Pages

Sunday 2 August 2015

Floral Display Window Box Card

Another special birthday for another special lady, my husband's mum and my love of the Flower Patch set continued. I have had a previous 3D project I made with the Hardwood background stamp sitting in my craft room since I made it. If you have been following a while then you may remember that I made a little wooden window box using the Hardwood stamp which I then filled with flowers. You can see the original post here. It was the inspiration for this card as I loved the little wooden box and re-used the idea for the base of my flowers. It worked really well as the layered card gave this rather large card the stability it needed to stand confidently in pride of place.




If you would like to give this a try yourself, I stamped my Hardwood background onto Baked Brown Sugar (retired) card, but you could easily use some current tone of card from from the Neutrals Collection. I then cut my strips, picking out any of the design with knots of wood to make it a bit interesting. Next came some sponge daubing with the little sponge daubers from SU. Sponging the edges of the strips makes such a different to giving it a more authentic wood look. I also ran the sponges lightly across the wood design too for added effect.

The little grass is made with the fringe scissors. Great for adding texture and perfect for grass-effects. I am keeping these away from little hands as I am sure they are going to find their way into the kiddicraft box otherwise and there will be fringed edges everywhere!!

You must know by now from my previous posts the colour combinations on this one as I have found the combo that worked for me and this card was a continuation of the same colour theme. I layered my flowers up, some stuck with dimensional foam pads, on the card front and then carefully trimmed round the shape once done to give my card front the layered stacked effect. 


The Chalk Talk sentiment is retired unfortunately, but the die set is still in the current catalogue for the label shape. My sentiment was embossed in white onto black card, but there are now fabulous chalk marker pens chalk effect if you wanted to free-hand (yes I know, without stamps!??!). Otherwise there are other stamp sets in the current catalogue which co-ordinate with the chalk talk dies.


This card was a work of love so the back had the wooden window box finish on it too. The flowers look lovely stamped inside to finish it off too. You just cannot have too many flowers. I am starting to feel like the Summer sun is really going to start too with all these sunny colours!

I'll be back soon with something less flowery I think..........

Suzanne
x

There is a big long list here of products I used. Where there were retired items I have substituted for suggested alternatives (such as the Soft Suede card/colour instead of the retired Baked Brown Sugar).The list is longer as I have listed colours individually, but some belong to the same colour family so if you have the collection already you will have them already. The Chalk Talk set is retired so remember to look for something to put into your label if you choose to use the dies.


Wednesday 15 July 2015

More Birthday Blooms with SU Flower Patch

I promised and here I am again with my other cards I made with the Flower Patch Stamps and Flower Fair dies. These bright bundles of blooms were inspired by the garden and some of the vibrant colours which are now just making their appearance.

This one was a special one for my lovely Mum who was celebrating her birthday today. It was a bit of a cheat as the flowers are all layered in a similar way, but I wanted to use the gorgeous Bermuda Bay instead. I am starting to love this blue more than the other shades which I usually favour. 


There is a textured background there with the Decorative Dots emboss folder. Just enough scattered raised dots to match my scattering of sequins layered with the few rhinestones. The sequins are from the sequin ribbon in the same colour, I just released a few from the thread.



Wondering where the 'Happy Birthday' comes from? This is from the 'Big Day' set which was offered at the last Sale-a-Bration event. I knew I needed this stamp set for a staple Birthday stamp set to add to my collection. There are lots of multi-use birthday sets in the new annual catalogue too.

I love adding the dimensions to these flowers to make them really stand out and the different textures with the embossed centres to the flowers. I curl the flower petals and leaf edges lightly with my bone folder too to make them stand out more.

I hope they bring some sunshine to your day - they did mine!

Suzanne

x
Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

Sunday 12 July 2015

Blooming Lovely Sunny Days


The sun is shining and Summer is here!!! This is my favourite time of year!  I am sure the over-zealous use of the '!'s is a clue. There is nothing that seems so bad when the sun is shining. Maybe I am excited as it is soon the summer holidays from school and as I am so lucky to have a job that is term-time only I will soon be free to enjoy the sunshine (and crafting??) again soon!

Some of you may know already, but I am no longer a demonstrator for Stampin' Up! as I have taken a break from it for a while. Whilst I am sad to give up regular crafting meet ups with all of you, my lovely Crafty Ink Buds, I need to take some time away to find what I enjoy most again.  That said, here I am, and I hope to be able to continue to blog to share my creations.

I have finally managed to get some time in the craft room and revive my passion.  Well, needs must as July is a big birthday month in the family with myself, my sister and my mum all with birthdays this month, not to mention several friends. I have needed a production line of cards and have had to put together cards in multiples just to keep up with demand. What better stamp set to use than the Flower Patch set and it's matching Flower Fair dies - perfect summery blooms.  I love it!!! 


I have been stamping and cutting multiple blooms and then playing around with ideas on how to place them in various designs. One plus of not being a demo is I can use retired product without excuse so you may see retired items here more than before, but that said I still have plenty of current product and I am sure I am going to be a loyal customer for some time longer.


The base card for these two cards are a mix of the Kraft cardstock and also I have snuck in some use of leftover Christmas cardstock which has the Kraft background and then an oval flower ring design on it. 

I just stocked up on the Kraft paper rolls from Christmas in the same design which are on the Clearance rack - yes, I am already stocking up on Christmas wrap!! They are such a bargain, I couldn't resist and they are going to look great with coloured ribbon under the tree this year. Now, let's not get too carried away with this talk of Christmas, this is supposed to be all about a celebration of Summer.


I love how this card turned out, The flowers sit perfectly round the circles and a few glitzy diamonds....I mean rhinestones (well a girl can dream). There is the old Newspaper print DSP on this card, but there is still a Typeset paper in the current catalogue. The other colours are Pink Pirouette and Strawberry Slush (the old In Colours 2013-2015 still a firm favourite).  I think the leaf design looks great in Pear Pizazz and Old Olive too.


For the second card I used the Love Hearts emboss folder (also retired).  Actually there is a lot more retired product on these than I remembered! I am sure you all have retired paper and product you are hoarding too so it is good practise for me to start using some of it now that I can.

This one was a very Pink display, not usually my favoured colours, but I was inspired by some samples I had seen online.  I have some more examples of my own to show you as this crafting session and a few sessions enjoying the garden inspired me to try the flowers in other colours too. Do come back and take another look next time for some more colourful blooms!

Suzanne

x

I would love to hear your comments or if you prefer you can drop me an email at craftyinkbuds@sky.com.