Vintage Apothecary Card

Hi Girls,

I am actually excited to share this card with you today! I am sooo happy with how it turned out!

This card is for a dear friend Val’s birthday today and I’ve made it to match this tin that I made some time ago which was actually designed by Michelle Martin

But back to the card for a moment:

On a base of Chocolate Chip Cardstock, I’ve used vanilla textured cardstock and my Soft Suede ink to create this vintage ”tea-stained” look.  The textured cardstock is key here! I’ve stamped the background using a large stamp from the Bliss SAB set (retired) and the round medallion stamp from Artistic Etchings in Soft Suede.  Then I’ve inked using my stampin’ sponge and soft suede ink in a circular motion from the edges inwards.

After stamping the same pattern on a separate piece of vanilla textured CS, but BEFORE inking, I’ve embossed over the top in white using my Apothecary Art stampset and THEN inked in the same way as before creating an emboss-resist effect – and cut it out using the matching framelit.

My ribbon is Night of Navy, as is the Happiest Birthday sentiment. My button is vintage from my stash and I’ve threaded it with Early Espresso Baker’s Twine.

My ever-present Newsprint DSP is in there too!

Here is a close up of the texture:

Ooh I could look at this all day! LOL Don’t you just love emboss resist?

Ok so this is the birthday card, and I had to create a set of other cards to fill the tin as the actual gift:

Val loves Paris, so I just had to use the Eiffel Tower image from Artistic Etchings.  Ive used all the same techniques to make this card, but used a base of Night of Navy cardstock.  My sentiment is from Perfect Punches – I love how that stamp set matches the scallop oval punch perfectly!

And another second design:

And the insides of all the cards:

Here is a close up again of the tin:

And the inside with the cards and envelopes – and a space for a pen too:

So if you don’t like vintage, you probably didn’t enjoy this post much! But if, like me you just adore this worn vintage look – I hope you liked!

Thanks for stopping by!

Saying Thank You with a Sailing Tin

Today was a little sad for me as I bid farewell to my bosses who are going overseas on Wednesday, and as I am leaving my position at intangible on Thursday, today was the last day we would work together – and yes it was a wee bit teary

I will be moving on to a very exciting position at Westbury Textiles next week, but for now I want to share the special gift I made Peter, who is, needless to say very passionate about his sailing and as it turns out, his liquorice!

Here is the tin decorated in sailing blues:

I’ve used Not Quite Navy, Very Vanilla and Newsprint DSP along with Well Worn DSP – And liberal amounts of shimmer mist!!! My Sailing image is stamped with versamark, a quick tap on the NQN stamp pad and then embossed with clear powder.  It’s subtle but has a nice feel to it.

My So Grateful is from the Apothecary Art stamp set.  And don’t you just love the mini brads in the corners of the framelit?

And a close up of the detail:

And inside? Darrell Lee of course!

Here is the accompanying card:

Oh Framelits how did I ever do without you? LOL

I’ll be back later this week to show you the tin I made for Joan my other boss – a little more girly and not filled with sugar they way this one was!!!

Baby Spice (Cake)

Did I get your attention? LOL – During school holidays I worked on a really enjoyable project for Laurenz’s year 1 teacher, who is with him again in Year 2  for a few short weeks before she goes off on maternity leave preparing for the arrival of her first baby.  She has been a gem of a teacher and supportedmy oldest boy’s thirst for knowledge and endless working mind in a way that I will appreciate for ever – so I had this idea to create a set of baby shower invites for her and package them in one of my favourite silver tins.  Then I started to worry that by the times school began she may have planned her shower or decided not to have one…

So I decided to create a set of 10 thank you cards with stamped envelopes instead, with an invite insert that could be glued over the top if that was what she wanted to do… A kind friend (Thanks K) loaned me her Baby Bundle stamp set and I teamed it with the Spice Cake DSP from the Summer Mini. I think the result is a really vintage-y kind of baby feel.

