is what you see.

Then it opens upwards to reveal this.

Close-up of top panel.

 

I saw a tutorial for this fold here and I loved the look of it and wanted to give it a try.  I made a card (which I will show you later on this week) following these directions but I found that it used 12”x12”cardstock and it was too big to fit in the Stampin Up square envelopes.  So I changed it a little to make this one slightly smaller.

Here are my new dimensions:

Cut card 25 x 20 cm.

Score at 12.5 cm on both the short and long sides.

Cut 26.5cm x 7 cm card.

Score at 4, 4.5, 17 and 17.5 cm

I cut the dsp at these sizes:

26.5 x 6.5 cm

(3x) 12 x 12 cm

6.5 x 8.75 cm.

6.5 x 3.5 cm

12 x 7 cm

All other instructions are the same as given by Maria in the tutorial.

 

Inside the little pocket is a plain card to write your message.  I also put a dot of tombow mono multi on the back of a gift card, let it dry and then stuck it onto the back of this plain card.  A great way to send a gift card to someone special.

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : Occasional greetings, because I care, vintage vogue

Card : neutrals dsp stack, vanilla,espresso, crumbcake

Ink : espresso, crumbcake

Other : big shot, beautiful wings, scallop square, antique brad, neutral brad, pearls, vanilla satin ribbon, sticky strip

 

Thanks for looking at my card and I hope you’ll give the multi-flap card with pocket a try. 

Please click on the link to go to the next blog in our hop where you’ll see Patrice’s gorgeous fancy fold card.

Kathy

Island Prayers

Well it’s a new month and that means new challenges at the Splitcoast Stampers Creative Crew.
Here is the challenge:
CCREW0611CF, CreativeCrew, SUO or SUM - Catalog Focus:* FLOWERS*
Stampin' Up! has flowers! Ribbon Flowers, Rub-on Flowers, Button Flowers, Brad Flowers, Crocheted Flowers, Paper Flowers, Die Cut Flowers, Stenciled Flowers! The challenge is to use any flower except stamped flowers!



I had just bought my first flower die for the big shot and decided to use it for the challenge.  It’s the Island Floral Die.  It was actually in the Summer Mini catalogue but it was carried over and is still available.
I saw a gorgeous flower done by Nikki Spencer and she had a link to a tutorial by Joanne Leddy showing how she’d made them.  They are so gorgeous. I did mine the same way except that she used the fancy flower punch instead of the die, so mine is bigger.  I also don’t have the boho blossoms punch amazingly (I’ll have to rectify that soon!) I used a retired punch (trio flower, I think it was called) for my flower centre.  The other thing I did differently was that instead of spraying the flower with water, I sprayed it with white shimmer paint/alcohol solution. So it is very sparkly in real life.
Ingredients :
Stamps : Thoughts and Prayers
Card : vanilla, suede, pink pirouette, river rock
Ink : suede, crumb cake
Other :  Big shot, island floral die, square scallop die, beautiful wings, little leaves, vintage wallpaper, trio flower punch, pearls, brayer, square punch, piercing tool

I think the flower turned out beautifully and I’m very happy with my new purchase. Yay!
I hope you’ll try this challenge too.
Kathy

Satin Elements

 

Exciting news!!!  I’ve been asked to be on the design team at Just Add Ink PERMANENTLY! WOOOHOOO!  It has been so much fun playing along with them this month, I am so excited and very honoured to be asked. They are such a wonderfully talented group of ladies (and they’re all lovely too!)

There was only 1 drawback to being on their team and that was that I had to provide a photo of myself!  I hate having my photo taken, (and to have one on the internet for all to see – even worse!) which is why I have never had one on my blog.  I look so much cuter as a cartoon character!  If you’ve ever wondered, it is me as I would be if I was a character from Pokoyo. (I love that show –very cute!)  Anyway my family and close friends realise how much I must REALLY want to be on this design team to make this sacrifice!  Ha Ha!

Well I’d better get on with some stamping stuff………..

The challenge at Just Add Ink this week is to just add a flower.

So I just had to make another one of those gorgeous satin ribbon flowers.

 

I guess I just had to use the Elements of Style stamp set again too.  It’s one of my favourites.

I have made a few cards with this type of flower now you can see them all here. 

I originally found a tutorial for them on Kelly Acheson’s blog. Click here if you’d like to see it.

 

Ingredients:

Stamps : Elements of style, teeny tiny sentiments

Card : very vanilla, espresso, cherry cobbler

Ink :  espresso, cherry cobbler, crumb cake

Other :  big shot, beautiful wings, vanilla satin ribbon, espresso thin taffeta, antique brad, pearls, word window punch, modern label punch, square scallop die, sticky strip, circle punch

 

Head over to Just Add Ink for some wonderful inspiration for Mother’s Day cards (or just for anyone who loves flowers) and join in the fun and make your own flower card this week.

Kathy

50 wishes

I was asked to make a birthday card for the librarian at my daughters’ school this week.  I saw a wonderful sketch challenge at Paper Players and decided to use that as my inspiration.
 

She was turning 50 and I could have put a big 50 on it, but decided against it.  I wanted to make it look special though so I thought I would do those lovely ribbon flowers again.  This time I used the 1” circle punch for one of the flowers so that I had 2 different sizes, as in the sketch.



The card was for all the staff at school to sign, so I felt a bit stressed about it.  Hopefully she liked it and the rest of the staff did too!

Ingredients :
Stamps : Sincere salutations
Card : regal rose, pip, pink pirouette, very vanilla, espresso, crumb cake
Ink : espresso, crumb cake, river rock
Other : big shot, finial press, polka dot, lots of tags, rhinestone brads, rhinestones, beautiful wings, wide oval punch, little leaves, pip satin ribbon, sticky strip, circle punches, thin espresso taffeta ribbon

My Think Pink card won another challenge at SUO Challenges this week too!  Very exciting!
Kathy

6 Wishes

 

 

Well I think if you are in need of 6 year old birthday card ideas, my blog will be the place to come! My youngest daughter has been invited to another party next week and so I went looking for challenge inspiration.

I found another great site called Stacey’s stamping stage and these were the challenge colours. They looked so pretty together and just right for a girly birthday card, so I thought I would give it a try.

I also incorporated these colours into the Stamping 411 sketch challenge for this week. 

I decided to use a set which I have been neglecting a bit, For Everything, because I thought the bold colours would suit it. I stamped the flowers with melon mambo and coloured them in with my pink pirouette crayon.  I’ve only just bought the new crayons and I LOVE them!  I also used my new embosslit Beautiful Wings (aren’t they cute). The little bird is cut out and popped up on a dimensional.

 

 

I was looking through all my sentiment sets (and I have quite a few!!!) and nothing seemed right and then I remembered the So Happy For You sale-a-bration set I had just gotten.  I had intended to give it away but it was absolutely PERFECT for this card and I just had to use it.  I think I will be using this one a lot!

 

Ingredients :

Stamps : For Everything, So happy for you

Card : wild wasabi, melon mambo, shimmery white, pink pirouette

Ink : wild wasabi, melon mambo, stazon

Other : big shot, beautiful wings, timeless type junior alpha, pip taffeta ribbon, crayons

Kathy