Make It Monday #120: Overlapping Ombre

The Make It Monday challenge at Papertrey Ink this week is to use overlapping ombre on your project. I chose one of the patterns from PTI's stamp set 'Square Prints' to use on my card along with five different ink colours ranging from yellow to brown.

Supplies - card size is 3 1/2" x 5 1/4"
Paper - Colonial White CS (CTMH), Brown & Gold CS (Bazzill)
Stamps - Square Prints, Botanical Silhouettes (PTI)
Ink - Buttercup, Creme Brulee, Goldrush, Autumn Terracotta, Cocoa (CTMH)
Accessories - Pearls (CTMH)

Textures of Nature Challenge

Hello everyone. It has been a while since I have been able to post here. The past nine months have been a long haul with both my father and mother-in-law being ill and passing away. Even though I usually find comfort in my craft room, I needed to take a break from it and regroup. I am very happy to be back.

Next week is release week at Flourishes, and to kick it off they have offered a challenge 'Textures of Nature'. I looked through my stash for things with texture that brought nature to mind. I love the look of ruched satin ribbon - it makes me think of soft, satiny flower petals - so I pulled some 1" cream satin ribbon and ruched it (for instructions on ruching ribbon click here). I also pulled some textured leaf ribbon, a vine and leaf embossing folder and hemp.

Since June is a big wedding month, I decided to create a wedding card. I took a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" piece of Classic Ivory cardstock and embossed the top 2" with my embossing folder. Next I stamped the rest of the piece with a stamp from the Magnolia stamp set in second generation Desert Sand ink and then ran the piece through my cuttlebug with the largest die from the A2 Matting Basics A set. I stamped three extra images of the magnolia flower. I cut one out completely and used this to layer the individual leaves from the leaf ribbon. The second image I cut just the flower and the third image I cut just the center of the flower and then layered all three together, popping the center piece with 3D foam just under the top part and gluing the lower part down. I added my hemp, flower and sentiment and then popped the whole thing onto an A2 card base.

Supplies:
Paper-Classic Ivory CS (Flourishes)
Stamps - Magnolias, Tag Lines (Flourishes)
Ink - Desert Sand (CTMH), Copics E40, E41
Accessories - Leaf Ribbon (May Arts), 1" Satin ribbon (fabric store), Hemp, pearls (CTMH)
Other - Classic Hourglass die (Flourishes), A2 Matting Basics A (Spellbinders), Embossing Folder (Provocraft), 3D foam, needle & thread

Taking a Break

Good morning. Just wanted to let you know that I haven't been able to post here for a while due to an illness and death in the family. Hope to get back to my craft room in the near future. Thanks for stopping by.

Sunny Yellow Baby

I should be doing laundry and preparing to go away next week but really wanted to participate in the  Runway Inspired Challenge - ric#33. I love to see all of the fabulous creations inspired by the couture photos on this blog. I am also entering this card into Flourishes 'Summer Lovin' challenge - to create a card with summer in mind - here I have used the beautiful yellow of the summer sunshine and embossed flowers.

What spoke to me when I saw this photo was the texture in the top, the yellow and black ribbons and of course the beautiful sunny yellow. I started out by inking one side of an embossing folder directly with my ink pad and running it through my cuttlebug to try and recreate the texture of the top. At this stage I didn't really have a clear idea of how I wanted to use this embossed piece but it was so pretty and delicate that I thought it would make a perfect baby card.

Supplies - Standard A2 size
Paper - Sunkiss Yellow CS (CTMH), Neena Solar White
Stamp - Hello Baby (Flourishes)
Ink - Sunkiss Yellow (CTMH), Versa Mark, black embossing powder
Accessories - yellow ribbon (Offray), black waxy flax (CTMH), charm (stash)
Other - Walrus & Carpenter (Couture Creations), bow easy

Summer Gerbers

Summer is coming! At least that's what they tell us, I am still waiting for spring. Woke up to a little snow on the ground this morning, brrrr! Next week is release week at Flourishes and they are offering an opportunity to win all of the new April stamp sets with their challenge 'Summer Lovin' - check it out here. You can be inspired by the beautiful photo below or simply create with summer in mind. 

I decided to use the colours of the inspiration photo and the Gerber Daisy stamp set - nothing says summer to me like beautiful flowers. I used retro sketch rs#57 for my layout.

 

I started this card by colouring the image of the large bouquet of daisies before deciding on a layout. Once I selected the retro sketch I proceeded to cut up the image and after a couple of ooops! cuts ended up with these three image pieces. I think that if I was to do it again I would select slightly different cuts of the full flowers so that each one was different - didn't have time to colour any more flowers so went with what I had. I coloured in the white space around each flower with a black copic.

Here is the inspiration photo and sketch

Supplies: Card is standard A2 size
Paper - DP - Miss Nelly (Kaiserkraft), Neena Solar White CS, Black CS
Stamps - Gerber Daisy, Tag Lines (Flourishes)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics - Black, R81, 83, 85, 89, YG01, 13, 17, 93, 95, 97
Accessories - Black hemp (CTMH)
Other - Corner rounder, 3D foam

Collage Elements - Make It Monday #110

I have been wanting to play along with Make It Monday at Nicole Heady's blog (Papertrey Ink) for a while. I was so excited to receive my first order from Papertrey Ink yesterday and started on a card first thing this morning. The Make It Monday challenge this week is to create a stamped collage on your card. I don't have a lot of PTI stamps yet but decided to give it a go with what I do have. So, here is my first effort.

