Here's a card  I made a while ago and completely forgot about. It's only because I am at home with the dreaded Covid and have been looking through my photos. That's when I realized I hadn't posted it. I can't think how I forgot, I had a lot of fun playing with this technique and made a lot of inky mess trying out different colour combo's.

It's a quick and simple card to make and suitable for a lot of occasions. It doesn't require much in the way of tools or materials either. 

You can make this as a single layer card too, so even less materials needed.

I started by folding a piece of copy paper in half length ways and in half again width ways.

On the  corner where both folds overlap,  measure in, half a centimetre /quarter of an inch and draw a line on both sides. ( I realize it says 1 cm on the photo but when I opened out the paper it gave me a gap 2 cms wide between the panels and I felt that was a  little too wide.)

With the paper still folded, and your punch upside down,  line up the edges of the punch with the two lines you have drawn and punch all four apertures at the same time. I used the rectangular postage stamp punch from  Stampin' up. But you could use any shape punch or die. Think about the size  and shape of your card before deciding on a different shape.

Open and flatten out the copier paper and position it over your card and tape down to prevent any slippage.

Now, I used the pieces of paper I punched out of the apertures to mask of the apertures I wasn't working on, but they did move, resulting in me getting ink where I didn't want, in the end I swapped over to post it notes.

The Post it's, meant I could be as liberal as I wanted with the ink without getting ink where it's not supposed to be.

Here you can see I masked off two of the apertures and applied some lilac ink to the other two apertures with a blending brush. I started by applying the ink in one of the inside corners and gradually blended the ink to the opposite corner to create a graduated  look.

Once I had applied the ink, I stamped the images over the post it and the aperture. It's best not to stamp the whole image in the aperture, unless  it's a sentiment of course.

 

I've add an extra photo here so you can see what I mean .

You can change this up in so many ways. You could do each aperture in a different colour, do the whole card using just one colour in ( see example at the bottom of this post) or use two colours as I have.

You could have the sentiment  running between the panels in  portrait position or turn it around and have the sentiment running through the middle in the landscape  position,  depending on the direction and style of your stamped images.

You could place the sentiment below the panels  This could be a single layer card or one with multiple layers. The choice is yours.  

On the Header card and the one below  I went a step further and used a stencil to add some subtle interest to the background of each panel.

Every now and again I like to try something a little different and these are something a little different for me. To make the card above  I took a leafy die and cut out the branch and blended assorted colours of ink over the leaves quite heavily. Once it was dry I stuck the coloured die cutback in the aperture it came out of with some sticky tape on the back. Then added a coloured mount and adhered the image onto a base card.

I decided to experiment the same technique using a different leaf die. It hadn't occurred to me the leafy design was an open design.  But I carried on regardless . As I was working on colouring the leafy die cut, I notice the  pretty patterns being created on my work pad. So I decided to re create the pattern on a second piece of card and use it as a background for the die cut image. 

I used the die cut I used as a stencil to create the background as the focal point. As on the previous card I taped the die cut back in the aperture it come out of. That's when I realized the sticky side of the tape was showing through the leaves. So I filled the gaps with dark green glitter which stuck to the tape and filled in the gaps.

 I have to say neither of these are my style but it's good to try something different and out of our comfort zone.

 

12th S.U. birthday

  

I am sharing a card made by my upline. Amanda sent me this card to mark my 12th Stampin' Up Birthday in January this year. It came along with a pencil case filled with crafting goodies, which will be very useful  indeed. Amanda has used the Celebrate with flowers stamp set to create this card, which can be found in the 2021 -2022 annual catalogue .

Childs Card and Sweety Bags

 I needed a card in a hurry earlier this week for one of the children I work with, again I sought inspiration from the internet. This card was inspired from a card I saw on Pinterest by a lady called Kris but that's all that I know about her.  This not an exact copy of her card. I changed it up by adding clouds, I used glitter paper for the numbers and thread for the balloon strings rather than drawing them in.

I decorated the flap of the envelope with a paper that matched one of the balloons. Now I have to confess I really didn't plan this, I had stamped an image on the flap and I had intended to colour it but I messed up and smudged the ink,  not wanting to waste an envelope I  decided to cover the error with  DSP paper .

I usually give the boys a small quantity of sweets on a Friday for good behaviour throughout the week.   I had run  out of the small poly bags I usually use,  so I decided to make some small paper bags  and decorate them to make them more appealing to the boys. I have to say, I was right they did appeal to them and one of them even pointed out it was better for the planet....less plastic waste. I was impressed with his thinking and I was in total agreement but also dreading the thought of making them every week. 

I used copier paper to make these bags.   Cut to 7 x 6 1/2 inches.  

 Along the 7  inch side  I scored at  2,   2 1/2 ,   3,      5,     5 1/2,      6  inches    The last half inch is the glue tab to join the sides. 

