Papertrey Ink Sunflower card

Hello everyone, and a warm welcome to Cathy who is joining us as a follower this week

Today is the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop and the challenge is to use a wreath on a card. Nichole showed images of many different wreaths to give us some inspiration and I don't think there was a single one I didn't like. I love wreaths and I envy other countries that traditionally have door wreaths for every holiday. In England wreaths tend to only be a Christmas affair or, more sadly, for funerals. Perhaps we need to ask home decor companies here for them and then they will become a trend! I usually have to satisfy my wreath urges by using them on cards, as I did here, here and here. For this one I used stitched sentiments for my wreath and used the very happy colours of blue and yellow rather than going down the Christmas wreath route this time.

I used an orange ink in the centre of the sunflower and blended it out with yellow ink to add a warmer look. I'm not too sure about the little sunflowers, but I had a little accident with some glue and had to cover it up somehow!

I'm going to enter this into the Curtain Call Challenge which is Sunflower Surprise.

I'm looking forward to indulging  my wreath cravings by hopping round to see what everyone has come up with. Thanks for stopping by

Hugs
Carol x

Memory Box thank you card

Hello everyone and a very warm welcome to Sammy who is joining us as a new follower this week.

Well I really enjoyed the last few days of my fifties and have been thoroughly spoiled all week by my family and friends. Thank you to everyone who sent cards and  good wishes, they really meant a lot to me. I'm still finding it hard to believe that I am 60 because in my head I will probably be 23 for ever, alas the mirror tells a different story, so I've just got to get used to it.

Well I got back to my craft room yesterday to make some thank you cards and came up with this design which was easy to make multiples of.

I love the background quatrefoil stamp which I embossed with versamark to give a little interest because the plain white seemed a little stark. Well now I need to get them written and delivered, so this is short and sweet.

I'd like to enter this into the Make my Monday challenge which is to use flowers or trees.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Hugs
Carol x

Wedding invitations

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a good weekend and are all geared up for the week ahead. I am enjoying the last few days of my fifties before my I turn 60 this week, and I am looking forward to celebrations/commiserations with my family and friends.

The challenge over at Curtain Call this week is Sunflower Surprise



and I want to share some wedding invitations I made recently for some good friends of my daughter who were getting married. They wanted a sunflower theme in blue and yellow and needed 100 of them! In case you are interested in trying mass production, I'll outline the steps I took, but if not, just scroll through. As I had never made so many cards of one design before, I set up a a kind of production line with all the components before assembling them together, 20 at a time.



I kept the design simple with Papertrey Ink 'Fancy Flourishes' stamped randomly onto yellow card with Dandelion Memento ink, and I found a lovely flourishy invitation stamp at Waltzing Mouse Stamps (Big Day Essentials)that coordinated beautifully. I needed 100 die cut sunflowers along with their centres, but could not face manually cutting such a large number, so I die cut the shapes in black card, scanned them into the computer, and after importing them into the Silhouette software, I was able to cut them out on my Cameo. Once I had them cut out, I stamped the sunflower with the Dandelion ink and the centres with Blue Danube ink and the Papertrey Ink Simple Sunflower stamps. I stuck them together, curled the edges a little and added some glitter for some sparkle.

This was the result when it was all assembled, with the word panel scored a few times to add interest and a little gem popped on the 'o'

and this is the same one but for the evening invitations

I cut some small sunflowers to put on the back of the invitations

like this

I also decorated the envelopes with a stamp from Simon Says Stamp 'Envelope Sentiments' and tied batches of them together with blue ribbon. 

Here they are all packed up and ready for collection.

I also made the table names and place-cards for the tables, with, you guessed it, little sunflowers! This time they were really tiny and I shaped them to give some dimension

For these, I used the same technique of scanning and importing into the Silhouette software so I could cut them on my Cameo. The stamp is another one from Papertrey Ink, this time the 'Places Please Stamp Set'. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of making these, especially as I really like the couple but I would caution that it is not for the faint hearted. I learned such a lot as I went along, the major thing being to make sure you have enough materials before you start. I kept running out of the yellow card, and as it wasn't available locally I had to wait for mail order which held things up a bit. Nevertheless, I would encourage anyone to have a go - I got great satisfaction from seeing them all packed up and ready to go.

Thanks for stopping by

Hugs

Carol x

Wplus9 Christmas Card

Hello everyone, and a very warm welcome to Lori who is joining us as a new follower this week.

Well the weather is definitely on the cool side around here today, so I stayed tucked up inside and made a card for my Christmas card pile. I used the colours asked for on the challenge over at Merry Mondays which is green, white and wood grain, and came up with this

I embossed some brown card with a woodgrain impression plate and then stamped the tree and sentiment from the Pretty Patches: Tree set from Wplus9 in Limeade Ice  and Ripe Avocado ink. I tried using some white ribbon but it got lost on the white background, so I dyed it with a Copic pen YG95 and was pleased that when it dried it still had a satin sheen! I added a strip of Limeade Ice card and a heart and some stars to finish it off.

I'm also going to enter this into the Creative Creations challenge for an early Christmas make.

Thanks for looking in.

Hugs

Carol x

Papertrey Ink Christmas card.

Hello everyone, and a very warm welcome to Nina who is joining us as a new follower this week. I hope you are having a good weekend wherever you are. The weather is lovely here in Manchester and I just wanted to pop on to share a card before we go out for dinner. I've really enjoyed playing with kraft card recently so I couldn't resist making another little Christmas card for the current Merry Mondays challenge to use kraft, red, green and twine or ribbon.

I used Papertrey Ink Bells and Boughs stamps and dies and Copic markers, along with the Leafy Vine border die. I hung the bells on the border with twine and added a little jingle bell to the largest one. A little glitter to the ringer and a sentiment finished it off.

Short and sweet, but thank you for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x

Penny Black Christmas Card

Hello everyone,  and a very warm welcome to Sara, Amber,  Lisa and Becca who are joining us as new followers this week.

I have a few Christmas cards made already, but I want to start making some more so that I don't have the usual rush in December. I loved using the kraft card for the last post so I thought I'd make another entry into the Cas-ual Fridays challenge  - to use kraft and text. This is a similar layout to my last card but with a Christmas theme, using Penny Black 'A Wish For Peace' stamps (something we all hope for, especially with the current news from Syria)

I embossed the wreath and watercoloured the leaves and berries with Inktense pencils. When it was dry, I added glaze pen to the red berries and leaves to add some shine. I cut out a circle for the centre and stamped the Joy to the World sentiment which was raised on a foam pad and I wrapped twine around it to form the wreath hanger which was finished off with a bow. I embossed the main sentiment, swiped a little white ink around the edges and matted it onto the card base, adding a couple of strips of red card to finish it off. I'm also going to enter this into the Merry Mondays Challenge which is to use kraft, red, green and twine, and the Festive Fridays challenge which is to have a peace theme

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x