Flowers

Back into the Swing of Things

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Back in the Swing -Inside-CU

Coming home after a long stay in the hospital deserves a cheerful card. Home Sweet Home may have a different meaning for those of us who have been fortunate enough to stay healthy during this year of COVID-19, but to a survivor it truly can be sweet.

Back in the Swing -front

The mechanical base for this card come from Karen Burniston’s House and Fence Pop-Up die set, as does the house. The fence, flowers, grass, tree and swinging girl come from the Xcut “Make Me” die set included in the Homemaker Die Cuts & Digi Stamps All-in-one Die & Digi Stamp Kit.

This is about the eighth time I have made this pop-up platform which is easy to use. I spent time exploring how to get the best embossing impression on the house by using fun foam to act as a shim. I inked the house and decoration on the tree and swinging girl with distress inks. The bushes are a scrap decorated with pink dots from the flowers.

Back in the Swing -Inside-wide

The front sentiment is another Karen Burniston die set which makes it quick and easy to create a stylized sentiment. The strawberry comes from the Park Lane paper pad as does the gingham tag inside the card.

I created the inside sentiment on the computer and used distress ink to color the background. If I were to print the sentiment again, I would ink the paper first and then print the words to minimize the black ink blurring.

The folded size of the card is 5 ½ inches by 5 ¾ inches. For interest, the bottom front edge is fussy cut along the printed scalloped edge.

Video is at https://spark.adobe.com/video/Ah8pNrimuXg8u.

Supplies

Dies

Paper

Inks

Miscellaneous

Garden Gate and A Curious Kitty

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Garden Gate -Front Cat -bird

An idyllic summer morning with birds singing, a kitten roaming about the garden and the prospect of a cup of tea and good long chat with a friend are what this card reminds me of when I see it.

My friend challenged me to make something special with my new Stampin’ Up stamp and die sets. (So this card is for you, Donna.)

I had seen on Pinterest cards using the Garden Gateway die to create a z-fold card with a fenced in garden. This was my inspiration and starting point.

Garden Gate -side open CU

Fence and Gate: I cut two of the arched gateway and four of just the garden gate without the arch.  Using a craft knife, I trimmed off the cross-piece sections on the small gates and the middle hinge to get the gate to look like a fence. Next, I tried laying out the fence knowing it had to be 11 inches (278mm) long because my card base was 4 inches by 11 inches (102mm x278mm).  I had scored and folded my card base in the middle and then the left side I folded in half to make the z-fold. I needed the gate to be right of the front quarter-fold section on the card base. I wanted the folded corner of the fence at the right of the gate to be at the mid-section of the timed gate. I cut and pieced the fence gluing large end posts over large end posts. I trimmed off the far-right end post as it was too long. The arch seemed to bend too easily, so, I took the second arched gate and glued it to the back of the fence and gate for added strength.

Garden Gate -side open

Card Base Background: I stamped the tree and bistro table and chairs from the Joanna Sheen stamp set and tried a grass stamp with green distress ink but ended up using the grass stencil in the Joanna Sheen set to do the grass. Using a fingertip dauber sponge, I smoothed out the grass. The clouds on the blue cardstock were made with a white Distress Crayon that was slightly blurred with a water brush.

Garden Gate -Front open CU

Garden: I stamped the flowers, kitten and bird on the leftover white cardstock I had leftover from die-cutting the gate and fence pieces. Using watercolor pencils and a waterbrush, I colored the stamped images.  After getting the fence glued together and the folds made to create the garden, I glued the fence sections to the front and back of card base, making sure the free standing fence sections don’t accidentally get glued to anything. I decorated the outside of the fence with flowers making sure the gate could open. For the flowers inside the garden, I attached them with folded pieces of clear acetate. The placement of the inside flowers needs to be done so the card will fold flat so using glue to adjust their placement is useful.

Garden Gate -Front folded

Sentiments: I stamped the sentiments last, using a blue ink. I tried to center the two sentiments on the back so that they were framed by the arch of the gate when closed or opened.

Garden Gate -Envelope Folded

Envelope: The back flap of the envelope was stamped first with the bird stamp in blue on a sticky note, cut out and stuck as a mask over the stamped bird on the envelope flap. Next, I stamped small flowers over the masked bird in green. Once the mask was removed, it looks like the bird is standing amid the flowers.

Garden Gate -Envelope CU

Supplies

Stamps

Inks/Watercolors

Paper

Miscellaneous

Balloons and Flowers Pop-Up

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Hot Air Balloon-side view

My challenge to make a sweet and up-lifting birthday card for someone who was not happy about celebrating her birthday alone. I had the “Flying High” Craftwork Cards paper collection which has muted neon colors along with pinks and turquoise blue. It is cheery with it has hot air balloons and loads of cute die-cuts and foiled sentiments.

I decided on a box pop-up and used the low and wide shape of the Lawn Fawn Scalloped Box die set which fits into an A2 envelope. Th box was cut from the second darkest pink shade of lightweight cardstock in the Recollection’s Pink Buttons paper pack.