  On the 7 inch edge  score at 1 inch. This will form the base of the bag.  These measurements will make a bag  2 inches wide by 1 inch deep and 6 inches tall. This may seem quite small but you can get quite a lot in them.

  I stamped jelly beans in  multiple colours many many times.  I used an edgelet die to  create the serrated edge along the top.

 Then it's just a case of snipping  all the score lines at the bottom up to the 1 inch score line, folding them over and gluing together to form the base.

Flowers of Friendship

 For this card I used the flowers of Friendship stamp set. I saw Jo Blackman's video on creating this card and decided I wanted to try it.  I've been lacking in inspiration of late and my craft room has been under going some major changes as I bought some new furniture to replace the mismatched furniture that's been annoying me for years. This has meant  I haven't been able to work in there for the last few weeks. Instead I have been sorting through all my stash and disposing of things I no longer want.  After so long out of the craft room I needed some inspiration from  the internet. I came across Jo's card and thought it was lovely.  I then discovered she had a great video on her blog on the making of this card. So I thought I'd try it.  I love the way it turned out.

In brief , you heat emboss the flower stamp in gold, paint the flowers with white craft ink and a little water, when the white ink is dry, paint over the bottom  of each flower with a fairly strong pink ink, It will blend with the white and become paler.   Paint the leaves green,  blend some ink around the edges of the panel. Then splatter some  green and white ink over the whole card front. Add a little bling, a gold bow, a sentiment and mount on to a second layer of card. But If you want  more instructions visit Jo's blog.    Here's the link to this project.      https://www.joblackman.com/2021/05/monday-mashup-39-featuring-flowers-of.html     Jo has some wonderful projects on her blog so it's well worth a visit.

Hubby's Valentine's card 2022

This was Hubby's Valentines card this year. 

 I used Vanilla and really red card stock for this one and I dug out the retired Very vintage Wheel stamp and Cherry Cobbler ink to stamp the background layers.

 I also blended some ink around the edges to increase the vintage feel on this card.

To create the corset I needed to create a template... I folded a piece of card in half and roughly drew one half of the corset along the fold line. I punched out two circles using the 1  1/2 inch circle punch.

I used one of the circles to draw round on a second piece of  folded card. Then I drew  two curved lines to join the circle to the fold. see the photo below.

 

I wasn't entirely  sure this would  be the actual shape or size until I had cut out all the pieces and pieced them all  together. Once I'd cut out all the pieces, I trimmed away the top edge of the bra cups as I wanted to add some lace to this edge.  

The two punched circles will give the impression of the breasts. In the photo below,  I have cut the different layers in different colours to show the order of construction. 

                  I have also measured up, marked and punched the lacing holes using a 1/8th of an inch single hole punch. 

 I  drew the neck and chest area on vanilla card stock and cut it out. Then brushed a little ink over the entire piece of card applying more on the edges and  over the top of the breasts.

 If I had to do this again, I would change the shape of the upper body slightly.

You may also notice on the finished card,  I also altered the shape of the bottom of the corset.

Using a blending brush and a little fleshy coloured ink, ( I think, I used crisp cantaloupe.) I brushed a little ink around the edged of the vanilla circles to give a little dimension. 

I placed my template pieces on the really red card and drew around them. I cut out the pieces and  using the" I love Lace" background stamp and black ink I stamped  the lace pattern onto the corset pieces. I love how beautifully delicate the lace stamp is and just perfect for this project

As I was arranging all the pieces I noticed the top of the corset was poking out of the top of the bra, so I cut a small notch out of the centre...  see  photo above.

I brushed a little dark red ink on the bottom edge of the bra cups and a little on the edges of the corset.

I threaded some narrow ribbon through the eyelet holes and secured the ends with some sticky tape on the back of the corset . 

 I am sorry to say, I forgot to photograph the lace making section.  So I can't show you any photo's of this part.  So I'll explain it instead. I used a delicate lace edge die to cut a strip of lace. I snipped out little v shapes along the bottom edge of the strip of lace, this makes it easier to curve the lace around the curved edge of the bra. Adhere the bra in position using thin dimensional s, then position the breasts so they are just visible above the lace.  I added slightly thicker dimensional s  to the back of the breasts for some extra lift.  See the photo above.

To finish this corset off I added a bow in between the bra cups and a tiny gemstone. To the neck I added a little piece of ribbon and a rhinestone to create the choker.

Finally I adhered the finished corset onto my card base and added a sentiment.

Easter Friends Duckling

 

Here is the duckling from the Easter Friends Stamp set. He is such a happy chappy and is bound to bring a smile to anyone's face.

I coloured him with Copic markers, mounted him on black card and teamed him  up with grey gingham paper which I had also mounted on to black card.

