Despite the silence on my blog in recent times, I have actually been creating! I hope to have a few more regular posts coming up as I share some of my creations. The card I am sharing today is the birthday card for my youngest nephew, Max. He turns 13 tomorrow (and I feel pretty confident in posting the card as I know he doesn’t read my blog. lol). I decided to make a scene card for him – lots of die-cutting and inking…and it was so much fun. I haven’t made a scene card in the longest time!
Here’s the card…
Have an unbelievable birthday
It’s not a traditional looking birthday card and is rather “dark” but I was trying to avoid going too cutesy and girly. I’m definitely going to have to build up my masculine card stash!
Thanks for stopping by today!
Happy Stamping!
Supplies Used:
DISCLAIMER: Although a member of the Simon Says Stamp Affiliate program, all items used to create my projects were purchased by myself. I only link to items I have used, like to use and actually recommend. I have included both sizes of distress ink pads as you may prefer the mini over the regular size. I have also linked to the dies which match the stamp set although in this case I decided to fussy cut out the images.
It has been such a long time since I last posted. I apologise for my absence from the blogging world – partly imposed by computer issues and partly by life in general. I have been creating a little but more in the scrapbooking realm than the cardmaking one. Recently I was blessed to be chosen as a winner by My Favorite Things in one of their competitions. The prize was their May card kit “Jungle Friends”. Unfortunately, the kit is no longer available although my understanding is the individual components are released a few months later.
One of the exciting aspects of this kit is that it has a die which makes it so easy to create slider cards. I have made more than a few with the sliders as they are just so fun.
Here are six of the cards I’ve made using the card kit so far (and the kit still has many more patterned papers and cardstock leftover!)…
Thanks A Ton
Thanks A Ton
Sorry I Snapped At You
Happy Birthday Party Animal
Happy Birthday Party Animal
What’s Up?
I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of my latest creations!
Thought I would do something a little different today and share with you some of the people (and their blogs) who inspire me in the cardmaking realm, not only with their creativity, but also with their generosity in terms of encouragement and sharing of information and ideas. You may recognise some of the names but perhaps a couple of names are new to you. I thoroughly encourage you to visit their websites as I am sure you will come away just as inspired and uplifted as I do. Here are my Five Favourites: Must Visit Cardmaking Blogs:
1. Jennifer McGuire Ink – Jennifer McGuire – she’s the guru! What more can be said? Plenty actually! Jennifer regularly shares card making videos which are always informative and beautiful. Jennifer is a wizz at showcasing different techniques too. She comes up with ideas that are sometimes amazing in their simplicity and have us all wondering why we hadn’t thought of that too. The other thing I love about watching her videos is that she always seems to squeeze more than one card/example into each one. Jennifer is also very generous with her encouragement of others within in the industry and promotes kindness (and the world needs a whole lot more of that!)!
2. Nichol Spohr Magouirk – You all know I love creating little scenes with my stamps and it was so fun for me to come across another card maker who creates intricate scenes like I do. Nichol creates the most gorgeous cards and her videos are just lovely!
3. Lawn Fawn – it is no secret that Lawn Fawn is one of my favourite stamp companies! I love their products (in fact, look for a haul video coming soon). I love that their blog features cards by their customers as well as their design team. They really seem involved and aware of what is happening within the industry. I love their Release Weeks where they show the products they are releasing in depth – they actually stamp out each of the stamps and you get a feel for what they were trying to achieve with each stamps. This is great because I’ve been known to look at stamps by other companies and I have no idea what the stamp is at all. lol
4. Creative Cardsea – Elle is an amazingly talented cardmaker and her cards always leave me inspired. She colours so beautifully and her card designs are always so fantastic. I also love how Elle gives us an insight into her thinking with her posts about goals and struggles. Oh, and she gives herself the most fabulous challenges! I’ve been known to play along and they are super fun!
5. Gotta do the Happy Dance – Bev was the first person to comment on my blog and she has commented on the majority of my posts ever since. Bev is incredibly generous in terms of encouragement and support. She ALWAYS uplifts with her posts AND her cards! One of the things I love most about visiting Bev’s blog is that she has a wide range of styles and every post inspires.
So these are Five Favourites: Must Visit Cardmaking Blogs. I hope you visit their blogs and come away as inspired as I do when I visit them. I would love to hear some of your “must visit” blogs so please feel free to share in the comments below. There are so many wonderful cardmakers out there and I would love to spotlight more (perhaps a post for another day) but for this post my criteria was to include the blogs I always visit first when I sit down to read.
I hope you enjoy this type of blog post too – it is a little different for me. I have some ideas for similar posts and will be sharing them over the coming months. If you would like to suggest any more areas you’d like for me to cover, please do so.
Happy Stamping!
(Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion. I am not affiliated with the first three artists/companies. The last two artists I feel privileged to call my friends after having come to know them through cardmaking.)
One of my favourite stamps sets to use lately has been the Birthday Blooms stamp set from Stampin’ Up! I have made a lot of cards recently with this set – it is fun to colour and it also versatile enough to be used for birthday, thank you, thinking of you, or even sympathy cards. I have three cards to share today – all variations of the one theme.
For the first card, I stamped the images a few times around the edge of a panel of white cardstock and then coloured them in with Copic Makers. I added some washi tape to the edges of the card base and then placed the decorated panel in the centre. You could always pop up this middle panel with some foam tape.
Here’s the card…
Happiest of Birthdays to You Materials used: Stamps – Birthday Blooms (Stampin’ Up!); Washi Tape – It’s My Party Designer Washi Tape (Stampin’ Up!), and Copic Markers.
The second card came about because I still had a piece of designer paper on my desk from an earlier project and thought it matched well with the pink I had used to colour the flowers. I placed this down the left hand side of the card base. Before adding my panel to the card base, I added a few hearts around the sentiment which I highlighted with some Wink of Stella. I then popped the panel up using foam tape.
Here’s the card…
Happiest of Birthdays to You Materials used: Stamps – Birthday Blooms (Stampin’ Up!), Lunar Animals (Mama Elephant); Designer Paper – Garage Days (KaiserCraft); Copic Markers and Wink of Stella.
My final card came about because I had been looking back at some of the cards I had made during 2015 and one card just jumped out at me. You can see the card I refer to here. I decided to use this card as inspiration and I think it came out super well.
Here’s the card…
Happiest of Birthdays to You Materials used: Stamps – Birthday Blooms (Stampin’ Up!); Punch – Triple Banner (Stampin’ Up!); Distress Inks and Copic Markers.
This really is a super fun set and I LOVE colouring those flowers. I stamped and coloured a whole pile of these flowers so will hopefully have more cards to share in the future.
Today I am sharing another card using the super cute Boom Bots stamp set from Paper Smooches. Seriously, how cute are the robots? And the darling robot dog? Adorable!! I love it! I really feel as though I have only just started to scratch the surface on this set.
Today’s card is really rather simple – some patterned paper, a few coloured robots and an embossed sentiment. I tend to like using hearts as embellishments but you could easily switch them out for stars, sequins, rhinestones, or the like.
Here’s the card…
Thanks a BOT Materials used: Stamps -Boom Bots (Paper Smooches); Cardstock – Knights Smooth, American Crafts; Designer Paper – Garage Days, Technologic (KaiserCraft); Sprinkles Shapes – Hearts (Doodlebug Designs); Copic Markers, Silver Embossing Powder (Unknown), Punch – Banner Triple (Stampin’ Up!) and Wink of Stella.
I hope you enjoyed this card and I thank you for stopping by to visit! It’s time to head back to the studio to do some more crafting so I will see you all next time!
(DISCLAIMER: Although a member of the Simon Says Stamp Affiliate program, all items used to create my projects were purchased by myself. I only link to items I have used, like to use and actually recommend.)
The moment I saw the Boom Bots stamp set by Paper Smooches I knew I *had* to have it. I had lots of ideas for using it but I talked myself out of getting it for a while as I didn’t really think I *needed* it. Finally I just gave in and purchased it and I am so glad I did as I have totally loved creating with this set. I have a few cards to share today using this stamp set and I have only just begun to touch on some of the many and varied ways it can be used. It’s a realllly fun set!
My first card using this set was super simple. I used the smaller stamps in the set to create a background on the melon mambo cardstock. On the centre panel I stamped a couple of the super cute robots. A very simple card!
Here’s the card…
Luv u Bots Materials used: Stamps -Boom Bots (Paper Smooches); Die – Pierced Rectangle Stax (MFT); Cardstock – Knights Smooth (Knights), Melon Mambo (Stampin’ Up!); Copic Markers; Melon Mambo Ink Pad (Stampin’ Up!)and Wink of Stella.
I’m not too good with using white space and thought this card might be a little plain. I decided to keep the basic design the same but to spice it up with a bit of bling. I also wanted the stamping on the base cardstock to be a little bolder.
Here’s the card…
U + Me = <3 Materials used: Stamps -Boom Bots (Paper Smooches); Die – Pierced Rectangle Stax (MFT); Cardstock – Knights Smooth (Knights), Melon Mambo (Stampin’ Up!); Copic Markers; Melon Mambo Ink Pad (Stampin’ Up!), Clear Rhinestones (KaiserCraft) and Wink of Stella.
Thinking the white panel in the centre might be that little bit too white, I decided it was time to add a bit of a background with distress inks and a stencil. (As an aside, this design could be seen to be an interpretation of Sketch #1 shared here. This design has so many possibilities!).