I started out by randomly stamping the small flower center from Rosie Posie Step 2 in green and then filling in the centers using the small solid circle from Rosie Posie in second generation blue. Next I stamped the flower detail from Rosie Posie Step 2 and the hexagons from Rosie Posie in purple and half of the scroll from Boutique Borders: Birthday in blue. I took my heat gun to this to make sure the ink was really dry before heat embossing the sentiment with black embossing powder. I also heat embossed the striped square from Square Prints several times and punched them out with a 1 1/4" circle punch to create the border.

I chose to heat emboss the sentiment to make sure that it didn't get lost in the background and I like the shine that it adds to the card. A little bit of hemp and bitty sparkles and it's done!

Supplies - Standard A2 size
Paper - Pear, Gypsy CS (CTMH), Neena Solar White CS
Stamps - Think Big Favorites #24, Rosie Posie, Rosie Posie Step 2, Boutique Borders: Birthday, Square Prints
Ink - Pear, Gypsy, Dutch Blue (CTMH), Versa Mark, black embossing powder
Accessories - Bitty sparkles, black hemp (CTMH)
Other - 1 1/4" circle punch

March Blog Hop at PTI - Sequins

Papertrey Ink is hosting their March Blog Hop today and it is all about sequins. I have to admit I have not used sequins on my cards, but was able to scrounge some up out of my stash - have no idea where they came from. This card was quick and fun to make, love how it turned out.

I put a bitty sparkle in the center of each sequin and used a strip of glossy blue paper that I cut from an old greeting card. The green DP also has a shine which is a lot more shine than I usually use.

Supplies - Card is A2 size
Paper - DP - Miss Nelly (Kaiserkraft), textured White Daisy CS (CTMH), blue glossy (old greeting card)
Stamp - Botanical Silhouettes Vol 5 (PTI)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories - sequins (stash), bitty sparkles (CTMH)
Other - Corner rounder

Hello Spring!

This card tried really hard to be a single layer card, but I just couldn't leave it alone and ended up adding a couple of layers. I have admired the CAS cards at the Less is More Challenge blog and have wanted to participate in one of their challenges. Last week their challenge was 'Frame It' , which inspired the creation of this card, however I didn't make the challenge deadline. Flourishes 'Timeless Tuesday' challenge this week is 'Bring On Spring' and the Play Date Cafe colour challenge is 'Welcome Spring!'. Love the colours!

My starting point for this 'spring' card was the beautiful Hydrangea stamp set from Flourishes. The stores are full of brightly coloured spring flowers right now including multi-hued hydrangea plants. Love them!

 

Supplies - Card size is A2
Paper - Black, Lagoon CS (CTMH), Neena Solar White
Stamps - Hydrangea, Butterfly Blossoms, Tag Lines (Flourishes)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics - YG11, 13, 17, BG10, 13, 15, V000, 15, 17, .1 multiliner
Accessories - blue sparkle (CTMH)

Splash of Hot Pink - ric#32

I've been really drawn to clean, graphic cards lately. I love clean and simple cards, but seem to have a difficult time with them. You would think that they would be easy to produce, but for me apparently not. So here is my latest attempt and my first try at a 'Runway Inspired Challenge' - ric#32 - love their inspiration photos. This week's photo said black, grey, hot pink satin and linear (tubing in background) to me.

This is what I came up with. The glitter gems at the top are a hot pink that matches the satin ribbon, but I had a hard time getting the colours right with my camera today.

Supplies - Card is a standard A2 size
Paper - Black, grey, white CS (Bazzill)
Stamp - Botanical Silhouettes - Vol 5 (PTI)
Ink - Versa Mark, White EP (CTMH)
Accessories - Hot Pink 1" satin Ribbon (Fabricland), Hot Pink Glitter gems (CTMH), black twine

Graphic Green Birthday Card

I saw this great sketch on Nicole Heady's blog last month and knew I just had to try it. I love the clean graphic lines. At first glance it looks relatively simple but it isn't as straight forward as it looks. After checking out some of the challenge submissions on Nicole's blog I found that others had some difficulties as well, so I have included a picture tutorial below for the way that I tackled the angles on this card.

I am entering this card in Flourishes' Timeless Tuesday - 'Go Green' challenge and the Heart2Heart 'Go Green' challenge.

 

Nicole's sketch

Tutorial:

1) Cut 3 pieces of paper 1/2" wide x 12" long and glue onto a sheet of copy paper (or cardstock), squaring them up along the long edge making sure to apply glue to the entire back of each piece.

2) Trim the excess paper from the strip as shown below. Cut a card base 4 1/4" h x 5 1/2" w with the fold at the top. Draw a light pencil line 1 1/2" from the left edge of the card base in the lower half of the card. (I did this on a scrap so that I could make the line darker and write the dimensions for you).

 3) Lay your pattern strip onto the card base as shown below, lining the top edge with the top right corner of the card base and the left edge of the pattern strip so that the bottom left corner of the strip touches the bottom of the card base at the point where your pencil line meets the bottom edge. Mark your strip with pencil marks at all points shown in picture below. Using your paper trimmer or a ruler and kraft knife, trim the strip at each end using the pencil marks as a guide.

4) You will now have two pieces of your pattern strip as pictured below. The piece on the right is the piece you cut above and the piece pictured on the left is what was left over. Line the pieces up as seen below and then flip the left piece on top of the right, right sides facing each other.

5) Holding the two pieces together, flip them over and use the top piece as a template to cut the angle for the other piece (make sure to keep the long edges aligned).

6) Adhere both pieces to your card and trim the left strip matching the angles at your pencil mark. Erase any pencil marks showing.

Supplies: Card size is 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" (All supplies CTMH except where noted)
Paper - For Always, White Daisy, Pear, Black CS
Stamp - Perfect Fit Birthday, Card Chatter Birthday (for inside)
Ink - Pear
Accessories - Black Waxy Flax, black buttons (fabric store)
Other - 1 1/4" punch, Std Circles Lg (Spellbinders)