My second card using the duckling I kept very simple.  I layered him on black card stock with a very narrow border, then mounted him onto Lemon Lime twist card stock,  which I think is a very spring like colour.

For my third card I used the new Sale a bration  DSP  as a background. Again I mounted the duckling and the DSP on black card stock before adhering to the front of my base card. The sentiment in this car is from a very old stamp set called Easter Blossoms... I think
 

Easter Friends

 

This rabbit is part of a new stamp set is called Easter Friends and it's  available until the end of June from Stampin' Up.  There is a very happy duckling and a chick in the set too.

I had reservations about buying this set as I didn't think my colouring would do it justice.  But I have to say I am quite pleased with the way they have turned out. I used Copic markers (Alcohol pens) to colour these images.

 For Christmas Hubby bought me a stash of Lavinia stamps and stencils, so I just had to try out the Fern    Leaf stencil along with  pear pizzazz ink and a new blending brush  to create this leafy background. 

 I love the stencil but not quite sure it works on this card.  Perhaps I did too much.

If you wish to see more of this stamp set click on the link  for the mini catalogue on the right hand side.

 bar.  or on the link below.

 January-June 2022 Mini Catalogue | EN-UK by Stampin' Up! - Issuu

Snowman punch card

A little late for Christmas cards I know. But if I don't post them now they will never be posted.

For some strange reason these snowmen cards didn't photograph too well, and for that I apologize. They are better in reality than in these pictures. I used the new snowman builder punch, blending brushes, Blueberry bushel ink pad and "stamp and write" markers in,  pumpkin pie and choc chip to colour the carrot and branches.  Plus a black marker pen to colour the hat. The trees are a small branch stamp, from Lavinia stamps.

To create the background I used a tiny amount of  Blueberry bushel ink on a blending brush and lightly inked the top section of the card. I punched a circle from the sticky edge of a post it note and used it to mask off  the soon to be moon area.  I kept apply more ink to the sky and around the post it circle to intensify the sky, and create the moon.

With torn paper I created the snowdrifts at the base by brushing ink over the torn edge of the paper onto the card stock. I lightly spritzed the inked card with water and blotted it off after a few seconds, to give a more mottled effect to the sky, almost as if it was snowing.

 I stamped a couple of trees and then punched out the snowman. I coloured his hat, arms and nose, added his eyes and buttons with the markers, then lightly inked the edges to give him some dimension.  I assembled all the parts before adhering him to the front of the card.

Once I had completed the blue scene I just had to try it in a pinky colour. This time I chose to try a pigment ink. So using Versafine Clare, "Monarch",  I repeated the above steps, omitting the water  spritzing as this doesn't work on Versafine Clare inks. Instead of gluing the snowman directly to the panel,  I used very thin foam pads to adhere the snowman to the front of the panel

I brushed some faint snowdrifts and sky onto the base cards before adding the images as I felt the whiteness of the card was a little too stark.

Awesome Otters

Awesome Otters  is a free stamp set available NOW!.  It's a Sale a bration set, which means you can order this set free of charge with a purchase of £45 or more. If you are not familiar with sale a bration  it's a Stampin' up! promotion held in January every year, where you can choose a free gift from the Sale a bration catalogue, when you place an order for £45 or more. But it doesn't stop there, You can choose a gift for every £45 you spend. So if you spend £90 you can choose two gifts and  so on.  I chose this set  as one of my free gifts this year.

If you already have this set you may notice  there are no black lines in the water. I used a white Posca paint pen to paint over them, Hubby says he prefers the image without the black lines . I am still undecided, and curious to know which you prefer. 

Here's the link to the  Sale a bration Catalogue

Sale-A-Bration Brochure | EN-UK by Stampin' Up! - Issuu

Hand penned petals.

 These two cards were made using the  Hand penned petals stamp set. I wasn't sure about this set when I first saw it in the catalogue. I think I purchased it because I was running out of options. I am still not convinced  I did the right thing. I guess once I have played with it a little more, I may grow to love it. You may not notice but the large flowers I heat embossed in gold detail embossing powder. But the less prominent background flowers/ foliage I used various colours of ink to stamp the images.

I coloured the large images with Copic markers rather than use the infill stamps that come in the set. I wanted more accurate colouring than the infill stamps give.

I have to confess that I rather like the orange one....Anyone that knows me well,  knows  that yellow and orange are not colours I like. I will always opt for reds,  pinks, purples and blues.  It's very  rare I would choose orange and yellow...especially yellow. but I think I may have to change my way of thinking now. Especially as I did a version of this card in pinks, purples and blue and I hate it.

Wintery card

I used the Arctic bears stamp set for this card, it's a new set and is available from Stampin'up.
Stamping this card took a little working out. I stamped the large bear first, then masked her off and stamped the small bear, overlapping the masked off bear. 