Here is what I came up with:

The Multi Purpose Card

The Inside and Insert

The Tin

I knew I wanted to water colour the prams after I saw this card from Lianne Carper over at www.cardscraps.com – I loved the water colouring and the way she had cut out and propped up the pram, heart and wheels on dimensionals - the wheels, bears and love hearts were coloured directly with markers.  I used SU watercolour paper for the best results, and coloured with my aquapainter and ink from the lid of my inkpads.  The old olive dots were directly coloured with the writing end of my marker for precision colouring!

My Water Colouring

My basic colour scheme of pool party, old olive, early espresso and very vanilla with a hint of pumpkin pie is inspired directly from the DSP – this is a sure-fire way to guarantee success in your projects – let stampin up do the hard work of colour coordination for you!!!

I copied the basic layout of the cards for the tin cover and added the word BABY using my timeless junior alphabet dies and big shot.  The buttons on my project are all vintage – from Mum’s collection that she kindly handed down to me when I embarked on card making a few years ago – they remind me of my child hood and I love using them on my projects

What else can I tell you? Making gifts for people is one of my favourite things to do – this set was truly a labour of love (no pun intended)!

Hope you enjoyed looking over my project – I’d love to hear from you if you have any questions about the techniques I’ve used – until next time!

Everyday Enchantment DSP Butterflies

I have one of my favourite scrapbook layouts on proud display in my craft room – see this post for a look (not that my Craft Room looks as empty as this anymore!) - and it features a butterfly (or two) created by using a variety of DSP patterns and my Fiskars Butterfly Template and Cutting Tool.  I haven’t made one of these butterflies for a while thanks to my addiction to my Stampin’ Up! Beautiful Butterfly Die – but I decided to pull it out again when I received my SAB free Everyday Enchantment DSP – its divine! I’ve added a bit of Newsprint DSP for interest too…

The base of my card is Soft Suede – but it looks a little chocolatey here doesn’t it? I’ve used a string of pearls to decorate the body of my butterfly, and cut my DSP banner using my petal cone die.  I’ve embossed my Happy Birthday sentiment with White Embossing Powder. I’d have preferred Vanilla EP but the White blends ok…

I just love the dimension created when you build up all of those lovely layers with stampin dimensionals!

And the inside of the card needed to be special too. I’ve run a piece of Cream Confetti card through the Tulip Embossing folder and generously inked the edges with Soft Suede.  I tore the side of my Newsprint DSP, inked it up and hid a piece of the Everyday Enchantment underneath – love this look!

And finished it off with three adhesive pearls in the top right corner.

Yep this card is detailed – it took a while – it was soooo fun to make – and it’s for a special woman who I met through this wonderful craft and proudly call my friend.

She is featured in the layout below which I created for her birthday this week – next to another special woman – Mrs Shelli Gardner who is of course the co-founder of Stampin’ Up!…

I wanted to show you a closeup of the emboss resist butterflies (SU die) that I have embellished the LO with…

They came by accident actually – I originally intended them to be just embossed Very Vanilla, after embossing the flower design from Friends Never Fade in Iridescent Ice EP, gluing the Very Vanilla Cardstock to chipboard and running them through the Big Shot with the beautiful butterflies die.

Then I inked the edges in Pool Party Classic Ink and OH MY! Of course the embossed section resisted the ink and started to look really cool – so I kept going and added some lucky limeade too.  I am so pleased at how they turned out!

And rather than a large title on my LO I decided to go with a sentiment which is from the Hostess Stamp Set Perfect Words – I love that this sentiment describes either or both women in the LO .

And here is the end product – I framed the LO in a White Ribba frame from ikea – The best shadow boxes on the market in my opinion!  See how I overlap some elements onto the Mat inside frame? – The cut out is just smaller than 12 x 12 inch so I just adhered the layout to the back of the mat, and re-attached some of the elements on top. Now this was quite nerve racking because once sticky strip is adhered, there is no going back! I think next time I will buy the frame first and complete the layout in place!

