Waltzingmouse Camellias

Good evening! I have another card to share with you today, this time using the lovely Camellia stamp set from Waltzingmouse stamps.

I started with a six inch square white card blank and stamped one of the smaller flowers repeatedly using Memento Gray Flannel ink. The sentiment was stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto a stitched jumbo fishtail banner which I cut using a Die-namics die from My Favourite Things - I then added this to the card with foam pads. The large camellia flower head, bud, leaves and stem were all stamped separately in the black ink onto smooth white card, coloured with Inktense pencils then blended with a wet paintbrush. I was lucky enough to receive the Inktense pencils as a gift from a friend - thank you Penny, they are lovely and vibrant!

I fussy cut everything out and shaped the leaves and petals. It's difficult to see in the photo, but I coated the leaves with Glossy Accents, before leaving them to dry overnight. The camellia spray was assembled using clear foam pads and for the final touch I added three small red gems.

This card is now winging it's way to a dear friend in Somerset - I hope she will like it!

Thanks for looking,

Lynn

Papertrey Ink Make it Monday # 159: No-Sew quilted cards (Part 2).

Welcome back to part two of my entries for the PTI Make It Monday challenge # 159!

Here my third card also used a 6" square kraft card blank and a slightly smaller square of the same kraft card. I added the patchwork paper squares as before and embossed the panel using the "Happy Hexagons" cover plate. I selected Scarlet Jewel ribbon and matching card to die cut a fancy label with the Boutique Borders Birthday die. The fancy flourishes and Thank You sentiment from the matching stamp set were stamped with Versamark ink and heat embossed using Zing "Blush" embossing powder. Once again the sentiment panel was added to the card front with foam pads.

 

Please see the next post for my final card in this series.

Papertrey Ink Make It Monday # 159: No-Sew Quilted Cards (Part 1).

Last week over on the Papertrey Ink blog http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capture_the_moment/2014/04/make-it-monday-159-no-sew-quilted-cards.html Dawn McVey showed how to make faux quilted cards by forming a patchwork effect with squares of patterned paper and embossing using Texture plates. This technique looked like a lot of fun so I decided to play along today and I ended up making four different cards. I started out by cutting a selection of Papertrey Ink patterned papers into 1.5" squares.

As usual you may click on any of the photos to see the cards in more detail. 

 

For my first card I used a 6" square kraft card blank and stuck some of the patterned paper squares onto another square of kraft card using double sided tape. I then embossed the patchwork panel in my Grand Calibur using the "In Bloom" cover plate. I took a length of Simply Chartreuse dotty ribbon and used it to cover the join where I'd had to use the cover plate twice. The panel was stuck to the card blank with double sided tape and I stamped the "make the world beautiful" sentiment (from the "Wonderful Words Friends stamp set) below in black dye ink. Finally I die cut the corresponding "Friends" word die with a scrap of Simply Chartreuse card and stuck it just above the ribbon line using Ranger Glossy Accents.  

 

 

 

My second card uses similar coloured patterned papers and a 5" x 7" white card blank. This time I stuck the paper squares directly to the card front, then embossed it with the "Happy Hexagons" cover plate.  I used some Simply Chartreuse plain satin ribbon and a fancy label shape diecut from matching card, then used black dye ink to stamp the two flourishes and the Birthday Sentiment from the "Boutique Borders Birthday" stamp set. The sentiment panel was added to the card with foam pads to give some dimension.

 

Please see my next post for details of my other cards (I needed to do seperate posts in order to be able to link up to the challenge on the Papertrey Ink blog).

 

 

Happy Mother's Day and Cure for the Monday Blues Challenge #10

This is my second post today, please scroll down to see my Sunday Stamper #300 card.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mums and Grandmothers out there! I think that this is the first year that my daughter has been away from home for Mother's Day and I am missing her a lot! She is away at University in Kent, but was sweet enough to send me a beautiful card, a copy of "The Great British Sewing Bee" book and a pretty bunch of roses - I am a lucky Mum! We will probably Skype later on and catch up with all the news and I am very much looking forward to her coming home for Easter.

 

Over on Taheerah Atchia's blog http://littlemisst-papercraft.blogspot.com/2014/03/cure-for-monday-blues-challenge-10.html the current Cure for the Monday Blues challenge #10 is running. The inspiration photo this week is of a gorgeous blue and white bedroom with pops of bright pink and orange colours.

 

 

Source Pinterest.

