Wow wedding card

Morning,

This is a blog post that I nearly forgot to write! I thought I'd written it then realised I'd just shared the pictures on my Facebook business page (click here to "Like" if you don't follow me already!).

I made this fancy card a few weeks ago, for a colleague of mine, Richard, who had got married abroad to his partner Maz, and had a big party back here for their family, friends and colleagues.  I knew the theme was bright and colourful, so I decided to use the Patio Party papers to make the card.  I hadn't done any crafting for a while, so decided to make a fancy card that would have a "wow" factor!  Richard came to find me at work a few days ago to ask where I got the card from, and I said that I had made it myself.  He said that it had pride of place in the centre of their cards (maybe I'll ask him to take a photo for me so I can add it to this post) and I was really chuffed.  I love making cards and gifts for people, and am so pleased when they appreciate them too.

The picture below shows the card folded up, with the band around the middle tied with the Stitched Satin Ribbon.

The card is made from a 12" x 12" sheet of card stock.  Using the Simply Scored Board, a series of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines are scored, and then the card is folded up.  The Patio Party papers were cut into triangles and arranged so that they looked nice when the card was flat as well as folded up. 

Here you can see the card folded slightly.  Papers have been placed on the inside and the outside of the card.

Here's a photo showing the inside of the card.  The bunting has been punched out with the Petite Pennants Builder Punch, and the pinwheel has been made with the Big Shot and the Pinwheel die.  The sentiments have been stamped in Baja Breeze and Primrose Petals, and are from the Sweet Essentials stamp set. 

Here's a close up of the pinwheel.  A Mini Brad has been placed though the middle, and attached to the card with Dimensionals.

A strip of the 12" white card stock was cut with a strip of the Patio Party papers, and is known as a "belly band".  The ribbon was attached underneath and when tied, holds the card flat.  A ruffled flower was punched out using the Blossom Punch, the card was wetted and scrunched.  Once it dried, the flowers were unfolded and an Antique Brad was placed through the middle.

You can see the detail on the Stitched Satin Ribbon here. 

I've made a few more of these cards recently, they're only half finished though! I've been trying to use up my papers and especially the retired papers from previous catalogues.  I'll be sharing them soon once I finish them!

Happy Birthday bird card

Afternoon!

Are you glad it's Friday? I am, it's been a long week, even though we did have a Bank Holiday this week. I'm a little disappointed today, as many of my crafty friends are heading down to the Stampin' Up! regional training event in Telford today. This is a yearly day event, and was held in Leeds last year, which was handy for me! The event is tomorrow so most people are stopping in a hotel overnight so they get there early tomorrow. I'm not going this year as I decided to save my pennies for Convention in November, which I also missed last year. No excuses this year, it's in Manchester so I'm determined to go.  I can't wait to see pictures and hear all the stories from the day and see what they all made.

Today I'm sharing a card I made this week for a friend's birthday. I fancied doing something new that I'd not done before so I got onto my Pinterest boards where I pin my inspiration and cards to copy. I've that many saved I don't know when I'll get round to making them all!

I used Bashful Blue card stock for the card blank, and stamped Crumb Cake ink onto Very Vanilla card stock using the Woodgrain background stamp. These were cut into strips of 2cm wide and trimmed to the size I liked. I daubed around the edges with Crumb Cake ink to give the fence panels a bit of depth. The Happy Birthday sentiment was stamped with Wild Wasabi ink using the Itty Butty Banners stamp set and was cut out using the matching Framelit dies. Lastly a bird was punched out in Baja Breeze and Daffodil card stock, and the branch cut from Wild Wasabi. A Rhinestone Jewel was used for the eye of the bird and Mini Brads were placed on the ends of the horizontal fence panel to look like nails.

 

Team Training - Tuxedo Card

Evening!

What a lovely sunny day it's been.  I've missed most of it, as I attended a Julie's Jems team training event run by Julie Kettlewell.  The theme of today was cards for men, as it's something I think most crafters struggle with at times.  There's loads of lovely sparkly pretty crafty stamps, colours and embellishments out there for feminine girly cards, so Julie decided to get us out of our comfort zone and challenge us!  We did some crafting, which I'll be sharing over the next few days, and we had some great business training too.  Stampin' Up! is a great opportunity whether you want to be a hobby demonstrator, or turn it into a business.  It's flexible too, it can fit around your life and more effort can be put in when life is less busy.  As Julie pointed out today, demonstrators only get out of it, the effort they put into it.

