Friendship Blooms

I got a big order from Stampin Up last week and was finally able to play with my Sell-a-brations sets. I really love this one. I had some friends to make Birthday cards for so I decided to ink it up with a sketch challenge. The one I used was from Splitcoast Stampers, it's sketch challenge SC164. I turned the sketch around but I think it turned out really well.

The three colors used for this card were Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive and Chocolate Chip. I used Pumpkin Pie cardstock for the base of my card and stamped on it using the same color ink. The next layer is Old Olive and I did the same thing by stamping with the same color ink. The Chocolate Chip is the ribbon and the sentiment was also stamped in chocolate chip. I distressed the edges of the sentiment by cutting it out with my scorer instead of my blade. I then added the shell button with hemp cord tied through it on the bottom right of the card as it seemed to need something in that empty space. Thanks for looking.

Pre-Teen Birthday

Now the St. David's Day cards are done I am back and focused on swaps and birthdays. Then it will be on to Easter. OMG so many cards so little time. But first here's a card I made for the daughter of a friend. She's going to be 12 and she is quite the little stamper herself. Gabby and her daughter Elvira are quite the talented duo. I used her favorite colors and just hope that she doesn't sneak peak a looky on here before it gets to her.

The card is made using pink passion cardstock. The DP is from the paper studio. I cut it to 5.5 inches by 2.1 so it covers half the card. I then used my cuttlebug to die-cut the stamp shape. The stamps are from stampendous. I stamped the cute little ladies in pink passion and cut them to fit the inside of the die-cut stamp shape. I held them in place with tape then adhered them to my card. I put black and white check ribbon across the middle of the card using sticky strip. The sentiment is from SU Warmest Regards I cut the corners with my corner punch and attached a flower with a large silver brad to finish I mounted this on the top half of the card with dimensionals. I hope she likes it.

St. David's Day (Part Two)

Yesterday I managed to finish 2 more card styles (I actually made 2 cards in each style) and managed to use up all the Daffodil stickers I had bought. I was determined I wasn't going to have any left. Because knowing me I would shove them in a drawer and forget about them and I am trying to get out of that habit. So here are the other 2 cards I made yesterday.


The first card is made using a green galore base. The DP is the same grass from one of the cards I made before. The daffodil and grass have been mounted on garden green cardstock. Three gold brads were placed through the grass DP. I lined them up and spaced them evenly using my Mat Pack on the paper piercing side. The scallop punch is red this time with a green galore circle inside and the smaller sentiment inside that.



The second card is made once again using a green galore base. This time I used a yellow cardstock and stamped a welsh dragon all over it in Real Red. I mounted my Daffodil sticker on Real Red cardstock. Then tied a piece of black and white check ribbon around it. Before tying I put my sentiment onto the ribbon which I had mounted onto a green galore circle and punched a hole into.


Well that is all my St. David's Day cards. I hope you have enjoyed them. Diolch (Thankyou).

St. David's Day (Part One)

Hello, sorry I have been a little quiet this week. I have been trying desperately to think up idea's for St. David's Day which is March 1st. It is a day that is very important to Welsh people of which I am one. Most of America celebrates St. Patrick on the 17th but poor old St. David gets totally over looked and therefore idea's are pretty hard to come by. Typical Welsh things to put on a card of this type would include: Dragon's, Leek's(the vegetable variety), Sheep, Welsh ladies, Harps and Daffodils. I had no luck finding any inspiration (Stamps, paper, etc)via the first few on the list but struck lucky with the last option. I thought I was loosing my mind and I was even getting fed up at the site of green everywhere I went. Which is not good for a person who's favorite color is green. I eventually found a packet of stickers from Jolee's that was all Daffodils, it was perfect.

Anyway here are a couple of cards I have managed to do so far. I have tried to keep my colors close to the welsh flag colors which are red, white and green.

The colors used for this card is green galore, garden green, and red. The first card is a green galore base with a red mount, on that was a grass DP from provocraft. My thoughts were along the lines of a famous song 'The green, green grass of home' sang by a very famous Welsh man, Tom Jones. I added a black and white check ribbon. The three scallop punches are in Garden green with a circle of green galore and a smaller circle of white. I made the Happy St. David's Day words using wordart on Microsoft word on my computer. It's the only thing on my computer I know how to use.LOL. The Daffodils are from the sticker packet I found in Michael's.

The second card is a double cut. I used a scallop frame die cut from sizzix in my cuttlebug and cut it in both green galore and garden green and then swapped out the pieces to allow me to make 2 similar cards. The back panel has a welsh dragon (one of only a couple of welsh stamps I have) versamarked on it. The daffodils are from the sticker pack I bought. I got packets 2 to make sure I had enough. The scallop punch is red with a garden green circle and a white smaller one with the same sentiment in it as the first card. Again I mass produced the sentiment so you will probably see it on all the cards I make. I hope to make a couple more different styles tomorrow also as I need to mail them Saturday at the latest.