Michelle, Happy Birthday! Hope you like it! And to everyone else, thanks for making it down to the end of this very long post!!!! If you’ve got any questions about the techniques I’ve featured in these projects don’t hesitate to leave a comment or drop me an email…

Petal Cone Tips – Tutorial for alternate sizes and DSP Matting

Hi Girls,

I’ve gathered together a few tips to get the most out of your petal cone die – here is my first example:

This is one of the teacher gifts I created on our Toodyay Weekend – with of course a matching card.  And a close up of the detail:

If you are wondering how I got the stamped images so shiny and deliciously glittery, I stamped in versamark, tapped on Cherry Cobbler Ink (or Old Olive), stamped and then embossed using the new Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder from the Summer Mini. I love the result!

And the matching card:

I’d like to share an easy way to cut out the triangle mats in DSP that I’ve covered each side of my petal cone with:

Cut a strip of your DSP to 11.5cm (your length will depend on how many triangles you want to cut.  My example is A4 length and it gives me enough mats for two cones.

Next measure along the top side and mark at 6.5cm intervals – so at 6.5, 13, 19.5, 26

Next measure along the bottom side and mark at 3.25, then 6.5cm intervals (9.75, 16.25, 22.75, 29.25.

Next you can draw the lines if you like, but I usually just line up the markings on my trim and chop up my triangles.

Easy!

Ok next tip is how to change the shape of your petal cone into a little “chinese takeaway” type box:

Here is my first example:

So as you can see for this size which is a little taller, you first score a line 6cm from crease mark at the top of your cone, and then cut at 8cm (this will leave you a 2cm flap to secure the bottom of your box.  If you want a longer overlap on the bottom maybe for a stronger box, you could leave a 2.5cm gap before cutting offf (at 8.5cm). These measurements will result in a 6cm high box with a smaller base.

And for another example:

This one is is a shorter style, and this is achieved just by scoring and cutting at different measurements.  These measurements will result in a 5cm high box.

I’d just like to shout out to Michelle from ministamper.com who taught me the basics of both of these techniques

Hope you liked my tips and if you have any questions just drop me an email or give me a call!

Bingo – Stampin’ Up! Style

Hi Girls,

I am excited to share something a little different with you today… Last weekend I had a fantastic crafting weekend at Avalon Homestead in Toodyay and this was one of the projects on my list that i had to try…A Bingo Game using Jolly Bingo Bits and the Bingo Background stamp, with a game spinner from Stampin’ Up!

I started by decorating a metal tin with the Bingo stamp and a few glittery snowflakes, and then created 4 game cards (all using a different combination of stamped imges from Jolly Bingo Bits), a Game Spinner using the Penants Builder Punch and a Game Spinner, and then matchboxes to house a set of counters that I ordered from eBay.

I love these colours for Christmas – I’ve taken my cue from a “boyish” sheet of Letters to Santa DSP with Marina Mist, Early Espresso and Old Olive.  “Boyish” becuase I made this game for Laurenz and Kyan and they have been playing ever since! Here are some other pics:

I love thinking outside of the box and trying projects other than Cards and Scrapbook Pages – hope this inspires you too!

Kyan’s Carnival Birthday

Hi Girls,

Well as promised, here are the other projects I created for Kyan’s recent 5th Birthday which just happened to be a Big Top Carnival Theme:

First – the cake.  Now I had many a friend suggest cake designs or indeed send me links on facebook (smile) of amazing big top cake creations – but look – my talents are far more comfortably spent on paper craft – not cake craft! LOL

So instead I had the Cake Factory whip up this Icing Sheet using an image from Big Top Birthday DSP and I baked a quick Vanilla Sponge to show it off:

The colouring of the icing was just a perfect match to the colouring on the icing sheet – all in all I was pretty happy with it

And for the party favours I used the petal cone die and Big Top Birthday DSP – Kyan’s had a special Happy Birthday embellishment and the other 20 had the thanks embosslit as their embellishment:

And I created this little scrapbook page to display next to the favours:

I will pop back soon and post his very simple but effective birthday card – I’ve just realized that I haven’t photographed it yet! Until then,

Cupcake Toppers Made Easy

With Adhesive sheets!!! This is my first go at a cupcake topper attempt – and as I had 24 of them to make to send to Laurenz’s class today ahead of his 7th Birthday on Tuesday, I needed a quick easy method for sticking them together… So I turned to my ever so versatile, trusty Bigshot Multi-Purpose Adhesive Sheets – my goodness is there anything this product can’t do???

