Project 364: Modern Nordic greetings for Christmas

I am playing around with Christmas ideas and I wanted to make some simple cards that featured these big Tim Holtz script greetings I bought earlier this year.

Last year I bought some Nordic-themed paper for a specific project and I have a bunch left over. I thought they would be a great backdrop to the greetings and, because they're so fun and patterned, very little else was needed.

I die cut all my greetings up front and then played around with what went where. Because the papers are so busy I decided to back them on some colored blocks - all scraps. Score.

The headline is a fun one, and all I added was some bling to dot the j and i in the greeting.

This one I kept really simple, not even adding the bling.

An alternative one here, I got a bit of a scummy glue stain on the 'snow' so I covered it in glitter. Bit weird, but I decided to go with it. It was better than the smudged glue stain!

Finally this one features a different sentiment, a Dieversions Let it snow die that I got much earlier this year. It is much smaller than the other ones so I used a small scrap of the green paper and cut down a small white card as a base, using a red card scrap with a corrgated scrap to make it stand out. Using scraps and creating some fun new things - WIN.

Project 363: Preppy Christmas cards

I had tried my basket weave embossing folder on some die cut Christmas trees to see if the texture worked and decided to try something a bit different. I looked through my box of cut dies and found these double stitched rings from Claire. I picked out pink, navy and red ones as I thought they could work with the lovely green of the trees.

For the headline, I used a sentiment set that Claire gifted me (from a prize draw was it? or Cheiron?) as I thought the really long headline worked well in the landscape format. I added little colored enamel dots to make it preppy and modern.

For some, I used a small ring and cut the card down to a short rectangle and used an alternative greeting from the same set.

And I had to show this: as I was moving one of the red ones to dry I dropped it and some of the enamel dots smudged. I was so cross! So I had a look at what I had in my little bag of Christmas tricks and used some punched snowflakes that are from 4 or 5 years ago when we did about 100 cards that had punched snowflakes from photo paper and dotted them around to cover the smudges.

As I already had everything die cut they were really easy - I made 5 in about 8 minutes!

Project 362: An owl balloon birthday

Today is my dear friend Paloma's birthday and to celebrate I gave her a little owl card. I used the Stampin' Up owl punch on some beautiful metallic papers to get the owl body and the eyes are topped with glitter dots to give further accent.

The balloons are done using a stitched circle die from scraps on my desk.  I decided it was more fun this way, and I had seen this Pinterest card and thought the circle balloons were really nice and decided to CASE it. I didn't draw on little owl hands, I tried and it looked weird so I just thought I'd have the balloons come toward the owl without him holding on.

I added white paper thread as the balloon strings and a few little punched hearts to the balloon, just for added bling. I used new alphabet stamps for the sentiment but didn't line them up properly so they look a bit wonky. Oops. Oh well.

A really CAS card and one that is going to make her happy. x

Project 361: A shaker cake 30th card

My brother in law turned 30 recently and I thought he was the perfect recipient for this week's Moving Along with the Times cake challenge hosted by Claire. It's on until the 28th so please be sure to enter!

My image is a Bugaboo digi stamp and I made it quite big and fussy cut it out. I colored the wrapper like a rainbow because I thought it would be a bit of fun to add some color, which then inspired the sprinkle stamp to get used in so many colors. The background is corrugated blue card from Claire and I die cut out the circle to make the shaker. Inside I filled it with multicoloured beads as they reminded me of sprinkles. The sentiment is from a donut set that I have and I thought it was perfect for this card. The bling 30 is from the pound shop, I love their letter stickers.

All in all it's a toy and a card and everyone wants to be reminded that they're really a kid!

Can't wait to see what everyone else has to offer, be sure to join in the birthday fun.

Project 360: A head start on Christmas part 2

This is the second half of my makes from the playdate with Claire. We had a great session and by the end I had blitzed through 11 cards and felt much better about the looming Christmas season.

The headline card was one that came together with some advice from Claire (that I didn't strictly follow!). I had pulled out these little images because she had given them to me as part of a set ages ago and I had just rediscovered them. It was her idea to put them into one long DL card instead of using them individually, which I liked. I backed them against a script printed card sheet that I got at Michael's ages ago.

I used a sentiment that is actually a stack of three words but I masked them off so I could use one on each tag, finding the right ones for each image. This was a super simple card once I had made the decisions and I think it will be a fun one to send out.

These are part of a set that I bought in a sale - a die with three different patterned trees. I used green scraps on my desk and heat embossed the different patterns in white, gold and red. I prefer the gold and white on the dark green the best from all the options. I was originally planning on grouping them together but decided that individually they were much stronger and it meant I got far more cards from my heat-embossing and die-cutting! I added little white enamel accents for snow and a new Merry Christmas greeting that Claire gave me this year from a set she was given. Simple but cute, I think I will be making a lot of these - especially as Claire also gave me the tip of using an embossing folder for texture and then die cutting those...swoon!

Project 359: A head start on Christmas part 1

This post is from the craft date I had with Claire trying to make a few fussy Christmas cards. You want your Christmas cards to look fun and interesting (people expect it when you're a crafter) but then again you don't want every card to take 45 minutes or you'd never get anything else done in the year!