We also had a special guest today, Paula Gorry who is the UK Business Development Manager at Stampin' Up! UK.  It was really nice meeting her and chatting to her, and hearing about how Stampin' Up! operates.  She did a crafting demonstration for us, and we all learnt a few tips and tricks.  It's great seeing other peoples ideas, and seeing things we wouldn't have thought up ourselves.

We always do swaps for out training events, and as the day was based around cards for men, so were our swaps.  I spent a bit of time on Pinterest getting a few ideas together, and decided to use a tutorial to make a tuxedo card.  The link to the tutorial can be found here from Lynn Pratt, an American demonstrator.  Normally when we hand out or swaps, it's a mad half an hour of going around the room trying to find who we haven't swapped with yet! Today we did it in a more structured manner, which worked well.

I used Basic Black and Whisper White card stock to make the jacket and the shirt. I printed out the template and traced them onto the card stock and used the Paper Snips and the Paper Trimmer to cut them out.  The Simply Scored Board and the scoring blade on the Paper Trimmer were used to score the lines.  I used the Dimensionals to stick down the collar edges on the jacket and shirt, and one to hold the two sides of the jacket down.  The bow tie was cut out and also stuck down with Dimensionals.  Lastly I used the Sweet Buttons Embossalit die with the Big Shot to cut out the button for the front of the jacket, which was also attached using the Dimensionals.

I made thirty of these, but forgot to take a picture of them all finished, so here's a picture of just one of them.

Below is a close up picture of the button cut from the Sweet Buttons Embossalit die.

Here's a photo showing the shirt part of the card pulled up from inside the jacket.  This could be the area the message is written on, or could have a sentiment stamped onto.

Tri Fold Card - February Card Class

Morning,

You may have seen a few days ago I shared a card that I'd made for the Shoe Box Swap event I attended on Saturday.  That card was a different take on the card that I made with my card class last Tuesday evening.  The class was enjoyable, apart from feeling dizzy, but my ladies were very understanding, and even did a bit of swaying around so I felt normal! I held the class at a new venue in the centre of Leeds, which worked ok for the numbers I had, but I'm not sure where it's permanent future home will be just yet!  

This card used papers from the Floral District Designer Series Paper, with Lucky Limeade card stock.  I had provided full instructions, but I'd made a few mistakes! Some were queried before the cards were cut or scored, and avoided a disaster, but a few slipped through the net but luckily I'd brought plenty of spare card in case it was needed.  A good learning tip for me there, to check, and double check my instructions in future! It's an easy card to make, it's just four score lines, and then two cut lines, and the tricky bit is just working out which way the folds should go.

This is a close up of the centre of the card, and uses the Bloomin' Marvelous stamp set, which is one of the Sale-A-Bration freebies, which can be earnt with every £45 spend up until the 22nd March.  It's not too late to book your workshop, and I'd love for you to take advantage of this great promotion, as it only comes round once a year.

I used Rich Razzleberry ink for the bird and the sentiment, Lucky Limeade ink for the leaves, and Daffodil Delight for the flowers.  Rhinestone Jewels were placed in the centre of the flowers for a bit of added sparkle.  These were stamped onto Whisper White card stock which was mounted onto Daffodil Delight card stock.

This is a view of the card from above, showing the folds.

If you'd like to see some of the other items that you could get for free, check out the link here, or take a look at my previous blog post here.  

1. Papers / Card Stock - Floral District, Lucky Limeade, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White
2. Stamp Sets - Bloomin' Marvelous
3. Tools - Paper Trimmer
4. Embellishments - Rhinestone Jewels
5. Inks/Markers - Lucky Limeade, Daffodil Delight, Rich Razzleberry

Shoe Box Swap Card

Evening all

I hope you're having a nice weekend.  It looked nice and sunny today as I was driving to and from the Shoe Box Swap crafting day I attended with a group of demonstrators from Julie's Jems.  It was a bit of a struggle to be honest, I've got terrible dizziness (some would say that's no different to normal!) following a trip to Bruges last week on the ferry.  I've never been on a long ferry journey before, and wasn't sure what to expect, luckily I felt fine whilst I was on board, it was after I got back onto land that the swaying continued.  I've got some tablets from the doctors now, so I hope it won't go on much longer!I think out of the 11 projects I made today, I completed only one or two fully, and I made a couple of daft mistakes on the other projects, but I think I did well considering.

Just in case you're wondering what a Shoe Box Swap Day is, and you haven't seen my previous blog posts about the day we had last year, it's where each attendee brings along a project prepped for everyone else to make.  Each project should take about 30 minutes to complete, and it's such a great way of learning new techniques or trying out different products that we might not have bought ourselves yet.  Today, there were some gorgeous projects, and everyone went to so much effort before today making sure that they were prepared.