Here's a link if you would like to find out more about St.David's Day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_David's_Day

Thanks for looking.

J for Jellyfish

It's alphabet time. I'm host to this swap too and we are on the letter J. The last time I was in a swap like this I got carried away and used three J words at once, so I was a little stuck for options this time. Luckily I found this little guy hidding in my cupboard.


The set is Fishy Friends. His main cardstock color is tempting turquoise with orchid opulence and a green that I got from a michaels pack. I stamped the Jellyfish on white cardstock with black ink and then watercolored him with orchid opulence and turquoise around to look like water. I cut the green and orchid curvy with my creative memories cutter. I then stamped a happy birthday sentiment (from all year cheer ll) on one half. I then put both pieces through my cuttlebug using swirls on one and small bubbles on the other. Once pieced back together I stuck it onto the main card. I then mounted the image on dimensionals so it stands out a little.



Note to Sonya: I was most of the way though making these when I saw you used the same stamp for your J swap too.LOL. Great minds think alike. I love your card (sorry, I peeked). Looking forward to it getting here. Hope you like mine. It should be with you soon. Hugs Nic.

Father Time

I am starting to feel a little better so I decided to get stuck into a swap. I am Assistant Manager on Gabby's MSN group Handmade Cards With Love and it was my turn to call swaps. One of the swaps I chose this round was a theme based around 'time' as the clocks are due to go forward soon. Basically you could do any style of card you want but there must be a clock image on the card. I was inspired to make this card by a challenge sketch posted on our group by Gabby, she posts them twice a month. I really enjoyed working with this sketch. This is my card for this swap.

I started out with a Night of Navy base. I stamped it with the Canvas background in Night of navy ink. I then cut 4 circles with my creative memories cutting system. 2 circles are Brocade Blue and 1 is Night of Navy and one is a craft colored cardstock. They range in size from 3 inches up to 4 inches. The largest light blue circle was versamarked with a little swirl stamp from Artifacts. I also stamped the clock image from Artifacts onto the craft cardstock. I stamped it first and then cut it out to ensure correct placement. I distressed the edge of the two middle circles and scrunched up the craft piece. I then ran the edges across the night of navy ink pad. I mounted the three pieces together and punched a hole for a brad in the middle. I made sure I had the numbers in the right place then punched a hole for the photo hangers (CTMH). I attached a small peice of twill tape. I mounted all these to the card and to finish I stamped the sentiment from Warmest Regards and mounted it to the same colored cardstock at the bottom corner of the card.

Happy Valentine's Day

Firstly many apologies for going MIA. I got real sick Tuesday and went to the doctors. Turns out it's not flu I had which I'm kinda glad about but I do have major allergy issues. I have been on a nasal spray and tablet concoction the last two days and am finally starting to feel a little better. These are the joys of living in Texas so I'm told. Anyway with the theme of the day in mind I thought I would share with you my childrens valentine boxes that were made for school.

The first one belongs to my daughter. I covered a small shoebox in pretty paper (12 sheet pack from the $1 aisle in Target). I was told it had to have a hole for the kids to mail their valentines through so I cut one but then lined it with a thin strip of paper to avoid little fingers getting paper cuts. I put a scallop punch circle in each corner. It is very simple as being ill it kinda puts you off your game a little.

Here's what my son decided to take in for his. We made this together a few months ago using a tissue box. He is a big spongebob fan. Due to lack of time and lack of enthusiasum on his part to do it himself we decided to improvise and use something he already had. However it was apparent when I went to pick him up later that it was definately not big enough. I have an idea for next year to use a large shoebox and to try and make the Bikini Bottom Bus. We'll see if that pans out.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be back in full card making swing. Thanks for popping by. Hugs

Valentines 123

I haven't been to well over the weekend. Hence the reason there has been no blog update. However there is not much that will keep me out of my craft room and I did manage to spend a little time in there each day. I have been finishing Valentines off in order to mail most of them today. I made 3 different kinds but only made a couple of each under the circumstances. I'm gonna put them all on this post instead of making a separate post for each. Here they are:

Card one - I finally gave in and got myself the valentine bundle from SU before it ended so have used various items from that. My first card I used the Happy Heart Day stamp set. The cardstock is Gable Green, Cameo Coral and Real Red. The cameo coral is versamarked with the heart flower from that set. The elephant was stamped in black and then I colored it with marvy markers. The scallop was made using my slit punch. It is very versatile. This card has some left over organza ribbon on it but I used the real red 1inch grossgrain with the others I made. This card is finished off with a heart button on the top of the scalloped edge. I got this from a multi pack from Archivers.

