Sunny Flowers

Sunny Challenges Blog has a sketch challenge this week, there were a few new toys I wanted to use making my card to play along.

 There are some new, roll over and retired products on this card, such a shame they are not all current products, but I am sure I will find alternatives.  New products include the Raspberry Ripple card stock, Daydream Medallions stamps and matching Floral Frames Framelits and Itty Bitty Framelits.  I used Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine because in such small amounts it matches the Raspberry Ripple well enough.  I framed the Itty Bitty Banners using the Word Window punch with the ends snipped off - I was really happy to see how well it fit the little banner.

I have arranged to have the remainder of the week off work, and have a new box of Stampin' Up! toys due to arrive any day now, so I am hoping to get some serious creating done over the next week.

Happy Stamping

Something Just For Me ...

I have a mid year's resolution (like a new year's one but just 6 mths late!).  I want to be more organised and I knew I needed a tool or two to help me achieve my goal.  I love "To Do" lists but find that the paper variety just don't work for me, I jot down notes on them, they get messy as I cross jobs off.   A white board would work, but I don't have a handy wall to hang one on, not where I would see or easily reach it.  My solution was to make one out of a picture frame.

The Beau Château DSP has a sheet with a lovely flourish in the top corner and lines all down the page, perfect for the task at hand.  I used my paper trimmer to cut it to size, and then did some fancy cutting around the flourish.  I added another sheet of the Beau Château DSP behind this, choosing a soft pattern in Blushing Bride.  The "To Do" is done using the Junior Type Alphabet dies.  The glass in front makes a perfect surface to write my list on, and with a whiteboard pen the jobs I do wipe straight off - the pen sits in the Blushing Bride tube you can see attached to the front of the frame - no losing the pen now!  Best of all it sits near my desk nice and handy but not in the way.   

I decorated the front of the frame with three flowers, two made from the Fancy Flower punch and the larger one from the Blossom Punch.  On the inside of each is a single layer punched using the Blossom Bouquet Triple Layer Punch.

It is really nice to make something just for me, and it was so easy to do I might even make myself another one for my work desk!

Happy Stamping

Tutorial - Butterfly Card

Here is the step by step instructions for the butterfly card I made for one of my Convention swaps this year.   You will notice that the colour changes part way through, from Calypso Coral to Island Indigo, this is mostly because I didn't think of doing a tutorial until part way through the process and by then had stamped and punched out all my butterflies in Island Indogo!  I found using the Vellum rather than card stock gave the butterfly's wings a softer look and let some of the light through.

Products

• 8.5 x 8.5cm piece of Vellum Card Stock
• A5 Confetti White card stock
• 10cm x 14.3cm Coloured card stock
• 9.5cm x 13.8cm Very Vanilla card stock
• Ink: Lucky Limeade, colour of choice to match coloured card stock, VersaMark
• Stamps: Mixed Blossom, Loving Thoughts, Creative Elements
• Other: Sizzlits Lots of Tags Die, Blossom Punch, Silver Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Brayer, Embossing Buddy

Instructions

• Use your Brayer to cover some card stock weight Vellum with your desired colour.  If you are mass producing you can do this a sheet at a time. I found cutting widths of 8.5cm allowed me to emboss a few at a time.
• Either use your Heat Tool to dry the ink, or leave it overnight to dry naturally.  

• When the ink has dried turn the vellum over so the un-inked side is facing you.
• Rub over the Vellum with the embossing buddy and then stamp the flower image onto the vellum using VersaMark ink.
• Cover this with embossing powder and heat with the heat tool. You can see the image to the left is only partly heated at this point.

•  Allow the embossing to cool and then punch out the stamped image with the Blossom Punch. I am totally in love with this punch at the moment, and with this particular image out of the Mixed Bunch set too!
• Cut away two of the petals as you can see in this picture.  Save these off cuts as you can make another butterfly with them too (see below).

• Stamp the flourish from the Creative Elements set on opposite corners of the Very Vanilla card stock.  You could use a Stamp-A-Ma-Jig for this, but I found that doing 50 or so I just did them by hand.
• Stamp on the body of the butterfly - I used Early Espresso ink for this.
• Adhere the Very Vanilla layer to the coloured card stock. Score and fold the A5 card stock in half to form the base of your card (not shown here) and then adhere the coloured layer to the front of the card.

•  Attach the butterfly to the card using the 2-Way Glue down the centre of the butterfly so that the wings lift a little.
• Cut out a frame for your sentiment and sponge the edges to match your card stock.
• Depending on how good your 'eye' is you can add the sentiment with or without the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig (I did use it for this step).
• You can then adhere the sentiment to the card either with SNAIL or with a couple of Dimensionals.

Variations

Here is a Calypso Coral version with gold embossing, while I quite liked this I was really taken with the silver, especially on the darker Island Indigo.

Remember how I said not to throw away the spare petals?  This is the butterfly made using two lots of petals, I angled them slightly so that the space at the bottom was just a bit smaller than the space at the top.

And finally this is the card made with the 'off-cut' butterfly.  You can see that I have stepped it up by adding some ribbon, and if you look closely some rhinestones down the body of the butterfly.  I have also used the Word Window and Modern Label punch for the sentiment and added some mini brads. 

You could use any sentiment or punch shape on the card, I am a big believer in use what you have on hand!  If you don't have the butterfly body stamp you could draw the antenna on by hand or tie a piece of Bakers Twine around the middle of the butterfly and use the knot ends for antenna (wouldn't work so well with the off cut butterfly)

Happy Stamping

Back at the Mash Up

It has been a while since I joined in with the Friday Mashup challenge, but with a 4 day weekend upon us I have time to do some creating and challenges.  

As you know I love doing the mashed up version of the challenge and this week is no different, thought it was a challenge as part of it was a tic tac toe challenge (pick any three elements that line up in a row from the grid), the second part of the challenge was a fancy fold card.

I chose to use neutrals, ribbons and flowers - which was a challenge as I so desperately wanted to add some colour to the flower!  I picked a piece of the newsprint DSP so that the pretty little butterfly was peeking out from behind the flower (again wanting to add some colour!).  I used Basic Grey as the neutral and kept it monochromatic.

The facy fold part of the card is that it is a telescoping card!  This is the first time I have made one of these and I was so happy with how it turned out, and how easy they are once you have things lined up. I knew the effect of the card had worked when I saw the expression on my daughter's face when I opened up the card!

Happy Stamping