Hot Air Balloon-flat

I punched out the flower die-cuts and shaped them with my fingers and adhered pearls and dots embellishments to their centers. Next, I adhered the flowers to long strips of clear acetate from leftover packaging.

Hot Air Balloon-CU

I assembled the box following the video instructions by Kelly Marie, using strips of clear acetate for the crossbars adhering them in place with clear tape which bends well. All the decorative papers are from one sheet of paper from the “Flying High” collection as well as all the decorations.

The finished card folds flat. A small hot air balloon from the Tim Holtz Collection Little Things stamp set was stamped on the back flap of the envelope.

Hot Air Balloon-open

Materials Used:

Dies

Stamps

Inks

Papers

Miscellaneous

Stick-on pearls and dots from Dollar Tree and

May Flowers

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Blue teacup-inside-sideCelebrating Mother with May flowers is a tradition. I was happy to see that Anna Griffin’s new teacup die set includes the ability to emboss flowers onto the edges and side of the cup and saucer.

This was my first try at using the new die set as well as some of Anna’s sentiment stamps. The teacup goes together easily following the enclosed instructions. I embossed the cup and saucer first using an embossing mat/plate and then die cut all the pieces.

Blue teacup-front

By using a preprinted card base from a card kit by Punch Studio that has been in my stash for a while, along with some of the butterfly toppers and pink flatback gems, the front of the card came together quickly. The inside paper is from Graphic 45. I cut two pieces so as not to cover the fold and used a green marker to color the inside edges of the card as a border to the floral paper.

Blue teacup-inside

I ended up heat embossing the decorative border on the gold metallic sentiment base with clear embossing powder. I learned that the metallic card I used is heat sensitive and had a minor curling effect happen.

To fill the cup I used flower embellishments from Anna Griffin as well. This vintage teacup card is perfect for celebrating Mother’s Day.

Wishing all mothers, a Happy Mother’s Day.

 

Materials:

Dies

Stamps

Papers

Miscellaneous

Sweet Sparkle

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Shaker Moms Day-Front CU

I kept dreaming about making this card using a lacy ribbon die and some rose paper that I had in my stash. I had watched Jennifer McGuire’s See-Through Shaker Cards video and was inspired to use some new glitter I had acquired. And Mother’s Day in the UK was being talked about on Craftworld.com. This card comes from all these inputs (and probably a few subconscious ones too.)

I took a card base folded it on the score line and placed a sample of the Joanna Sheen scalloped lace and marked out where I wanted the shaker openings to be. I then trimmed out the interior of the paper lace where the shakers were to be. Next, I cut the circles into both layers of the card.  If I had to do it over again, I would have made a template to mark all my papers where the circle cuts are.  I also would have made my patterned cardstock the card base.

Shaker Moms Day-insideBecause the glitter is very clingy with static to the acetate, I decide to use this quality in my design and my shakers are only the thickness of some recycled cardboard box cut into a square and the circle die-cut out. I adhered a strip of acetate to the inside of the back panel of card base with double-sided tape. The cardboard squares were glued to back of card over the circle openings. With the card on a flat surface I put pinches of glitter into the cardboard circles and then added glue to edges of cardboard and dropped a square of acetate over each cardboard square to seal up the shaker. (If I had it to do over, I would have used the temple to mark out the cardboard and make it one long panel instead of squares.)

IMG_7866Next, I traced as best I could the shaker circles onto the back side of the two outer printed cardstock panels and the two inner patterned paper pieces. With printed sides place together and taped with removable tape, I cut both outer panels together. Repeated the same process with inner pattern paper. Using double-sided tape and a few drops of glue, I adhered the outer panels and the inner papers lining up all the shaker holes. To hide the small gaps, I die cut four strips of scalloped lace from thin white paper using an un-named die by Joanna Sheen in my stash. There are five circles in the lace, I cut out the top, middle and bottom inner circles to correspond with the shaker circles. I glued the four lace pieces over the inner and outer panels’ circles.

Shaker Moms Day-sentiment-CUThe front of the card has a die cut scalloped oval with “Happy Mother’s Day” die cut from a recycled chocolate’s box. A multi-looped button is from tiny grosgrain red ribbon from my stash.

Shaker Moms Day-Front CU-White (3)Materials:

Dies:

Paper:

Miscellaneous:

  • 1/4 inch clear double-sided tape
  • Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue/PVA Glue
  • Jumbo Pink Holo Mix non-toxic Sparkling Glitter by Advantus Corp.
  • Red grosgrain ribbon from stash

Under the Weather

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13 side view of cardThis is a double Z-fold card turned sideways using Hunkydory’s Happy Days – Adorable Scorables set and an 8.5 inches x 11 inches (21 cm x 28 cm) piece of cream card stock.

1 folds1  Fold in half to make 5.5 x 4.25 inches (140 x 107 mm) card. Burnish fold. Fold front in half to make 2.75 x 5.5 inches (70 x 140 mm) panel. Burnish fold.

2 cutting2  Cut folded card at 2.5 inches (63 mm) from the side.

3 papers3  Pick your papers.

