Just Flowers


Hello!  I'd like to share two cards that I created using some beautiful flower stamps.  For the card above, I stamped one large sunflower from Penny Black's Sunny Hello stamp set with clear VersaMark ink on watercolor paper.  I then heat embossed the image with gold embossing powder.  Following that, I masked my first flower so that I could stamp a second flower and repeat the process.  Lastly, after masking off both flowers, I did the same with the leaves.  I then colored the image using water colors.  It was my first attempt at using this medium, so I'm sure that my technique could use some tweaking!  I then added my "sending sunshine" sentiment from the "You Are Wonderful" stamp set by Clearly Besotted.  I lastly used my large stitched rectangle die from The Stamps of Life Exclusive Stitched Rectangles to trim my picture and then mounted it with various colored and patterned paper onto my card base.  


This next card was a lot of fun to make!  I have been seeing so many cards using layering stamps and I've been wanting to try it.  I finally got my first set of layering stamps from Altenew called "Vintage Flowers" and their matching dies.  I also used their Glacier Caves Mini Ink Cube Set to achieve these brilliant colors.  Jennifer McGuire does a great tutorial on how to try stamp layering.  You can view this video here.  For the beautiful scalloped base of my card, I used the Sizzix Greetings Scalloped Edge Drop-ins Die Set by Stephanie Barnard.  This die set is so beautiful and versatile! 

Thanks for looking!  Feel free to leave any comments or questions!  Hope you all have a wonderful day!
  


More Apples!

Hello!  I hope your week is off to a good start!  I just wanted to quickly share two more apple cards that I made using this month's "Apple2stamp" stamp set and matching dies from The Stamps of Life.  I began with the Sizzix Royal Stand-ups Card Die Set for my card base.  I cut some panels using patterned paper from The Stamps of Life Dream Collection.  I die cut my bowl using The Stamps of Life Cherry Dies.  I then used a basketweave stencil on my bowl and sponged it with some Ground Espresso distress ink for a textured look.  I stamped the apples with Memento Tuexedo Black Ink and colored them using Copics.  Lastly, I added some apple leaves, twine and a button for embellishments.  My "Happy Thanksgiving" sentiment is actually a puffy sticker that came from this month's Card Kit Club from the Stamps of Life.


I took quite a different approach on my second card.  I opted for an apple shaker card, using just the apple dies for the main part of my card.  However, the sentiment did come from the "apple2stamp" stamp set.  For my card base, I used the Sizzix Large Circle #4 Flip-its Die Set.  I love this set! My sweet sister (who is not into paper crafting) actually bought it for me "just because".  I was pretty impressed with her selection but had to laugh because she admitted to me that she had no idea what she was doing or looking for when she went into the craft store to find something for me.

The side panels of my card were cut from heavy white cardstock and dry embossed with a swirl embossing folder.  I then sponged some distress ink onto these panels before attaching them.  I cut an "apple frame" out of the center of my card in order to attach a piece of clear acetate and add some green seed shaker beads by Pretty Pink Posh.  I die cut some flowers using the mini flower dies by The Stamps of Life.  The tag came from the Sizzix Tags Stamps & Dies set.  

Thanks again for looking!  Please feel free to leave any comments or questions!

 


Snappy Birthday!


Hello! I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!  I wanted to share with you a festive little box card that I created for my Uncle who lives near the beach.  I just love box cards because they are full of dimension!  For this card, I used my Box Card Die Set by The Stamps of Life for the base.  As in one of my previous cards, I removed the front flap of the box card and die-cut a "window" into the front base.  I then glued a piece of clear acetate inside the window so that my card would not collapse on itself when folded.  I then added some patterned paper to the sides and flaps and water-colored on some water-color paper with blue inks for my waves and sky.  I used the "Making Waves" die set (now retired) by My Favorite Things for the ocean waves. 


The cute beach scenery and characters came from Lawn Fawn's "Life is Good" and "Critters in the Sea" stamp sets.  I used my Copics to color all of my characters and also used their coordinating dies to cut them out.  Although you may not be able to see it in the photos, I also added some Clear Wink of Stella to add some sparkle to my sandcastle, bucket of sand, seahorse and starfish.  The cute little conch shell that the crab is holding is from the Elizabeth Craft large shells die set.

I love adding "pop-up" objects to the flaps of my box cards.  And as I have mentioned in previous posts, it still folds very simply with a small trick.


As you can see in this photo above, I have mounted my objects on the side flaps with simple pieces of cardstock that are scored and able to fold down.




Once the "pop-up" items are folded down, I can then fold the rest of my card so that it can fit easily into an A2 envelope (see photo below).  I usually make my own envelopes and add a little bit more depth to them in order to protect my card when shipping.


Thank you all for dropping by!  If you liked this card and want some more crafty inspiration, don't forget to check out my INSTAGRAM feed!

Wishing you all a lovely day!

♥ Rachel

How Do You Like Them Apples?

