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Posts Tagged ‘Handmade Greeting Card’
Monochrome for a Sketch Challenge
Aloha, all!
Today I did some work with a sketch challenge from the online group, Stampin' Up! Late Night Stampers. Lots of history with that group's name, but suffice it to say that the group is made up of stampers who love Stampin' Up! products. It's not just for demonstrators, either. So, if you'd love to get some ideas – and share your own! – about using Stampin' Up! products, it's a pretty fun group to which to belong!
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I should show you the sketch first, so you'll know from where I started. And this is where I stopped, too! I am so not into blue and orange these days, so I had to get out some color quickly to erase this from my mind!
The color I chose was Melon Mambo. And the reason was that I had my Melon Mambo ribbon out because I had considered using it with my last project (cute dragon!). So I grabbed my Melon Mambo ink and started stamping teacups.
And boy did I get carried away with the Melon Mambo! As you can see, it's everywhere in this card. It started with the teacups from the stamp set, Tea Shoppe (in the current mini catalog, Occasions Mini), proceeded into the rectangular background and just kept going! And, yes, I finally did get to that ribbon – the Melon Mambo 1/2 Inch Scallop Dots Ribbon. In between I punched some vertical scallops with the Scallop Edge Border Punch and also used that punch to form the ends of the little strip on which I stamped today's sentiment (also from the Tea Shoppe stamp set). The Designer Series Paper that I used for this project came from the Hostess Designer Series Paper Set, Cheerful Treat. And I think that this card is, indeed, cheerful!
For the most part, I really like to use more than one color in a project. But I think that I might like doing some more projects with just one color. Hmmm.
But definitely NOT blue or orange!
As always, I had fun with this project, and I hope you're having fun with whatever you're doing today! And check out the Stampin' Up! Late Night Stampers Yahoo Group! It's free – and fun!
Subscribe to the comments for this postA Fun CASE for a Baby Card!
Aloha, all!
I had a blast yesterday with the project I'm showing off today. I'm a member of a Toastmasters club where one of our members is expecting a baby soon, and she made the point that this baby is going to be born in the Year of the Dragon, "the mightiest of the signs in the Chinese Zodiac!"
Well, a baby is hardly a "mighty" being, babies being more on the "cute" side. Nonetheless, the members of the club asked that I make a card for a party that they had today that somehow featured a dragon to go with the club's gift. Not being the punch-art creative type, I went off looking for a dragon to CASE. It didn't take long to find a video by Tami White and the cutest dragon you EVER saw! I knew immediately that this would be my inspiration, and all I had to do was figure out my colors and how to deal with a few punches that had retired since the video was made over a year ago.
When I was making the card, I had no idea (still don't have) whether the baby is a girl or a boy. I thought a combination of Pink and Blue would work just fine and started punching. You'll find the complete instructions on Tami's video, but I'll include some supplemental information about changes that I made.
The first change that I had to make was to use the Sizzix Stars #2 die (sold by Stampin' Up!) instead of the Star Punch (now retired) for the "horns" and back scales. Tami had used the smallest oval die (retired) for the teeth or fangs, and I substituted the smallest image from the Boho Blossoms Punch. Otherwise, I used her instructions. OK, so mine's not put together quite as perfectly as hers; but he's still "stinkin' cute."
The colors for this cute guy are Marina Mist and Regal Rose, along with some Basic Black accents. My card is also an unusual size – we needed plenty of room for lots of people to sign their best wishes, so I made a card that's 5-1/2" wide by 8-1/2" high. For the sentiment, I used a stamp from the stamp set, Curly Cute. Aha, there's that word – "cute"! I knew I'd find that in the Stampin' Up! product line somewhere!! I also used the last of my stash of Marina Mist Brads from the Subtles collection of brads.
And as I love to do, I tied everything together with some fab Stampin' Up! ribbon, this time the Marina Mist 1/2" Scallop Dots Ribbon.
I can't imagine that you could have as much fun with what you're doing as I did making this little guy. But be sure to try to have lots of fun anyway with whatever you're doing!
The Eighth Stamp!
Aloha, all!
