Month: February 2022

Elephants Say Thank You

| ullycatdesigns

A friend sent me wonderful rubber stamp set of marching elephants. This is my thank you card using the vintage stamps.

I had some handmade artisan papers that complimented the elephants and I used the paper as a background for the card front and then fussy cut the flowers and leaves from the leftover sections to create the card back and inside accents.

The elephants were stamped on grey cardstock with black ink and colored with markers. Nuvo Vintage Drops were added for accents to the floral coverings of the elephants.

Five fancy border frames were die-cut from marigold cardstock and glued together to provide dimension to the card and lift the large elephant off the face of the card.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

  • Recollections – Fancy borders cutting dies

Stamping

  • Crafter’s Companion – A Taste of India by Sheena Douglass – Rubber Stamp set – Marching Elephants
  • Memento Fade-Resistant Dye Ink – Tuxedo Black
  • Crayola blending markers

Foiling

Papers

  • Bazzill 8.5×11 inches cardstock – Tiara
  • Park Lane – 12 x12 inch Premium Handmade Artisan Paper
  • Scrap blue and marigold cardstock
  • Xcut – Xtras Adhesive Vellum Sheets – Blue
  • A7 white card base and envelope

Miscellaneous

Art Deco Foiling and Stenciling

| ullycatdesigns

Coordinating sets make crafting easy. PinkFresh’s Art Deco hot foiling plate and coordinating three stencils set make it easy to create a variety of backgrounds for card fronts. I was influenced by Jennifer McGuire’s video on using a similar PinkFresh foiling plate and stencils.

I hot foiled three backgrounds making two foiled lines and one solid foil using the foil leftover. (I accidentally foiled my solid hot foiling plate with the second solid foil piece. Make sure the foil has the backing side next to the paper, not the foiling plate!)

Using the three stencils I did two versions of coloring in the shapes on the foil lines backgrounds. On one background I took the stencil with mostly triangles and used the Citrine ink for the smaller triangles and the Sunbeam ink for the larger shapes. The nenext stencil I used the Poppy Red ink for all the shapes and left the remaining shapes white.  For the second colored background, I used a different colored ink for each of the three stencils. Because the Citrine and Sunbeam inks are only one shade different, I feel like the background with the white shapes is more interesting.

For the two “Thanks” cards, I glued the backgrounds directly to the card bases. Next, I cut four of the circle Thanks from white scrap cardstock and glued three of the die-cuts together. The single layer thanks, I glued to the colored background, while the foiled background received the layered die-cut.

The “Hello” card uses a black foiled sentiment from a Spellbinder’s frames and sentiment set. The sentiment and the inked background are adhered with foam squares. To add more interest, I glued tiny gold flatback gemstones from my stash. (I think they may have been in an advent calendar from Craftstash or Crafter’s Companion.) (A sticky tip tool is great for adding small elements like these gemstones to your projects.)

Because I used A7 sized card bases (5 x 7 inches), I needed to trim the bases down for the 5 ¼ x 4 inches foiled backgrounds.

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Foiling

Stencils

Inks

  • Simon Says Stamp – Pawsitively Saturated Ink – Citrine and Sunbeam
  • Nuvo – Hybrid Ink Pad – Poppy Red

Dies

Papers

  • White cardstock
  • A7 white card base and envelope

Miscellaneous

Flowery Thanks

| ullycatdesigns

Iris, cosmos and cornflowers stitched around a golden “THANKS” makes for a simple, but heartfelt thank you.

I used another stitched flower die from Spellbinders, this time the Small Die of the Month for April 2021. The die comes with separate letters to die cut the word “THANKS” as well as the larger background die cut with stitching holes.  Using very heavy pale blue cardstock, I die-cut the large piece to be stitched. I had a piece of junk mail that had large sections of matte gold and I die-cut the letters from that.

The larger flower petals and leaves were outline or chain stitched before filling in the centers of them using three strands of floss. The yellow stamens are French knots. While I knotted the floss ends when starting, I finished the flowers on the back side by adding dots of glue to seal the thread ends and add dimension to the stitched frame.

After gluing the gold letters on the front of the stitched piece, I added foam squares with glue to back side of the stitched piece behind the letters and attached to the front of the card base. The card base is an 8 x8 inches sheet of heavy white card stock folded in half using a scoring board.

