HB2U

The inspiration today comes from this week's The Card Concept which is a colour challenge. I also decided to challenge myself to use the party hat stamp from the Tim Holtz Birthday Blueprint set. I can't decide if I like the stamp or not, and I couldn't come up with a way to use it.

I was inspired by the black wall and the black and white pillow to do a faux chalkboard effect card. Working in the red was easy, but I had no idea how I could work in a sentiment and the teal colour. But I was inspired by looking at the shiny teal coloured cup on the nightstand and decided to create my own very sparkly and shiny sentiment. I don't get my Stickles out nearly enough so I'm always so happy when I figure out a way to use them.

The Card Concept has six different "styles" to create cards and I think this card would be Clean & Graphic.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth White Card, coloured 240 gsm kraft card in Pillar Box Red and Black, scraps of Stampin' Up Bermuda Bay

Ink: Stampin' Up Whisper White pigment ink

Stamps: Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Birthday Blueprint

Other: Tim Holtz Alterations Inside Out alphabet die, Rangers Ice Stickles in Mint Ice

Steampunk-ish

Today's card was inspired by the current Snarky Stampers challenge which is "S is for Steampunk". Not sure if this is quite hard core steampunk, but it's steampunk-ish enough to qualify I would think. 

After my decision yesterday night to start an art journal, I wanted to get my Distress Paints out in anticipation of my mixed media journal that hopefully will arrive in the next few days. I'm so eager to get going, I can't wait to be making a complete mess and ending up with who knows what monstrosities. But it's a new way of being creative. And you know that feeling when you have a new idea and you just want to get going but have to wait and you are afraid the inspiration will go away and by the time you have all the stuff you need you have already moved onto something new... 

I haven't had much success with the Distress paint metallic colours, I just haven't been able to make them look like I wanted. As it so happened, my new watercolour paper pad arrived today, so I thought I would die cut the cogs from the heavy watercolour paper, spritz the paper until soaked and then use the paints onto the wet surface. And that really worked for me, I love the look. I used my heat gun to dry the cogs until almost dry, then sprinkled some matching embossing powder and heat set. Not too much of it, but just a little for that subtle texture and shine. I also wanted to try out my new washi tape that arrived today (the first washi tape I have ever bought). I used the colours in the washi tape as my inspiration for the cogs and the background. I created the card background by stamping the Gorgeous Grunge stamps using clear embossing powder and sprinkling with a mix of copper, silver and gold embossing powder and heat set before using a foam applicator and Distress inks in Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain to create a leathery look. You can't quite see it in the picture, but the embossing powder has a nice subtle shine giving the card a bit of texture and depth. I couldn't resist stamping a slightly snarky sentiment inside the card. 

Card: Craft UK kraft card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Daler & Rowney 300 gsm Aquafine watercolour paper
Inks: Tim Holtz Distress Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain, Pumice Stone and embossing ink
Stamps: Stampin' Up Gorgeous Grunge, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler, Hobbycraft typewriter alphabet clear stamps
Other: Tim Holtz alterations Gadget Gears die, Papermania Silver and Copper embossing powder, golden embossing powder from my stash that is so worn I can't tell what make it is, washi tape I ordered off ebay, Tim Holtz Distress paints in Antiqued Bronze, Brushed Pewter and Tarnished Brass, gold paper from my stash

Card set and box

I've been thinking how nice it would be to have a few sets of cards that I could give away as gifts. I thought a little set of cards that would work for several different occasions, given in a matching gift box. And because I really love my DSP, I wanted to be as economical with it as possible. So these cards and gift box were all created from one 12x12 sheet of DSP. For this set I selected a colourful DSP from the Stampin' Up Summer Smooches. I created five different cards trying to stick to a theme but keep them different. To keep a coherent feel across the cards I only used sentiments from one set from Paper Smooches (I really love the font in this set) and used a flower stamp from the Stampin' Up Flower shop stamp set on some of the cards, but mostly just letting the DSP take centre stage. I also stamped inside some of the cards.

I got the idea for the box from Mary Fish's blog here, but changed the size to fit my cards and envelopes. I made a diagram with the size for my box, it fits a regular A6 envelope (162x115 mm) and card. I also made matching envelopes for the cards with a purple flower stamped in the corner. To finish, I simply wrapped a matching ribbon around the box. I wasn't really sure about this DSP which is why I haven't used it before, but actually I think the cards turned out really great with the turquoise and purple colour theme. 

For the box, you need two rectangles of cardstock, a 16.6x21.5 cm for the bottom and 15.8x20.7 cm for the top. Score the bottom at 2.5 cm inside of each edge, and score the top at 2 cm inside of each edge. Fold along the scored lines. Cut out the grey triangles, fold the flaps and attach using snail or glue.

