A little more Christmas

It is always a pleasure to make something special for good friends and the following little parcel was for a friend who went on holidays just prior to Christmas.  Her favourite colour is purple so I am sure she would have liked it.

I did have plans to decorate the Lindt chocolates but ran out of time.  Although on this occasion I have used cards and papers from my stash, the Bon bon is made with the recently introduced SU Envelope Punch Board.  I have had a lot of fun making many different boxes and envelopes with it in the last month or so.

Since I joined SU, I have had lots of new toys to play with and plenty of beautiful products to use as well.  Certainly keeps me out of trouble.

This next card was for a special friend who is a lover of pink and glitter, but I don't think even this was quite enough sparkle for her.

 

So proud of myself here as I actually used one of the beautiful Frosted Finishes Embellishments on this card.  I loved them so much I bought a second pack even though I still had lots left.  I did make two sets of ear-rings from them and they were much admired.

 

I needed to make a gift card for some vouchers which turned out to be quite large and it took me a little while to work out, but I think they looked really great when finished.  Of course being larger than our normal cards, I needed to make special envelopes for them - Envelope Punch Board to the rescue!!

 

 

 

 

I mentioned above that I had made some boxes with my latest toy so thought I would pop in this photo of them.  I cannot claim the credit for their design though, as I saw them on the blog of Sam Donald from Pootles - an amazing box maker.

 

 

Aren't they cute?  most of them only take a six inch square of dsp.

 

Bit of an overload of photos I know, but thanks for staying with me,

Mary

 

 

Framed bird

Sunny challenges are looking for entries using Framelits this time, so I thought it was time I joined in.

 

While I do love the look of clean and simple cards, I find them much harder to produce and usually go back to my comfort zone and create the layered look - lots and lots of layers - and this one is no exception, in fact I was running out of room for embellishments.

 

Since joining Stampin' Up early last year I have totally ignored the huge stash of papers I had accumulated but this time I needed to use some of them to keep the lilac theme happening.  So, mostly SU, but a few odds and sods.

Mary

Edited to add:  My card was chosen this week - thank you !

A little bird

Over at Just Add Ink the challenge this week is to use three of the lovely new Stampin' Up In Colors - Baked Brown Sugar, Very Vanilla and Coastal Cabana on a card.  As I haven't ordered any of these colours as yet, I have used Crumb Cake and Pool Party.

 

I was taken with the simplicity of the card Jo Eades made and decided to go for a clean and simple card for a change.  Now that I look at my card I realise that it has turned out to be pretty much a case of Jo's sample, although that was not my intention as all of the ingredients are completely different. 

All SU supplies used on this one except for the little sentiment.

 

Cheers

Mary

Oh Hello Cover

Oh Wow, was my first thought when I saw the challenge over at Just Add Ink this week.  I think I may have taken it a bit too seriously, but it was a lot of fun to make.  It is certainly only a challenge card as I can't think of any occasion I could use it for.  If I was anything other than a hobby demonstrator it could be used for display purposes, but that's about it.

 

All supplies are SU:

Stamps:  Oh Hello; Just Perfect Alphabet

Ink:  Daffodil Delight; Primrose Petals

Card:  Whisper White; Daffodil Yellow

Tools:  Big shot; Petite curly label punch; Tulip embossing folder

 

The Tulip embossing folder hasn't seen the light of day too often but I thought it was perfect for the frame.

 

Hope you like my take on the new catalogue cover.

Mary

 

Edited to add:

 

Halloween

Day two and I thought I would show you the cards I made for the Grandchildren for Halloween. 

The spiders are cased from blogland - not sure whose idea it was originally, but it was an easy one to do if you don't have specific Halloween stamps.

 

I loved the cat stamp as soon as I saw it - SU Frightening Feline !!  Took the idea for this one from "Frenchie"

 

and lastly SU's Bootiful Occasions.

 

 

Saw a little poem while blog surfing that started off : "Trick or treat, smell my feet" but when I went to write it in  the boys' cards I couldn't remember the rest of it!!  Old age is more frightening than Halloween!

Mary

"Fun Birds" and February birthdays

Most of our immediate family celebrate birthdays and anniversaries in January and February.

My oldest Grandson starts the ball rolling on 21st January and this year I made him an Angry Birds card.  I had seen a few on the blogs and picked bits and pieces from them to create my own version with the punches and papers that I had.  The card proved very popular and I ended up making quite a few more:

and, yes, I did go a bit overboard, but they are disappearing fast !!

One with the lot !

finishing off with a large circle card which was totally my own design and which I loved.

Then it was birthday time for our princess:

Beautiful butterfly:

 This one is a case of a card I saw some time ago on the blog of Laurie Zoellmer.  Such a simple design but quite lovely.  I had some trouble with the Elegant Lines embossing folder cutting too deeply and had to add an extra layer of card to correct it.

Thanks for dropping in,

cheers till the next batch,

Mary

A final fluttering

of cards to formally farewell the year.

This one was a belated birthday card but it is also very appropriate for today:

The picture was taken from a calendar which has a different picture and thought for each day of the year - they are all far too cute to throw away so I recycle them when I can.

Here are a few more of them:

I find these cards much easier to design - not just because there is little or no stamping, but more because when I am using a stamp set, I have usually seen many cards made with the stamp and in an effort not to copy/case them, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get something original. 

Here are some of the stamped cards I have sent out in recent months:

This one uses "Jolene" by My Favorite Things.  Is it just me or does she look sad ?

The ice cream cone worked well for twins:

Tilda for a little girl:

and one for the guys - a quick one using Birthday Bash Sentiments from Papertrey!!

and I nearly forgot to add my Christmas card for 2011 - the Ornament was originally to have been very much a 3D item but time beat me and I had to settle for this version.

these were two of the cards I had originally intended to make for Christmas - not sure why I changed my mind as these seem much brighter than the one above.  Oh well ......

and a shoe or two (or three):

Funny, how they are all red - having a love affair with everything red at present.  They actually look great as I covered the red with glass finish and they look so shiny.

And last in this marathon is a teapot ( Papertrey - Tea for Two) in slightly unusual colours.

Well that's it from me.  Maybe 2012 will see me better organised with posting - that's not a resolution, just a vague hope.

Hope you have a very happy New Year and that 2012 is filled with good health and much happiness.

Mary

Lots of birthdays

I am so far behind in updating the blog, but at least I seem to be better at remembering to take a photo of the cards as I finish them.  ( I need to do this otherwise I can't remember what I sent people the previous year).

Birthday wishes owl for Roy:

I wanted Papertrey "Tea for Two" for ages and finally got around to inking it up:

and a special 40th stair step card :

Tilda came out of wraps for three year old Eve:

and the punches helped with these two for twins who had a witch themed party:

Another stair step card for a 40 birthday:

which I was pleased with, so I repeated it for a special 70th birthday ..

.... and this time I made the envelope especially to fit the card and also the Gift Voucher that went with it:

I also made a concertina book for guests at the party to sign:

this is it opened up:

Well, I am sure that's more than enough for one day.  I must update more often.

Mary