If you enjoyed this stitched card, there are two more stitched card posts this week as well as pervious stitched cards:

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Scrap heavy blue and matte gold cardstock
  • 8 x8 inch heavy weight white cardstock

Miscellaneous

  • Blues, purples and green embroidery floss
  • Large eyed needle
  • Foam squares
  • Scoring board and tool

Stitched Flowers for a Summer Birthday

| ullycatdesigns

Bright yellow and orange flowers, stitched with shiny embroidery floss hoovering over a raised matte gold Happy Birthday make for a fun and cheery card.

I used a stitched flower die from Spellbinders that originally was part of their Large Die of the Month Club but is now available to everyone via their on-line shop. Initially I die-cut into an 8.5 x 5.5 inches sheet of pale-yellow heavy cardstock that was in my stash. I stitched it completely before trimming it down to the final 4.5 x 5.75 inches to fit on a 5 x 6 inches card base.

The larger flower petals and leaves were outline or chain stitched before filling in the centers of them using three strands of floss. The black stamens are French knots. While I knotted the floss ends when starting, I finished the flowers on the back side by adding dots of glue to seal the thread ends and add dimension to the stitched frame.

The Poppy Stamps “Happy Birthday – Poe Script” sentiment was cut three times from a gold piece of junk mail and glued together. The words were glued directly to the card base after determining the placement with the stitched frame. The frame was attached to the card base with thick foam squares.

For the envelope, I stamped the back with an older rubber stamp from Fun Stampers Journey using my favorite gold-like ink from Stampin’ Up called Crumb Cake.

If you enjoyed this stitched card, there are two more stitched card posts this week as well as pervious stitched cards:

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Stamps

  • Fun Stampers Journey – Button Bliss – AT-0096

Ink

  • Stampin’ Up – Classic Stampin’ Pad – Crumb Cake

Papers

  • Scrap heavy yellow and matte gold cardstock
  • A7 white card base and envelope

Miscellaneous

Stitched Flowers for a Spring Birthday

| ullycatdesigns

Luscious purple, blue and lavender flowers, stitched with shiny embroidery floss hoovering over a raised matte gold Happy Birthday make for a simple yet elegant card.

I used a stitched flower die from Spellbinders that originally was part of their Large Die of the Month Club but is now available to everyone via their on-line shop. Initially I die-cut into an 8.5 x 5.5 inches sheet of pale blue heavy cardstock that was in my stash. I stitched it completely before trimming it down to the final 4.5 x 5.75 inches to fit on a 5 x 6 inches card base.

The larger flower petals and leaves were outline or chain stitched before filling in the centers of them using three strands of floss. The yellow stamens are French knots. While I knotted the floss ends when starting, I finished the flowers on the back side by adding dots of glue to seal the thread ends and add dimension to the stitched frame.

The Poppy Stamps “Happy Birthday – Poe Script” sentiment was cut three times from a gold piece of junk mail and glued together. The words were glued directly to the card base after determining the placement with the stitched frame. The frame was attached to the card base with thick foam squares.

If you enjoyed this stitched card, there are two more stitched card posts this week as well as pervious stitched cards:

Thank you for reading this blog post. Please like and leave comments 😊

Materials Used:

Dies

Papers

  • Scrap heavy blue and matte gold cardstock
  • A7 white card base and envelope

Miscellaneous

Impossible Boxes for Photographers

| ullycatdesigns

Impossible boxes come in a variety of shapes from squares to hexagons. They are called impossible because to open them it seems impossible as the lid is attached to the box base and has to be fully pushed open to retrieve what is inside the box.

I made some boxes for my photographer friends to hold some small trinkets using Helen Griffin’s Simply Made Crafts’ Hexagonal Impossible Box Dies Set for the box. The way the box lid opens reminds me of a camera lens. The box will easily hold something 3 x 3 x 2 inches.

To decorate the box, I used Lou Collins’ TEXT{ures} wavy film strip die from her Vintage Travel Collection cut I twice in black.  On one box I had the film go over the box lid edge, cutting it apart so the box could open. The other I wrapped around the box.

Here are some brands of Impossible Box Die sets:

Videos and blogs on Impossible Boxes

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