My birthday cards

I don't have anything to share with you as I am working on my Christmas Cards, and I obviously can't put them up here for all to see yet, so I thought you might like to see some of the cards I received recently for my birthday. I was away visiting my Dad on the actual day but arrived home to some wonderful creations.   

Don't you love that oval die cut?

Have always wanted to see how this looked in real life - beautiful!

So much work went into this one, and I love that die cut flourish

So pretty with those lightly coloured  flowers from Bordering on Romance and the scalloped edges

One of my favourite stamp sets - Bliss - in soft pastel colours

And one of my favourite colours - Elegant Eggplant combined with Fifth Avenue Floral

This card was made with the Sweet Threads Simply Sent kit and looks great

Apologies if I have forgotten anyone's card.  I am currently in the process of re-organising my craft room and things are a little bit of a mess.  I may not be back blogging for a while, but will return when there is something productive to share.  

 

Another Sampler

As I had so much fun making the sampler for my sister I decided that I would make another.  This one is the final version of one for my recently born great niece.  

I had bought a sheet of 12 x 12 paper with a Holly Hobby design that I was planning to use, but after spending a lot of time cutting it all up I decided I didn't really like the look of it.  So I went back to my stamps and decided to stick with a limited colour scheme.  And I got to use a lot of my before Stampin' Up stamp sets that hadn't been used for a while.  

The big "mistake" that I made was using 4 colours when there are lines of 5 which made the order of things a little difficult.  You can see that the main colour turned out to be pink, but in the end I didn't mind that, although next time I will make sure I have 5 colours to make things easier.  

The hardest part about these frames is trying to get everything even when sticking them down.  

This is the layout without the frame -

And all framed up -

Stay tuned - I have one more to make, this time for myself. 

Another birthday

Guess what I forgot to do?  I went away to visit my Dad and had scheduled a few posts for while I was away, but then when I came back I completely forgot all about posting.  I guess I just assumed there were posts ready to go - oops.  

I seem to have lots of birthdays around October/November, and this one was for my 17 year old niece.  It gets a little hard thinking of a suitable gift so we thought a gift card might be the way to go.  I wanted to make a pocket style card for the gift card and this was the end result.  

I used the top note die for the lovely flap shape, sponged with Coastal Cabana and stamped with my favourite script from French Foliage.  Two buttons with a bit of string kept it all together and even though they weren't exactly the same colour I don't think it stands out too much.  Perhaps I should have used a softer colour for the flower stamp, but I didn't have enough time to re-do it.  

 

Male Lovely as a Tree birthday

Another borrowed set was used here - Lovely as a Tree.  This is a great stamp set as it can be used for many different occasions including Christmas or birthdays. 

This card opens in the centre and the main piece has some paper piercing around it.  The front panels were stamped with the leaf and then masked while I sponged around them.

Sampler

My sisters are very supportive of me and my stamping habit so for big sister's birthday I wanted to make something 3D using my stamps.  During one of my stints on Pinterest I saw something called a Sampler by Diana Gibbs and thought this might be just the thing.  

You can view Diana's version here  and Cecile Ortiz's original inspiration here.

Neither of them give much information about sizes and details, and you may just have to brush up on your French to read Cecile's blog, but sometimes all you need is the idea.  

I used my trusty square dies and a friend's scalloped square dies and then just went through all my stamp sets for appropriate images for each square.  A few are direct copies of Diana and Cecile, lots of stamps are borrowed, a few stamps are mine and most are from Stampin' Up sets. 

 All of the squares are sponged with Crumb Cake on Vanilla cardstock, some with backgrounds and all have parts of the square with something popped up on them.  In the end I had to call in some technical assistance to have the typewriter and sewing machine scanned from the catalogue cause I couldn't find anyone with these sets.  

Once the panels were all made up I stuck them down on a sheet of DSP that had grid lines on it to make it easier to line up.  Then I had the family searching the shops for frames.  We found a few different sorts but I came back to this one.  

Then there was the trouble to post it off.  I went to a local post office and asked for advice on how to send it to Queensland, but the helpful (NOT) assistant informed me that as it was glass she didn't know.  So I asked again the best way to post it and was pointed towards the boxes and padded bags.  Yes I did see them but what would be best to use, that was my question.  In the end I couldn't find a box big enough with packing so it came back home and hubbie found me a courier to deliver it.  Arrived next day with no damage. And my sister loves it.  Phew!

I had so much fun making this that I am working on a couple more for family members, and one for myself too.  I will make sure that I hand deliver these ones.