Flippin Gardener

I have 3 sisters and one of them is a very avid gardener so, with her birthday fast approaching, I got out my LaPasche stamps and set to work. I’m re-using the backs of cards which have been sent to me (both Christmas and birthday cards) – trying to re-cycle as much as possible – and so I stamped the two main images onto some nice smooth white card using black Versafine ink embossed with clear ep.

Colouring is definitely not my strong point but I’m determined to try so I got out the ProMarkers and set to work. The ovals were cut out with a Grand Nestability and a little yellow ink sponged around the edge whilst it was still in the die. I have a big problem with white space unfortunately so I just had to add some clusters of flowers around the edges too.

Having not thought this through beforehand (as usual), I now needed to mount the ovals to a card and remembered seeing a technique for partial cutting with a die over at Ikki’s Cuttlebug Cupboard.  I’m not sure if this is the post I was thinking of but it certainly helped me cut half an oval in the piece of A4 card I wanted to use.

Front and Back

Inside

Front

Once I’d cut the semi-oval and scored and folded the card I used some of the accent stamps which came with this Flippin set to decorate and then glued the stamped oval panels into place. I’m really pleased with the way it’s worked out and thankful to Ikki for her blog post which helped enormously – I had a terrible mental block when I tried to work it out myself!

Inside finished card

Front of finished card

All Creatures Great & Small

Sir Stampalot are having their February Challenge and the theme is All Creatures Great and Small and I thought I’d have a go. I firstly dug out this lovely stamp from Third Coast Rubber Stamps of a cat with wings (I can’t direct you to the exact stamp – they have thousands of them! Go have a browse ). I coloured different sections with various colours of embossing pens, huffed on the stamp to moisten it again and then stamped it onto some glossy card. This was then covered in clear EP and heat embossed. The mice are from the same company and are stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa.

Once that had cooled and dried I painted over the images with Art Masking Fluid allowing that to dry thoroughly. I stamped a decorative flourish (Third Coast again) with Versamark across the top of the piece and also a bare branch design from De Stempelwinkel across the bottom for some foliage before brayering over with the only Big & Juicy ink pad I own (so far) – Vibrant Primary. When the masking fluid was rubbed off it left the stamped images as they had been originally and so I coloured the cat and her wings with some ProMarkers. I found the perfect colour of card stock for the base card – it matches the yellow of the ink pad exactly and is soooooooo not what I normally would use! It’s an A4 card simply scored and folded in half.

I grabbed a couple of sheets of A4, white glossy card and attacked them with the brayer and Vibrant Primary. You can see on the photo of the full sheet that I went across the width and it formed broad stripes, on the other I went diagonally with the brayer, you can perhaps see that on the photo of the Sizzix Flourish die. I cut a couple of pieces, put them coloured sides together and cut them with my Wizard.

Have you ever spent so much time faffing around that a single card takes two evenings to make?!

I trimmed a sliver off each side of the main panel and then spent ages arranging and re-arranging them with the die cuts! Some low-tack masking tape was needed to hold the finished layout in place so I could flip it over and apply glue to all the intricate swirls. I outlined the cat with dots of white and then decided the whole thing needed…….more! So, my Tim Holtz idea-ology ruler and a pricking tool allowed me to make lovely neat puncture marks all round before showing me that the swirls also needed to be dotty. Perhaps it’s all a bit too much? I quite like it anyway .

Cat and Mouse

Masking Fluid

Brayering stuff

Rainbow

Sizzix Flourish die

Tools

Left

Right

Half-Step Card

This card is based on an idea by Sheila Weaver which you can find on Joanna Sheen’s website. Sheila uses a lot of CD printables where I have used rubber stamping. The template is very cute and quite easy. I always make one out of cheap cardstock first  – and keep that to work from in the future –  rather than mess up a sheet of proper card .

I used a pearlescent cream heavy card and my Scor-Pal to make all the fold lines. The main image of the ducks (BTW, this is for a guy so I was trying to keep it masculine) is from Crafty Individuals and I used a Versamark pad and detail gold embossing powder. It was cut out with a Nestability (one of the labels!) and then I used the same die to draw around the outside and then cut that out with scissors. This is because there wasn’t room on the front part of the card to get the next size up of Nestie on there so I made my own smaller border this way. I rubbed Versamark around the edges and embossed with the same detail gold powder. This ensures a perfect match of colour to the stamped image.

I layered these together and stuck it to the front of the card. The ‘belt and braces’ part of my brain made me also add a couple of brads to help secure it.

