A Pokemon-Themed Card-in-a-Box

This past week I had a request to make a Pokemon-themed anniversary card. I am not familiar with Pokémon at all, but I thought I would take on the challenge. The recipient wanted the characters Charmander and Vulpix on the card. So I went right to google and found clipart of these characters:

Easy enough, I think! I simply drew these characters on cardstock and pieced them together from scratch. I then made a card-in-a-box base, added designer paper to each panel and added these characters to the inside panels. Here's how it turned out:

 

 

A close-up of the characters:

 

 

Card Ingredients:

Paper used for the card base: Smokey Slate, Island Indigo, Summer Smooches DSP

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes, Memorable Moments

Punches: Modern Label, Word Window, 1-3/8" Circle, Heart to Heart

 



 





An Aviator Baby Boy Card-in-a-Box

I had a request from a friend to make her a second baby boy card-in-a-box. You can see the first one I made  for her by clicking here. I was excited to make another one! The last one matched so perfectly with the fabric she used to make her gift, and this time was no different! She had aviator-themed fabric that looked like this: 

I used the colours and theme in this photo as inspiration for my card. Using punch art, I created a couple different style planes and used part of the Cupcake Builder punch for clouds. Here's how it turned out:

Cute, right? I just love this fold! My next project is a baby girl card-in-a-box. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Zoo Babies, To the Moon (Verve Stamps)

Paper: Basic Gray, Whisper White, Pool Party, Smokey Slate, Basic Black, 2012-2013 In-Colour DSP

Ink: Island Indigo

Tools: 1-1/4" Circle punch, Modern Label punch, Word Window punch, Owl Builder punch, Cupcake Builder punch, 1/2" Circle punch, 3/4" Circle punch, 1" Circle punch, Large Oval punch

Accessories: Rhinestones (Michael's), Letter "C" foam sticker (Michael's)

Inspired By... Black & White With a Splash of Colour

I realized yesterday, that I posted our KCRR challenge a day early... All week I've been thinking one day ahead. So unfortunate! This makes the week feel that much longer. However, on the bright side, I have been so motivated this week, both at work and home! Let's hope that continues...

Here is the new inspirational photo challenge a day early this week as well :) 

IB #41

I came across this photo on Pinterest. Not only does it look delicious, but I love the pop of colour against the black and white! And teal happens to be one of my favourite colours! 

Always Playing With Paper has a fabulous sketch this week! I just had to play along :) 

I LOVE these flowers from Fabulous Florets stamp set. They are so elegant! I popped them up to give the card some dimension. The leaves are also popped up. I gave them a watercolour effect by using blender pens to colour them. It gives that extra pop of colour against the black and white. Ruffled ribbon is wrapped around the card front and pearls embellish the card.

Thanks for stopping by! Check out Karly's Creations to see how this photo inspired Karly! 

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Fabulous Florets, Petite Pairs
Paper: Island Indigo, Basic Black, Very Vanilla, Modern Medley DSP, 2010-2013 In-Colour DSP
Ink: Black Staz-On
Tools: Blender pen, Small Oval punch, Scallop Oval punch
Accessories: Island Indigo ruffled ribbon, pearls (Michael's)

Inspired By... an Outdoor Patio Set

Happy Friday!

Not only does it mean the weekend is almost here, but we have a new inspirational photo challenge to introduce! 

IB #37

This week was my choice and I wanted to pick something that reminds me of spring/summer! It's been a long winter and I've had warmer weather on my mind! I chose this photo of beautiful outdoor furniture from the Pier One website - one of my favourite home decor stores. How nice would this be, to relax by the poolside in this inviting comfy chair on a warm summer day? :)

I love the colours in this photo! I decided to use Island Indigo, Pool Party, Old Olive, and Smokey Slate. I used the new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches as a guide for my card design.

I am also linking up with The Friday Mashup challenge:

1. Create a project that's "Monochromatic".
2. Create a project with "Flowers".
3. or Create a "Monochromatic project with Flowers". 

I used the new stamp set Petal Parade from the Sale-a-Bration catalogue, stamping flowers in monochromatic colours randomly to create the background. I then added different elements, popping them up to create some dimension. I love a card with layers!

Hop on over to Karly's Creations to see how this photo inspired her! 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Petal Parade (Sale-a-Bration 2014), Happiest Birthdays

Paper: Island Indigo, Pool Party, Smokey Slate, Old Olive, Whisper White

Ink: Old Olive, Island Indigo, Pool Party, Smokey Slate

Tools: Beautiful Wings embosslit, 1-1/4" Circle punch, 1-3/8" Circle punch, Little Leaves Sizzlit die

Accessories: Rhinestones (Michael's)

KCRR #30 - Happy Birthday Cupcake!

