Butterfly Challenge #29 - L is for Lace

I am currently working on my first hybrid scrapbook, i.e. a mixture of digital papers and images, embellished with ´real´elements, so I am practising on some of my cards.

For this one I chose a scrapbook kit called Take Your Chance by Moos Scraps, and selected a pale pink distressed paper, and a scrap of script with butterflies, a frame and an individual butterfly from the elements. I layered up the paper, script and frame in my graphics program, and printed it out as my base card. I also printed two of the single butterflies. Of course, the beauty of using a kit is that everything is designed around a colour palette, so they all tone in and go together.

To embellish it I used a strip of Woodware sticky-back paper lace, coloured with an Aged Mahogony distress marker. These pens very rarely see the light of day, but I could not get a deep enough colour from the ink pad, so I tried the pen and it worked fine. (When I looked at this photo I noticed that a row of little dots had not come away, just above the flower, but fortunately this morning I was able to lift them out with a pricking tool).

Next I gathered up a length of cream lace to make a flower. It didn´t look right against the paper, so I made another one using some burgundy lace and didn´t gather it up so tightly so it stood out around the cream one. I used a deep red gem brad for the centre and lots of silicone glue to hold it together in place. I fussy cut the two butterflies and glued one to the flower and one to balance it in the opposite corner.

I am entering this card in Mrs A´s Butterfly Challenge #29: L is for Lace.

More new stash for Rudolph Day

Yes I have yet more new stash to play with today. I do not normally have such a run  on new goods, but this year I managed to make good use of some of the sale offers. So this time I am using a stamp by Creative Expressions,  Christmas Night bauble, and the co-ordinating die, Vintage Baubles, both Sue Wilson designs. I wanted these last year but thought they were too expensive for the amount of use they would get, so when I saw them in the sale at Joanna Sheens website, I went for it, and she does free International shipping too!

I was a bit disappointed to find that the main image did not fit exactly between the top and bottom fancy cut outs of one of the dies, so I stamped it on a separate piece of paper, cut the inner lace for the bauble from dull gold card, trimmed away the centre section and then moved the stamped image around until it more of less fitted into the space, and cut it by hand. I cut the outline bauble from cream pearlescent card, and mounted the gold part over it. To give the image a bit of a lift, I added glossy accents to the moon and the roof tops and sprinkled them with ultra fine iridescent glitter. 

There was nothing in my Christmas papers box that looked right with this, so I rooted through my digifiles and came up with this one from a pack by Bearly Mine called Christmas dreams. I have several of these paper packs and they are lovely, but sadly her web page is no longer operational so maybe she has stopped designing, which is a shame.

I used Publisher to position the paper and resize it for a 15cm square card, added the sentiment - another digi file from a Karen Murray set of Christmas setiments, and printed it out. I folded and cut it, and added the bauble. Then I used some snippets of green and brown card to cut various pieces using the Tim Holtz Winter foliage die set, and a Marrianne Fir branch die. I cut them up and mixed and matched them, to go along the top and left hand side of the card and added a green bow in the corner.

And that is my card for the Rudolph day Challenge this month. 

As I also used snippets for the foliage, I will link this to Pixie´s Snippets Playground as well, as soon as the gates reopen later tonight.

Decorating the Tree

I was browsing through some digi scrapbook kits this week, and one caught my eye so I bought it. It is called Winterberry by Kimerick Kreations. I thought it was an unusual colour palette for a Christmas kit, ranging through, brick red, orange and peachy shades to ´antique linen´ beige. I am a bit of a digi kit collector and I love all the papers and little elements that come with them, but I have to admit that they don´t all get used, so I decided to use this one to make a card before I filed it away.

I chose a stamp by Sheena Douglas, and worked out what size frame it would need. Then I used Adobe photo shop to make a sheet of the background (orange textured layer) with the frame on it, and also a strip of border that came with the kit. I printed this out together with a page of the darkest red plain paper for a mat.