 

I decided to make a card using some of my beloved Chocolate Baroque stamps, Papertrey Ink coloured card and ink and Memory Box dies. I probably have more Chocolate Baroque and Elusive Images stamps than any other brand, as I used to be on the Design Team for Elusive Images, before they became Chocolate Baroque. I love their designs and the grey rubber stamps are always really deeply etched and are wonderful to work with.

 

I loved the flowered wallpaper, the bright quilt and the textured rug in the inspiration photo, so that's what I went with.

 

 

Here is my finished card. As usual, you may click on any of the photos to enlarge them for a better view. This blog post is photo heavy, as I actually remembered to take step by step photos this time!

 

 

This is the gorgeous big stamp which I chose to use for the wallpaper background. I masked off the top of a white card blank and stamped directly onto the card using Papertrey Spring Rain ink.

 

Then I used an acrylic block as a palette, stamping the inkpad onto it and using a fine waterbush to pick up the colour and watercolour the flowers and leaves. I tried to shade the underside of the petals and leaves so that they would look a bit darker.

 

 

This was painstaking, but I was thrilled with the finished result! The photo below shows the background after I had finished watercolouring it.

 

 

The photo below shows the selection of bright Papertrey Ink card that I picked out (Spring Rain, Orange Zest and Hibiscus Burst), together with matching Zing embossing powders (Grapefruit and Apricot), Versamark ink, a Memory Box Tessatina border die and a small elephant stamp from a larger A4 Chocolate Baroque stamp set (UA4GW0157 - originally released in 2007 by Elusive Images).  

 

 

I used the Versamark ink to stamp two of the elephant images onto the Orange Zest card and very carefully applied the Grapefruit pink embossing powder to the decorative blankets on each of the elephants' backs. I then added the Apricot embossing powder to the remaining areas and heat set them.

 

 

Each elephant was then fussy cut out - I used a craft knife and cutting mat to cut out the area around the trunks.

 

 

 

I used my Grand Calibur to cut out the Tessatina dies twice - once from Spring Rain card and once from the same white card as my card blank base. I pushed out all of the small inner pieces from the white die cut, then added a strip of strong, red lined tape at the rear. Then I took the small inner pieces from the blue die cut and inserted them into the spaces on the white one, using tweezers. You can just see the red tape underneath in the above photo.

 

 

 

I cut a strip of Hibiscus Burst card (to represent the bright quilt in the inspiration photo), mounted it towards the bottom of my card blank, then added the embossed elephants using foam pads for added dimension. The Tessatina border die cut was added beneath this to mimic the rug - I think it looks like the elephants are strolling along a decorative path!  

 

 

 

I needed a sentiment and decided to use the same Hibiscus Burst card to cut some letters from a Memory Box alphabet die set, to spell out the word "hello". I adhered these letters to the top right of my card using small dabs of Ranger Glossy Accents. As there are some large letters hanging over the wallpaper in the inspiration photo I thought that these would be ideal.

 

 

 

Finally I used some more of the Glossy Accents to highlight each letter and give it a nice glossy, dimensional finish.

 

 

I must say that I am very pleased with how this turned out! Although it was very time consuming, I am looking forward to doing the same watercolouring technique on some more of the big background stamps as I think it looks really effective. Thanks for reading this far!

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is Thanksgiving in the USA, so I'd like to wish all my American friends a very happy Thanksgiving - I am truly thankful for you all!

Earlier this week I made this autumnal themed thank you card for a friend in America who had kindly sent me some lovely crafting goodies.

I started with a square black card blank and added a layer of black and cream paper from Graphic 45's Steampunk Spells Patterns & Solids pad. Another layer of cream card was added with a stamped sentiment from the Waltzingmouse "Blessed By You" stamp set (I actually used parts of two different sentiments to get this particular combination). I embossed a small square of Core'dinations Chocolate Box collection card using a Tim Holtz Alterations Texture Fades embossing folder by Sizzix and sanded the card to reveal the coloured core inside. The oak and acorn wreath and sprigs from "Peace and plenty" by Waltzingmouse stamps were stamped onto cream card using black Memento ink. I coloured all the images with Copic Ciao markers and cut them out by hand before mounting them onto the card front using foam pads. Finally I highlighted all the acorns by giving them a coat of Ranger's Glossy Accents.

The photo above doesn't really do justice to the card as the colours were much brighter in real life. Poor daylight in the winter in England isn't really conducive to photography! I hope my friend liked it though.