Richmond fan turns 50

Sometimes life gets in the way of my hobbies! ... and the longer you leave things, the harder it is to get back to them.

 

This is only the second card I have made since my shoulder operation and I have to say I am finding it hard to get back into the swing again.  Fortunately, a friend asked me to make a card for her Sister's 50th birthday and that was probably just the spur I needed.

 

The Sisters are fanatical Richmond supporters so I just had to run with that theme.  I turned to the "card in a box" design which is always so well loved, and I hope it will fit the bill this time too.

Edited to add:
I am trying to get motivated to return to blogging and I found this post in my drafts just sitting there since the end of June, waiting for the photo to be added. 
cheers,
Mary

 

A Daisy a Day

It's been a long time since I joined in at Just Add Ink, but I found myself in need of a distraction today.  I have to say that the first thing that came to mind was to use the Daisy punch to create a poinsettia, but the red was a long way from the inspiration photo, so I stayed with the Daisy theme.

I started with a white base and then layered it with another layer of white which I ink blended to enable to white daisies to stand out.  I made a trail for the flowers with the beautiful SU Copper Trim and was quite happy with it.  Deciding on a sentiment was a bit more difficult but tried to stay simple.

 

Thanks for the inspiration JAI- obviously that's just what I needed today.

Hope everyone has a lovely day

Mary

Flutter by butterfly ....

flutter by butterfly, 

floating flower in the sky, 

kiss me with your petal wings, 

whisper secrets, tell of Spring.

My Daughter's friend was celebrating a special "0" birthday last night.  The colour scheme for the party was purple, mint and white, and as she just loves butterflies it was pretty obvious that she would get a kaleidoscope of them.  

My go to card for special birthdays is the 'card in a box' as it is so easy to get the wow factor with them.   Yes, they do take a lot more time, but I think they are worth it.

So this was the card for my Daughter to give:

 

 and this was my card to her:

 

and how about this gorgeous cake, made by my Daughter?  The colour of the "nude" icing was just perfect.

Once cut, the cake showed the marbling of the colours beautifully.  

A very special cake for a very special lady.
 

 

Many happy returns!!

For the girls

Today I wanted to post a few of the different cards made recently.

The first one was was my Daugter's oldest Niece.  Hard to believe where the time has gone.  It seems such a short time since they were babies.

Happy Birthday Caitlyn!

Now, whatever happened to our sweet princesses and ballerinas?

It seems incredible that beautiful young 11 year old girls would want a birthday party theme of "ghouls", but that was exactly what my Granddaugter's friend wanted.  

The party venue was completely stage dressed and quite amazing, as were the outfits the attendees arrived in.   Thankfully, the card I came up with reflected the theme as well.  I was so relieved when I    found this stamp in my stash.  It is "Elizabeth" from "Make it Crafty" and was perfect for the occasion with the addition of a bit more mascara.  Going by some of the outfits at the party, I probably should have had her in a white dress with blood dripping down it from her eyes !!!!!!  EEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!

 

 

This third one was for a 12 year old and had a lot more opportunity for some sparkle.

Happy stamping,
Mary

Snap - you're great!

It's always harder to think of something appropriate for a male birthday.  However, as soon as I saw the camera in the "Pun Intended" stamp set, I knew who I would be using it for.  It took a little longer to work out how to use it, but since I had been trying my hand at ink blending, I decided to go for a sunset background..

I was able to use another of the sentiments from the set on the inside of the card - Hope your Birthday is "picture perfect" !

I resisted the No Bones Stamp set for quite some time, but finally gave in, and I am so glad I did.  There have been some very clever cards made with it.  Some of them add sentiments like "old fossil" and "bag of bones", but you'd have to be on good terms with the recipient to get away with those.  

I went with the safer option on this card which was cased from Bibi Cameron. (sorry I am unable to link at the present).

Jean 102

Happy Birthday Jean! 

My friend's Mother has celebrated her 102nd birthday.  

Jean is an amazing lady who still keeps up to date watching the news on TV, and just loves watching the cricket!

Wishing you many more "happy" birthdays, Jean.

The end of the drought ?

After a lapse of some six weeks I finally made a card.  I have been raiding my box of cards for recent birthdays, but didn't have one for a special friend.  It took some time to get back into the mood, but with inspiration from a lovely card by Christine Blain, here it is:

 

and a close up of that glossy sparkle:

 

The stamp is "Best Thoughts" from Stampin' Up and I have water coloured it with "Lovely Lilac" - a retired colour now but just perfect for my friend.  I then coated it with Glossy Accents and sprinkled a little Dazzling Diamonds on while it was still wet.

