Cupcakes anyone?

As soon as I saw last week's sketch over at Tuesday Morning Sketches, I knew I wanted to use the cupcakes stamp from my Verve Birthday Bash set. It also gave me a good reason to try out my new Stamp-a-ma-jig. This is a really nifty tool for aligning your stamp so that you get the stamped impression exactly where you want it. Perfect for wood-mounted stamps but also very handy for aligning clear stamps. I used it to add two more cupcakes to the right of the three cupcakes of the original stamp.

Here's a close-up of the glitter:

And here's the sketch:

I stamped the images onto Neenah solar white cardstock and coloured them using Promarkers. The cupcakes look purple in the picture but they are pink in real life (blossom, rose pink, maroon & ivory, satin, gold). When I wanted to put the card together, the white looked terribly white, so I coloured the background with my ivory marker and added a little shading under the cupcakes with my satin marker. For a festive touch I added some glitter glue for frosting and Glossy accents for the candle flames.

Materials used:

Cardstock - from stash & Neenah solar white

Papers - My Mind's Eye (So Sophie 6x6 pad)

Sentiment stamp - Paper Smooches (Sentiment sampler)

Image stamp - Verve Stamps (Birthday Bash set)

Doily - came as a surprise goodie with my order from Verve Stamps

Distress ink on all edges - Ranger's (spun sugar)

Ribbons - from stash

Fibre - from very old Avec fibre collection

Stamping ink - Mememto (Rich cocao)

Colouring medium - Promarkers

Glitter glue - Avec

Glossy accents - Ranger's

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Bunny Zoe - Anything goes

Papertake Weekly - 81 Tie up your loose ends (bows)

Bearly Mine - (Tic tac toe: bottom row - glitter, twine, pink, doily)

Passion for Promarkers - 182 Favourite colour combo

I love Promarkers - 152 Anything goes

Alphabet Challenge - Y for Yummie

CAS-ual Fridays - 87 Make your mark (use markers)
The Ribbon Girl - Colour inspiration (pink and ivory)
Polkadoodles - Week 4 Monochrome/monochromatic

Tealight box + easel card

One of my goals for this year is to make more CAS cards, but also to create other things besides cards. So when I wanted to create a little something for a friend who's birthday it was last week, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to make a tealight box. This project also allowed me to start using my new butterfly die.

I used the Boxer (Crafter's Companion) to create a box and a lid from Neenah solar white cardstock and glued the back strips together after I had finished decorating everything. I created an easel card, which I adhered on top of the box and I die cut an extra scalloped square to adhere to the bottom of the box.

Materials used:

Cardstock - Neenah solar white for the box, Core'dinations for the card and bottom

Papers - BasicGrey (marjoleine collection)

Sentiment - TLC Creations (Cupcakes equal love word art set)

Scalloped square die - Lifestyle Crafts

Butterfly die - Die'sire/Crafter's Companion

Gems - Papermania

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Bunny Zoe - Anything goes

Crafter's Companion - Anything but a card

Dutch Dare - 201 Winged things

Simply Create Too - 29 Anything goes

BasicGrey - 85 New beginnings/Sth. new

Rudolph

For today's card I used another of Paulette's images from the TLC Winter Club (she will be doing a 5-day St. Patrick's club at the end of this month if you're interested), some old stuff (pearl, PP and ribbon) and some of my new crafting goodies (embossing folder and snowflake die).

I printed the digital image on Neenah solar white cardstock, cut it out with a circle die cut and matted it on a scalloped circle die cut.

Materials used:

Cardstock - Neenah solar white, Papicolor black

Embossing folder - Dot by Darice

PP - graphic design (old brandless paper pad), scalloped die-cut strip (Kaisercraft After Five collection)

Ribbon - EK Success
Circle dies - Lifestyle Crafts

Snowflake - MFT Dynamics, cut from red glitter paper from my stash

Pearl - Joycrafts

Sketch: 

Challenges:

Tuesday Morning Sketches - Sketch 180

Jingle Belles - Look what Santa brought me

Simon Says Stamp - B/W and a splash of colour

CHNC Extra - Always anything Christmas goes

Papertake Weekly - 79 Happy new... (stash)

Tuesday Throwdown - 129 Shiny and new

Aud Sentiments - 71 Winter sentiment

Crafts and Me - Winter Wonderland

Allsorts - 189 Dies and punches
ABC Christmas Challenge - A for Animal
Totally Papercrafts - 149 Ribbon

Be kind to yourself

To me, the sentiment of today's card seems a perfect way to sum up all New Year's resolutions. Maybe I should create a larger version and hang it on the wall in my office space.