Over the weekend, I mentioned that there was one of the eight stamps in the Stampin' Up! Stamp Set, Everybunny, that wasn't necessarily related to Easter. And here it is!
Are those little mushrooms cute or what? While I'm hoping that the Everybunny set will stick around in the new Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalog (so I can use it NEXT Easter, too!), I'm going to try to make the most of it while I can – just in case….
For this card, I used the same set of Designer Series Papers – Just Add Cake – that I used for my personal Easter 2012 Stamp-a-Stack. I really like the colors in that set, and it's one of the zillion products that will likely be retiring with the 2011-2012 Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalog. The colors in this set include one of the 2010-2012 In Colors that will definitely be retiring, and I have absolutely no reason to believe that this set of papers won't retire, either. In fact, most of the Designer Series Paper sets do retire each year. There's one or two that have carried over from one year to the next, but that's all I can recall.
Oh, and the colors – I used Wild Wasabi (the card base and some ink), So Saffron, Peach Parfait (retiring this year), and Baja Breeze. And the stamp set – one of my all-time favorite stamp sets is Sincere Salutations, and most people are guessing that this is its last year on the Stampin' Up! stock shelves. It may also be one of the (very few) stamp sets that I keep around after they retire.
Of course now that I'm more at leisure to get things done, I've gone back to tying my card up with a ribbon! I love Stampin' Up!'s coordinating embellishments, and this So Saffron Taffeta Ribbon is just perfect for this card.
AND I have a sketch! Lots of 1-3/4" measurements in this one! I hope you enjoy it and have fun doing some paper crafting this week. I'm going to be relaxing for the week because Stampin' Up! will be shaking things up come April 15th. It may not be tax day this year, but it's the day that Stampin' Up! announces the stamp sets that are going to be retiring. Your last chance for some of those stamp sets you've been thinking about buying but haven't!
Have a great week!
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Happy Easter, Everybunny!
Aloha, all!
Once I started to work play with the Stampin' Up! stamp set, Everybunny, I just could not put it down – especially since it is nearly 90% an Easter stamp set! That is, 7 of the 8 stamps in the set are bunnies and chicks with an Easter theme. The 8th stamp – not entirely. Now that I think about it, I may have to go make a card with the not-necessarily-Easter stamp for AFTER Easter!
So on the day before Easter, I decided that some of my friends in the neighborhood "needed" some Easter cards, so off I went to find something fresh to do with the stamp set!
The first card I made for a friend who has a favorite color. Would you guess it was Purple! As I went through my stash of Stampin' Up! Designer Series Papers, I decided I had to use a set that had some kind of purple in it. Well, it just so happens that her mother, also a friend in the neighborhood, is very partial to Lime Green and Coral. It did not take long for the Designer Series Paper set, Berry Blossoms, to jump up and say, "Me!! I'm the right paper set!!"
For this card, I used the Wisteria Wonder-colored paper in the set, along with a print that I used in the other two cards. The nice thing about papers with a moderate sized set of images with different colors throughout is that I can find a piece with lots of the color that I want and cut the paper to get that color. That's exactly what I did with all three of these cards! So you see lots of the Wisteria Wonder color in the floral print showing on this card. And I had to have a purple baloon, so I stamped the balloon image on a piece of the Wisteria Wonder print and cut out the sections that I wanted to be purple. To finish it off, I added some Basic Rhinestones to be the dots on the balloon.
The second card in this series of projects also has a lot of the Wisteria Wonder, with Wisteria Wonder Card Stock making up the mats behind all three rectangles, and forming the image of the egg in which the little bunny is sitting. I added another of the prints from the Designer Series Paper set, making sure that I had some Wisteria Wonder from the print showing top and bottom. To embellish this card a bit, I added a trio of Basic Pearls in the upper left corner. Cute bunny!
You'll recognize the little girl bunny in the last of the cards as one that I used for a card I sent out earlier in the week. For this card, I focused on the Lucky Limeade and Calypso Coral colors. There's still a bit of the Wisteria Wonder showing, and I even colored one of the eggs in the little girl bunny's basket with my Wisteria Wonder Stampin' Write Marker. I cut her dress out of the floral pattern, and it looks just like something my friend might wear!