Here’s the card…
U + Me = <3 Materials used: Stamps -Boom Bots (Paper Smooches); Die – Die-namics Blueprints 13 (MFT); Cardstock – Knights Smooth, American Crafts; Designer Paper – Scrap Yard (KaiserCraft); Huey’s Masks – Circle Graph Mask (Studio Calico); Sprinkles Shapes – Hearts (Doodlebug Designs); Copic Markers; Distress Ink Pad – Salty Ocean (Tim Holtz/Ranger) and Wink of Stella.
I totally loved the above card but it wasn’t quite how I imagined it. I switched out the paper for this gorgeous foiled checkerplate design (also from KaiserCraft), softened the sponging behind the robots and added some soft pink hearts and voila! my card was finished. I love this one the most.
Here’s the card…
I’m nuts and bolts about you Materials used: Stamps -Boom Bots (Paper Smooches); Die – Die-namics Blueprints 13 (MFT); Cardstock – Knights Smooth, American Crafts; Designer Paper – Garage Days (KaiserCraft); Huey’s Masks – Circle Graph Mask (Studio Calico); Sprinkles Shapes – Hearts (Doodlebug Designs); Copic Markers; Distress Ink Pad – Salty Ocean (Tim Holtz/Ranger) and Wink of Stella.
(DISCLAIMER: Although a member of the Simon Says Stamp Affiliate program, all items used to create my projects were purchased by myself. I only link to items I have used, like to use and actually recommend.)
Happy New Year to you all! Hope you are all enjoying a happy start to 2016!
I’ve spent a lot of time creating lately but not much time blogging and I’ve missed you all!
On my to-do list is making a few “thank you” cards as my stash is depleted and I really need to send out a few. I had recently received the Friendly Pets stamp set from Close To My Heart (CTMH) and the Acts of Kindness set from Hero Arts and I thought they would work together perfectly. As I needed to make a number of cards I also decided to go with a very simple card design. I have turned this card design into a sketch as I love it so much and think it is actually a very versatile design. I’m going to add a page for sketches on my blog as a resource which will grow over time – for those moments when creativity seems a little blocked.
Here’s the sketch…
Sketch 1
As you can see, it would be perfect for a one layer card but you could easily jazz it up as well. I decided to make the centre panel pop up with foam adhesive but otherwise I kept the design very simple.
Here’s the card…
Thank you for your kindness Materials used: Stamps – Friendly Pets (CTMH), Acts of Kindness (Hero Arts); Copic Markers, Designer Paper – Happy Snaps (KaiserCraft), Glossy Accents (Ranger) and Rhinestones (KaiserCraft).
If you are interested in seeing how this card came together, here’s a video showing the process…
For the second card, I switched out the patterned paper and used washi tape instead. I don’t have a lot of washi tape but I have enough that I really should be using it more. On cards where you only want a little bit of colour, like this one, washi tape fits the bill perfectly.
Here’s the card…
Thank you for your kindness Materials used: Stamps – Friendly Pets (CTMH), Acts of Kindness (Hero Arts); Copic Markers, Zig Clean Colour Real Brush Markers, Washi Tape (KaiserCraft), Glossy Accents (Ranger) and Rhinestones (KaiserCraft).
For the third card, pattered paper came back into play and I thought I could use it in the balloon as well for something a little different. Adding a stitched line to the border of the middle panel gave it a little ore interest too.
Here’s the card…
Thank you for your kindness Materials used: Stamps:
The next card, I stepped the basic design up a little more by adding a border of patterned paper to the middle panel. I also gave the dog more of a setting with a grass and sky background. Can you see how the possibilities for both this stamp set and the design just continue to develop?
Here’s the card…
Thank you for your kindness Materials used: Stamps – Friendly Pets (CTMH), Acts of Kindness (Hero Arts); Copic Markers, Designer Paper – Happy Snaps (KaiserCraft), Distress Ink (Tim Holtz/Ranger), Glossy Accents (Ranger) and Rhinestones (KaiserCraft).
For the final card I am sharing today, I moved away from the straight lines in the middle and added a cloud edge. So pretty! I also made the middle panel wider. It is still the same sketch but automatically these two changes make the card look quite different. The hint of glitter tape along the left hand edge adds a little bling and fun to an otherwise simple card.
Here’s the card…
Thank you for your kindness Materials used: Stamps – Friendly Pets (CTMH), Acts of Kindness (Hero Arts); Copic Markers, Dies – Puffy Clouds Border (Lawn Fawn), Shimmer Tape (CTMH), Designer Paper – Little One.
Thanks so much for stopping by today. If you happen to use the sketch idea to create your own card, please let me know as I would love to see your interpretation.
