Honeycomb Delight

Hi everyone.  Hope you are well and have had a lovely weekend (despite the rain).

 

I am sharing two cards with you today.  The first was made for my mum for Mother's Day, and features the new Honeycomb embossing folder.  Wow, this really does have lots of possibilities.

 

First of all, I ran a piece of white card through my Cuttlebug in the embossing folder and stuck it to the front of a card.  Then I cut up some scraps of the Tea for Two DSP and put them inside the folder and put it through the Cuttlebug - this gave me a guide to cutting out the hexagons and getting them the right size.  I stuck them down in a random pattern.

 

I then stuck a piece of Baja Breeze pleated satin ribbon across the middle of the card, followed by a piece of baker's twine (I borrowed that idea from Jane, at Eden's Tree - check out her blog here ).

 

The sentiment is from Notable Alphabet, stamped in black onto a piece of Tea for Two.

 

 

 

The second card is very similar (because I'm in love with it!!), and was for Jane (mentioned above), whose birthday was earlier in the week.

 

I used her favourite papers, Spice Cake, and teamed them with Pear Pizzazz pleated ribbon and brown baker's twine.  The sentiment is from the Hostess set, Stacks of Wishes, stamped in Early Espresso ink and mounted on the same colour card.

 

Jane has set up a card swap group and I received my first card this week - it's stunning and I will share it with you soon, as well as the card I made.  Jane received lots of handmade birthday cards this year - one from every member of the swap group - keep looking at her blog, as she is going to post them soon.

I've noticed that my three photos differ in quality - the first is a scan, the second I took and the third was taken my Mark,  I'll let you make your mind up which one is the best!

Take care

Michelle x

Betsy's Blossoms (Again!)

This is the card I made for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day.  I wasn't going to make her one, Mark was going to buy her a card instead.  But as you know, we've been under the weather, him in particular, so I thought I would save him the job of going into town.  I needed a quick design so though I would rely on "old faithful".  This is such a quick but effective card and I love it so much.

 

This time I chose Concord Crush, Wisteria Wonder and Lucky Limeade as the colour scheme, and used the Notable Alphabet for "Mum".

I've had a busy afternoon sorting through photographs for the final selection for Emily's album.  It was lovely looking back, but hard to believe that she is going to be an adult in three months.  She has no idea what she wants to do for her birthday or what she would like - helpful as ever!  The problem is that she doesn't want to grow up, she really wants to stay a child.  I think she would be really happy with some Harry Potter Lego!

Thanks for dropping by.

Take care

Michelle x

Mixed Bunch

Hi everyone. I loaded up lots of photos over the weekend so that I could blog regularly this week, but as you can see, that hasn't' happened.  I'm quickly popping in tonight to share with you, a card that I made for my friend Tracy, whose birthday was yesterday.

 

I cut and folded a card that measured 12cm x 12cm, from the Midnight Muse card stock.  Then I used one of the Mixed Bunch stamps and stamped all over the front of the card with a Versamark ink pad.  I haven't used this technique for a long time, but the watermark effect is one of my favourites. I used one of the Window Frames Collection Framelits to cut an aperture.  Then, with one of the piercing templates, I pricked a pattern around the outside of the frame. 

 

 

I stamped the same flower from the Mixed Bunch set, onto some Very Vanilla card stock, using Midnight Muse. I pricked a pattern around this using one of the other templates, and then mounted this panel behind the aperture.

 

I stamped another flower in the MM ink onto the VV card stock and cut it out using the co-ordinating punch.  I curled the petals slightly and stuck this onto the other stamped image.  I added a little gem in the middle of the flower to add a little bit of bling.

 

Hopefully, I will be back soon with some more cards - I've certainly been rather busy recently.  Also I am really pleased to report that we are all finally getting back to normal, the coughs are starting to disappear and normal sleep has been resumed - hurrah!

 

Thanks for dropping by.  Be back soon.

