Groovy Blooms

This will be the last post for another while as I am going to be going back to Calgary for my bridal shower then coming home to work a lot! So hopefully you'll stay with me!

This card is going to a special cause to help raise money for the Alzheimer's Association. Jen Tapler is helping to raise money for this cause, a cause close to her heart, by auctioning off boxes/tins of cards and donating the money to help Alzheimer research. You can read more about her cause here. You can win some great prizes for helping Jen with this cause by making cards but most importantly you can help make a difference!This is a simple, but elegant, looking card that I created with the colour combo of groovy guava and chocolate chip - which I love together. To get this look, I stamped the whole image in groovy guava then used my SU chocolate chip marker to colour the stem. Then I "huffed" on the stamp and set it.

Supplies

Stamps: SU Eastern Blooms, Short & Sweet
Ink: SU groovy guava, chocolate chip
Paper: SU groovy guava, ww, chocolate chip
Ribbon: SU 5/8" chocolate chip grosgrain, groovy guava
Misc: 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches

Egg-stra Special Box

I decided that I've hoarded on to this PTI just hatched egg box long enough and it's about time I decorated it. The Verve Project Parade gave me the inspiration I needed to actually get around to it. I love the way this project came out. The colours are so fun and perfect for Spring and Easter. I used Mod Podge to adhere all of the papers to the box. I don't know how people seem to do it without any bubbles but I can't seem to do it! There must be a trick or something I don't know about or I'm just not patient enough when trying to get them all out! The flowers are held in place using glue dots.

I lined the edge of the lid with 5/8" certainly celery grosgrain and then added an extra layer of 1/4" pretty in pink grosgrain on top of that. They are all held in place with Scor Tape. The rough edges of the ribbon line up at one of the corners of the lid so they aren't very noticeable. Here is a quick view of the inside of the box as well as the underside of the lid. They too are all lined with paper using Mod Podge.

Finally, here is a good overhead view of the eggs inside the egg tray in the box. I wasn't able to get my circle punch to fit over the cardboard tray once it was lined with paper so I used my hobby blade to cut the circles out where the eggs sit.

I finished it off with some plastic eggs that I found at the $1 store in packs of 12. There were tons of different colours now too, so this could be altered to work with any colour scheme. Now I just have to fill the eggs with some candy!

Supplies

Box: PTI Just Hatched Box
Paper: SU Spring Fling dp (retired)
Ribbon: SU 5/8" certainly celery grosgrain, 1/4" pretty in pink grosgrain
Flowers: Heidi Swapp (large) and Prima (small)
Brad: Making Memories
Misc: Scor-tape, hobby blade, Mod Podge, foam brush, plastic eggs

Oasis Dream

I don't know what the rest of you are like when you craft, but I never clean as I go. I wish that I did, but I never do. So, as I was finally cleaning up the other day, I saw my Dream A Little stamp set and thought I would pull it out and use a stamp I have not yet inked up. These colours are just fabulous together. I stamped the main image in Basic Black ink on Kraft paper and then again on Baja Breeze paper. Then I cut the Baja Breeze flower buds and glued them on the Kraft paper.

Supplies

Stamp: SU Dream A Little (hostess), Circle of Friendship (retired)
Ink: SU basic black, Baja breeze
Paper: SU Kraft, ww, Baja Breeze, Basic Black, urban oasis dp
Ribbon: SU baja breeze
Punches: SU 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches

Colour Challenge Indeed

Well, I had intended to make this card for colour challenge CC210 on SCS, however it challenged me so much I entirely forgot about one of the colours (Kraft) so now it doesn't qualify! But I still consider it a part of the challenge because I was inspired by the other colours. Oh well, I took inspiration from my card yesterday and wanted to give it another look using different colours. So I swapped yesterdays colours for riding hood red, summer sun and basic black. It turned out ok, but not great. I definitely like yesterdays card MUCH better.

I also don't own brads in any of those colours (well I do black but they are not SU and I wanted to create and SU only card) so I subsituted the brads for 1/2" circles instead.

