Awareness Inspiration

Because October is Breast Cancer Awareness week, Bonnie asked us to use pink while making an inspirational card this week. This may seem like an unusual sentiment along with the cancer awareness ribbon but I thought of it as the perfect card to celebrate a treatment victory, big or small.

I’ve been making a lot of clean and simple or graphic cards lately so I was feeling the pull of freestyle collage and my simple shabby signature style. When I am trying to design in this style, I usually reach for Maggie Holmes and My Mind’s Eye. Today Maggie won! All the papers and most embellishments are from her line. The tag was cut at the top with Tag Classic 2 from Neat n Tangled and at the bottom with a die from Select-a-Size edge dies from Concord & 9th. Then I added a whole bunch of bits and bobs. The awareness ribbon die is by Lifestyle Crafts. I think they are now part of WRMK so you may not be able to find that exact die.

For this shabby/freestyle design, I first decide what elements I have to have. I started with the tag, the background and the awareness ribbon. Next I needed to fill some space in the background so I added the washi and glitter tape. Next I selected the chipboard element that looks like a banner with the heart and white sentiment. To bulk up the tag, I added some filler on both sides; on one side some corrugated cardboard with Finnabar patina paste, on the other a tag I decorated with lace, rickrack and twine. Last I added the flower die cut, vellum leaf, twine on the big tag, the tiny bit of mint lace and finally the sequins and gems.

This is the perfect theme for October. Come on over and play with us at Crazy 4 Challenges.

Enjoy, Rebecca

Let Them Eat Cake!

I love cake, my favourite is chocolate cake with chocolate fudge icing and ganache glaze on top. Ooh yeah! My second favourite is lemon with lemon filling and cream cheese icing. But honestly, it’s rare for me to find a cake I Don’t like!

Our challenge this week at Crazy 4 Challenges was to make a cake themed card. I’m kind of on a roll with freestyle collage the last few days. I saw my Maggie Holmes collection stickers and chipboard I’d left out from my last post so I checked to see if I had any cake themed items to use. I was hoping to make a quick card as hubby was waiting for me to start watching a movie! It was our anniversary yesterday and although we’d planned to celebrate in style today, it was fun to spend some time together. (Our kid is sick, we’ve had to reschedule! ugh) There were lots of celebration themed items but no cake. So hubby had to wait a bit while I water coloured this pretty cake by SU! (from a long, long time ago.)

Creating a freestyle collage card is so much fun. As long as you keep the balance right, you can throw almost anything on! Some small details you might otherwise miss: clear gems from Lucy’s Little Things on the cake, gold embossing on the cake, tiny yellow flowers amidst the roses on top of the cake, offset matting of the focal image rather than a perfectly even mat, scattered sequins-clear, opaque, heart and star adhered to resemble confetti scattered around; gold Wink of Stella pen around the edges of the  water colour paper, glitter on the balloon die cut and heart and finally, some pink stamped stitching.

One last tip: add some sparkle right into your watercolour. If you have a white shimmer watercolour paint, mix it into the paint you are using. Even when it looks like you don’t have much, it is very shimmery. I used my white pearl paint in my Gansai Tambi palette. Or add some perfect pearls into the mix. You could even add some wink of Stella to your palette and mix that in!

Isn’t this the best challenge? You’ve got to find some time to play a long with us! If you don’t have a cake stamp or die, just make one out of pieces of patterned paper cut to size, or use a cupcake stamp! You probably have one of those!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Floral Ampersand Thanks

Freestyle collage is fairly new to me but I try! I think some of the journaling cards in the last SSS kit are so fun and lend themselves to this style.

I used more mirrored cardstock in the upper left corner of the journaling card. It looks green because it is reflecting a colour from the background. Try to disregard that will ya? I made the little paper clip flag using self-adhesive ribbon which made it so easy!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Entered in:

RECIPE
Stamps: SSS hearts and sentiment
Ink: angel pink-Memento, black archival-Ranger, soft stone-PTI
Paper: DP, &, card-My Mind’s eye, Card base-blushing bride-SU!
Accessories: cork-WRMK, sequins-Lucy’s Cards, Krylon gold leafing pen, ribbon-unknown

Mason Jar Rose Card

Aince I had all of my American Crafts Neopolitan goodies out, I decided to make another card. I was super inspired by the awesome tags, flair and cardstock stickers.

The jar on the tag was so cute I was loathe to cover it up at all but as long as I could still see the two colours floating in the jar and the cute little ‘masked’ heart, I was ok about it. This sketch, with or without the floral layer, is also a versatile favourite. If you look closely, you will see another layer under my tag; cute little strawberries.

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Paper: American Crafts, white CS-SSS, doily-Wilton
Accessories: flair, rose sticker,tag-AC, epoxy dots-MME, sequins-SSS, foam dots-Sticky Stuff Store, veneer-Studio Calico, gold thread-Fabric store, twine-stash?

Darling Freestyle Collage Card

I’m not usually a huge fan of diagonal lines on my cards but I love this tilted panel layout.

I don’t celebrate Valentine’s day and these papers were meant to be used for v-day. So I had to adapt the papers and tags to a simple love card. This is easily one of my fav cards I’ve made all year.

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Paper: DP and tickets-Jan SSS kit, white CS-PTI, doily-local restaurant
Accessories: rickrack die-PTI, MME enamel dots, pink ribbon-May Arts, veneer word-Studio Calico,