A little vintage style

I quite like the look of vintage style cards and the rich colours associated with it, so tried to recreate the look with this card.  I stamped various images onto white cardstock and then using a dauber began shading.  A little bit of effort involved, but I quite like the finish.

A collage type card

Now I really don't know what the correct name for these sorts of cards is - if anyone does, let me know.  I just called it collage because it has lots of different images stamped together.

I have always admired people who seem to be able to put random things together, in any form, and make it work.  So I tried to do that with this card.  It has images from a few different stamp sets all stamped in black, and then a few of them are popped up for dimension.  Was trying to achieve a vintagey type feeling with the shading, but I think it needs a little more.  

As I haven't actually stuck the top panel down yet onto the base card, I think this is one I will go back and have another try at. 

 

Mask and sponge

A bit of an odd name for a title, but that's the techniques used in making these cards.  

They are made by using post it notes to mask off certain areas of the card and then stamping and embossing in clear or white, stamping again in a contrast colour and then sponging.  I actually masked off and sponged first and then stamped in white just to keep the embossed white brighter.  On the butterfly version I stamped a couple of the butterflies beyond the masked area and on the leaf card I kept the images contained in the sponged area.  Either way is quite OK, just depends of what you like.  I actually think keeping it all in the block looks a little better. Which one do you prefer?

  

 

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.  

 

My wonderful friend

One of my good friends recently celebrated her birthday and as she once admired a card very similar to this one I decided to slightly change it to suit her.  There aren't many people you can get away with having a saying like "My dear kind and wonderful friend" on, but I felt on this occasion I could.  It's from a set called "Occasional Greetings" which has now retired but I picked it up at one of the recent craft sales.  

I think black and white cards look quite elegant and that's the effect I wanted to portray for this very talented friend of mine.  

I also had to make an envelope to fit the card into.  I found this quite tricky to work out even with the diagonal scorer.  I have heard Stampin' Up have just released an Envelope Maker in the US which has templates of all different sized envelopes, so hopefully it will be in Australia before too long.