Supplies

Stamps: SU fifth avenue floral, pocket silhouettes
Ink: StazOn jet black, riding hood red, summer sun
Paper: SU ww, basic black, summer sun, riding hood red
Punches: SU 1/2" circle punch

Multi-Inspired Card

This card is definitely not a combination of colours that I would typically use but I absolutely love the way it turned out. I was looking around the SCS colour challenges for inspiration and ways to actually use purple (since I never do) and came across colour challengeCC207, and thought it was stunning (I realize there is no purple but it also uses colours I never use).

When I was looking in the gallery for this particular colour challenge I saw this card that Jodi created (whose blog you HAVE to check out - it is AMAZING). If I could make myself stamp like anyone it would be her! SO I took this card and ran with it as inspiration changing a few of the details to make it my own, but maintaining the general sketch therefore qualifying for Mojo75.I just love the way the flower turned out on this card. It's even better than I had planned. I stamped the image in StazOn jet black so that when I coloured it with my markers the colours wouldn't run. Then, I coloured the flower petals with my SU Summer sun marker and then added some shading with my pumpking pie marker. Finally, the center of the flower was coloured using my blender pens and kiwi kiss ink.

Supplies

Stamps: SU Fifth Avenue Floral, Pocket Silhouettes
Ink: StazOn jet black, SU summer sun, pumpkin pie, kiwi kiss
Paper: SU basic black, ww, summer sun, pumpkin pie, hawaii papaya dp
Brads: SU pumpkin pie brads
Punches: SU scallop edge punch

SC220 Basic Baja Thanks

I spent a few hours today making cards as I feel like I've been going through withdrawl since I've not had the chance to make any cards for the last few weeks!

I created this card for todays sketch challenge over on SCS, SC220. I absolutely love the way this card turned out.This is one of my new favourite colour combos - baja breeze and basic gray. Makes me wish baja breeze would be sticking around longer but come the new catalogue it will be gone (guess I'll have to stock up in advance)!

I tried something new on this card as well. I'd seen this kind of colouring done on flowers before but had not actually tried it myself until now. I love how it makes the center of the flower darker and the petals get lighter towards the outside. To create this effect, I used my sponge dauber in my baja breeze ink then started in the center of the flower and pulled my dauber out to the edges. Then I used my blender pens in the Baja Breeze ink to colour in the edges of the petals darker. I can't wait to try this effect with other colours where the shading will be more noticable.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are going to try this technique you should use StazOn ink for the outline so it doesn't smudge.

Also, I've been asked a few times about what the inside of my cards look like. So here is the inside of this card. I have to admit, I don't often do something on the inside, but I had an extra flower so I thought I may as well!Supplies

Stamps: SU Embrace Life, Full of Life (dormant list)
Ink: SU basic gray, baja breeze, StazOn Jet Black
Paper: SU ww, basic gray, baja breeze, urban garden dp
Misc: SU white Signo gel pen, Heidi Swapp bling, sponge daubers, blender pens

Sweet Valentine Wedding Invitations

Sorry I have been MIA, I've been working just about every day for the last two weeks to get some extra $ before the wedding. When I've not been working, I've been working on these wedding invitations for my Mom's boss (just a little pressure)!

She had liked the look of my wedding invitations and asked if I could come up with a design for hers using navy and silver. After a few ideas, these are the final invitations - all 80 of them! Sorry the picture isn't great! I must admit, if you want to do invitations, embossing is not the best idea unless you have a ton of time! I was not expecting it to take so long. The silver embossed hearts took me over 2 hours to just stamp and emboss (to be fair, I did have a few extra that I didn't use because I didn't like how close the image ended up to the edge of square)! I'm really happy with the way that they turned out (I hope Sharon and Ed are as well)! As usual, I also used Marni's colour values to ensure the navy ink printed the same colour as the cardstock.

Supplies:

Stamp: Verve Visual Sweet Valentine
Ink: VersaMark
Paper: SU ww, night of navy, brushed silver
Embossing Powder: SU silver