 

Yesterday, I heard that neighbours were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary and that certainly required a card.  Their wedding theme all those years ago was "Apple Blossom Time" and that was the music they danced the waltz to.  With not a lot of time, I decided on a shaker card and visualised the tree with apple blossom falling from it.  I had a container of "Flower Soft" which I thought would be perfect, but which turned out to be far too dense to see the tree behind it, so I moved on to glitter.  Unfortunately my pink glitter was extremely fine and covered the window sheet totally, so I punched out some tiny pink glitter hearts and popped them inside.  In hindsight, I see that I should have put more hearts in, but the lady was delighted with it and that's the main thing.

 

 

The stamp sets I used were Lovely as a Tree, Memorable Moments and Lovely Lace, and the card stock was Pink Pirouette and Whisper White.  The Window Frames were used to cut the window.

 

Here's hoping I get to blog a bit more often,

Mary

A suitcase of cards

I was watching a video from a Stampin' Up conference and one of the presenters showed a lovely project she had made to display new product.  You can see Becky Roberts' suitcase here.  I couldn't wait to make one!  Unable to purchase her tutorial, I set about working out the measurements myself and  made my prototype out of retired card and paper.  I was quite happy with the finished suitcase/box and rather than waste all that effort, decided it would make a great gift for an 80th birthday.    Having already decorated the box with the retired papers I had a bit of a challenge making mostly feminine cards to fill it, but I think it is OK.

 

 

The gift tags;

 the 3 X 3 cards and envelopes.

and  a few of the cards:

 

 

and a shot of the entire contents:

 

 

 
I hope you like it as I certainly enjoyed making it.
Mary

Reading Books

My Grandson asked me to make him a new bookmark.  I was quite surprised that he still had the "Thomas the Tank Engine" one I made when he was a toddler, so decided to make something special.  As he loves reading, I thought a stack of books would be good and looked online for ideas and fell in love with this:

Luckily I could read the watermark and found Vicky's blog.  I spent many hours watching her videos on art journaling and have since spent two very long afternoons with my grandchildren, each of us commencing/creating our own journals - learning as we go.  It's been a lot of fun learning about Gesso and modelling paste and all those lovely distress paints.

Although I have not made the bookmark yet, I did end up casing her art journal page for my Grandson's birthday card, using my card making supplies.

 

 

This is a terrible photo, ( will try to get another). 

 

I also made him a Freddo Box card in his favourite flavour - peppermint.

Thanks for popping in.

Mary

Make a Wish

Today I have finally finished a card for this month's challenge at Scrapbook Boutique.  Their inspiration photo is gorgeous, as usual.

 

Decided to go with the cupcake theme, but added some ribbon and pearls as well.  I do keep trying for the clean and simple style,  but usually end up adding a bit of bling here and there.

 

 

I have used some of my recent purchases from SB - the stamp set from Avery Elle and some new copics.  I enjoyed the colouring on this one so much I made a couple of extras in different colours.

Mary

 

 

 

Celebrate

It's been quite some time since I entered one of Scrapbook Boutique's monthly challenges, so I am here to rectify that. 

 

September Challenge

 

I have been trying to use some of my tools that haven't had much use and this die is one of them, so that's where the card started and then this cake image seemed perfect for it.

I started water colouring the cake so that it would look like nice pale icing, but somehow the Strawberry Slush just took over.  I think I will have to use the bright colours more often.

 

Cheers

Mary

Coffee time

I gifted a card using the Perfect Blend stamp set from Stampin' Up for the first time and it was very popular, so I decided to make a few more along that theme to have on hand.  I got a bit carried away colouring the coffee mugs in while testing the new Blendabilities and have just finished putting nine cards together.  Here is a selection:

All SU supplies: Perfect Blend stamp set (retired, but available on MDS); Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Whisper White and Crumb Cake card stock; Polka Dot Parade dsp (retired); Petite Petals stamp set and matching punch.

 

Two posts in one day!!! That's all folks!!

Mary

If the shoe fits .....

Wow, what fabulous shoes .. and what a great theme for this week's Less is More challenge.

 

I have used the SU Fabulous You stamp set for this card on Cherry Cobbler and Whisper White card.

 

Cheers

Mary

Bloomin' marvellous

There are blooming flowers everywhere over at the Less is More blog and they are not just there for the weekly challenge - they are also there to celebrate Chrissie's birthday. 

 

Coincidentally, a have a dear friend named Chrissie who is also celebrating her birthday today, so Happy Birthday to both of you and I hope you are having blooming marvellous days.

 

Time was running out for me to join in this week but luckily I managed to find time to plant a few flowers of my own.