At the sides are a couple of smaller cards which have the greetings inside. As you can see, my friend is 50 and I did succumb to a little flower power by drawing a light circle around the numbers and then stamping leaves and flowers with my Tapestry Peg Stamps. I smudged the edges with the same distress inks and then glued them on top of some ribbled ribbon. This was plain white and I coloured it with the red and green inks used above, glued it to a strip of card and ran it through the ribbler for a different texture.

I’m quite pleased with the way this turned out for a first attempt, thanks to Sheila Weaver.

Love these ducks!

Left side

Right side

Cloisonné Flower

As  a Christmas Gift, Nigel bought me some Michael Strong Stamps taking advantage of the free postage he was offering for a few weeks. I have admired these for a long time so jumped at the chance to get some at last. Most of Michael’s stamps are this Cloisonné style and his site has some great ideas for using them. There’s also a Yahoo group dedicated to ‘enjoying’ his stamps which I have joined but have not yet shared any work. My stamps arrived only a few days ago – guess they were held up in the backlog caused by all the snow we had. Anyway, they’re here now and I love ‘em!

This first card is also my ‘homework’ for stamp club. We were given a couple of small pieces of cream card and asked to do ‘something’ with them. I glued some ribbon to them (it was white so I ran it across an ink pad to make it blue) and then ribbled them. I ran another piece of cream card through my Wizard inside an inked embossing folder which gave me the background layer. The two challenge pieces were edged with a green ink which I also stamped one of the flowers with – the other was stamped with the blue I’d used to colour the ribbon and the embossing folder. The charms were attached to the middle of the flowers with Glossy Accents and a little bit of glitter used to highlight bits of the flowers.

Ribbled Ribbon

Challenge Card

Cloisonné Fan

The Cloisonné Fan was used to make an easel card for my Sister-in-Law’s birthday. The base is a square white card and layered on that is some lime green textured paper which I’ve had for years. On top of that the shiny black card was cut with a Spellbinder’s Nestability, eyelet squares I think, and a smaller version of the same again in the lime green. The fan was stamped and embossed with denim embossing powder and then coloured with ProMarkers. I cut it out, even through the spines of the fan, and then spoilt that effect by mounting it onto some green card. Some purple gems glued on for a bit of bling, ribbon and yarns and the outside was done. Inside I glued a small lilac flower which I made darker with a purple ProMarker and stamped a lovely verse.

Easel Card

Inside Verse

Layers

Close-up

Large Vase

The large vase is actually very adaptable. It can be cut into all sorts of different pieces but in this first example I used the whole image which I stamped and embossed and then coloured with ProMarkers. The flowers were cut out of patterned paper, glazed with Glossy Accents, purple gems and a bit of glitter added for sparkle and then mounted with 3D foam pads on top of a couple of fabric leaves from my stash. These leaves are actually a very bright green so I toned them down with ProMarkers. The whole lilac card was embossed with a texture plate. I’m not totally happy with the whole look of this card but will keep it for a while and see if it grows on me.

Vase with flowers

Hands on Hips?

Same Vase Stamp

The same vase stamp was used on this next card but this time I cut it apart a little. It was stamped onto patterned paper and embossed with gold powder and then coloured with the trusty ProMarkers! I cut off one handle and the very bottom piece which I then used as a bowl for the flowers. The vase doesn’t look so much like an lady with her hands on her hips this time .

Birthday Card

Coloured Vase

Patterned Paper

Flower Bowl

Cloisonné Circle

This is the last of the four stamps I’ve just been bought. There’s a great example on the website showing this as a necklace which I think I shall definitely have to try. I fancy it on Stampbord. I cut the base card out of hammered lilac card using another Christmas gift – a Grand Calibur – and then re-did my homework! I cut another couple of strips of cream card which I then coloured with a purple ink pad. One of these I punched with a ribbon punch and threaded a pale lilac ribbon through the holes. The other had some multi-coloured stripy ribbon glued to it and all corners rounded.

I stamped the Cloisonné Circle onto cream card and then cut it out and layered it with Nesties. The flourishes were cut from the remnants of the A4 base card and all edges inked with purple. I stamped the circle one more time onto black shrink plastic using Opalite ink which wouldn’t dry! So, I dipped it in clear embossing powder and very gently, from a distance, heated it so that the powder would start to melt before the shrink started curling up on itself. I like the way it turned out, sorry the photo doesn’t show it very well. BTW, I cut this with the circle Nestie too – it cut very easily.

Circle Card

Layered DieCuts

Shrink Plastic

Shows truer lilac colour

Rust, Gold & Ivory

Well, three challenges in one day! I have only ever entered one before, a couple of years ago – don’t know what’s come over me

This one is from StampTV, perhaps it was the colour choice that appealed to me – or perhaps it was the need to make a card for my brother-in-law encouraged a bit of killing two birds with one stone.

