Butterfly birthday

I needed a birthday card for a friend and found myself short of ideas so used a challenge to give me a kickstart on it. Unusually for me there’s no stamping here! 

The Die Cut Divas are asking for shades of red and/or pink for the current challenge.

I die cut the butterfly from watercolour paper and used various shades of red and pink paint to colour it, mixing some Gansai Tambi white gold with pink to colour some cells with subtle sparkle. I’ve also used some Stickles dotted around the butterfly for extra glitz and added a sequin and a nail art gem where the two fern stems join. 

The top of the card was inked with Distress Oxide and then I splattered some diluted ink — it left coloured dots on the white portion of the card and lifted colour from the inked portion. The sentiment was die cut from card inked in the same Distress ink and the slender ferns left crisp white. Then of course, as it’s all die cuts, I spent ages shuffling elements around before getting something I was vaguely happy with — why do I find it so much more difficult than composing something with multiple stamps?!

Paper: Bristol board

Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Oxide by Ranger (Picked Raspberry)

Other:
Mini Detailed Butterfly dies (Tim Holtz/Ranger)
Happy Birthday Poe Script die (Poppystamps)
Fern Valley dies (Arden Creative Studio, Maker Series)
Watercolours (Winsor & Newton)
Gansai Tambi Starry Colours
Corner Chomper
Stickles glitter glue (Frosted Lace)
Sequin
Nail art gem

Deck the halls

A second card for the February Christmas Kickstart challenge where we've been invited to a sing-a-long! I'm combining with Retro Rubber this time who are back after a break while they changed platform. Use stamps older than a year and you can play along, too!

This turned out a bit rustic, a bit vintage but quite festive, I think. Retro Rubber has a tic tac toe challenge at the moment — I chose the middle line of kraft, free choice (I went with fussy cutting), embossing. I think my song for Christmas Kickstart is reasonably obvious!

After fussy cutting the stamped holly, I decided the card needed something a bit extra. Although it's at a different scale I thought the die cut holly sprig worked OK and it had the advantage that the leaves were small enough I could overlap the sprig onto the sentiment panel without obscuring any of the pretty lettering. I hand drew the veins so it was closer to the style of the stamped holly.

I've given the lettering a tiny bit of sparkle by using a Spica glitter pen to trace over the edges of the stamping.

Distress ink in Antique Linen always goes well with kraft and it just softens the edges of the white sentiment panel a bit. 

Stamps:
Noel (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us —  I've had the set at least a decade)
Holly (magazine freebie stamp, I've had it at least five years)

Paper:
Kraft
Bristol board
Black

Ink:
Memento Luxe (Love Letter)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Antique Linen)
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)

Other:
Moonlit berries embossing folder (Couture Creations)
Square Nestabilities by Spellbinder
Copic markers
Red Spica glitter pen
Christmas roses dies (Sue Wilson/Creative Expressions) 

 Thanks for Stopping by!

All together now...

This month Christmas Kickstart is inviting us to a sing-a-long - make a card inspired by a Christmas song or carol. I'd recently found this little sentiment stamp (it's so old I don't remember where it came from; it's grey rubber and I have a very faint bell in my head that says Elzybells but if anyone knows, shout out!). 

The sentiment was really crying out for an image with two or more characters and when I remembered this jolly little crew tucked down the side of the Christmas supplies box they seemed like good candidates.

We recently visited a National Trust property (Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire, worth a visit if you're in the area) and they had some lovely cards in the gift shop that had a slightly debossed area for the image. I figured I should be able to do that to add subtle interest to a one layer card. Took me a while to work it out but I got there in the end!

I cut some lightweight chipboard with a rectangle die and used a bit of low tack tape to keep it centred on the card front then turned it over and ran a stylus round the edge. I did it on a blank card base so that if I messed up, I hadn't ruined a carefully coloured image!

Image is coloured with Copics and topped up with just a few pencil details and some copper gel pen for the stars on some of the packages. 

Stamps:
Holly Jolly (Penny Johnson/Stampavie)
Sentiment stamp unknown (possibly very old Elzybells)

Paper:
Bristol board

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)

Other:
Copic markers 
Black fineliner
Coloured pencils
Copper gel pen

 

 

My punny Valentine

I wanted to make a Valentine for my DH but nothing was really gelling until I saw the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers challenge this month — Black, Black Heart. When combined with Lost Coast Designs and We Love Stamping who both have the theme of Hearts this happened.

I've had this embossing folder for ages (I had to have it after seeing this card on Jo's blog but have failed to use it until now! Looking at it again reminds me how much I miss the Let’s Squash It! Challenge). The folder gives a fantastically deep impression. I guess black is not traditional but it is dramatic!

The original plan was to print out a quote from Einstein about love and gravity but the printer is playing up and then this pun popped into my head and refused to go away. That meant I spent ages cutting and then sticking on individual letters -- good job it's going to someone special, eh? 

I ran a copper gel pen round the edge of the embossed piece, just for a bit of contrast

Stamps:
Einstein (Carmen's Veranda)

Paper:
Smooth black
Bristol board 

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Typewriter font dies (Tim Holtz/Sizxzix)
Romantic 3D embossing folder (Sizzix)
Copper gel pen
Stitched rectangle dies A6 size (Paper Rose) 

Thanks for stopping by!