I stamped my image onto off-white paper and coloured it (except for her dress) with copic markers. I used two shades of green markers to add extra foliage to the tree as it is a bit sparse on the stamp. I wasn´t keen on the white background so I lightly dusted it with Brilliance pearlescent orange ink, which made a huge difference to it.

I trimmed the background around the frame, and using a craft knife I carefully removed the area inside the frame.  I used this piece of cut out paper to stamp my image again and paper-piece the little girl´s dress. Then I realised her lower hand was included in this area so I stamped that bit again on the off-white paper and coloured it. When I had cut it out I made a small slit in the dress sleeve and slipped it into place.

To make the little ornament that she is hanging stand out more, I stamped it onto a snippet of the red paper which I glued to another layer to strengthen it, and cut it out. I used my white Signo pen to colour the light spot, and when that was dry I triple embossed it with UTEE, and glued it in place on the image panel.

Next I made a white A5 card and added a mat of the dark red paper. I mounted the framed image at the top of this and the border strip along the lower part. 

Lastly I used a  Memento Potter´s clay ink pad to stamp the sentiment which is an old Inca stamp.

I am entering this card in the following challenges.

ABC Christmas Challenge: H for Happy Holiday (or Happy Christmas).

Christmas Cards All Year Round: Show a Christmas Ornament.

Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge: Trees

Butterfly Challenge 28 + M is for Music Notes

I was delighted to see this challenge, because with two musical sons to make cards for, I have accumulated a fair number of music related stamps etc. I knew what I would be doing, but my card turned into a catalogue of mistakes and failings, so it was much harder work that I had intended. It is a good thing I have a sense of humour and don´t give up too easily.

1. The stamp I had chosen is from an A5 set by Chocolate Baroque, called Music fanfare. (I bought mine when it was released some two years ago or more, but it is their featured stamp of the week right now so it is on special offer, but I don´t know on which day that will change). However, when I got it out I realised that although it was music based, it had no notes on it, so when I stamped it, I added a little SeeD´s stamp of notes to fit the challenge. 

2. I wanted to use a die called Anja´s border I think, which I bought a long time ago and only used once. I soon remembered why I only used it once - it doesn´t cut properly. This is unusual for a Marianne die and if I had been in UK I would probably have returned it, but with two or three lots of international postage needed for a return, I hung on to it. However, I made a shim from a piece of acetate to go  over the bit that wasn´t cutting, and I did manage to get a useable result.

3. I wanted to reverse it and cut the other edge to make a gate-fold card, but it wasn´t designed to use in this way, and the two edges don´t meet up as you expect them too. So after wasting a lot of card, and still not having a matching up gate-fold, I did what I probably should have done in the first place, and cut it twice from larger pieces of card and trimmed them after they were matched up. I mounted them onto a plain brown base card and trimmed around the front, shaped edges.

4. I had found a rather nice grungy sheet of scrapbook paper in shades of dusky pink and brown which I used, but it wasn´t until after I had cut it that I discovered the paper was double sided with plain, open brown letters of the alphabet on the back, so I would have had to mount it onto card anyway to hide this!

5. Searching through my stash I found the end of an old paper stack by Papermania, called Nostalgia Warm, which still had some off-cuts of plain pink paper that I used for the images. Because I had gone for a gate-fold card I now needed two images so I chose a second from the set and again added some music notes. I added a little colour to each image with copic markers. I used a Memento ink pad in Rich Cocoa for all the stamping and I liked the way it looked almost burgundy on the pink paper. 

6. Then I found that none of the dies in my considerable collection would fit the images, so my next task was to design my own labels in the size I wanted, import them into the silhouette software, trace them, and cut them out. I also made matching mats in the same file and cut two of these from the brown card left over from the base card. I used the same ink pad to distress around the edges of the pink labels.

7. When I took my first photo of the finished card I could see that the right hand topper was not on straight at all. (Why can I see that clearly in a photo and not on the actual card?). Fortunately I had mounted them using 1mm sticky pads and I was able to remove and reposition it, so it is more or less straight now.

8. I like to add a bit of bling to my cards and I was tempted to edge the butterfly on the left image with stickles, but felt it wasn´t quite right with these rather vintage colours, so instead I gave a quick paint over it with a Wink of Stella pen. This seemed to react with the alcohol ink from my copics, and it turned plain white, with no detail showing at all! So I stamped it again, coloured it, fussy cut it and glued it over the white one.

9. In the top corner I stamped some tiny butterflies by Lavinia, and for the lower corner I stamped, and fussy cut,  some vintage roses on the left over pieces of pink paper, and glued them in place. This bit actually worked with no disasters. The roses were done using a new set of stamps that only arrived on Friday so it was my first play with them. I will give more details of these in a later post.

10. More to make it easier to write on than for any other reason, I printed out a sheet of grungy music score scrap book paper to completely cover the main inside panel, and stamped a Birthday greeting on this as I did not want to add a sentiment to the front of the card.

11. I had just finished writing this post when I accidentally hit the wrong button and deleted it all! So I have now rewritten it, and before anything else can go wrong, I will fly over to Mrs A´s blog and link this up to her Challenge #28 - Use a Butterfly + M is for Music notes.

I also used enough odd bits of paper to take this to Pixie´s Snippets Playground - Week 172.

Another Bargain, and a whole bunch of snippets

In my previous post I used a new stamps and matching dies set that I bought , at a very reduced price, from Sizzix, so this time I am using a second set, bought from the same sale, at the same fantastically low price.

For just 6.67 € I got two large and two small flower dies plus two sizes of centres, and three large flower stamps plus two smaller ones, and six alternative centres. Quite a bargain. 

Of course you don´t need to use of them but as I wanted to try them out, my first card has one flower on it that incorporates all the flower stamps and dies, and one set of centres, and here it is.

This is not a very clear photo so some of the stamping is not visible, but what look like plain white petals in the second layer have fine script stamped on them. To match the flower I raided my pink snippets box and found a piece of the pink and mauve mottled paper that I had a whole pad of at one time, but now I mostly have off cuts. I trimmed the base of it with a Marrianne lace die and distressed the edges with Memento Rose bud ink.

The bright pink card at the bottom is packaging from a Heartfelt stamp set, which I kept because it was so bright and has a high gloss finish. I used some more of this to cut the large sentiment with a Joanna Sheen Signature Die.

If you read my previous post you will realise that this one is much the same design as I used then, with a different flower, and they are both CASing a card that I received at least two years ago from a crafting friend.

It works well with this type of topper, and enables me to make smaller (A5) cards which are better for posting to UK. 

As I was making this it struck me that, although it is not a poinsettia, this flower would sit well on a Christmas card too. So then I found several snippets of mirricard in red, green and gold and cut out some flowers in each size and style. Next I used Brilliance dew drop ink pads in pearlescent poppy, pearlescent thyme, and galaxy gold, and stamped some of each design in each colour and cut them out. Then I set about assembling them in various combinations. I was hoping to make six flowers, but I found I had a few pieces left at the end so made them into a seventh one. (It probably looks better for being less crowded!).

I have a huge box of Christmas paper snippets, so I made seven white base cards and mixed and matched my papers to make seven pairs. Then I chose something to use for the join, either with a sticky ribbon, a trim from my stash, or by die-cutting an edge. I assembled my panels and glued them to the card fronts. I added a flower to each one, and then added something to decorate them. For some of them I die cut a sentiment, or cut one with my Silhouette, and for the others I die-cut holly leaves etc.

Here is the first one finished. I liked the star paper which was left over from a sheet I made with Imagination crafts Sparkle medium and a star stencil. The sentiment was cut on my Silhouette using a purchased file, and gold sparkle vinyl. It cut out beautifully.

I had to make one of my cards in landscape orientation because I wanted to use a piece of card I had made with my cover-the-page  holly stamp, embossed in gold, with the berries coloured with a red glitter pen, and I did not have a deep enough piece to make the card portrait like the others.