Here's the card that I designed and brought along for the ladies to make today.  It's the same design as I used in my card class on Tuesday, just with a different stamp set and different papers.  The theme was to use products from the Spring/Summer Catalogue, and since I've not gone too mad with buying products from it yet, I was limited to this stamp set.  For once, I've not bought everything I possibly can (or can't!) afford.  I made a tri fold shutter card, with Crumb Cake card stock as the card blank.  The papers are from the In Colours 2012-13 Designer Paper Stack, in Summer Starfruit, Primrose Petals and Midnight Muse.  These papers stacks are great value, for just £19.50 you get 40 sheets of 12"x12" papers, and they come in all the colour families and In Colours.  I'm still getting through the Subtles pack that I got when I first signed as a demonstrator two years ago.

I used the Collage Curios stamp set for this card.  It's one of the sets I really liked from the Spring/Summer Catalogue, and co-ordinates with the Bottle Tops.  The images were stamped in Summer Starfruit, Baja Breeze and Primrose Petals, and were punched out using the Petite Curly Label Punch which is one of the Sale-A-Bration items this year.  These were then daubed around the edges with Crumb Cake Ink.

This is a close up of the Baja Breeze panel, which has been embossed using the Big Shot and the Honeycomb embossing folder, another product from the Spring/Summer Catalogue.

This is a view of the card from the top.  You can see how each fold alternates to make a zig zag effect.  I've not taken a picture of it flat, but it folds together so it would fit inside a normal A6 envelope, for easy posting.

I hope you like this card, and if you were one of the lucky ladies that attended the class today and happen to be reading this, please leave me a message to let me know what you thought of it.  If you'd like the tutorial, please also leave me a message or drop me an email at mycardsandcrafts@hotmail.co.uk 

As I spot the other ladies projects appearing on their blogs, I'll be sharing the projects that I made today.  If you like them, why don't you drop onto their blogs too to take a look at their other creations.

1. Papers / Card Stock - Crumb Cake, Baja Breeze, In Colour 2012-13 Designer Paper Stack
2. Stamp Sets - Collage Curios
3. Tools - Petite Curly Label Punch, Sponge Daubers, Paper Trimmer
4. Embellishments - Dimensionals
5. Inks/Markers - Baja Breeze, Primrose Petals, Summer Starfruit

Jubilee Card Class - Union Jack

Here's the final post about my Jubilee cards from my last class. This one features a Union Jack, and there was no stamping involved with this one.  There was lots of cutting and trimming for me to do beforehand, but a nice easy sticking and gluing card in the class.  I used the Regals paper stack for the Riding Hood Red and Not Quite Navy papers, with Whisper White strips that were embossed with the Square Lattice embossing folder. 



Fancy folds card 1

This is the first card I'm sharing with you that's from my recent experiments with trying out new card shapes.  This is a tri-fold card, in Marina Mist with papers from Beau Chateau DSP.  I used the Beautiful Wings Embosslits Die to cut the butterflies, which were decorated with Rhinestone Jewels. I really enjoyed making this, and I'll be using this style for cards that need to be a bit fancier for special occasions.

Papers / Cardstock - Marina Mist, Whisper White, Beau Chateau DSP

Stamp Set - N/A

Embellishments - Rhinestone Jewels

Tools - Beautiful Wings Embosslits die

Inks / Markers - N/A 

Gerberras

These are more flowers that were made for Light Night, this time they are Gerberras. Melon Mambo card stock was cut with the Flowers, Daisies #2 die in the Big Shot. The old buttons were removed, and I added a smaller flower to the middle, some in Melon Mambo, and two others with Pink Pirouette. Cherry Cobbler was used to ink the edges of the petals with the sponge daubers. For the centres of the flowers, the Boho Blossoms punch was used to cut multiple flowers from Early Espresso card stock.

I really like how these Gerberras have evolved, from looking like in the picture below.

In the bottom of the pot, I scattered some leaves that were also made for Light Night. These were made with Old Olive cardstock using the Paper Cutter/Scorer, the Large Oval Punch and the Crimper. A really effective way of making leaves, and very simple too.

Paper / Cardstock - Melon Mambo, Pink Pirouette, Early Espresso, Old Olive

Stamp Set - N/A

Embellishments - N/A

Tools - Boho Blossoms punch, Sponge Daubers, Big Shot, Flowers Daisies die, Crimper, Large Oval Punch, Paper Trimmer / Scorer

Inks / Markers - Cherry Cobbler