Then I masked off the small bear and stamped the icy edge three times along the side of the card. With a pen I drew in the horizon.

I added a touch of cool grey ink to the bears and coloured the sea with Copic markers.

I heat embossed some silver snowflakes along the top edge and down the opposite side to the ice flow.

I mounted the scene on marina mist card  and then on to a piece of night of navy card stock , which I had heat embossed more snowflakes in silver.  The snowflakes are from the serene snowflakes set.

Expressions in ink

 I love this  new DSP from S.U. it's called "Expressions in ink". |It's  a 12 x12 paper  and the pattern runs through the middle of the sheet so when you cut it in half through the middle of the pattern you can  make six full card fronts from one sheet. 

I added a few sparkles on the top top along with a heat embossed sentiment in gold.

On the card below I used the speckles stamp from  the Forever  fern stamp set to add a touch of gold.

Just add a sentiment to this paper and you have a card.

Even hubby liked these.

Sewing themed card

For this card I dug out a couple of old  retired stamp sets.  Sew suite and pattern pieces. I had intended to use  the Pattern pieces stamp on the front as a background but it looked way too busy so I used it  inside instead.

I stamped, coloured  and fussy cut all the cotton reels and tape measures before sticking them to the polka dot card. As always I used Copic markers to do the colouring.

  I sewed four small buttons onto the button card and added a sentiment. With hind sight I would have stamped the sentiment directly onto the button card before sewing on the buttons.

 As I had sewn the buttons on, it was awfully difficult to get the stamp between the buttons.

The lace trim  was made with Martha Stewarts Doily punch and edged the lace with ribbon and pearls. 

 

Trin's 30th card

I dug out the old Greenhouse Garden and the Summer Silhouette stamp sets to create a couple of background for a 30th birthday card.

The inks I used were Pale papaya, seaside spray, misty moonlight, peekaboo peach. Lucky limeade and daffodil delight.

I had an idea to combine it with S.U. large happy birthday die . The photo above shows the die as it comes out of the die.  I wanted to add 30th in between the words, so I snipped the connecting h, p  and y to turn it into two separate words. Then I heat embossed the words in copper 3 times for a well rounded liquid look to the lettering.

Another reason for choosing to heat emboss so many times was also to hide the dotty impression the die leaves hide. Stampin' up word dies have an awful lot of release holes which are very prominent on the die cut.  I have tried running the die cut through the big shot after removing it from the die and this does push all the little dots out but it also presses out the bevelled edge, leaving you  with a very flat die cut.

However quite by chance I discovered that you can remove or at least lesson the dotty affect buy running it back through the bigshot carefully without the top plate.

There seems to be just enough pressure to reduce the dots without flattening out the bevelled edge. Of course that might just be my machine , each machine is slightly different so if you try this you may find you need to use a sheet of card as a  shim.

                       

 

New home Card.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a similar version of this card except the girl was a boy. I wondered at the time If I could change the boy into  a girl  by giving him more hair. I wanted a girl as I wanted to send it to  my sister as she's just moved house. So I played around with the image and with a fine marker, I drew in long hair, it seemed to have worked quite well.

 

Heat embossed card

This ornate stamp is new from Stampin' up! it's in the "Elegantly said" Set.  I think it's a corner stamp, but I created this card using it to stamp a background in Versamark ink and heat embossed it in gold detail embossing powder.

 

Sailing by the moon

 A card suitable for a male today and for any occasion.  To create this image I blended a little blue over the centre of the card, allowed it  to dry then masked off the moon.

 I then set about blending the ink sky and sea.  I used the edge of a dauber and drew in the streaks in the sea  to create the impression of waves / ripples.  I left the area around the bottom of the moon and along the horizon slightly lighter.

 I stamped the sailboat  using black ink, and then coloured in the image with a black marker. I added stars buy dotting a white gel pen over the sky.

Young girls birthday card

Another LOTV digital stamp I purchased  during the LOTV sale. This is a nice image for a young girl's birthday. I used Copic markers to colour these images. 

I used a floral die cut as the background for these cards. that I purchased from the Range.

 The sentiments  came from Stampin' up's "Best grand Kid ever" set.

I used the same colours same colours to colour the card below as for the top card, I just swapped them round.

New home card

 

Another LOTV image I purchased but I think I paid full price for this one. Full price is less than £3 so it didn't exactly break the bank. I always struggle to find suitable images for new home cards.  

This is perfect for somebody that is moving into a new house or flat. As the first thing we do is 

redecorate and make a home.

I am just looking at this image and wondering if I lengthened the hair on this guy if he would look more like a girl. I would also colour his clothes in more feminine  colours.

I tried colouring him in different colour for this one and layered him on the new DSP from stampin up.

This would also make a great thank you card for anyone helping with the decorating.