I'll try to take another picture tomorrow that shows the embossed stitching on the black strip a little better. I can only see it in this picture if I look at my screen from above. ;-(

Here's the sketch I used:

Materials used:

Sentiment - Tlc Creations (freebie)

Hearts image - Floppe Latte Designs (Country Hearts, 

comes with a rectangle hearts border around the image)

Colouring medium - my new Promarkers (Berry red and Ruby)

Embossing border - Cuttlebug (Just my type set)

PP - from a very old paper pad of an unknown brand

Banner die - Wplus9

Challenges:

Tuesday Morning Sketches - Sketch 179

Less is More - Black & white plus a splash of colour

Passion for Promarkers - #179 New beginnings (New Year's resolutions)

I Love Promarkers - #149 Monochrome

Allsorts - #168 CAS

Another quick Christmas card

I'm almost through showing you my 2012 Christmas cards.

It features another of Paulette's digital images. It would have been such a waste not to use it for 2012, since I will be unable to use it for this year, unless Paulette decides to do a 2013 version of course LOL.

The png image came in black and white, but since I intended to use it to make at least 10 cards, I decided to colour the ornaments on the computer (using Paint, which happens to be able to handle png files these days) in red and golden yellow before printing onto Neenah solar white cardstock. After printing, it was merely a matter of cutting my A4 sheets, adding some gold paper strips, adhering everything to my cut and folded cards (also Neenah) and trimming off the excess gold paper strips.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

CAS-ual Fridays - #83 Make a CAS holiday card in less than 10 minutes

Catch the Bug - Holiday/seasonal

CHNC - #105 Anything Christmas goes

CHNC Extra - Always Anything Christmas goes

Season's Tweetings

I thought I might post a few more cards while I'm still enjoying my holiday break.

This is one of the cards I put together on New Year's Eve. I had already coloured this sweet Cuddly Buddly digi some time last year, using Spectrum Noirs, and had already selected the PP I wanted to use with it. The three PP elements all came from one A5 sheet from an old Marianne Design paperpad. I matted everything onto some matching Core'dinations cardstock. The circles were cut with Lifestyle Crafts dies. I finished the card off with a few Kaisercraft pearls and a new snowflake brad from the Eyelet Outlet.

The layout is based on an old Sketch and Stash sketch.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

CHNC - #105 Anything Christmas goes

CHNC Extra - Always Anything Christmas goes

Simon Says Stamp - New something (snowflake brad)

Marianne's Design Divas - It's Christmas

Papertake Weekly - #78 Anything goes

Delightful Challenges - Anything goes

Crafts and Me - Winter wonderland

Charisma Cardz - #51 Anything goes (entry #3)

Sweet 'n Sassy - #85 Favourite colour

One Stitch at a Time - Use a digi/Christmas blog hop

Christmas deer 3

And here's the third card I made with the gorgeous deer image from Paulette's TLC Winter Club.

I kept the card design pretty simple again, since this really brings out the image and sentiment. I used the same new Lifestyle Crafts die again (Nesting frame 3) and also used this die to cut off the lower part of the image paper and mat. I used my new My Mind's Eye 6x6 paperpad (Signature Christmas) again and matted this onto some (old) red Papicolor cardstock. To finish the card off, I added a bow from some baker's twine I won over a year ago.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

CHNC - #105 Anything Christmas goes

CHNC Extra - Always Anything Christmas goes

Jingle Belles - Look what Santa brought me! (use your new stash)

Papertake Weekly - #78 Anything goes

Bearly Mine - #67 Something old and something new

Charisma Cardz - #51 Anything goes

Cute Card Thursday - #249 Anything goes

Paperplay - #51/52 Out with the old, in with the new

Delightful Challenges - Anything goes

Totally Gorjuss - #164 New!

Christmas deer 2

Below is the second card that I made with Paulette's gorgeous digital image.

Materials used:

Digital image (relatively new) - Tlc Creations

Red cardstock (old) - Papicolor

PP (new) - Signature Christmas by My Mind's Eye

Die (new) - Lifestyle Crafts

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

CAS-ual Fridays - #83 Create a CAS Holiday card in less than 10 minutes
Bearly Mine - #67 Something old and something new
Jingle Belles - Look what Santa brought me (use new stash)

Quick Christmas cards

These last-minute Christmas cards were very easy to make with neglected papers from my stash (Home for Christmas by Papermania). I had ordered these papers over the Internet but found them a bit disappointing on arrival, so they ended up in my unused stash. When one of the challenge blogs out there in blogland challenged us to use our unloved stash, I dug up these papers and decided to create a few cards with them and I'm actually quite happy how they turned out.

Materials used:

Cardstock - Neenah solar white

Papermania Home for Christmas

Ribbon from my recycle box

Image - Tlc Creations (part of the TLC Winter Club)

Die - Lifestyle Crafts

Red pearls - from my stash

I'm entering these cards into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

CHNC - #105 Anything (Christmas) goes

CHNC Extra - Always Anything Christmas goes
Papertake Weekly - #78 Anything goes
Charisma Cardz - #51 Anything goes
Delightful Challenges - Anything goes