Card two - I used the same happy heart day set for this card only this time I used the mouse stamp from the set. He is a very cute little fellow. The cardstock is the same as before Cameo Coral, Real Red and Gable Green. I think the DP is from Making Memories. I stamped the image in black and once again colored with marvy markers. The 1 inch real red grossgrain is tied at the bottom and I paper pierced around the edge to finish. This was a fairly easy card to make.

Card three - I spotted these stamps on a trip to my local Archivers store. Both are Stampendous. I cannot resist anything Changito at the moment. The cardstock is Real Red and Gable Green. Once again the image was stamped in black and colored with my new marvy markers. The sentiment was placed on dimensionals so it stands out. Not forgetting this awesome grossgrain ribbon again. Here's a second picture of card three I used Regal rose cardstock and ribbon for this one and a lighter pink version of the DP.

Very Special Flower

Todays card is for a very special lady. The lady in question is my Godmother. She is going to be 96 in two weeks. I used the flower of the month set as I just love it and do not use it enough. I guess I can say I did this one all by myself as I looked on SCS for inspiration and it looks like I'm not the only one not using theirs. Hopefully this card will encourage others to dust it off and give it some inking.

The cardstock is Always Artichoke, white and a couple of different purples I pulled out of a Michael's multi pack I am trying to use these up as layers on my cards as I do not like making the actual card from it as it is very poor quality. The ink was black and lovely lilac. The sets used were Flower of the Month and Happy Birthday Frame. I cuttlebugged the lighter of the 2 purple cardstocks and brushed the lovely lilac ink over it. My watercolor pencils colored the flower image itself. The flower embelishment is from a set of monthly primas I got off ebay. I have a prima for every month of the year and only ever use them with this set so they will probably last me a while. LOL. I think that's everything. If I missed any details you would like to know, drop me a comment. Thanks for looking.

I got an Award!

I was awarded this by my friend Gabby. It makes me feel good inside to know that my cards are appreciated. I feel very honored to get this from her as she herself is an awesome crafter. She is more than an inspiration to me. Every time I visit her blog I see something new I want to try. Unfortunately I have to pay this forward and not back otherwise I would definately send this her way. Anyway you can find her here: http://confessionsofastamper.blogspot.com/

I would like to pay this forward to the following people who make my day whenever I visit their blogs.

1. Maria http://stampininspirations.blogspot.com/

2. Joani http://joaniscardsmadebyhand.blogspot.com/

3. Jenny http://stampingmoments.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry there are not more but I am still fairly new to blogging and so far these are the main ones I visit on a regular basis. If you are a regular visitor to my blog and have a craft blog of your own you would like to share please leave a comment on this post with a link. I would love to see what you do too. I am going to start compiling a list of favorites on the side column very soon.

Hugs to all.

Toot, Toot. Princess Card

Sorry just had to toot my own horn there for a second. I am really happy with how this project turned out. I was struggling for an idea when I spotted something similar to this on SCS. I had to re-jig the dimensions on it so it would fit perfectly in an invitation sized envelope. But am really happy with the overall outcome.

This card is for my best friends daughter. She is going to be 4. She has recently become interested in princesses with a little help from my 5 year old who is princess crazy. Anyway she is having a princess party so I wanted to make her a card in the same theme.

I started with pink card stock as her favorite color is pink. I layered DP on the front but only covered three of the five points so that it would look like the other 2 were the back of the crown. I got the DP from Archivers, it is a disney princess paper. I stamped Sleeping Beauty aka Aurora and colored her in using pencils. I then cut her out using my creative memories oval cutting system. I punched a scallop oval in a larger size using my new Giga punch. I brushed the edges of these over one of my pink SU ink pads and stuck them on top of one another and then mounted that on dimensionals in the middle of the card. There are rhinestone stickers on the top of the 3 points and 2 hydrangea petals either side of the oval. They are kept in place with silver brads.

If you want to make an opening card like this one you have to square up the left hand edge of the template to the fold in your card. I am going to post a picture of my template too so you can see my measurements. If you have trouble making sense of them (as I don't think I wrote them in order) let me know and I will add them to this post so they make a little more sense.

Sunflower Mouse

I made this one over the weekend and almost forgot to post it, silly me. It is another house mouse card. The other card group I'm in had a similar swap to the other one and I just can't resist using my House Mouse stamps. I actually used an SCS Sketch Challenge for this card. It is sketch challenge SC95. It's an old sketch but was just perfect for this card.

