Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge 58

Welcome to the weekly sketch challenge from waltzingmouse. Its great to get some inspiration from such challenges, as they often push you to try something new. Today's encouraged the use of a label which I really enjoyed. Here's the sketch:

I wanted to make use of a lovely tree stamp from Crafty Individuals, and stamped it onto a kraft luggage label in forest moss distress ink. I then used a sentiment from waltzingmouse Teeny trees in the same colour. For the background I used the same ink, and a My Minds Eye stamp from the set Wild Asparagus. Its a lovely leaf stamp which I plan to use much more. To make the colour more subtle I would stamp the image first onto some scrap paper, and then onto the cardstock (as Barbara from Clarity stamps puts it 'ink, blot, plot'!). 

I stamped lots of random leaf shapes and then gently sponged around all the edges before layering up onto a 6" ivory card. I was so pleased with the finished card that I decided to make another exactly the same, but simply changing the sentiment, and using pearlised lime green ink and a white label. 

The finished result looks completely different, but they're exactly the same!

Why not play along with the challenge yourself?

All you need is Love

I have a couple of extra cards which I have based around the anniversary card I made for my brother a few weeks ago. One is for a wedding card, and another for an engagement card, and all the basic elements are the same, but you can see what a difference a different colour palette and using embossing can make.

The first is an engagement card for a couple from church.

I decided not to go all white and thought black was more contemporary. I used my banana frog alphabet again (Budmo Jiggler), but this time I stamped with embossing ink and embossed with silver embossing powder onto black card. I used cuttlebug swiss dots to emboss some more black cardstock, and then layered these onto some spotty greytone paper I had. A little ribbon finished this off nicely, and was quick to make.

The second card is a wedding card for a friend.

I wanted to stick to more traditional whites and silvers for this, and used some lovely silver thread paper I have to layer onto. I again embossed the letters with silver embossing powder, embossed swiss dots onto some white card and finally made a small shrink plastic embellishment with the happy couples initials and the date of their wedding.

I love it when you find a card that is easy to make and so versitile!

Waltzingmouse Blog Waltz - Birthday Fun

Well today is the monthly Blog Waltz for Waltzingmouse stamps which I love!
This month is birthday themed, and I have loads of beautiful birthday stamps with candles, cakes, balloons etc...but not waltzingmouse ones, so I had to be a little creative!

The main bit of the card is the patchwork background which is various designs from the Off beat Background set. I wanted the stamp colour to compliment the cardstock, so they're lovely and subtle. I used tone on tone. I then realised I only had one birthday sentiment, and it said Birthday Wishes, but I wanted it to say Happy birthday, so this is where my nifty partial stamping came in handy! I got the Happy Thanksgiving stamp, and the Birthday Wishes stamp and only partially inked them up. This was quite easy for the happy, as I only inked the left side of the stamp. The birthday bit was trickier, as the wishes text is very close, but I used some post it notes to cover up that bit whilst I inked up.
Here is what the two individual stamps look like.

I usually like my sentiment central, and having decided to use my Labels 4 nestabilities I played around with it, but wanted to try and stamp on the label. It was then that I had the lightbulb moment of putting some candles on the label, and using the individual branch and leaf stamp from Teeny trees was able to make some pretty funky candles!!!

After layering up the nesties I simply put a faux stitch around the edge and voila!
I'm really pleased with how this turned out!

Contemporary Anniversary Card

Just thought I'd share a card for you I made for my brothers wedding anniversary. I wanted something that wasn't too flowery and a bit cool (he's a graphic designer, so has high standards!) and I settled on the idea of the square Love design based on the Robert Indiana painting here.

I used my Banana frog Budmo Jiggler alphabet to spell out the word, and Cracked Sapphire distress ink.

The background is just white card that has been embossed with a 'that special touch of' small polka dot mask and then I kept the mask in place and sponged with more distress inks. I gently sponged around the outside of both pieces and layered onto some navy card. Finally I made a tiny heart embellishment from shrink plastic which I simply cut into a heart shape and wrote the initials of my brother and sister in law on before shrinking. A bit of ribbon and we're done! Hope you like!

Waltzingmouse Sketch challenge 54

Good evening crafters. Today I had a birthday card to make for a friend. Its not her birthday for a couple of weeks, but I'm really busy over the next couple of weeks, and we're away before her birthday so I need to get it sorted sooner rather than later! I have used the waltzingmouse sketch challenge as my inspiration, and was hugely excited to use my new set of stamps which I won in the July blog waltz!! I chose offbeat backgrounds and have been dying to play with it! Heres the sketch.

I started by embossing the A5 ivory card with swiss dots. Because the embossing folder is only A6 I had to emboss from both sides, but I left a gap in the middle for the ribbon. I had to overlap on the wider side, and when I had done it the original embossed dots were flattened on the last row, so I had to put the embossing folder back around by hand and gently press them back out.

I decided to try my offbeat background dots to compliment the swiss dots. I tried to do it with my distress inks, but they didn't stamp too well. I love distress inks for sponging, but for larger areas of stamping they don't work great, I think its because they're so watery. So instead I used my whispers ink, and it stamped lovely in sage. I also used my cuttlebug and labels 4 nesties to make a little sentiment, and stamped with a sentiment from Teeny trees.

I used a wild asparagus stamp to give some extra texture to the sentiment in the same sage colour which looked nice.

I wanted to distress all the elements a little, so I sponged some tea dye distress ink around the edges, including all around the card edge and also onto some little flowers I had put together.

The final thing was to use some lovely sage ribbon to tie it all together! I hope she will like it!