Judo Punch Art!

I have a friend who loves to give me the most fun challenges when it comes to making greeting cards! This time she asked me to make two thank you cards for her kids' judo instructors. I wasn't quite sure where to start, but I knew punch art was going to be involved! Often I find inspiration on Pinterest. I found a recipe for karate kid punch art and decided to CASE it, but make it somewhat my own. I made one a boy character, and the other a girl. For the card layout, I used the latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

How cute are these characters?! 

I had a lot of fun making these! 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Made for You (ret.)

Paper: Basic Black, Always Artichoke, Pistachio Pudding, Calypso Coral, Crisp Cantaloupe, Whisper White, Blush Blossom, Blushing Bride, Chocolate Chip. 

Ink: Staz-On Black

Tools: Circles Nestabilities, Diagonal Strips embossing folder, Small Oval punch, Word Window punch, Small Tag punch, 1" Circle punch, Owl Builder punch (for the eyes), 1/2" Circle punch (for mouth & ears)

Accessories: Pistachio Pudding ruffled stretch trim, Crisp Cantaloupe ruffled stretch trim

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)

Inspired By... the Olympic Rings!

While I haven't been following the Olympics too closely this time around, I've been keeping up with the medal counts and cheering Canada on! (and having a Dutch heritage, the Netherlands too!) Just recently we celebrated two gold - one for women's curling and the other for women's hockey against USA!! And now we are 2nd in medal standing overall! So proud to be Canadian! 

For our inspirational challenge, Karly chose the perfect photo for this week! 

IB #36

I was inspired to use the colours in this photo to make a kid's birthday card. I am playing along with the latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and an "Anything Goes" challenge with Seize the Birthday:

'

Here's how it turned out:

Lego pieces! I sponged the edges of each cardstock piece as well as the circles. The circles are popped up to give the card some dimension. While this was quite simple to figure out, it was time consuming to put it all together! I simply added the birthday sentiment "wish big" to complete the card.

This card was CASE'd from Ladybug Designs. 

Thanks again for stopping by! 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Short & Sweet

Ink: Basic Black

Paper: Basic Black, Real Red, Whisper White, Daffodil Delight, Pacific Point, Gumball Green

Tools: 1/2" Circle punch

Wish Big: a Birthday Card for Elise

I can't believe it's been over a week since I've written a blog post! So sorry to all my followers. I think my blog posts are going to be quite sporadic for a little while until I get a little caught up and into a routine again. With the beautiful weather we've been having lately, I've been spending lots of my free time outdoors. It seems we are currently in a heat wave and I'm loving it! Better take advantage before fall/winter hits! I've also been working on building up my stock for the upcoming craft fairs, creating duplicates of my favourite designs. I haven't had much time to take part in card challenges and design new cards - I miss it and hope to get back into that again soon! In the meantime, I've been creating cards for family birthdays...

Today we celebrate our niece's 1st birthday! I was fortunate to meet Elise last Christmas and look forward to seeing her again next weekend when we meet up with their family to go camping. She is the youngest of 7 (big family!) and an adorable little girl.

I used the Freshly Made Sketches challenge last week as the base of my card design.

I chose a monochromatic colour combo (Wisteria Wonder and Elegant Eggplant), polka dot designer paper, and a butterfly stamp and here's how the card came together:

 

A perfect card for a little girl! To match the polka-dotted designer paper, I embossed the Wisteria Wonder cardstock behind the butterfly with polka dots. The butterfly is popped up to give the card some dimension. The card is embellished with ruffled ribbon.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Bugs and Hugs (CTMH), Short & Sweet

Paper: Wisteria Wonder, Elegant Eggplant, Whisper White, Specialty Sweet Shop

Ink: Elegant Eggplant

Tools: Polka Dots Embossing Folder

Accessories: Wisteria Wonder Ruffled Ribbon

FMS #91 {A Thank You Card for a Music Teacher}

It's back to work today! It was nice to have some R&R this past weekend (almost need a vacation from our vacation!). And to top it off, the weather in PG was perfect! Lots of sunshine and hot temps! I spent most of the weekend in the sun, in between laundry loads :)

Today is a special day for my father-in-law. We celebrate his 64th birthday! Because we were away, I didn't have a chance to make him a card, but we did send him a postcard from Yellowstone National Park with an image of Old Faithful Geyser on the front. We are thinking of him and send him our best wishes!

When I got back, I was asked to make several thank you cards for school teachers/principal/secretary. This was a fun challenge! It's still a work in progress but I'm happy with the results so far! One of the cards is for a male music teacher. Right away I thought of the Natural Composition designer paper. There is a sheet with embossed musical notes on it - perfect! I used the simple sketch from Freshly Made Sketches this week and am entering it in this challenge just in the nick of time!

 

I had a bit of a challenge with choosing a colour combo, but it came together nicely! The musical note DSP is sponged with Soft Suede ink to make the embossed images stand out a bit more. I added a strip of Midnight Muse cardstock and distressed the edges. Linen thread and a Pool Party button are added to embellish the card. Finally I added flags, one stamped with the sentiment "thank you".