Last night I started another session of Zumba. It has been a while since I've had a good workout! One thing the instructor told us is that "there are no mistakes in Zumba, just unexpected solos" :) I thought this was quite funny, because I'm sure I'm one of those unexpected solos in some of the routines! In any case, it's still a lot of fun!

We introduce a new KCRR challenge today!

The items that were randomly chosen are:

Patterned Occasions Stamp Set

Pumpkin Pie

Pool Party

Patterned Occasions is a stamp set I use quite often, however I tend to use only one or two of the stamps in the set. This time I used the cupcake and made a colourful birthday card using the sketch from The Sweet Stop challenge this week.

A sketch with lots of layers - I like it! I chose Island Indigo and Daffodil Delight to go with the Pumpkin Pie and Pool Party colours. It makes for a fun colour combo, I think!

Thanks for stopping by! Hop on over to Karly's Creations to see how she used these elements in her card!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Patterned Occasions
Paper: Island Indigo, Pumpkin Pie, Pool Party, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, Polka Dot Parade DSP
Ink: Island Indigot
Tools: Circles Nestabilities, Scallop Border punch, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder

Freestyle Collage

It's been an uneventful weekend, but it was so nice to relax and just hang out at home. Here's hoping this work week flies by! We look forward to a visit with my sister and her husband. They fly in on Thursday - can't wait!

For today's card, I'm going to share one that I made a couple weeks ago. It's a birthday card that was inspired by a design I saw in the latest Papercrafts Magazine. In this issue they described a cardmaking technique called freestyle collage. I absolutely love this type of design/technique. You simply gather all types of patterned paper, die-cuts, stamped images, and embellishments and piece them together in an asymmetrical way.

Here's what I came up with:

 

 

 

Hope you also feel inspired to try out the freestyle collage technique. Thanks for visiting!

 

Card Ingredients:

 

Stamps: Memorable Moments, Blooming Marvelous

Paper: Pool Party, Daffodil Delight, Island Indigo, Whisper White, In-Colour 2012-2013 DSP, Attic Boutique DSP

Ink: Island Indigo, Pool Party

Tools: Delicate Doilies Sizzlit Die, Beautiful Wings Sizzlit Die

Accessories: Pool Party buttons, Island Indigo bakers twine, Rhinestones (Michael's)



 

Mojo Monday Celebration!

It certainly feels like Monday today (so happy that it's not :)) - love 4-day work weeks!
We had such a great weekend! It was nice and relaxing to be able to stay at home and not travel anywhere this time around. I got lots of housecleaning done and also got my craft on! :) Yesterday was a fun day! First off, it was 34 degrees (love it!). My hubby and I decided to check out the Canada Day celebrations at Fort George park in town. They had lots of fun booths to look at it, including my favourite - Orange U Creative. She makes beautiful feather jewelry/head pieces. I love her work! There was an orchestra performing and lots of good food. Following that we went on a float on the river with a couple friends (a must-do in Prince George!). It was the perfect day for it! As I said in my earlier post, we recently purchased a 5-person tube. It worked out great! It was a good trial run and we can't wait to go again! Finish the day off with delicious food at a BBQ with friends and we were ready to hit the sack when we got home!

In the midst of the fun, I managed to make a card for Mojo Monday. They are celebrating #300 this week with lots of prizes from some fabulous paper crafting companies!
I love the sketch this week!

I've been looking for inspiration in my cardmaking books that I have stored in my craft room, but rarely look at it. They have some great ideas not only for layouts for colour combos! I used Chocolate Chip, Island Indigo, Certainly Celery, Tangerine Tango, and Very Vanilla to create this card:

 

I absolutely love how it turned out! Distressing is a technique I've been using in a lot of card creations lately (you will see them this week). I love the effect it has. I sponged the edge of each cardstock/DSP piece with Chocolate Chip ink (with the exception of the sentiment, which was sponged with Island Indigo ink). The Certainly Celery piece of cardstock was embossed with the square lattice folder. I picked DSP from one of my favourite collections (that is now retired) - Summer Smooches! The stamped flower comes from a new hostess set called "Simply Sketched". I added a few embellishments to complete the card.