 

 

                                             Stamp:   SU Bloomin' Marvellous (retired)

Card:   SU Early Espresso; Blushing Bride; Sahara Sand; Cherry Cobbler

Other:  Big shot; honeycomb embossing folder; lace punch.

 

Cheers

Mary

 

Happy flutterby

What a challenge this week at Dynamic Duos!  Calypso Coral and Black!  The colours certainly are stunning together and the team made it look easy- ha ha - guess that's why they are on the team.

I did have something in mind when I started, but the end result is nothing like the original vision - funny about that!

 

Stamps:    SU Papillon Potpourri and Oh Happy Day(retired SAB)

Card:   SU Whisper White; Glossy White; Calypso Coral; Black

Other:    Big shot; fancy fan embossing folder;  scallop trim border punch

I was told that it is better to use a black background when photographing cards with white on them and I guess the two shots above prove that. 

Thanks for fluttering by,

Mary

Skating birthday

Seize the Birthday are hosting their own birthday party and not only does it last all month, it's also "anything goes"!   So woo hoo, here goes.

The current craze seems to be roller skating as I was asked for two cards for skating parties a week apart.

 

Ingredients used are mostly SU - the DSP has been retired for a long time now.  I really have to stop hoarding designer papers and start using them more often.

 

Just a fun card with lots of glitter for a little girl.

 

Mary

Special Blend

The team at Less is More are looking for a shaped card this week - not square or rectangle!! 

 

Now I know why they call them challenges!!  A shaped card! hmmm ... I do have one set of framelits but as someone had already used that set I had to really put my thinking cap on. 

 

I decided to make a champagne bottle, totally forgetting about the one layer part of the deal, so to overcome that I decided to print my "greeting" direct to the cardstock.  I then stamped the square for the label and the little vine and then masked those sections off before sponging the pink champagne.  I used a SU gold marked to simulate the gold foil and the silver marker to make the wire lines.

 

The ingredients were mostly SU: Whisper White card;

Forever with you stamp set;

Pink Pirouette ink;

Raspberry Ripple and Gold and Silver markers.

The square stamp is an unknown one that I have had for years

and never previously used.

 

I do hope that the computer generated "greeting" has not breached any of the rules of the challenge.

I did have fun with this one.

 

Mary

A Little Less Grey

I love the beautiful clean lines of cards that fall into the category of "less is more", and have been trying to create some of them recently.  I start out ok but am never happy with them and so they end up in the pile of UFO's (unfinished objects). 

I have been stalking  enjoying Jen Nelson's cards for some time, and decided to try the challenge at "Less is More" where the theme is Shades of Grey.  Probably not such a good one for me to start with, but at least it took me less time to think about colours.

 

 

 

Supplies:

Stamp:  Party Animals by Annabelle Stamps

Card:   SU Whisper White

Designer paper:  SU  Howlstooth and Scaringbone

Ink:   Memento Tuxedo Black; Copics C3 and C5

Tools:   Big shot; Framelits Labels

 

Yes, it definitely is Whisper White cardstock.  Photography is clearly not a skill I have mastered, but today I had more trouble than usual. 

 

I am looking forward to seeing all the other cards and hopefully I will pick up some pointers. 

 

Thanks for the challenge Chrissie.

Mary

Really Pink

I'm entering this very pink card into the sketch challenge at Seize the Birthday.  Like Topsy, it just grew, and it got rosier as I added layers.

 

All supplies are SU:

Stamps:  Secret Garden; Itty Bitty Banners

Ink:  Melon Mambo

Cardstock: Whisper white; Melon Mambo

Tools:  Big shot; Fancy fan embossing folder; Bitty Banners Framelits

 

Hope this finds everyone "in the pink"!

Mary

A Sunny Bird

Doing a last minute dash for two challenges.  I knew I didn't have time to complete two cards, but I think I have managed to combine the two challenges in this card.

The Paper Players have a Tic Tac Toe challenge which is closing today and I chose the top line of birds, blue and birthdays and teamed it with the sketch at Sunny Challenges and Creations asking us to use retiring products.  Apart from the card stock, all the ingredients have now officially retired.

Stamps:   SU Nature Walk; French Foliage; SU Music wheel; Itty Bitty Banners

Ink:   SU Marina Mist and Soft Suede

Designer Paper:   SU First Edition

Tools:   Big shot; Bitty Banner Framelits

Nature Walk is a really lovely set of stamps but it has been sadly neglected by me, so I am very happy to finally get around to using it.

 

Thanks for popping in,

Mary

Edited to add:

thank you, I am delighted to be a ray of sunshine, but I won't get too big a head as there were not many entries this week.