If you're celebrating Easter this weekend, I wish you the happiest of holidays! I hope that these Easter Bunnies bring a smile to your face, and that you wear that smile all week!
This Really was a Stamp-a-Stack!
Aloha, all!
As I shared with you yesterday, I held a Stamp-a-Stack just for myself earlier this week in an effort to make AND send out a nice number of Easter Cards. In a Stamp-a-Stack, at least the way I do them, I have two or three basic layouts and papers and card stock cut to the size of a sketch that I've made for myself. Then I stamp and mix and match the colors of the papers and card stock with Stampin' Up! inks.
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Here are three of the ten cards that I made with today's layout. All of them use stamps from the Stampin' Up! Stamp Set, Everybunny. I just love this little bunny up in his Hot Egg Balloon throwing Easter flowers down to us all. Fun image! The basic idea for this layout came from a much more detailed and carefully constructed card by fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator, Mary Jo Price-Williams. I would love to have CASEd her card completely, but I just didn't have the time – or the energy! – to get that detailed!
As you can see, each card, though it has the same layout, has different colors highlighted. The only thing that's the same throughout is the Poppy Parade that I used for the mats for all three of the layered sections. The other colors are the same colors as I showed off in yesterday's card – Peach Parfait, So Saffron and Wild Wasabi. And all of the Designer Series Papers are from the same paper set that I used yesterday, Just Add Cake. The result of using different colors and papers for the same basic layout keeps the whole project from being too boring (and I get bored easily!).
The only "embellishment" that I used for these cards is the texturizing with the Perfect Polka Dots Sizzix Embossing Folder. These slip right into Stampin' Up!'s Medium Envelopes, and definitely require NO extra postage, as might a card with too many brads and ribbons.
Cute Bunny for a Little Girl!
Aloha, all!
I was bound and determined that Easter was not going to get by without my having made – AND SENT OUT! – Easter cards! Yes, I made lots of Valentine and St. Patty's Day cards. But most of them are still sitting in my stash of unsent greeting cards. I am very pleased to say that every Easter card I made this year has been put into the mail! Yay!!!!
And, of course, most of my cards this Easter were made with the Stamp Set, Everybunny, and/or its companion Stampin' Around Wheel, Every Egg. This little Girl Bunny is just one of the cards that I made this week, and it's on its way to one of my granddaughters in North Carolina. I made another card with the same layout, and both of them used the Designer Series Paper set, Just Add Cake. I love the colors in that set, and it's got some designs that are so flexible that you can use them for any brightly-colored card you might want to make.
I colored in the little Girl Bunny with her Easter Basket using Poppy Parade, Wild Wasabi, Peach Parfait, and So Saffron Stampin' Write Markers. For her dress, I stamped the image on some of the Just Add Cake paper and then cut out the dress – hey, paper dolls!! Ooooh, I loved those when I was a little girl. I guess I still do!
Since I was on a mission to make a lot of cards AND get them mailed in a fairly short period of time, I basically set myself up for what we demonstrators call a "Stamp a Stack." Lots of cards with the same materials and basic design. Tomorrow I'll show off some of the others that I made.
And because this was such an easy card to make and since there are tons of Stampin' Up! rubber stamps that would fit in that little square, I've drawn the sketch out for you to use, too! Have some fun with it!!
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Think Spring!
Aloha, all!
I spent most of the early part of this week making cards that highlight Spring or Easter! For these few days of blog posts, I'm going to focus on the cards that I made from the Easter Stamp Set, Everybunny. It is SUCH a cute set, and I especially like it because it's one of those sets that I can play like I'm a child again and really try to color inside the lines!
As soon as I saw that cute little egg popping up from the flower pot and pretending to be a spring flower, I just knew that I wanted a row of them across a landscape oriented card. My intention was to color each of the eggs differently. But in testing the colors out on scratch paper, I decided that I really like this version of the colors. So they're all alike, little eggs in a row!
