Bloom with Hope meets Tea for Two

Today's card is a quickie that I made using a pretty DSP and a flower from my "things I started but never finished" box. It's always nice to find a place for all that stuff you can't make yourself throw away, but don't have any real use for either. The inspiration for this card is the colour combo over at Color Throwdown and the sketch at Just Add Ink.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, coloured 240 gsm card dark blue, Stampin' Up Strawberry Slush
Stamps: Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler, Stampin' Up Bloom with Hope
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black
DSP: Stampin' Up Tea For Two
Colouring: Stampin' Up Blendabilities Old Olive and Melon Mambo
Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Ranger Distress stickles Crushed Olive

Petal parade thank you

The theme of the current Shopping our Stash challenge is "Oldest punch or die". I can still remember buying the Stampin' Up Chalk Talk dies back in the days when I didn't even have a die cutting machine yet. I used them for a long time just by tracing the outline with a pencil and fussy cutting the shapes. Then finally I got my beloved Big Shot, and I just love die cutting. I love the feeling of turning the handle and popping the paper out of the die. So when I saw the challenge, I knew I had to make a card with these much beloved and well used dies of mine.

I decided to make a Thank you card, as you can never have too many in your stash (ok, so looking at my box of cards you *can* in fact have too many thank you cards, but that wasn't my point). I used the die to cut out a tag and stamped the cute flowers from the Petal Parade stamp set. I matted the tag onto Baked Brown Sugar card. The background is a DSP from a set called Tea for Two. Like all other crafting stuff, I hoard DSPs like crazy, but then I'm really bad at using them. I keep thinking I want to save them for a "special occasion", but what could be more special than crafting time? And I managed to use some random cream ribbon from my stash as well, so this is truly a great stash card. I have also bought the Summer Starfruit ink pad ages ago as I thought I would use it loads, but in fact this is the first time I'm breaking it out. I really like the colour combo of Baked Brown Sugar, Blushing Bride and Summer Starfruit, it has a rather retro feel to it.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth White Card, Stampin' Up Baked Brown Sugar, Hobbycraft 160 gsm cream card
Paper: Stampin' Up Tea for Two Designer Series Paper
Stamps: Stampin' Up Petal Parade, So Very Grateful
Inks: Stampin' Up Baked Brown Sugar, Blushing Bride and Summer Starfruit
Other: Stampin' Up Chalk Talk Framelits, cream ribbon from my stash

Mother's day card in a box

Now that my Mum has seen her Mother's Day card, I can finally show it on the blog as well. I wanted to make something special for Mum, so I made a card-in-a-box filled with flowers. I don't know who originally came up with the idea, but I used this lovely flower filled box card with from Mommy Stamper for inspiration. However, as the measurements in that blog post were in inches, and I feel more comfortable working in centimeters, I used this tutorial from Monica's Passions for making my box. If you don't know how to make the card, instead of me explaining, just hop over to either of those blogs for a video tutorial. The centimeter card results in a bigger card as you use a sheet of A4 to start, whereas the card on Mommy Stamper starts with a 9x5 1/2 (22.8x14cm) in sheet of cardstock.

I used the Stampin' Up Tea for Two DSP for my box and stamped flowers from the Petite Petals stamp set in Regal Rose, Calypso Coral, Blushing Bride and So Saffron. I also stamped the butterfly from the Bloomin' Marvelous set in Marina Mist. I fussycut the butterflies and punched the flowers with the matching punch. I also punched a few flowers from an old scrap of Old Olive cardstock to make the leaves. I used a stamp from the Punch Bunch for the sentiment and finished with a bow and some bling in the form of adhesive gems.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

The Pink Elephant #249 - Mother's Day

Stampin' Royalty challenge #227 - May Flowers (this is my second entry for this challenge)

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Spring Flowers (this is my second entry for this challenge)

Craft Hoarders Anonymous - Ribbon, Lace and Twine

Inks: Stampin' Up Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Marina Mist, Regal Rose and So Saffron
Cardstock: Stampin' Up River Rock, Calypso Coral, Old Olive, Hobbycraft cream 160 gsm cardstock
Stamps: Bloomin' Marvelous, Petite Petals, Punch Bunch
Paper: Stampin' Up Tea for Two
Other: Petite Petals Punch, Pink ribbon from my stash, Stampin' Up adhesive gems

Posted with Blogsy

Grandma's Mother's day card

You may think I'm late posting this Mother's day card, but in fact I'm very early. Because it's a Mother's day card for my Grandma, and in Finland Mother's day isn't until mid-May. This card is inspired by two challenges, this week's Mojo Monday sketch and this week's Color Throwdown. I especially loved the color throwdown as pink-green-brown is one of my absolute favourite color combos ever. As the theme for this week's The Pink Elephant challenge is "use your favourite color combo" I decided to enter this card there as well.

For this card, the star is the amazingly beautiful designer paper. I used cardstock in Sahara Sand, and printed the sentiment in Early Espresso. It says "Grandma, Happy Mother's Day" in Finnish. I inked the edges of the sentiment in Blushing bride, and die cut the doily in Sahara sand. I am still ecstatic about my Big Shot, I have had it for a few months now, and I still get ridiculously happy every time I die cut or emboss something, just because I can!  I used the banner punch in the same designer paper (this is the reverse side of the paper) and in Old Olive cardstock. I know it's a bit of a cheat but the Old Olive went better with the designer paper than Pear Pizzazz, and the challenge rules say that you don't have to use the exact colours as long as you use something similar so I decided to take a bit of a creative licence on this one. I inked around the edges of the banners in Early Espresso and slightly shaped the banners so that they are curled up a little bit. I also stamped a rose inside the card and coloured it in Blushing Bride, Pink Pirouette, Pear Pizzazz and Wild Wasabi. I hope my Grandma will like the card when she gets it in May.

Cardstock: Stampin' Up Sahara Sand, Old Olive, Hobbycraft cream 160 gsm cardstock
Inks: Stampin' Up Blushing Bride and Early Espresso
Papers: Stampin' Up Tea for two DSP
Other: Nellie's multiframes MFD020 dies, and for the inside of the card and the envelope Inspirations clear stamp set and Stampin' Up markers in Blushing Bride, Pear Pizzazz, Pink Pirouette and Wild Wasabi 

Madison Avenue thank you card

I got out of bed ridiculously early this morning as I seem to have managed to catch a bit of a cold. Lying down made my sinuses feel like they were exploding. So I was up long before the sun, and what better to do on a Saturday morning at ridiculous o'clock than to catch up on some card challenges and get inspired!

This time two challenges caught my fancy. The Freshly Made Sketches #127 got my the inspiration neurons firing and I decided to combine it with the Stampin' Royalty #219 colour challenge which this week was So Saffron, Pistachio Pudding and Early Espresso. Another colour combination I wouldn't have picked myself, and completely out of my comfort zone.

To me the colour combo seemed quite retro, and to me the most retro stamp set ever is the Stampin' Up Madison Avenue set. I love it, but hardly ever get around to using it. I also have the matching embossing folder which I think I haven't used at all so far. That's pretty much how this card came together. I used the stamp-a-ma-jic to align the stamps for the flower and to place the little sentiment from the Tiny Tags stamp set.

Cardstock: Stampin' Up Early Espresso, So Saffron, Pistachio Pudding, Craft UK kraft card
Ink: Stampin' Up Early Espresso, Pistachio Pudding
Stamps: Stampin' Up Madison Avenue, Tiny Tags
Paper: Stampin' Up Tea for Two DSP
Other: Embossing folder Vine Street, Scalloped Tag Topper Punch, butterfly brad from my stash