We decided to try a technique where you heat emboss in white and then use your fingers to dip watercolour paint (in this case Distress Ink spritzed with water) to give it a smudgy kind of effect.

The two images I chose were a snowflake set that is new from Claire and one of my oldest Christmas stamps, an owl tree by Little Claire.

For the snowflakes, we heat embossed and then used a couple of blue and purple inks to get the colors. I layered this over purple stock and then used a star border punch from American Crafts for the bottom. I die cut the sentiment from DieVersions and layered it on black card to stand out. It was too busy with the background to get the text on the purple.

The second one used two green inks and I went for a much more dotted look, I intentionally blended less and just built up the color in dots. I kept this one simpler, and added some raffia at the bottom with some bling star stickers at the top. I kept it sentiment free as I didn't think it needed anything.

They took a long time to heat emboss but I think they have a really special effect. Maybe for special friends and relatives only!

Project 358: A stencilled thank you challenge

Claire gave me a new die recently and when I saw the sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch I thought it would be perfect to try out :

The greeting is a die but it only cuts the inside diamond so I had to cut the frame by hand which made me a bit nervous! I had the green scrap on my desk and that was what inspired the rest of the color scheme by layering it behind. I got out a Tim Holtz stencil and used Distress Ink in Cracked Pistachio and Peacock Feathers for the bottom half. There was a tiny smudge when the stencil slipped so I added the yellow ribbon for contrast and decided to go for tiny enamel dots in yellow to add a bit more of an accent. 

I was slow to put it together but really happy with how it came together with all the different techniques. 

Project 357: A CAS congrats card

I needed to make a card for a colleague who is completing an Iron Man challenge. He's tough as nails and I'm really impressed with his training regime - hopefully the race will go as well as he expects!

The layout at Freshly Made Sketches looked great and, when I started looking for the corresponding pieces to build it, the colors I gravitated toward went perfectly with The Color Throwdown this week:

The bicycle is a Sizzix stamp and die set and I layered that over a piece of corrugated turquoise card that was a scrap on my desk. The card was courtesy of Claire, as is the stitched yellow square die. It is the last of my squares that she cut me this summer.

The stamp is Fiskars I think...I've had it for ages and thought it was the perfect size to run the length of the square. The little white dots are enamel accents. I was going to add some more sporadically and then left it clean instead. I decided it was going to be too much.

Project 356: Blended monogram set

Short little post from me today! It's a friend's birthday today but she's super weird about birthdays. Hates them. Doesn't want to recognize them in the slightest. But to do nothing bums her out as well. So we're meeting briefly in a pub for lunch just as a get together for another friend's birthday and then we can sneak cards into her handbag when she isn't looking.

I wanted to make her a little something but she's kind of hard to define with her style. She changes it up a lot and so I can't always keep up! I decided to heat emboss some random stamps that struck my fancy, blend across a full 4x4 square card, adding a little die-cut H in the corner to use her monogram.

Here are the 4:

The stamps are from top left clockwise around: dandelion seeds from Balloon Celebration from Stampin' Up, tiedye splodges by Inkadoo, stars from Balloon Celebrations and Fossil Leaves by Inkadoo. 

The H is a Tim Holtz letter die. 

It took a bit of time to emboss and blend each card but I'm pleaesd with how it came out. 

Project 355: A unique chilli baby card

A friend in the office is having a baby and one of my other colleagues and I conspired to make him the most personal, random baby card. The friend having the baby loves chilli and hot sauce and everything spicy so we decided that had to play a central role.

I created a mobile from paper scraps and some string and then cut out little chillies from scraps on my desk. I glitter glued the red ones and then used enamel accents for the green. I raised them with little foam squares so they would have a 3D effect.

It looked too stark against white so I used kraft card. I'll be honest and say I think the black is too dark and should have used grey or white. Oh well. Never mind. Still the craziest baby card I've ever made!

Project 354: A circle critter card

Some weeks the blog challenges combine to make a winning card. I saw the critter challenge at Retro Rubber and have been going through my stamps and images to find a good one over a year old. The little mouse from Bugaboo has been with me for about 18 months.

I thought he would go perfectly in the sketch from Sketch Saturday:

And that encouraged me to follow the circle challenge at Paper Players.

The background has heat embossed circles in yellow embossing powder and I painted with Cracked Pistachio Distress Ink using an aqua brush.

The paper at the bottom was embossed using a swiss dot folder. The teal paper was a scrap, as was the yellow. The sentiment is from Studio G Mini Flip Flops. I added little enamel dots to complete the sketch.

Really like how this card came together, I like the colors and image and think it makes for a cheerful little birthday card.

Project 353: Color critter stencil card

I saw the color challenge at Color Throwdown and wanted to play along as I really liked the primary color combo.

Then I was stuck. What to do?! So I went throw papers, stamps, all sorts of things and couldn't come up with an idea. Then I decided to get out my stencils and DIY. Much better.

The stencil is by Tim Holtz and I used Candy Apple, Mustard Seed, Mown Lawn and Salty Ocean Distress Ink to blend in. The image and sentiment are from Claire, they are Paper Smooches, with a matching die set, colored in Poppy ProMarker. The sentiment is on a washi tape punch from Claire's collection. Finally a few tiny enamel dots in yellow and green to top it off.

I'm pleased I made the color combo work, it was a bit more challenging thanI thought.