Sister's Birthday

Today is a very special day... it's my sister's birthday and this is the card I've created specially for her. Sis loves daisies and this Flourishes image of Gerbera Daisies is a perfect match for her.

I've colored the flowers with Copics and popped up the center yellow daisy and the butterfly for dimension. When I think of my sister, I think of blues and yellows so I did the flowers this way and then found this perfect paper in my stash that matched. It's "Umbria" from 7 Gypsies. The gorgeous blue and white pattern is "Bouquet Sky" by Creative Imaginations.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:
Artful Inkables (AIC34) - It's all about punches and dies (and I've used plenty of them on this card)
Charisma Cardz Challenge #47 - One for the Girls (cards made for women and my sister is a special woman-for that I should get two entries!!!)

Thanks for stopping by my blog and Happy Birthday Sis!

"Pixie-licious" - MMSC72

Where did the weekend go? They just never seem long enough as measured by the number of cards I get done of course! Well at least I finished my card for the Midnight Madness sketch challenge - after all, priorities are priorities you know!!!

Here's this week's sketch - the fancy version that I followed. I can't seem to focus on the plainer versions of the sketches. I have to have layers and all sorts of good embellishments on my cards!

This week, I used this wonderful paper from Cosmo Cricket's "Pixie-Licious" collection.  I think the colors here are perfect for Fall but with a contemporary flair to them.  Anyway, I thought this little "pixie" image would be perfect with an autumn sunset effect applied with it. 

The image is from the Flourishes "Kids at Play" stamp set and is heat embossed here. I stamped it in Rich Razzleberry ink and then stamped over it again with Versamark ink and clear embossing powder.  A few prima flowers and some butterflies die cut with SUs Beautiful Wings embosslits and a card is made!

Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe:
Stamps - Flourishes "Kids at Play"
Ink - SU Banana, Peach Parfait, Rich Razzleberry, Versamark
Paper - Cosmo Cricket "Pixie-licious", SU Rich Razzleberry
Accessories - SU Beautiful Wings embosslit, Spellbinders Oval Nestabilities dies, SU ribbon, Prima flowers

Dad's Day

Here's hoping that all the Dads out there had a wonderful Father's Day and were appropriately pampered and adored by their kids.  Unfortunately, my dad was up north for the weekend and I wasn't able to join my folks at the lake.  It was a busy weekend at home with baseball playoffs (successful I might add) and other odds 'n ends!

This is the card I made for my Dad using the new "Guiding Light" and "Antique Map" stamp sets from Flourishes.  These are wonderful sets - perfect for the nautically inclined!

I started by stamping the map with Cocoa ink on Kraft cardstock from Papertrey Ink.  I tore the edges to get the shape and size (this card is about 5x7 inches) and then distressed using Tim Holz Tea Dye, Old Paper and Antique Linen distressing inks.  I curled the edges by rolling them up around a pencil.  The Blue Bayou layer was embossed using the newer Stampin Up' embossing folder and then the edges were distressed. 

The sail boat was stamped on PTI white cardstock and colored using my Copic markers and then cut out using Spellbinder's Label 4 dies.  Again, the brown cardstock underneath the image was just torn to get the size and shape.  The message panel was punched out after stamping in SU white craft ink with an EK Success label punch.  I used a heavy gauge twine around the card, strategically secured with glue dots.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out for my Dad.  I'm sure he'll love it too.

Let me know what you think!  Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Sweet Violets

Sometimes you just make a card that is one of your favorites of all time! Maybe it's the image and how you colored it, the layout you used, the colors or the technique. Well this is one of those cards for me.

I had been admiring the Sweet Violets set from Flourishes for some time now but hadn't ordered it - don't know why? Because I was to get it as a wonderful birthday gift from my dear friend and fellow stampaholic Heide! The best birthday present ever! Now every time I use this set I will think of her which makes it pretty special! Thanks Heide!

I made this card for an incredible woman at work that is retiring at the end of September. And with the pearls I used as embellishment, it qualifies for this week's Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge-FTTC30! Each Tuesday a new challenge goes up on the Flourishes Newsletter Blog.

For the card, I stamped the image and colored it with my Copic markers (Flourishes stamps are perfect for the Copics). Instead of just cutting out the whole image with one of my Nestabilities dies, I thought it would be more interesting, and make the beautiful image stand out more, if some of the image was outside the die cut. So I traced from the Labels 1 die, keeping the leaves hanging over and cut it out by hand. I love how that looks! I then multi-layered the image using Spellbinders Shapeabilities Fleur de Lis with Sage Shadow cardstock and Nesties Label 1 for the Almost Amethyst and Banana cardstock layers. I like the look of the Banana layer which seems to bring focus to the image.

For the background, I used my Cuttlebug Swiss Dot embossing folder on VELLUM! With this being a 5 1/2" square card, the embossing folder didn't fit the whole piece. So I carefully repositioned the vellum in the folder for a second time through the Cuttlebug. Even then, there was a small patch that wasn't embossed, so I lined that area up in the folder and with a little hand pressure, made the final embossing on the vellum. It doesn't really take much pressure to emboss on vellum - give it a try! I just used regular adhesive to attach the vellum but did so behind the multi-layered focal image so it wouldn't be seen and the ribbon I used also keeps it in place.

So that's the story of my new favorite card. Hope you like it!

Thanks for visiting my blog today!

Recipe:

Stamps - Flourishes "Sweet Violets", SU Oval All

Cardstock - Almost Amethyst, Sage Shadow, Barely Banana, Vellum

Ink - Palette Noir Black

Accessories - SU organdy ribbon, adhesive half pearls, Nestabilities Labels 1 dies, Shapeabilities Fleur de Lis die, Cuttlebug Swiss Dot embossing folder, oval punch

For Heide

I love this stamp set from Flourishes (Peaches and Cherries) and think it's the most beautiful cherries stamp of any out there. This set was a birthday gift from my dear friend Heide (see her magnificent Splitcoast gallery here). So this is for Heide with thanks and love.

I'm also posting this to the Flourishes Timeless Tuesday challenge this week - FTTC30. The challenge is to use pearls in your card. Since I already had this done and it had pearls and it qualifies, what do I have to lose - right?

It was a lot of fun to color this image with my Copic markers - in fact most of the Flourishes are. I used several different markers for each color - Reds R35, R37, R59, R22, RV29 and the Greens BG93, BG96. G94, G98, YG95. The beauty of these stamps is that when you color them with any kind of shading they look almost three dimensional. Then if you outline the image with a pale grey or sand color like I did here, they really pop off the paper!

The rest of the card was pretty standard. I chose Mellow Moss and Chocolate Chip as the main background colors because of the contrast with the red - in my eye the image popped the best on these.

Thanks for visiting my blog today.


Recipe:
Stamps - Flourishes "Peaches and Cherries"; SU Swiss Dot Background
Paper - Mellow Moss, Chocolate Chip, Artichoke, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White
Ink - Chocolate Chip, Palette Black Noir
Accessories - Half pearls, corner punch, Nestabilities Labels 2 dies