Shower Invitation

This is just version number one for a shower invitation I'm creating for a girlfriend... I will post the final product when I start mass producing in a few weeks.

Forget-Me-Nots are meaningful to the bride & her Mom, so I got as close as I could with Spellbinders Fresh Picked Buttercups.

I used an Altenew piercing plate for the base, with a little ink blending to warm it up.  I cut and stacked two frames using the Essential Arches dies, with a little blush ink in the corner, then layered my floral sprig overtop.  I cut the Celebrate from metallic gold cardstock, layered twice, and added a few gold pearls.

We are tweaking the colours a little to match the bridal party colours, which should be lovely!

Craft Your Stash!

I am playing along with a couple of challenges today (haven't done that in a while!).  The Craft Your Stash challenge is a just for fun group on Facebook - that asks you to use something from your stash that you've never used.  I am also playing along with the Alphabet Soup challenge on the Papercrafter's Inner Circle group, with E is for Embossing Folder!

 

I have had this Carta Bella embossing folder for many years... and once I decided on using one for my card, I dug it out and pressed it with some soft green cardstock.  I pulled out the 5835 Mini Paper Pack from Art Impressions to die cut the Happy Birthday (Lawn Fawn), and matted it with the same green over a gingham oval.  

I wanted a simple colour palette, so I added a larger pale yellow oval, and used the Floral Spray dies from Spellbinders to cut the flowers and leaves.  I darkened the smaller flowers with some Scattered Straw ink, and added a few champagne pearls as their centers.

Cozy Toes for a Baby Girl

 And these make for a total of five baby cards made in the last few weeks!  I've mainly needed baby boy cards, until a friend saw my girl version a few days ago, and asked for another...  So I have two baby girl cards to share with you today, made with the Cozy Toes stamps and dies from Cocord & 9th.

 I once again pulled out paper packs from Art Impressions - as the coordinating smaller scale prints work SO well with this design.

The use of patterned paper with the dies also make these come together really quickly.  I loved making a couple of non-traditionally coloured baby cards.

Happy Bee Day

It's been a week of last minute card requests!  (I love making specific cards for people...)  I have been teaching my girlfriend's daughter to sew, and she had created a couple of bee-themed projects for her sister, so I offered to make a bee-themed card to go with the gift.

I knew that I had this large Bee die from The Greetery, and realized that I had the honeycomb stencil too.

The sentiment I needed was a no-brainer, and since I needed to create it fairly quickly, I took 'happy' and 'birthday' word dies, and trimmed off  'birth', then pulled out the small font die, and already had the yellow letters cut and ready!  Voila!

One of the best things about my card, is that I used products from six different companies to bring it all together.  The Greetery (Bee), Pinkfresh Studio (White circle), Spellbinders (Word dies), Art Impressions (Small font), Lawn Fawn (stencil) and Tim Holtz (Inks).

Baby Girl Card

Once again, it's Cozy Toes by Concord & 9th to the rescue!  I had a last minute request for a baby card, and reverted to my trusted and true card design with this set.

I pulled out the 5835 Mini Paper pack by Art Impressions, and used it with all the dies from this set to put a card together fairly quickly.  Using a coordinating paper pack takes out a lot of the guesswork.

I think this is my 5th card with this design, just switching up the papers.  More are in my future, as I cut a bunch of additional pieces to use in cards down the road.

Glam Designer Purse

This was a special request card, using the Designer Purse die from the 'We All Have Baggage' collection designed by Sheri Ballantyne for Spellbinders.

I found these older kraft/gold papers in my stash to create a glam card using pearlescent black cardstock and some metallic red for the hearts.  The sentiment is 'Keep Calm Sentiments' by Hero Arts.  My card is 5 1/2" square.

You can find the entire collection at The Papercrafter's Workshop!

Watercolour Tulips & Daffodils

I knew that I wanted to try painting this image as soon as I saw it, so I pressed a couple of them on some Canson XL Watercolour paper, and pulled out my Gansai Tambei set of paints.

 

This is the Yana's Tulips and Daffodils press & foil plate from Spellbinders.