Cardstock: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth White Card, Coloured kraft 240 gsm in Purple Grape and Teal, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Inks: Stampin' Up Rich Razzleberry
Stamps: Stampin' Up Flower Shop, Photopolymer Show & Tell 2, Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler
Other: Stampin' Up Pansy punch, Chalk Talk Framelits, ribbon from my stash

Congratulations and smooches

On today's card you can find some more of the little cuties I coloured on the beach. The inspiration for this card was the current sketch from CAS(E) this sketch. I used Paper Smooches stamps for the chubby little critters and the sentiments. The chubby chums are coloured using Tim Holtz and Stampin' Up markers and a blender pen on watercolour paper. The banner is from a set of Christmas sentiments, I stamped it and fussy cut it and mounted the sentiment stamp slightly curved to fit with the banner. I am also entering the card in the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge where Anything goes until July 12th.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth White Card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Daler & Rowney 190 gsm watercolour paper, Coloured kraft 240 gsm card in teal

Stamps: Paper Smooches Chubby Chums, Sentiment Sampler, Papermania Urban stamps 12 Days of Christmas Word Banner

Ink: Stampin' Up Bermuda Bay, Stampin' Write markers and Tim Holtz distress markers, Stampin' Up blender pen

In the garden

This is one of those cards which was supposed to be a completely different card, but it just didn't want to go there. So it turned out like this instead. Sometimes that happens, you have a clear idea in your head what you want to do, and when you put it together it just looks wrong. So you have to change mid project. But that's what so wonderful about creating, just go with the flow and see where you end up. 

The inspiration for this week's card is the Clear it Out challenge blog which this week has the theme In the Garden and the stash item Ribbon. And I do have a huge stash of ribbon which I don't use nearly enough (isn't it strange how you feel like you don't want to use the nice stuff in your stash, but save it "just in case you need it later"). Anyhow, pretty much everything in this card is from my stash. The paper is from a free set that came with a crafting magazine, the doilies have been floating around for ages and I used scraps of cardstock for the butterflies and die cut letters. I am also entering the card at The Pink Elephant where everything goes this week.

Card: Craft UK kraft card, coloured kraft card 240 gsm in purple grape and lavender
Paper: The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady Designer Paper Collection
Stamps: Stampin' Up Bloomin' Marvelous
Inks: Stampin' Up Rich Razzleberry and Wisteria Wonder
Other: White and purple ribbon from my stash, doily from my stash, charm from Vintage Sewing Charms, Tim Holtz inside out alphabet and vintage lace dies, Nellie's multiframe's MFD 020 die

Purple flower shop thank you

I got into the whole colouring onto kraft when I made this card using the So Very Grateful stamp set a while back. My inspiration for today's card was this card from Mel Sharp that I happened upon when perusing Pinterest as well as this week's Colour Me... challenge which is monochromatic Blackberry Bliss. My wish list for the new Stampin' Up cattie was so long that the new in colours didn't make this round, so I don't have Blackberry Bliss yet (and I'm not sure if I really like some of the new colours, still undecided if I want to jump on the 2014-2016 bandwagon or not), but I do have Rich Razzleberry so I went with that. I'm also entering this in this week's Pink Elephant Challenge, which is anything goes.

All in all, this was a rather simple card. I stamped the flowers onto kraft using  embossing ink and heat embossed using white embossing powder. I then coloured the flowers using a Stampin Write marker in Rich Razzleberry. I also stamped and heat embossed the background for the sentiment using a stamp from Chalk Talk and die cut using the matching dies. The sentiment is also heat embossed in white and fussy cut using scissors. Then it was just about assembling everything.

Cardstock: Kraft card, Coloured kraft card 240 gsm purple grape, Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth White card
Stamps: Stampin' Up Flower Shop, Pretty Petites, Chalk Talk
Inks: Tim Holtz distress embossing ink, Stampin' Write Marker in Rich Razzleberry
Other: Papermania Seafoam White embossing powder, Stampin' Up Chalk Talk dies

Dino baby

If you follow my blogs on Facebook, you may have noticed that I couldn't go away on holiday without taking just a little bit of crafting with me. I'm sure my fellow sun worshippers thought I was stark raving mad sitting there in my beach chair in my pink tankini colouring little dinosaurs. What can I say, mad as a hatter...

This card is inspired by this weeks The Card Concept challenge which is Oh Baby! My chosen style for this card is Clean & Layering. I also used this week's Freshly Made Sketch for inspiration. In addition, I'm entering this card into this week's Addicted to Stamps and More which is themed Make Your Mark, as I coloured the cute little dinos with markers and a blender pen. Last but not least, I'm also entering Stampin' Royalty challenge #235 which is "Keep it simple" as this is at least for my style a rather clean and simple card.

I stamped the dinos in black onto watercolour paper and coloured with Tim Holtz and Stampin' Write markers and a blender pen. I stamped two different heart stamps for the background. The smaller hearts are actually a lilac colour, but it looks grey on the picture. The sentiment is heat embossed using silver powder onto vellum. This card existed in quite a few different guises before it ended up as it did, I tried so many different papers for the banners, but this simple layout worked best.

Card: Leonardo Stationery 350 gsm Smooth White Card, Dovecraft 110 gsm premium Vellum, Silver grey cardstock I ordered off eBay and has no branding, Daler & Rowney 190 gsm watercolour paper
Paper: Stampin' Up More Amore DSP
Stamps: Lawn Fawn Critters from the Past, Critters Ever after, Paper Smooches A Little Lovin, Sentiment Sampler
Inks: Stampin' Up Wisteria Wonder, Smoky Slate, Tim Holtz embossing ink, Hobbycraft black pigment ink, Tim Holtz distress marker in Shaded Lilac, Stampin' Write markers in Soft Sky and Marina Mist, Stampin' Up Blender Pen
Other: Stampin' Up adhesive gems, Papermania silver embossing powder