Birthday greetings for a friend

I'm off to a morning tea into town today to celebrate a friend's birthday - I have a strange feeling she is quite minimalist - but is definitely into buttons (makes lovely button jewellery for sale - so I tried to make a card with buttons and it just did NOT work!  So after a couple of days looking at it and not at all happy, I carefully removed the buttons and replaced them with some Boho Blossoms instead and am so much happier with the result now.  I really wanted to add buttons to her card as I feel it would have been quite appropriate, but maybe will re-think that project and leave it until Christmas time hehehe...

So, I tried to make it as CAS as possible, no ribbons or bows this time.

The end result after swapping buttons for flowers

(The card as it was with the buttons.....)

What I used:

Card:  Red, Kiwi Kiss (retired), Pumpkin Pie and Daffodil Delight.

Ink:  Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, So Saffron

Stamp Sets:  Sweet Summer (retired), Teeny Tiny Sentiments

Tools and other fun stuff:  Top Note die, Boho Blossoms punch, Scallop Border punch, Stampin' sponges, Stampin' Dimensionals, Stamp-a-Majig

Ruffled Ribbon

Sorry it's been a bit quiet on my blog lately, I have been busy making curtains which has kept me out of mischief for a good while, and the're still not finished...!

I was looking through my stamp sets and came across this SAB one, I know it's retired but it's just so pretty I had to pull it out.

I wanted to practice a technique we learnt at our last team meeting, which was the scrunched ribbon treatment.  I had seen it many times on other blogs but had never quite got around to trying to figure out how to do it myself, so thanks Kelly for showing us!

What I used:

Card:  Regal Rose, White, Crumb Cake

Ink:  Old Olive, Certainly Celery, Soft Suede, Regal Rose

Stamp Sets:  Sweet Summer, Whimsical Words (both retired).

Tools and other fun stuff:  Scalloped Oval punch, Wide Oval punch, 5/8" grosgrain Certainly Celery ribbon, watercolour pencils, double sided tape, dimensionals.

Sweet little card

Was sitting tidying my desk the other day (it's the one part of the house I really enjoy tidying up - you come upon such treasures sometimes LOL!) when I found this stamped piece I made a couple of months ago when Sale-A-Bration was on, and just had to use it even though SAB has finished for this year.

I have used this colour combo many times but simply love it, so warm and earthy, the soft buttery yellow, warm green and orange - a classic.

What I used:

Card:  So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Whisper White

Ink:  Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie

Stamp sets:  Sweet Summer (retired), Fresh Cuts

Tools and other fun stuff:  Butterfly Embosslits die, Square Lattice embossing folder, Scallop Oval punch, Large Oval punch.

P is for Plum - jam that is!

Not a card today, but a totally domestic and useful bit of stamping!

My parents are coming to stay very soon so for once I have decided to label the jams I have made to make life a little easier.  Not many jars yet mind you, but still, six jars is better than an empty larder.  Anyway, I do hope to make a  little more before autumn rolls in and fruit becomes more expensive.

Normally I bottle the jam, pop in a cupboard and then the guessing game begins - is it plum?  is it apricot, is it something else??  This time I've made little labels for my jars, 'a' is for apricot, 'p' is for plum....

What I used:

Card:  White

Ink:  Chocolate Chip, Pumplin Pie, So Saffron, Old Olive, Regal Rose

Stamp Sets:  Big Deal alphabet (retired), Sweet Summer (what could be more appropriate when bottling all the goodness of the season!)

Tools and other fun stuff:  1 3/4" circle punch, double sided tape, sponges.

Crumb Cake Sweet Summer

For today's card I've used once again the Sweet Summer stamp set which I'm really enjoying!  It makes a wonderful background like you can see here, I stamped one of the flower images plus a tiny bee in Crumb Cake on Very Vanilla, scalloped two edges and sponged them with Crumb Cake as well to soften them.  I had embossed the base card with the Textured Impressions embossing folder to add interest to that part of the card. Once again I have used a blender pen to 'pull in' the colour on the red flower and bee, an effect I really like.

The other set I'm using a lot lately is the Teeny Tiny Sentiments - with 24 different sentiments you just can't go wrong, there's something appropriate for almost every event!

This card meets the requirements of three (or is it four!) challenges - I'm learning to combine them now!  First of all the colour is from ColorLab, the sketch is from GAB and the embellishments are for the Daring Cardmakers challenge (on this occasion sponsored by The Ribbon Reel).

Anyway, once again, hope you like it!

What I used:

Card:  Crumb Cake (first time I've used this colour), Real Red and Very Vanilla

Ink:  Crumb Cake, Riding Hood Red.

Stamp Sets:  Sweet Summer, Teeny Tiny Sentiments

Tools and other fun stuff:  Heart to Heart punch, Buttons #5 Sizzlits die, Square Lattice embossing folder, Scallop Border punch, Real Red 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, blender pens, Stampin' sponges, red twine from my stash.

Sweet Summer

Sorry I've been away for a few days, was feeling rather tired and uninspired but today woke up to a gorgeous day so got motivated to make this card.  I will be sending it to a friend's mother who has just had an operation, hope it cheers her up a bit!

One again I used colouring in techniques, I tried two different approaches on this card.  First I coloured in the flowers by using the ink from the inkpad and a blender pen, and it worked okay, but what I'm really pleased with was something I hadn't tried before and that was of stamping the image (in this case the leaves and little bird) and then using the blender pen to drag the colour in from the sides.  It worked really well as Garden Green is a very intense colour and it created a lighter tone in the middle, really pleased with that effect!

The colour combination came from the Color Dare challenge this week, and the sketch is from
Stamping 411 again.  I'm pleased I found both these sites as they seem to work for me and my way of crafting!

What I used:

Card:  White, Bashful Blue, Peach Parfait

Ink:  Garden Green, Bashful Blue plus a hint of So Saffron

Stamp Sets:  Sweet Summer, Teeny Tiny Sentiments

Tools and other fun stuff:  Scallop Border punch, Square Lattice embossing folder, Word Window punch, Stampin' Dimensionals, Peach Parfait ribbon, blender pens.