Both versions are pretty similar, with slight variations.  This one has a softer background, and more red toned tulips.  I added some gold spatter, and a sentiment from the Golden Blooms set.

I stitched around the outside of the piece with my sewing machine, and added a few champagne pearls.

My second version has a moodier vibe, with a stronger background.

I went for more pink toned tulips, and used a sentiment from the Bouquet of Hugs set.

So much fun to paint!  You can find the set at The Papercrafter's Workshop.

Golden Bloom in Silver!

 My final project with the January Betterpress Society plate, Golden Bloom was a bit of an experiment for me.  Smooth paper tends to work best for both Betterpress and Glimmer, but they both worked really well on textured Bazzil cardstock!

I'm also enjoying using Betterpress inks other than just black - this is French Blue!  I really love the tone on tone.

Knowing that I wanted silver accents, I decided to try hot foiling the sentiment... so pulled out some silver foil, and gave it a try.  I am new at foiling, and it is not supposed to be ideal to foil on textured cardstock, but again - it worked beautifully!  I used my Hemstitched Rectangle die from Spellbinders to add the detail, and mounted my panel with 3D foam adhesive.  Oh - and I gave it some splatters of silver paint, but they barely show up in the photos!

You can get a Betterpress Society subscription from The Papercrafter's Workshop!

Gingham Floral

I am still enjoying creating with Yana Smakula's Tulips and Daffodils press and foil plate.

I pressed the plate with grey Archival Ink onto regular cardstock, then coloured it with the coordinating stencil and Pinkfresh Studio inks.

I adhered it to some lilac gingham with 3D foam adhesive, and pressed one of the sentiments from the Bouquet of Hugs set onto the same paper with black Betterpress ink.  It was also attached with 3D adhesive.  A few iridescent gems finished it off.

The press plate, stencils and sentiments are all available at The Papercrafter's Workshop.

Ink Blended Golden Bloom

My second project with the January Betterpress Society plate is using the stencils that came with it.

I wanted to do a two-tone blend on each petal, so am not using the stencils as they were intended, but it just meant repeating the same blend on each petal on each stencil.  And I wanted each flower to be different!  

I pressed the plate on a Porcelain Cotton Card panel with Betterpress Black ink, and stenciled with Pinkfresh Studio inks (Slumber/Blue Jay/Mint/Passion Fruit).  The sentiment is included with the main plate.  I felt the upper left corner was a little stark, so took my blue blending brush, using just the remaining ink on the brush, and added a little soft blending.  A few black jewels finished it off.

You can get a Betterpress Society subscription from The Papercrafter's Workshop!

Bright Daisy Trio

Still my favourite press plate!  This is the Daisy Trio by Yana Smakula for Spellbinders.

I was inspired by a stenciled daisy card by Mindy Eggen, loving her Distress Ink blend, and wanted to try something similar.  This first one is a blend of Dried Marigold, Abandoned Coral and Seedless Preserves.

I used a medium blue with the shadow stencil, that blended in so nicely with the background shades!

My blue card was pressed a while ago, using Pinkfresh Studio inks, but coloured in faintly with Spun Sugar Distress Oxide, plus Twisted Citron and Peeled Paint on the stems.

The sentiments on all my cards are the One Word Greetings Dies from Kristina Werner, cut out of white cardstock with a vellum halo.

And now for the grunge version!  I actually pressed this one first on a Cotton Card panel, which didn't give perfect coverage (but I still love how it turned out!).  So I splattered it with white paint and blue ink for an artsy finish.  My first card above, was pressed on regular cardstock, which gave that really wonderful ink blended background.

Spotlight Golden Bloom

I am sharing a couple of projects featuring the spotlight technique, used with the January Betterpress Society plate, Golden Bloom.

I started by ink blending my card bases, by masking the areas with some low tack tape, using a three-colour blend.  The first was done as a vertical stripe:

And then I did two with a masked rectangle:

The stripe panel was pressed with Betterpress Black ink, along with one of the sentiments in the set.

And the two rectangles, were pressed with Betterpress Tawny Brown ink.

You can get a Betterpress Society subscription from The Papercrafter's Workshop!