A birthday card for ??

Can you guess who this card was for?  This was for my nephew who recently had his 4th birthday.  He is currently into Buzz Lightyear and Lightning McQueen, but I didn't have anything along those lines to make for his card.  I did have some Penny Black Alphabet stamps though, and combined these with the retired Fox and Friends images for a fun and bright card.  

Did he like it?  Of course not.  He wasn't really even interested in his present - a Buzz Lightyear character outfit.  This year it was all about Lego and trucks. 

Simply Sketched Poppy

OK, back to cards.  This is the last image in the Simply Sketched set - a pretty poppy. I have used one of the new in colours on this card, Crisp Cantaloupe.  I wonder who gets to make up the names and what the criteria is.  Wonder what their job description is.  

Anyway, this card definitely did not turn out like in my head.  I like the background but not fussed on the top panel.  Originally it was enclosed in a square border, but then I changed it to a circle border. 

I have kept this one out to have another attempt at making it better.  Any suggestions?

SU Fabric

Someone asked me a while ago whether I had ever bought and made anything with the fabric that Stampin' Up used to sell.  My mother and 2 sisters are all quite skilled in the patchwork/sewing department, but sadly it didn't pass down too well to me and my younger sister yet.  There's still time, but I think I prefer playing with cardstock.  BUT I did "encourage" my sister to purchase some of the fabric when it was being retired off at a discount price.  

My big sister Yvonne is the queen of patchwork and is always working on about three different quilts or projects at a time, and she has been busy lately making bags using the fabric she bought.  

The first bag is big enough to carry her iPad around in.  Don't you love the little flower button?  This one is made with fabric from Summer Smooches.

 

And then this next one she made for her granddaughter Haylee for her school library books, and Haylee chose the colours from the Essential Designer Fabric. 

On top of the button flower you may see some faint stitching on the polka dots.  It's a little butterfly.  Cute.  The photo has actually been put in sideways - it actually flutters the right way up.   

This is another bag that Yvonne has made. Obviously not SU material, but if you look closer it has lots of little ladies on it.  And guess what - another sideways button photo.  At least I'm consistent.  

 

One more Simply Sketched card to show and another simple card to make.  Maybe a little too simple, what do you think? 

The frame around the image is a Nellie's brand, oh, the opposition.  Don't tell.  Have a few layers behind the centre panel and sponged edges.  Can you tell I am a fan of sponging the edges.  It just finishes things off in my opinion.

Hope you all enjoyed your weekend and are well and truly into work mode by now.  Not sure that I am.  The weekends go so quickly lately.  

I have a card made with one of the new hostess sets to show today.  The set is called "Simply Sketched" and has three images, a tiny bird in grasses, a poppy and this one, plus three sentiments to chose from.  I really like the fonts in the sentiments, very elegant.  The photos were taken at different times of the day, the top one shows the true colours.  

This was a simple card to make, simply stamped in StazOn and then layered on black and white for emphasis.  The tiny berries were coloured with a blender pen and then Glossy Accents on top to shine them up. 

I really liked the way this turned out.  The image would also work really well for Christmas cards too. 

More Madness

Have another card using the Mosiac Madness set for you today.  This one is a little brighter and I like this one too.  

Have added Daffodil Delight to this card which gives it a little more zing and added diamontes this time.  I think I should have added a sentiment, but sometimes less is more.  

 

 

Not sure if you noticed, but Tuesday's card had the images stamped on the reversed side of the embossed image and this one uses the right side - look closely and you can seen the indents are opposite. 

And just to prove that you can do something completely different with the punched shapes I had a go at making a few flowers that I had seen on the internet.  I think I need a little more practice, but you get the idea. 

 

The red one was stuck down first and then I tried to put a bit of shape into the petals later.  This was not really successful as I had glued most of the petal down, hence it looks a little flat and square shaped.  The second one I cut a into the base of the bottom and glued it over itself to put in the curve and then curled the tip before sticking together.  Also has 5 centre petals instead of 4 and looks less square shaped.  Not sure if I actually like them, but it's good to know there is another option. 

Mosiac Madness

I have been having fun playing around with one of the sets from the new catalogue, Mosiac Madness, and over the next few posts will have a few cards to share with you.  This set is one of the ones you can buy in a bundle and comes with the stamp set and a matching punch.  There is also an embossing folder you can purchase separately.  The stamps and punch cost $56.75 for clear mount in the bundle or $36.95 and $27.95 separately, so there is a bit of a saving.  

In this first card I have used two of the new In Colours; Strawberry Slush and Coastal Cabana which combine so well together.  The smaller strawberry images are stamped directly onto the embossed card and the cabana images were punched out and stuck on. 

Popped a pearl on in the centre of the shapes and added a sentiment.  I like this one.

Will be back on Thursday with a brighter version.   

Milk carton die

A friend of mine lent me her milk carton die to have a play with recently and I wanted to try one of the trinket boxes that I have seen floating around the internet.  The milk carton is so small but quite cute. You need to cut out two patterns and then cut off half of one to join them together to make the box.  I'm not sure whether I cut the right bit off, but this is what it ended up looking like.

I put the $20 note in to show you the size.  Couldn't find anything else around at the time to compare size with.  Not that I have money floating around on my desk all the time.  

Next thing to try is a couple in a carrier crate.  Will post a photo after I have done it. 

 

Excuses, excuses

You would think that with a new catalogue almost out and a few new products to play with that I would have something decent to put on here.  My excuse is that I have had to work 4 days a week lately, and we went away to Canberra last weekend and I'm still catching up on washing, ironing and all the boring household jobs that need doing.  And also I really can't get anything to look any good.  My desk is a jumble of bits and pieces of stamped, punched or almost done things, but I just am lacking inspiration, time and ....?  So for a while I will just stick to 2 posts a week, and see how we go. 

I half made this card weeks ago and then put it aside to work on something else - one of my easy square cards using images from quite a few stamp sets. 

Lots of sponging going on with a shimmery butterfly in the middle.