I stamped and gold embossed this ducky stamp from Crafty Individuals onto a rust card stock and then die cut it with Nestability Eyelet Squares. Another of the same die cuts was layered behind the first to make the medallion shape. I stamped and embossed just the small square portions of the image onto the same card, layered it onto gold holographic (which looks much more colourful on here due to the flash) and then again onto rust card.

A strip of rust card was covered with gold ribbon and adhered to the ivory base card and gold brads were used to help keep it in place. The small squares were mounted on 3D foam pads for dimension.

Small squares

Ducky stamp

Simple Greetings

At the Sir Stampalot Challenge Blog they’re asking “let your imagination run riot and show us what you will be sending out to friends and family this Christmastime”. Well, I’ve been making loads of different Christmas Cards for the past few months but I have to say that I’m really enamoured with this very simple (and quick, and easy, and flat – therefore easy to post!!!) card. I got the idea from GinaK at StampTV and followed her directions using a couple of distress ink pads to sweep across the page and then the trees from Clarity Stamps stamped in black ink.

I highlighted the trees and other areas with a little glitter and will probably use a lot of different sentiments at the base on future versions of this. I can’t decide if I like it better on the black or the white – obviously I had to use a white card for the image before mounting it on the black, the other was directly onto the card itself. The white card is recycled and has ‘bits’ in it which was a little challenging to stamp on. This is a very quick project – especially if there’s no layering to do – but I do love the result.

On white recycled

On black

Close-up

Non Sequitur Xmas

At Stamp Club last night I showed the ladies how to do this technique. Some had done it before and it was a nice reminder about how great it can look, others did it for the very first time and produced some fabulous results.

The basic instructions I gave: Stamp an image twice onto plain cardstock. I originally said to choose a ‘busy’ design but then, after researching, found that simple designs look just as impressive.

Choose which bit of the image you want to ‘spotlight’ (I took some Fiskars Shape Templates with me which, when laid over the stamped images, helped to choose the best area and the preferred shape for this), colour either the main, large image and mount the spotlighted piece on top leaving it white, or leave the main image white and colour just the small piece. Either way looks good.

The spotlight should be raised using 3D pads, placed exactly over the matching bit below it and preferably edged with either ink or a second layer of a contrast coloured card cut very close in size.

These 6 photos show the samples I took with me to give them ideas – the last two are not yet mounted onto cards but will certainly be going to someone this coming Christmas. My previous examples of this technique can be found here.

Noel

Mackintosh Bauble by Elusive Images

Tim Holtz stamp - image coloured with inkpads dtp

Trimming the Tree

Yet to be finished!

Our Grandbaby, Millie

Our very first grandchild was born on Saturday, June 19th. Millie arrived 5 weeks early and is very tiny and, currently, full of tubes and monitors and is living in the special baby care unit. Because it was a surprise, I was not ready with a card so had to make one in a hurry.

I had recently bought this cute embossed paper, pink and blue in a package, with lots of little feet all over it. This was going to be the base of the card. Inside I used another piece of pink card – this spiral pop-up technique really needs the extra support of the inner card. I have this lovely baby border stamp which I decided to use around all the edges of the inner card so, to help with placement, I got out my stamp positioner. The acrylic piece which comes with this wasn’t big enough for this border stamp so I used a bit of a plastic lid which I’d saved from the recycling bin.

Pretty feet card

Border stamp

Stamp positioner

Inside

I kept with the same ink colour throughout, an Adirondack pad in a colour which I thought toned nicely with all the pinkness. The stamp-positioner did help to space the border equally around the card and I considered colouring it in but decided it would be far too busy if I did (plus, I’m no good at colouring!).

I have been buying the odd ‘baby’ stamp for the past few months so had plenty to choose from. The letters which spell out BABY are from Elusive Images and the clothes and accessories I used are Non Sequitur stamps which I have actually had for several years but rarely get a chance to use.

Inside stamped

Choosing stamps

Stamped in Wild Plum

B*A*B*Y

I stamped all of these onto yet more pink card and then cut them out and embossed them using the Wizard and Scalloped Circle Nestabilities. I used that same Wild Plum ink to edge the circles using an ink applicator tool and then stuck them back-to-back.

Cut out images

Coloured with Wild Plum

This card was featured at Splitcoast Stampers but, if you Google the term ‘Spiral Pop-up’ you will find many other tutorials. I used a large plain Nestie to cut a circle of card and then made that into a spiral. 3M’s quick dry adhesive did a lovely job of sticking the ends of the spiral to the card though glue dots work very well too. I used the same glue to stick the double-sided letters to the spiral and then added a few random embellishments. I had already stuck the inner card to the outer but, on reflection, it might have been a good idea to attach the spiral with glue and a brad – the legs of which could then be hidden between these two layers.