 



Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Simply Sketched, Petite Pairs
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Certainly Celery, Tangerine Tango, Summer Smooches
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Island Indigo
Tools: Circles Nestabilities, Square Lattice embossing folder, Distress tool
Accessories: Tangerine Tango button, Island Indigo bakers twine, Pearls (Michael's)

Gift Tag Set with a Fabulous Colour Combo

What a productive weekend it has been! I made several Father's Day cards, mini baby cards, gift tags, birthday cards, gift card holders... I'm well on my way to being ready for the craft fair next weekend! Still hope to complete a few more projects this week. :)

For today's post, I will be sharing a set of gift tags that I made using the fabulous colour combo challenge from The Paper Players.

Isn't it lovely?? I drew inspiration from a card I made a while ago and converted it to a tag. Here's the original card:

 

I love the Bloomin' Marvelous stamp set! I may have over-used it already... but it's so pretty! I used Island Indigo designer paper and a scallop border on the one side of the tag and then stamped flowers, popping up one of them to give it some dimension. A humming bird is stamped in Rich Razzleberry and also popped up. I completed it with stitched ribbon.

 

See how easy it is to convert a greeting card to a set of tags? I'm definitely doing this more often with some of my other designs!

 

Thanks for visiting!

 

Gift Tag Ingredients:

Stamps: Bloomin' Marvelous

Paper: Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Summer Smooches DSP

Ink: Island Indigo, Baja Breeze, Rich Razzleberry

Tools: Scallop Tag Die, Scallop Border punch

Accessories: Rich Razzleberry stitched ribbon

A Spring Mother's Day Card

Saturday was a good day. I spent part of the morning doing devotions. I'm doing a topical Bible study, where I pick certain topics, search for related verses in the Bible and keep a journal. Currently I'm studying the topic of 'worrying'. I have a tendency to worry about a lot of things and I need to constantly remind myself that God is in control and he has my whole future in His hands!

I had a pretty productive day -- finished a few loads of laundry, did some housecleaning and made several gift card holders! Here's a picture of them in a few different colours:

I hope to have about 30 or so for the craft show. I also want to make masculine wallet gift card holders!

Last night, my hubby and I went to the aquatic centre for the first time. It was fun! We spent a lot of time in the hot tub, went a few times through the lazy river and relaxed in the sauna. We then went for a coffee date at Timmy's, using up the free coffees that Kevin has been winning through Roll Up the Rim. I, unfortunately, have had terrible luck! I think I've only won once!

I also had time to make today's card! I played along with two challenges: a clean and simple sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and a spring colour combo from Play Date Cafe.

 

I had a couple scraps laying around, one being the negative cut-out from the Little Leaves sizzlit die. I wanted to find a way to use it with this sketch. And when I looked at this colour combo with Play Date Cafe, I saw the Stampin Up colours Elegant Eggplant, Island Indigo, and Certainly Celery. What a nice spring colour combo! Here's my card:

 

 

I like how clean and simple it is. The Island Indigo adds a pop of colour against the Certainly Celery. I love the coordinating polka-dot designer paper in Elegant Eggplant. I think these colours coordinate really well! I would have never thought to put them together!

 

 

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Card Ingredients:

 

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery, Island Indigo, Whisper White

Ink: Elegant Eggplant

Tools: Little Leaves sizzlit die, Circles Nestabilities, Scallop Border punch, Word Window punch

 



 

Happy Birthday Wishes for a Friend

It's the start of a new week -- with the first day of spring coming up in a couple days (yay!) We had a great weekend  (so nice to be able to spend some time with my hubby!).

Today is my friend, Steph's birthday! Steph and I were super close friends in highschool. We did almost everything together! Since then we have drifted apart, but still keep in contact every once in a while. I do miss our friendship. We created some great memories together! Here's a couple pictures of the good times we had:

Sunbathing at the beach on Lake Erie

Lake Michigan - on a SERVE mission trip

 

I made a bright colourful card for her birthday, playing along with Try Stamping on Tuesday. They have a sketch for their challenge this week.

 

I really like this sketch! It's clean and simple but has potential for layers and patterns. I used my favourite colour combo - Island Indigo and Pool Party and this is what I came up with:





 

I love the added touch of Calypso Coral to complement the teal blues. The humming bird and one of the flowers are popped up to give it some dimension. I added rhinestones for some 'bling' to complete the card.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Bloomin Marvelous, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Island Indigo, Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Whisper White, Sycamore Street DSP

Tools: Apothecary Accents Framelits, Large Oval punch, Word Window punch, Modern Label punch, Boho Blossom punch

Accessories: Calypso Coral ruffled ribbon, rhinestones (Michael's)