The cardstock I used is Chocolate Chip. The stamp is called 'Sunny side up'. I colored a few images a while ago and had them in a drawer waiting for the right time to use them. Inspiration hit like a lightening bolt so I knew it was time to use them. Everything just came together as if it was meant to be. The DP I used was from my scraps pile. The colors were just made for this card. Again with the flower. It was from a packet I bought from Michael's ages ago. I tied a shell button in the middle with some hemp cord and mounted it with a dimensional. I liked this card so much I used all my colored in images and made a couple extra. If you like this card and would like the dimensions of the back panels let me know and I can add them to this post. Thanks for looking.

The inner workings

Over the weekend I decided to have a little furniture rearrange in my craft room. I had bought a small table towards the end of last year and it has spent the longest time sitting in the middle of my craft room getting in the way of everything and with me dumping stuff on it. So I decided to take action. Step one was to put away all the stuff that had accumilated on it. Step two was to swing my cardmaking desk around (good thing it's on wheels). Step three was to move the table into the space that had become available by turning my desk around. I am very happy with it's new position as it allows me to not only look out the window (which I could do before) but to also see the rest of my craft room (which I couldn't do before). It also means that when someone comes over to craft with me we can sit together and chat and not have to have our backs to one another as before.

Before:

After:

Something About Purple

Here's the other Emboss Resist card I made last week. It was for a friends Anniversary. Well, their special day was Yesterday and she has confirmed she got it so I am able now to let you guys have a look.

I used Orchid Opulence and Whisper White cardstock and Orchid Opulence and basic black ink. I versamarked the flower and then clear embossed it. Then using a cotton ball inked over it. The stamp set is Doodle This and the sentiment is from Painted Posies both SU sets. The sentiment is in black. I distressed the edge of the cardstock and tied a organza ribbon around and hung a double heart charm (from the wedding aisle in Michaels) in the middle. It looked so very pretty when it was finished. I'm so glad they liked it.

Spotlight Saturday 004

It's Groundhog Day and the forcast is not good. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and has forcast us 6 more weeks of Winter. I had my fingers crossed for spring but will make the most of whatever comes my way.

For this weeks Spotlight I thought I would look back through stuff I had made before I started my blog and give you a little taster of what my SCS album contains. Here's a few of my favorites.

Firstly an Anniversary card using 'Stipple Butterfly'. This one was inspired by a number of cards I had seen on SCS. I can't give credit to who as I'm afraid I don't remember but If you would like to check them out just look in the Stipple Butterfly album, there are some real pretty ones in there. The cardstock is Orchid Opulence. I stamped the white background with Orchid Opulence ink. The other butterfly is stamped in black and chalked with Orchid Opulence. I then cut the black butterfly out and mounted it on dimensionals to make him stand out from the card. The sentiment is from Rubber Stampede and to finish it off I tied some silver cord around the top of the card.


Next a new baby card I made for a friend. Again I got the idea for this one from a card I had seen on SCS. I'm afraid I don't remember who right now but I thank her very much for the inspiration she gave me. This is creamy caramel with strips of pink, orange and blue. The strips are versamarked with various safety pins, rattles and other stamps from the set 'A new little someone'. Not forgetting the lovely bunny from that set. The embellishments are ribbon and Hydrangea petals. The Oval was cut using my Creative Memories cutting system.


Lastly and I think possibly my favorite is my Van Gogh. I made this card for an Alphabet Swap on Joani's MSN group 'Cards Made By Hand'. The letter obviously is V. I spotted these stamps on Ebay and new as soon as I saw them that I wanted to use them for this swap. I think I bought them when we were on the letter D and waited very patiently for the chance to use it. I have a print of the original and tried to match the colors as best as I could. The cardstock is old olive and chocolate chip. My aim was to make it look like it was a picture mounted on a wall. Three square brads finish the card.

I hope you have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane as much as I have. If you would like to take a look at my SCS gallery you can find me here
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=41390

Count the ways...

I got a little inspiration to make some Valentines today. It came to me in a dream.lol. Have you ever had that happen? I think it might be a sign that I have been spending a little to much time in my craft room lately. Anyway I have been slowly getting my mojo back after it decided to take a small vacation from me and this is what came out.


I used the SU 'So Many Sayings' set with Ruby Red ink. I then freehanded a scroll effect around it. I am not that good so it looks a little wobbly. I then cut it out and put stampin dimensionals on the back. The cardstock is Creamy Caramel and the DP is from making memories. I ticket cornered the DP and tied some white organza ribbon around it. I then mounted it to my cardstock. The scroll came next and lastly I placed the little envelope. It was from a $1 packet from Target last year. I had them left over from other cards I had made previously. It looks a lot better in person. Thanks for looking.