The colors come from the Designer Series Paper set, Cheerful Treat, which is a hostess set of papers (only $8 for Stampin' Up! orders of $150 or more!). I featured another card made with floral papers from this set yesterday. But there's a delightful striped design in this set, too, and this seemed like a perfect card with which to use it! There's a small sheet of one of the Melon Mambo single-color designs that forms the bottom mat for the front of this card. I try whenever possible to use a couple of layers of Designer Series Papers – which is much lighter in weight than card stock - when I'm making a multi-layered card to keep the card's weight down, especially when the card base is Whisper White (as is this one) or Very Vanilla. That card stock is lighter in weight than the rest of Stampin' Up!s Card Stock, and I just don't like to weigh it down too much.
Oh, and the colors in the eggs and their little flower pots are: Melon Mambo, Pink Pirouette, Bashful Blue, and Lucky Limeade. And, of course, I had to add in some ribbon to tie the card all together! For this card, I used the Melon Mambo 1/2" Scallop Dots Ribbon and I think it's just the perfect accent for the cute little eggs, which have some Melon Mambo dots of their own!
I smile every time I see cards that I'm making with this stamp set – Everybunny – and all the papers that I've pulled out to use with it. I hope you're having the kind of week that makes you smile at all the projects on which you're working!
Congratulations, Michelle Laycock!
Aloha, all!
Here it is another Tuesday and time for the biweekly Stampin' Up! Only Challenge on SUOChallenges.com. But this just isn't any old challenge week. Nope, it's a week when we on the SUO Challenge Design Team are congratulating one of our own – Michelle Laycock – on reaching her 10th Anniversary as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.
Congratulations, Michelle!
And, of course, we were to make a Card of Congratulations for the occasion! There are going to be lots of opportunities for needing Congratulations cards as the Spring progresses, so we challenge those who like to participate in challenges to make such a card and enter it in the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge this week. What fun for all of us!
For my card today, I wanted to use bright and cheery colors. And I also wanted to try to use up some of the Designer Series Papers I have hoarded since the beginning of the current Stampin' Up! year because I'm going to have one less month to use them this year. Stampin' Up!s new annual Idea Book and Catalog is going to be starting on June 1st this year instead of July 1st! So the rush is on!! The paper that I ended up choosing for this was the Hostess set of Designer Series Papers, Cheerful Treats. The colors that I used to highlight the Designer Series Papers are Melon Mambo (the bright pink), Concord Crush (the gorgeous grape color – which will retire as an "In Color" with this catalog), and Lucky Limeade (the fab green, which will be staying with us for another year).
I used two stamp sets for this card. The strip on the top is from the set that coordinates with the Designer Series Paper and it's called Borderlines. There are three stamps in this set and each of them is replicated in one color or another on the Designer Series Paper. The Congratulations greeting is from the set called Curly Cute. Love all the curls in the five greetings in this set!
As is so often the case, I tied this card together with some ribbon, in this case some Concord Crush Stitched Poly Ribbon. I'm almost out of the ribbon, but was really glad to have enough for Michelle's card! Oh, and there are some of those twinkly little Basic Rhinestones top and bottom, too. Gotta have some glitz for a Congratulations card!
I also (at long last) have a sketch for this card! I had to measure the heck out of those strips to make the design work as I had envisioned it when I first started. But I had a blast making this card for Michelle, and I hope you'll have fun with the sketch making a fun card for a friend or family member of yours! One thing you might note is that the ribbon covers the bottom of the square on the left and the top of the square on the right. You could certainly make those squares shorter if you wanted to use a different size ribbon.
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In Sympathy
Aloha, all!
A good friend of a neighbor and customer of mine passed away this week, and she asked me to make a special card for his family. As we went through the stamps that I thought might be appropriate, she decided that she needed two cards rather than one – that's easy to do because there are so many beautiful Stampin' Up! stamp sets and colors that I can use to make lovely sympathy cards.