4 layers4  Cut from pattern paper two pieces – 5.75 x 5.25 inches (146 x 133 mm) and 2.5 x 5.25 inches (63 x 133 mm). Cut four pieces of white – 2.5 x 5.25 inches (63 x 133 mm), 2.25 x 5.25 inches (58 x 133 mm) and two at 2.25 x 2.5 inches (58 x 63 mm)

5 decorating5  Fussy cut out front umbrella. Create thin ribbon by sticking back-to-back holographic tape and cutting into thin strips.

6 ribbon placement6  Figure-out placement of ribbon and tape on backside. Place foam squares on back.

7 ribbon secured7  Adhere umbrella to white card (2.25 x 5.25 inches). Tape ends of ribbon to back of white card.

8 layers adhered8  Adhere patterned and white papers to appropriate spaces. There should be an 1/8 inch (3 mm) bit of cream card showing all around each of the top layered pieces. Adhere sentiment with foam squares above umbrella.

9 tape on doble z piece9  Add several rows of double-sided tape to the back edge section making sure the tape does not extend above fold marks.

10 front of card10  Peal off tape from behind umbrella section and adhere to front of car. Next pull off backing tape from back section and press card folded shut to adhere back of center layer to back layer of card.

11 card unfolded11  Add back sentiment and bird decoration.

12 back of card12  Adhere back paper to back of card as a place for a personal message.

Supplies:

  • Hunkydory Happy Days- Adorable Scorables set
  • Cream Cardstock
  • Holographic tape from Target
  • Double-sided tape
  • Foam squares
  • Scissors
  • Folding tool
  • Paper Cutter13 side view of card

Vintage Fan Birthday Wish

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IMG_7687

Vintage greeting cards are charming. Using royalty-free images from Dover Publication’s Electronic Clip Art is a great way to use vintage images and resize them to fit your needs on a computer. I printed both flowery birthday images from a book with a CD-ROM called Treasury of Greeting Card Designs. The front fan image I printed on printable glitter cardstock. I put two of the same size of the smaller calling card image on regular white cardstock.

IMG_7683

Fussy cutting all the images was necessary. Of the two smaller images, I cut one fully out and the second one I only cut-out the calling card portion. The calling card is placed on foam squares to form the rest for the “easel” fan front.

IMG_7691

I traced the fussy cut fan onto a piece of white cardstock and cut it out for the card base. I covered the side of the base that would show when open with double-sided tape and then laid the plaid paper from the Victoria & Albert collection of fabric and wallpapers on top and fussy cut it. Next, I adhered the smaller image to the plaid side of card base positioning it so it would act as the easel rest. From the same plaid paper, I cut a 3.5-inch-wide strip folded in long-wise in half and using double-sided tape inside made a 1.25-inch-wide strip that was plaid on both sides.

IMG_7690

This strip I adhered using strong red double-sided tape to the backside of the fan image and then aliening it up with the bottom image, I attached the strip to the backside of the card base. Using the same technique of taping the backside of the fan image and the card base, I covered up the adhered plaid strip. Inside using plaid paper and the card base back with flowered paper again from the V&A collection.

IMG_7689

SUPPLIES USED:

Images:

Paper:

Miscellaneous:

Bendi-Shadow Boxes

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Swing Tree-front

Bendi-Shadow Boxes are quick to make when using a scene building die set. I built this tree swing example in under 2 hours from design, locating materials from scrap paper stash to die-cutting all the pieces to assembly, using the Xcut “Make Me” die set included in the Homemaker Die Cuts & Digi Stamps All-in-one Die & Digi Stamp Kit.

I cut two pieces of card stock 5 1/2 inches x 4 1/4 inches for the outside pieces and one piece 5 inches x 4 1/4 inches for the inside layer. Next I scored the two outer pieces at 1/4 inch, 3/8 inch, 5 3/8 inches and 5 1/4 inches on each piece. The score marks closest to the inside are mountain folds and the score marks closes to the outside are valley folds.

Swing Tree-Assembly 3

Next I laid-out my two rectangular nesting dies and decided on the size cuts I wanted for my shadow box openings on one of the 5 1/2 inch outer pieces and the 5 inch middle piece.  I used the largest die on the front outside layer. After cutting the front layer, I used it as a template to place the next size smaller die on the 5 inch middle layer.

I decorated my layers before I assembled the layers together. (I did use some foam tape for the grass in front of the fence for an extra layer of dimension.)

Swing Tree-Assembly 1

Using 1/8 inch red double-sided sticky tape, I ran strips down the inside edges of the outer two pieces.

Swing Tree-Assembly 2

Peeling only the left back layer red tape, I lined up the inside layer left edge to the back piece left edge and pressed together. I did the same for the back, right edge and the front edges – doing one edge at-a-time for the most control over alignment of edges.

Because the outer layers are longer than the inside layer, they bow out some which allows the card to stand-up.

Swing Tree-3 layers

Here is another example of a bendi-shadow card.

 

Swing Tree-front

SUPPLIES USED:

Dies

 

Paper:

 

 

Miscellaneous: