Girly birthday and Father's Day.

Today I wanted to share a couple of cute girly cards using shades of pink.

The card on the right has an embossed background. The stamped image (by Prima) was coloured using promarkers and the little hearts on the waist and head bands were punched  using a new punch from Stampin Up! The flower and sentiment were from a goody bag bought from craft works cards about a gazillion years ago...there was always so much stuff in the goody bags I never managed to use even half of it.




The card on the  left was made using background papers form an art colage stack bought in the USA along with a selection of Memory Box dies...the hearts along the bottom of the card were the punch outs from the top bunting die... I dislike waste and this seemed like an obvious way to use the perfectly formed mini hearts as added accents.

The card on the right was the card I made for  my Dad this Father's day. Its a far cry from the riot of colour in the card he got last year...

This time I went for a more dignified approach and a totally monochrome look across the black to white spectrum. I incorporated grey striped washi tape and a metal button with black and white twisted paper twine
.

That's it for now
Until next time, take care
Cxx

Birthdays, birthdays everywhere....

It seems June is a very busy month for birthdays - I even have one coming up  myself shortly -  and I have  been very busy this week indeed.

Today is my lovely Mother-in-law's birthday and this is the card I made for her...with a teeny bit of  minor consultative input from my husband - she is his mother after all...

Happy to report that she was as thrilled with her card   as she was with  the two cakes we took along. Hopefully someone will send me photos of the cakes - they were very pretty as well as being delicious.

I  should point out I am not being boastful about my cakey prowess ...I did not make the cakes...I played it safe and  ordered them from a fabulous local place and collected them and stored them in my fridge until party time. They were yummy...and disappeared really fast.

So happy that our Mummy had a happy birthday... we will be celebrating my Mum's birthday at the end of the week...and I will be starting on her card tomorrow...

Busy busy...

Bye for now

Cxx

Birthday Blocks

Today I thought that rather than show a finished project, I would share something I am still working on.

 This is a block cube card and this cute and clever fold stands as 3D but folds completely flat to go into a standard envelope.

This style of card presents lots of fabulous options, including mounting it onto a base board and turning it into a keepsake - something I plan to try out later this month as there is a special family birthday coming up soon.

But for now - and while I wait (rather impatiently I must admit)  for a delivery - this is a  work in progress. Hopefully I will be back to share the completed project at a later date.

What are you working on right now?  I would love to know...

Bye for now
Cxx

In the pink...

Today I thought I would share a couple of recent cards... both in shades of pink.

The 25th birthday card (on the right) was made using the Tied Together embossing folder with perfect pearls as accents. The central flower panel was made using a Spellbinders die and secured in the centre with a candy dots brad (from Stampin' Up!) I really like these brads because they come separately form the centres so you can use any shade of candy dot to suit your project or as I did here, you can add a pearl or other gem. I distressed the edges of the panel and added a line of faux stitching with a white gel pen.

The birthday card on the left was made with a new (to me at least) die from Taylored expressions which produces an A2 panel of swirlyness.  I matted the die cut panel on to a piece of white card and offset this on the front of the base card, adding 3D stamped butterflies along the remaining edge and a mini sentiment panel in the centre.

TIP:  as this is a very intricate die I put strips of double sided tape on the back of the cardstock before I ran the die through the big shot. This meant that the adhesive was already on the back and I did not have to mess about with trying to put glue on the teeny strings of the pattern.


If you have any questions about any of the projects, products or techniques please leave me a message.

That's all from me for now.

Cxx

Grow your dreams

When I was in the USA earlier this year I came across a stamp set with this sentiment

 "Dreams come a size too big so we can Grow into them..."

and I just had to have it... because all too often our dreams, especially our creative dreams, can get sidelined by the practicalities of life and so many times we neglect our dreams or dismiss them as being unattainable...or inconvenient                                                    

But aren't dreams meant to be lofty so we can stretch ourselves to reach them, aren't we meant to aim high to achieve these goals? ... Sometimes it seems we need a little reminder and this sentiment says it perfectly.

I made this project to send to a friend. I intentionally kept the design simple and natural because I wanted the sentiment to be the focus of the project. It will be going in the post to her this week. I hope she will like it...I'll let you know.

Bye for now
Cxx

A new era

I have not been as idle as the lack of blog activity might suggest, it is simply that blogging here became a casualty of a busier than expected life...but hopefully things are about to change.

I am a Stampin' Up! demo and I have a blog specifically for my Stampin' Up! adventures. It has lots of fun projects made using SU products as well as specific promotion info. Feel free to check it out HERE ... but THIS BLOG  is dedicated to all my creative adventures and is free of restrictions. As such I am hopeful that there will be lost of fun as I move ever onwards in my creative journey...

So I thought I would kick off with a little update and a project sharing too...

I decided that it is time to get a little more involved with swaps and challenges and so I signed up for a few of each...and I had forgotten just how much fun they could be.

I am currently involved in a one to one card swap with Debby,  a crafter in rural Canada. The lilac butterfly card (pictured right) was the first card I sent to Debby.


I recently took part in a card candy swap (hard work but huge fun). For this we each chose a stamp set and made ten packs of card candy using that set as the base.  It takes a fair bit of time to create all the elements and then assemble each one and package them, but it is lots of fun and the end results can be surprising.

I took part in my first card candy swap  (pictured left) late last year
 and  the set pictured   right was my second time...and definitely won't be the last.





I have taken part in a tag swap over at VLVS and I am waiting for my return tags... The inspiration point for the tag swap was sunshine  and these are a few of my tags. The headless unicylist and the wording were from a collection of quirky VLVS stamps.



If you are ever in Las Vegas you really must pop in and say Hello to DeeDee and Jeff in their amazing rubber stamp store on Sahara. It is a truly amazing place... you will not regret spending time there, I promise!

Finally my last swap was a birthday card swap on ILWS. For this I decided to go against the cake (shock horror) and brightly coloured card styles and opted for a simple design and muted colour palette with this card.

Unfortunately I realised after I had sent them off that the photo does not clearly show the detail involved in this card and what shows as a blank space between the mounted squares and the candy dots is in fact staggered embossing. I have always known that my photographic 'skills' needed some work but this really brought it home. Must try harder eh?

Anyhow that is it for now... a little update and a few project shares...and time to move forward.

I am delighted to report that I have booked a one day jewellery workshop next month. I am really looking
forward to  trying something new and totally different. Watch this space as they say...

Bye for now

Cxx

Sending a smile in an envelope

Sometimes there is only one way to face advancing age and that is with humour... after all we can all do with a little cheese with our whine and this stamp from Stampin' Up! seems to fit the bill  just perfectly.

And thankfully my dear old Mum has retained a sense of humour and she and her friends loved this card...a real change from the usual flowery offering most seventy six year old's receive on their birthday.

The image and the sentiment stamps were both purchased form the Viva Las Vegas Stamps store earlier this year and I am sure they will get plenty of use.

This was a quick  an easy little thank you popped into an envelope with a package sent recently. I really like the grunge stamps for the background and the sentiments come with built in smiles

And of course the sentiment on this last card is so true...you really can never have too much happy

Until next time, take care


Christa   xx