For the first card, I used the appropriately named stamp set, Love and Sympathy. I particularly like the flower in this stamp set as it makes a beautiful watercolor-style image and all I have to do is color the stems and flower with different colored Stampin' Write Markers. For this card, I used Lucky Limeade and Wisteria Wonder for the flower, and carried the Wisteria Wonder color through the rest of the card. The ribbon is the Wisteria Wonder 3/8" Ruffled Ribbon, and I used Wisteria Wonder Card Stock for the card front, texturizing it with the Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder. To mat and accent both the stamped layer and the main card front layer, I used Concord Crush Card Stock. The light colored card stock is Confetti White, which adds a natural look to the card overall. Before I put the card together, I printed a personal message from my neighbor to her friends on the inside. (You might recall that I made a lovely Sympathy Card not too long ago, and that might have been a perfect card for this occasion – except that my neighbor wanted to have that personal message printed on the inside of the card and there was already a message on the inside of the other card.)
The second card has several of the same features of the first card, but an entirely different feeling to it. It's a bit less subdued than the first card, and I think that's because of the large amount of white space on the stamped layer. I fussed around with this a bit, using some stamps on a vellum overlay to give me an idea of how the finished product might look if I added a stamp or some embellishments in that empty space. But when it was all over, I decided I just liked the little sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes out there all by itself. The flowers from the stamp set, Bordering on Romance, and using Bashful Blue and Pretty in Pink, with a bit of Certainly Celery for the leaves, seemed to be a nice bouquet of solace under the sentiment.
The features that I repeated from the first card were the dark mat, in this case Night of Navy, and the main layer texturized with the Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder. I stamped this card on the inside with a sentiment from Petite Pairs and the smallest flower from this stamp set to carry the design from the card front to the inside.
I hope that, for the rest of this week leading up to Easter, I'll be making cards that are much more cheerful!
Hello Spring!
Aloha, all!
Today I'm welcoming Spring in my role as a member of the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge Design Team! But I'm also taking a challenge from one of my online Stampin' Up! Demonstrator groups, SUDSOL, to make a card using only those Stampin' Up! products that you can find in the New Demonstrator Starter Kit. The one big thing that this particular challenge meant to me was that there was to be no use of the Sizzix Big Shot or such fab Stampin' Up! tools as the Simply Scored! Whoa, that slowed me down a bit! But then I refocused and realized that this was a challenge to be clean and simple with my design. Really clean! No sponges or sponge daubers, either!
But there were plenty of stamp sets and colors from which to choose! I chose for my project colors from the Stampin' Up! Subtles Collection of colors and the Stamp Set, Easy Events. A new demonstrator can choose 4 stamp pads and two Markers. Oops! I used 3 markers! Man, that challenge was harder than I thought! Well, I'm going to just assume that the new demonstrator who did this project for a workshop already had some Stampin' Up! products in her craft room ; ) .
Another product that could be used for this card was a punch, and I used the default punch that was on the list – the Cupcake Punch. I have seen so many people using the frosted part of the cupcake to make clouds, and now I had an opportunity to do it myself. Woo-hoo! Before I punched the clouds, though, I used the "hello" stamp that was on one of the stamps in the Easy Events set, though not on the stamp with the flowers. Each of the 8 stamps in that set has a picture and a greeting. As there are many times such as these that I want to use an image with the greeting from another stamp, I cut the greetings apart from the images. If you're using the clear mount stamp set, it's easy to just cut the greeting and mount it on a clear block when you're ready to use it. For my wood mount stamp set, I mounted each of the greetings on the end of the wood block on which I mounted the image.
And I was so glad that ribbon was in the Starter Kit! Because you know I love to tie my cards all together with a ribbon! For this card, I chose the Pretty in Pink 5/8" Satin Ribbon. To get the bow oriented in the direction I wanted, I cut a 5" strip of the ribbon and wrapped it around the top two layers, adhering it on the back with Stampin' Up!'s monoadhesive, SNAIL (yes, it's in the Started Kit!). Then I cut a longer length of ribbon and tied a bow around the strip of ribbon on the front. Another nice feature of this way of constructing a bow is that you can slip it up or down on the straight piece until you get it right where you want!
This was my first project of the week, and it certainly provides a bright beginning for Spring! I hope your Spring is bright and that you'll have a great week with your own paper crafting! And if you're in Australia or New Zealand, where this is the first day of Autumn, I certainly hope that you're enjoying cool days and gorgeous colors to brighten your days, too!
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