I’ve used my much loved retired stamp from SAB Punch Bunch but you could use any stamp that will fit in a punch!

First I attached a sheet of whisper White Cardstock to an adhesive sheet, then stamped 24 times using Tangerine Tango ink.

Then I stamped onto just a Whisper White sheet in Pacific Point (no adhesive on this one), and punch all the images out.

Then it was as simple as peeling off the adhesive backing off the TTango, placing a toothpick onto it (it sticks in place so well!) and then add the PPoint punchy on top, squeezing with fingers.  No Glue, No Mess! Love it!

Here is the finished lot:

Cute eh?

Thanks for stopping by!

A Special Gift for My Mum

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I Love My Mum I worked long and hard on a special gift for her on Mother’s Day.  I adapted my Mini Card Folder to hold a standard 15 x 10.5 card and envelope – 10 0f them in fact.  The strength of this project is definitely the Autumn Spice Card Stock Weight DSP featured in the new Autumn Winter Mini Catty from Stampinup… the colours are SO my Mum!

The reverse:

From the side with all the cards and envelopes stacked inside:

Remove the belly band:

Open the folder out:

Mum’s Mother’s Day Card:

Other Stamp Sets Used – retired Greetings Eight

Button – Vintage

Card 1 with Envelope

Other Stamp Sets Used – On your Birthday

Button – Vintage

Card 2 with Envelope

Other Stamp Sets Used – On your Birthday

Card 3 with Envelope

Perfect Punches

Card 4 with Envelope

Other Stamp Sets Used – Just Believe

Card 5 with envelope

Other stamp sets used:On Your Birthday, Pendant Park

Buttons Vintage

Card 6 with envelope

Other Stamp Sets Used: Word Play

Card 7 with envelope

Other Stamp Sets Used: On Your Birthday , Vine and Blossom Wheel

Card 8 with envelope

Other Stamp Sets Used: Perfect Punches

Card 9 with envelope

Other Stamp Sets Used: Perfect Punches

Card 10 with Envelope

Other Stamp Sets Used: Pendant Park, Word Play

I set out to keep these cards really simple and let the DSP speak for itself – what do you think? If you have any questions about any of the products I’ve used don’t hesitate to drop me a line

Thanks so much for stopping by – I am so excited to share that my little ole blog clocked over 10,000 hits last week – how exciting!

Clearly For You Birdhouse 3D

A great group of stamping friends gathered at my place on Saturday for an afternoon of craft and chatting – in honour of the new SU Autumn Winter Mini.  This is the project (or very similar to) that we created first:

The birdhouse template came from a cute little website for kids called craftideas4kids – so easy when you can print something straight onto your cardstock!

Colour Combo – Sahara Sand, Pacific Point, Very Vanilla

I designed this project to highlight the great new stamp set Clearly For You – which I chose because I fell in love with the little birdies!  It coordinates with the New Bevelled Window Panes that are acrylic and Oh So Cute! Aren’t they stylish?

I love the way my Spiral Border Punch finishes off the roof on my little birdhouse

I’d like to show you another of my projects that I displayed for the launch – this cute as gift box featuring the Sew Suite colours, stamps, DSP and Pom Pom Ribbon:

I am going to add a selection of birthday cards and gift cards and give this to a work friend (who happens to be a fabulous seamstress) as a gift – here are a couple of examples:

I just love the pure girliness of these papers and sewing images

 

Pop back again soon for some more projects using my favourite products in the new Mini – check the catalogue out for yourself by clicking on the catty in the sidebar.

Thanks for stopping by!