Valentine's sentiment

We are invited for a wedding on Valentine's Day. They are friends of the Culinary Consultant, and I don't really know them that well. But I thought I would make a card to celebrate the event. I didn't want to go overboard mushy with the card, as I'm sure a wedding on Valentine's day is all mushy and heart-filled and pink and red enough. So I turned to my trusty stamp friend. I absolutely love the Life's Messages sentiment stamp from Penny Black and I keep using it over and over, it's just so incredibly versatile. And I think it's great for a Valentine's card/wedding card as well. 

When I saw the colour combo over at ColourQ I immediately made a dash for my craft room. It's sooo fab, and I just had to use it for something immediately!! And I can honestly say this is the first time in the history of ever that I have used the word fab about a colour combo which contains orange. Orange, green and yellow are my least favourite colours, and I would never use them if it wasn't for colour challenges. But I thought Calypso Coral went so perfectly with this lovely combo. On a completely unrelated note, I can't figure out how the heels on the wool socks in the picture are made, they look very different to how I have learned to knit the heels. But no more on that subject. I was also completely inspired by this weeks sketch over at My Favourite Things, I think it's absolutely brilliant so I used it for my card. I was also inspired by the challenge over at Just Us Girls which is "Make your sentiment the focal point", and I think the lovely Penny Black sentiment is perfect for this challenge. I'm also entering the card in a few Valentine's themed challenges: Shopping Our Stash (theme Love Me Do), Stampin' Royalty (Valentine's), Time Out Challenges (Valentine's Day with the optional twist of Hearts) and The Card Concept (inspiration photo, I was inspired by the ombre colouring which I used in the background and also on the word Laugh).

I stamped the sentiment in Versamark and embossed using white powder. I then used sponges to ink Calypso Coral, Strawberry Slush and Aged Mahogany (I don't have Cherry Cobbler) in the background, and spritzed with water. I used a DSP from Venetian Romance for the background, and matted everything onto Strawberry Slush card. I coloured the word Laugh from the sentiment using Calypso Coral, Strawberry Slush and Aged Mahogany markers and stamped onto white cardstock for the banner. Last, I stamped the heart from Perfect Postage in Aged Mahogany. I absolutely love this sketch and colour combo, given that I don't really like Valentine's cards, I think this turned out rather good. I'm just so happy about all the great challenges out there and the amazing inspiration from the DTs who do a great job week after week. 

Card: Stampin' Up Strawberry Slush, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Stampin' Up Smoky Slate

Stamps: Penny Black Life's Messages, Stampin' Up Perfect Postage

Inks and Markers: Stampin' Up Calypso Coral, Strawberry Slush, Tim Holtz distress ink Aged Mahogany, Tsukineko Versamark

Paper: Stampin' Up Venetian Romance

Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing Powder

Be grateful and smile

And so it's Sunday morning again, and half of the precious weekend is already gone. I didn't do anything but craft yesterday. No cleaning, no cooking... Oh well, it could be worse I guess. 

I made this card as a little reminder to myself. I have been feeling a bit blue lately, it's probably the change in the weather and the end of summer. But it's good to remind yourself that all in all, things aren't too bad. I thought I would make it a bit luxurious with some gold cardstock and gold heat embossing. I used the Stampin' Royalty sketch for inspiration. 

Just as a tip if you are like me and want to be very frugal with your cardstock. I wanted to use my god cardstock in a sensible way as I only had one sheet of it. So The smaller golden panel in the middle is actually cut out from the big one in the background as that one only needs to show the little narrow edge leaving the whole inside wasted in my opinion. So I just market the outline of the black back panel onto the large golden panel, left some extra to attach the black panel to and cut out the rest for the middle panel, trimming the edges after cutting it out and using it for the middle panel. I then punched out the flower from the middle of the middle panel. Hope that makes sense, I think it's a good way of saving on cardstock.

Card: Craft UK kraft card, coloured 240 gsm kraft card black, gold card from my stash
Stamps: Penny Black Life's Messages
Ink: Hobbycraft gold pigment ink
Paper: Kaisercraft 6" paper pad Christmas Collections (free with a crafting magazine sometime last year)
Other: Stampin' Up Petite Petals punch, basic pearls coloured with a Sharpie, Papermania Enchanted Gold embossing powder

Floral Celebration

Looks like my lil' old mojo came back for a short visit this morning, and I finally managed to finish my card for this week's Fusion challenge, which I have been attempting for days, only producing things that went right into the bin. But this morning I managed to put this card together. Not my best one, but good enough for public scrutiny. I'm also entering this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where anything goes this week.

I adore the Penny Black Life's Messages stamp set I used for the sentiment. It is one of those stamps that I just had to have when I saw it, and it did involve quite an intricate hunt over the interwebs before I managed to secure it. I love to use it for scrapbooking (see here) and I have used it on some faux chalkboard cards (see here). It's just so versatile. The little star in the sketch immediately became a flower in my mind, and I even managed to use up the green leaves I had coloured in when I was testing some markers the other day. It's always great to get rid of things in your stash, isn't it!

Cardstock: Cream linen textured card from my stash, Hobbycraft 160 gsm cream card
Paper: Stampin' Up Patterns Stack Brights and Polka dot parade DSP
Stamps: Penny Black Life's Messages, Stampin' Up Flower Shop, Petite Petals and Mixed Bunch
Inks: Stampin' Up Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie and Regal Rose
Other: Lace from my stash, Stampin' Up Basic Pearls, matching punches for the flower stamps