 

 

What do you think? It's very clean and simple, not my usual style, but I think it works as a great masculine card!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Made for You

Paper: Soft Suede, Very Vanilla, Midnight Muse, Pool Party, Natural Composition DSP

Ink: Soft Suede

Tools: Distress Tool

Accessories: Linen Thread, Pool Party button, Pool Party bakers twine



Stacked Animals

Welcome to my second post of the day! I wanted to play along with Monday Muse before their challenge closes tomorrow. I love the inspirational card this week made by Therese Calvird!

How cute is that?! I drew inspiration from the stacked animals and pulled out my Fox & Friends stamp set. I made my card bright and colourful using the colour combo from Color Throwdown and used an older Freshly Made sketch as a guide.

I think these colours are perfect for a kid's birthday card! Here's what I came up with:

Isn't it fun? Curious where the little bird stamp came from? It's from the adorable stamp set called "Moving Forward". I thought it was the perfect touch to finish off the stack of animals. I love this colour combo! The patterned designer paper adds to the funness (if that's a word!) of this card. I embellished the card with Old Olive satin ribbon and small rhinestones on the ends of the sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by! I plan on taking a break from my blog for the rest of the weekend, so stay tuned for a new post on Tuesday!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Fox & Friends, Moving Forward, Short & Sweet
Paper: Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Real Red, Whisper White, Brights DSP, Polka Dot Parade DSP
Ink: Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive
Tools: Word Window punch
Accessories: Old Olive satin ribbon, rhinestones (Michael's)

Hip-Hippo-Ray!

As promised, I plan on doing a series of posts on organizing papercrafting supplies. I will spread it out within the next couple weeks. My first post will be about paper - how to organize cardstock, designer paper and scraps. I hope to post about this tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Today's card is a cute 'pun fun' card! I decided to use the Freshly Made Sketch even though the challenge is now closed.

This is a very clean and simple sketch and I kind of like it! I decided to make another kid's birthday card and the retired Stampin Up stamp set called "Pun Fun" is perfect for this occasion! They have such cute images and sayings in this set. I really should use it more often! I picked the hippo for this card...

 

I used Wisteria Wonder for the card base and embossed it with Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder. I coordinated it with Pool Party, Whisper White and Basic Gray. I fussy-cut the hippo and popped it up to give the card some dimension.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Pun Fun (ret.)

Paper: Wisteria Wonder, Whisper White, Basic Gray, In-Colour 2012-2013 DSP

Ink: Basic Gray, Pool Party marker, Wisteria Wonder marker, Pink Pirouette marker

Tools: Blender Pen, 1-3/8" Circle punch, 2-3/4" Scallop Circle punch





Clean and Simple Birthday Card

It's Wednesday, which means we're half-way through the work week and that much closer to the weekend! Looking forward to seeing my hubby again! Yesterday, I did not have the greatest start to my day... I was late for work and realized I forgot my lunch when I got to work. Ugh. However, one highlight to my day... I was chosen as a 'Perfect Princess' at Freshly Made Sketches! To see my original post, click here.

For today's card, I decided to play along with the new Retrosketches challenge and a colour combo challenge with Colour Q. It's a fabulous clean and simple sketch this week and the colours are so soft and subtle - these two challenges worked so well together!

As a bonus, I realized as I was making the card that this would also fit perfectly with the Pink Elephant challenge this week.

 

Our challenge theme this week is to:

"Use 3 Decorative Papers & Your Favorite Embellishment"

 

I actually used 6 decorative papers in my card and one of my favourite embellishments - bakers twine. Here's how it turned out:

 

 

 

Thanks for looking! 

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Fabulous Phrases

Paper: Soft Suede, Whisper White, Blushing Bride, Neutrals DSP, Summer Smooches DSP, 2010-2012 In-Colour DSP, 2011-2013 In-Colour DSP, Comfort Cafe DSP

Ink: Soft Suede

Tools: Owl Builder punch

Accessories: Early Espresso Bakers Twine

FMS79 {Sailing Away}

Happy Friday! Ok, well technically it's Thursday, but it's the last work day of the week! Hoping this day will fly by! Another highlight... have a look at our weather forecast for the weekend:

It's going to be gorgeous! I see a couple of nice leisurely walks in the sunshine in order for this weekend :)

I was getting so tied up in making flowerpot cards that I almost forgot about my card for today's post! So I went through the card challenges that came out today and chose a new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and a colour combo from Scrapmaster's Paradise.

 

These colours could either be used for a baby boy card or a masculine card (in my opinion). I chose to make a Father's Day card. I used a Sailboat stamp set that I bought from a craft store in London, ON (can't remember the name, unfortunately) and made a fairly clean and simple card. Here's how it all got pieced together:

 

I love the layout! I think this is one I may turn to more often. And the colours coordinate so well together! I popped up the matted sailboat image and stamped birds in the corner. Early Espresso taffeta ribbon is added to embellish the card.

 

 

A perfect masculine card, don't you think?

 

Thanks for stopping by! Make sure to visit tomorrow for a new KCRR challenge!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Unknown

Ink: Early Espresso

Tools: Scallop Border punch

Accessories: 1/8" Early Espresso taffeta 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