Inside

Inside again

...and again

Front

For the front I used this pretty stamp which is actually a Christmas image but just epitomises a mother and child so nicely I couldn’t resist it. I stamped it a couple of times on watercolour paper, coloured it lightly and then masked the image whilst I air-brushed with two different colours and sprayed with gold glimmer mist to add a lovely shine. I cut it with a labels Nestie, layered on some burgundy foiled card which I also embossed with a floral pattern and then the last layer was self-adhesive glitter card. I glued the layers together and then added the brads to help reinforce this. There is a decoupaged layer on top of just the mum and baby and then I found this cute pram topper in my stash. I also added some beads on wire with Millie’s name spelled out.

Front image

Front

'Millie' beads

Our baby

Dad's first hold of his baby

Sooooo tiny

and so pretty!

She does have hair!

Main image

A very good friend of ours, one of our GoldWing buddies, was sixty in December so I decided to make him a special card. It took me hours just looking through all our photographs to find suitable ones to use on the Tri-Shutter Card – partly because I get sidetracked very easily and get involved in reminiscing rather than just researching!

So, I did find plenty of photos I could use and noticed a theme or two running through them – he’s either eating or has got his arms round someone.

I won’t go into details of how the card was made, it’s readily available on the net and I’ve posted another version myself once before (see here) with links in that post to where I got the instructions from originally.

They can be made any size really, I usually prefer a shorter card but this time, because I’d got a lot of piccies I couldn’t choose between, I went for almost a full A4 piece of card to begin with.

I matted all the photos onto paper rectangles which I had rounded the corners of using my Corner Chomper, the papers were mainly  from a coordinating paper stack in manly colours with some hand-made paper on the front which I coloured with complementary inks. The ’60′ on the front was cut out with a Nestie circle and then layered up onto a couple of larger ones, this hangs from some tartan ribbon threaded through the paper using my paper tagger. (It is true that she who dies with the most gadgets wins, isn’t it?)

The sentiment was printed onto the photo paper alongside all the pictures, as were the ’60′ digits, and cut out with Nestability scalloped ovals before being stacked-up with 3d foam between for a bit of depth. I used a flourish on the back to wind between some photos, and a few brads and other embellishments here and there.

I’ve mentioned before that these hairy biker types do love to dress up! You can see that in some of these photos – if it’s not fancy dress (e.g. Halloween and Burns Night) then it’s proper fancy dress in the kilt! I’ve added a couple of extra photos showing that they really were in focus! When I crop the pictures and then blow-up the photos again they lose a lot of definition, the actual ones on the card were all sharp and clear, honest!

Front of Card

Back of card

Burns Night

Hair for once!

With his wife

More eating!

Back panel

Nesties for sentiment

With Barbara again

Derek & Barbara

With other Girls

Walker Tartan

Kilted

Dressed to cook?

Star Book

The afternoon session saw Gloria and Sue swap places and Sue proceeded to show us how to make this fabulous Star Book.

Again, we didn’t know what we were due to produce but had duly brought along ‘themed’ stamps as directed. My theme was ‘Christmas’, Jan’s was ‘Faces’. Others you can probably recognise if you look through the slide show on the previous post, Workshop part 1.

We were given a neat little package with all the card and paper cut to the proper sizes – makes life so much easier! Step 1 was to cover the outside boards with some lovely papers and leave aside, pegged/clamped, to dry thoroughly.

The seven main cards, seven middle cards and then the seven inner-most pages were all folded in half before we set about decorating the inner pages. I used stamps mainly from the Non Sequitur plate 64 – Winter Holidays with the odd snowflake from a Stamps Away montage set. I added a little colour to the pages with sponges before stamping – red to depict xmas and black for all the images and then edged in green. Unfortunately, the stamp pad shredded whilst I was doing the edging (I’m not sure I’d even used it before this occasion) and dropped little green blobs of sponge on the pages here and there. Of course, when I came to blow these bits off, they smudged! What a mess, I shall probably have to go in later and see if I can disguise them.

I added a small square stud to each page for continuity (or because I’d brought them along and felt I should use them!)  and then went back to the outer boards and taped some ribbon along both pieces for the closure/hanger. Then it was time to stick the dark folded card onto the outside boards. The lighter grey was next and then the decorated pages. It’s a lovely item, would make a great gift and, once again, I’m inspired to make these in lots of different themes.

As before, I’ll put a the photos below. If you choose to view as a slideshow then you can see them full screen size by clicking the bottom right-hand button. These are mainly of my book but there’s one showing Jan’s ‘faces’ and another close up of a pretty floral one.

Star Book Oct 09

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