This card was to provide something a little different. I had a great time playing with my dies, and a great time making the matching stick pins.

The base layer is a white 8” x 8” card stock, with a close fitting blue layer. I die cut the Sue Wilson/Creative Expressions Noble ornate pierced design for the white accent, including die cutting the ornate inner segment. On top of that I placed the embossed middle section in blue, and die cut the Happy Birthday sentiment with white foam. The foam I backed back and front with a double adhesive sheet, enabling me to glitter the sentiment, and also to stick the sentiment straight down on the front of the card.

The die cut butterflies had double sided sticky sheet attached to the front, so I could add glitter to them both, but only attached the middle of the butterflies to the card, so they could have some movement. The flowers were made and doubled-up – two layers – before sticking them to the card, and the two flourishes were then added to add further detail.

The three stick pins were made to match the colour of the blue, and to reflect and cause some added sparkle, and stuck into the backing foam underneath the blue middle section. I always like to add dimension with foam, and the foam also provides a good sticking point for any stick pins I add – also securing with glue.

I have entered this card into the ‘crafty calendar challenge’ with the theme of ‘things with wings’, and ‘crazy 4 challenges’ with the theme of white flowers, and the ‘allsorts challenge’ with the theme of Happy Birthday.

For my entry into another card making challenge, it took a little thinking about. The theme was for a Christmas card incorporating the colour pink. As the Crafty Hazelnut’s challenge blog says – not usually a colour associated with Christmas, but why not?

I started with a white base card, and layered a Blackberry Bliss card stock layer, which I embossed with a ‘Heart Lattice’ embossing folder. I then added a sheet of silver vellum which had Christmas trees and Merry Christmas on it, and stuck that down with glue dots.

At the top of the vellum, I covered the glue dots with sparkly dazzlers, and at the bottom I covered the glue dots with a length of pink ribbon I layered with a sparkly ribbon. I wanted a two level effect and the ribbon separated the layers.

The three Christmas trees were embossed onto pink card with pink ‘Wow’ embossing glitter, and cut out using the matching punch. The snowman was from the Tim Holtz/Sizzix ‘Snowman Blueprint’ – stamped and embossed in white embossing powder, and cut out using the matching die. The sentiment was stamped with white embossing powder, and cut out using a scalloped circle punch. All these were added to the card with foam pads, to add some shadow and dimension.

I found incorporating the colour pink into a Christmas card was quite easy – once I had got over thinking that Christmas cards only needed to be the usual Christmas colours of red, green, gold etc.

Stampin up: ‘Festival of Trees’ stamps and matching punch, scalloped circle punch, Blackberry Bliss card stock; Sizzix/Tim Holtz: Snowman Blueprint stamp and die set; Wow: embossing powder; Creative Expressions/Sue Wilson: ‘Heart Lattice’ A4 embossing folder; Dazzlers, white embossing powder, Christmas vellum from my stock – unknown maker

It’s been a few weeks since I posted, but I now seem to have recovered from my card making block. I joined Stamp Nation, an on-line community where there are literally thousands of videos and ideas to encourage and support you. I have been going through the site slowly, but seeing all the ideas, and the people has stirred by crafting senses again – all good!

I enjoy card making challenges, as it gives me a topic or a reason to make a card, as I make them for personal use, and have also started to make quick cards for charity. A valuable web site for me is Paper Playful. The web site is a group of volunteers who trawl the web for card/craft challenges, and post them. So – I only have to look in one place for a fabulous list to encourage me.

The card above is for one such challenge – My Time To Craft Challenge Blog – and the sketch for the current challenge reminded me I had a bag of ‘Twinchies’. Twinchies are 2 inch square , and ideal for this particular challenge. These particular ones are from Stamps Away and are white paper lined board – ideal for a mosaic effect.

I used a 5 x 5 inch square Kraft card base, and placed a layer  Blackberry Bliss card stock. On 4 of the Twinchies, I stamped third generation flowers, to give a faded and muted look. For the middle Twinchie, I masked an area the general size of the sentiment I was going to use, stamped around and over the masking, and then stamped the sentiment.

I had some ribbon from a Jane Means gift wrapping course I attended last year, which I wrapped around the base card, On top of the ribbon I added an Indigo Blu mount board rose which I coloured the same colour as my stamping, and added some Decadent Wine PVA dots. Maybe I should have used pink dots – but I thought they would have added too much brightness for what I was trying to achieve.

I don’t usually make flowery and pretty cards, but I really enjoyed putting this together.

products:

Stampin Up: Blackberry Bliss cards stock , Blackberry Bliss ink, Elegant Eggplant ink (sentiment), Old Olive ink, ‘Botanicals’ For You stamp set; Cosmic Shimmer: Decadent Wine PVA, from Phill Martin; Jane Means: chocolate and pink ribbon; Indigo Blu: Alter Ego Florals