Anyway, I did get all seven cards made and they will be a useful addition to my very slow-growing stash for next Christmas.

So I will link these up in Pixie´s Snippets Playground, and get over to my other blog to write about what has rocked my world this week.

A big Thank you to those who look at my creations and leave me nice comments, and especially to those who have the patience to read my ramblings on Kate´s Adventures each Friday too. I do appreciate you all.
Sally has kindly pointed out that Stamping Sensations theme is Pretty in Pink this month, so I shall link my first card over there too. Thank you Sally.

Bargain basement card

The downside of being on the mailing list for so many online craft companies is the number of unwanted messages I have to sift through every day to make sure I haven´t missed an important one! But the up side is that I get notification of some very real bargains, which occasionally I do make use of. Todays card is the result of one of those.

I am on the mailing list for Sizzix.co.uk, and a week or two ago they sent me their sale catalogue. There was not a lot to attract my attention but I did spot a set of three stamps and four dies called doodle flowers. These have been around a long time and I have often looked at them, but thought they were quite expensive. But in the sale they were knocked down from 26.69 euros to 6.67 euros. (The site insists on changing the prices to euros because it knows I am in Spain, even though I pay with my English account!). Anyway, at that price who could resist?

For my card I found a scrap of creamy yellow card that I had sprayed with gold mist, and cut the bottom layer of the main flower. Then I found the nearest match of ink and stamped the doodle onto white card and cut it with the corresponding die. The other two dies were for the base layer only, so I chose a darker ink and stamped these onto the same yellow card and cut them out.

I raided my yellow/orange/ red patterned snippets box and chose a tiny pale cream strip to cut the lace with a Marianne die, and found two other pieces that worked well with my colour scheme. The bottom piece is a little snippet left over from when I made a backing paper using a photo of a wayside poppy, back in 2013. You can read how I did this HERE.

I cut the sections out, glued them together,  and lightly dusted around the whole panel, and over the lace,  with DI Rusty Hinge. 

The little butterfly was fluttering around in my snippets box so I rescued him and cut a tiny brown body using a Memory Box die to attach him with.

I glued on the flowers and used an ancient Clarity stamp and Memento Potter´s Clay ink for the sentiment.

I also bought a couple of other bargains from Sizzix (to justify the postage charge - well that what I am telling myself anyway!), so no doubt they will be turning up on here soon.

In the meantime I will pop over to Pixie´s Snippets Playground with this card.

Fluttering by for the Butterfly Challenge

The current letter on the alphabet Butterfly Challenge over on Mrs A´s blog is "C is for Corners", so we are asked to make something using a butterfly of course, and also one or more decorative corners.

For my card I wanted to try out a new Memory Box die called Waltzing Butterflies, but although i had several corner dies to choose from them, most of them looked to heavy when used alongside this very delicate die cut. In the end I chose an element from a collection, but I am afraid I do not know what it is called. It is an older one that I had before I became more careful at storing and naming them.

I looked through my digital paper collection and chose one from a set just called Blue and Brown, from The Paper Shelter, and printed out a sheet of it. I intended to use it on a brown base card, but I only had one sheet of the right shade of brown card to match the butterflies on the paper, so I used a plain white base card and cut a brown mat, and then a layer of the printed paper. This left me with enough brown card to cut the butterflies and two corners.

I wanted to put something behind the butterfly wings to make them the focal point of my card and I was pleased to find the solid butterfly die "Asti" also from Memory Box, just fitted the ones in my new die. So I cut it out twice using some very ancient (at least 25 year old!) interference paper. It is white shot with blue and went perfectly with my card.

I then glued the layers together and added some equally ancient shiny flowers in the corner, and a few gems to give it some bling.

I have not added a sentiment at the moment as I can then use it for whatever occasion I need it for.

So I now off to link up with Mrs A´s blog, with 24 hours to spare this time!!