I was super excited to see the new stamps and dies released by The Stamps of Life this month for their August club set.  Apples! Apples can be perfect for pretty much any season and the ideas of what to create with them are endless!  The first card that I would like to share with you is a box of red apples. For the apples, I used the apple2stamp stamp set and dies and colored them with copic markers.  For the box, I used my Box Card Die Set sold exclusively by The Stamps of Life.  I added some rounded stitched white rectangles using white cardstock and Stitched Rounded Rectangle Dies by My Favorite Things. On top of that, I added some blue gingham patterned paper.  I wanted to add a little bit of contrast to everything, so I used my branch die by Memory Box and added some small white flowers using my mini flower dies by The Stamps of Life.  The most tedious part about making this card was coloring the apples.  Of course, I enjoyed that part, but some people do not like to color and if you wanted to create something similar, you could just use the solid apple stamp with ink or just die cut solid colored card stock.  

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My next card is a surprise slider card.  Ever since I saw last month's card kit video by My Favorite Things, I have been obsessed with surprise slider cards!  Initially, I had wanted to have a worm pop out of an apple on this card, but I didn't have any worm stamps and honestly did not feel like drawing my own.  As I thought of what other insect etc you might find on an apple, I was reminded of when I was a little girl growing up in Pennsylvania.  We had a bunch of crab apple trees in our back yard and one of our weekend chores during summer break was to go out and pick up a bucket or two of those pesky apples off of the ground and put them in our compost pile.  I remember wearing these huge, thick gardener gloves because if you weren't careful, you would get stung by a bee that might be hanging out inside one of the apples.  My siblings and I absolutely hated that chore but as for a card, a bee on an apple would be cute!  So, I went with bees.  You simply have to pull the little white tab on the lower right-hand side of the card to see the "surprise". 


And once you do, out "fly" two bees with a "Happy Birthday Banner"!  So much fun! And honestly, these surprise slider cards are not too difficult to make!  I will post a link of the video below by My Favorite Things that will give you a better idea of how to create one.  Once again, I used my apple stamps and dies.  The bees are from the bee4me stamp set and dies.  Now, for the part that you can't see, I used my smaller penny slider die (with some extra cutting with an X-Acto knife) by The Stamps of Life.  Many companies have come out with slider dies and almost any one would work or if you don't own one, you could just simply fussy cut it by hand with a craft/X-Acto knife.  For the banner, I used the smaller of the two banner dies that come in the Sizzix Alphabet Stamps & Banners Dies Set.

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Lastly, I'd like to share one more card using the same set of apple stamps as above.  However, for this card, there was no die-cutting.  Just simple stamping, masking and coloring.  Masking means that you are going to "mask" or cover a stamped image so that when you stamp on top of it, it looks like the image that you just stamped is behind or next the one that was already there without overlapping it.  For instance, in my card here, I stamped most of the leaves before I stamped the apple.  I then stamped some leaves on masking paper (or you could use Post-it Super Sticky Full Adhesive Notes) and cut them out by hand as close to the outline as possible.  I then placed them exactly on top of the leaf (or leaves) that I wanted to protect to either stamp a leaf "behind" another or to stamp the apple behind the leaves.  Once you remove the sticky paper, you only see what was stamped on your actual paper!   

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Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my projects today!  I love to hear from you!  Please feel free to leave any comments or questions!


Sending Hedge Hugs

Hello! I'm a bit late in posting my latest card.  Between summer swim lessons and traveling, July had been a very busy month!

I recently returned from a family trip to Pennsylvania where I had the privilege to take one of Stephanie Barnard's classes at the CKC Scrapbooking Convention in Lancaster.  She is just as down-to-earth in person as she appears in her videos.  Being my first scrapbooking convention, I could not believe how many people attended! If you have never experienced this, I highly recommend it.  It's nice to see how many people are interested in paper crafting!

I wanted to create at least one more card using last month's club stamp set from The Stamps of Life.  I opted for something with bold patterns and colors.  This time, I used the second set of hedgehog stamps and dies from The Stamps of Life called hedgehog2stampTWO and Hedgehog TWO Dies.  I just love this little hedgehog holding the flower!  These second two stamp and die sets coordinate perfectly with the first two that were released earlier last month.  This card was pretty easy to make.  I opted to color my hedgehog, log and flowers using my Copics but as I have said previously, if you do not want to color, you can easily stamp your image on colored card stock, die cut your image and be done with it!  For the base of my card, I used only 4 of the 22 dies from the Sizzix Royal Stand-ups Card Die Set.  The bold black & white floral patterned paper came from the Thanks Collection 6x6 Patterned Paper Pad sold exclusively by The Stamps of Life.  The flowers and stems came from The Stamps of Life hippo2stamp stamp set and matching dies.  For the center of the flowers, I used Nuvo Crystal Drops in Gloss White.  It's difficult to tell in the photo, but the Crystal Drops give a hard, raised appearance to the center of the flowers, giving them more depth and texture.  I used a white gel pen to outline some of the detail in the log and used the "Sending Hedge Hugs" Sentiment from the first set of hedgehog dies.  Lastly, I added some sprouts of grass using the small grass dies from The Stamps of Life Mailbox Dies.

Once again, thanks for looking!  Please feel free to leave me any comments or questions!

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