 

Michelle x

Hearts a Fluttering

A mid-week post in a working week - how unusual.  I'm taking the opportunity whilst Mark is watching the Man U and Real Madrid match - it holds no interest for me.

 

We are still a house of germs, everyone is coughing and coughing.  I feel so sleep deprived that my right eye has been twitching since Thursday and it's very uncomfortable.  I'm thinking I may have to resort to an eye-patch soon!

 

Anyway - today's card.  This is a bit radical for me, completely not my usual style, but I have to say that I rather like it.  The card was for my friend Karen who was 40 on Saturday.  I used my new Hearts a Flutter stamps and matching Framelits (a great value bundle option available in the Spring mini catalogue).  I used Lucky Limeade, Pool Party and Island Indigo and stamped and cut out a variety of banners.  Looking at the card now, I realise that the way I have mounted them is not at all random, there is some order there.  I have a problem with random - it just doesn't sit well with me!  I scored a diagonal pattern on a strip of Lucky Limeade and mounted that on Island Indigo. I stuck this over the banners to give a neat finish.  I forgot to say that I curled the banners around a pokey tool first to give some dimension

 

 

I wrapped some Baker's Twine around the card and added the sentiment (my favourite Itty Bitty Banners stamped with Island Indigo) mounted on foam pads.

Finally I stamped one of the heart stamps in all three colours, cut them out and mounted them near the bottom of the card slightly overlapping each other.  I used some rub-ons to add the numbers.

And there you go.  I'd be interested to know what you think.  Well that's me for tonight.  I'm off to fashion myself an eye-patch from SU products!!  Have fun!

 

Michelle x x

More Sale-a-bration

Hi!  I've been trying to upload these photos for a few days now, but Blogger seemed to have other ideas.  Anyway, success today!

 

This card was made with Sale-a-bration goodies - stamps from the Madison Avenue set and a strip of paper from the Sycamore Street DSP.  I stamped the small flower image in four different colours onto small squares of white card, then mounted them on to matching plain card stock.  I mounted these on the right hand side of the card, and added a strip of the DSP down the left (the paper reminds me of an Orla Kiely design).  I punched four flowers with one of the Itty Bitty Shapes punches, and moulded them a little bit with a scoring tool to give them some dimension.  I added these to the centres of the stamped flowers and included some crystal gems for a little bit of sparkle.

 

Today I've been really busy making cards.  I have lots of birthdays in March, as well as Mother's Day so I've been trying to get on with them.  Hopefully, this means I will have a lot to show you over the next few days.

We are still a house of germs, particularly Mark who has a pretty bad cough which is keeping us both awake at night!  Will he go to the Doctors - no, of course not!

Well, that's me for now - got to get back to the card making.  Take care and thank you for dropping by.

Michelle x

Hi, back again.  How's it going?  I'm having a pretty good half term. Quite relaxed but feeling in the creative mood.  So far I've managed to make a couple of cards and complete one whole layout as well as finish four others for Emily's 18th album.  I'm starting to panic about the album to be honest.  Emily's birthday is in four months and I still have such a lot to do.  Today I had a real good look at it and made myself a plan, listing the events I MUST put in and suggesting other things that I will do if there is time.  It's really difficult to encapsulate 18 years into one memory album.  I'm going on another Scrapbook retreat after Easter so I must, must, must achieve a lot over those three days.

 

I finally managed to watch the new Bond film, Skyfall, last night.  We never got to the cinema to see it, much like The Hobbit and Les Miserables, which I am also desperate to see.  Anyway our DVD arrived yesterday so we had a film night, complete with popcorn!  The film was phenomenal and I can't recommend it highly enough (although you've probably all seen it!).

 

Today's card has been made with some of the wonderful Sale-a-bration products from Stampin' Up.  I've used the Vine Street embossing folder to create a panel in Pool Party which I then mounted onto Rich Razzleberry.  The banner across the middle is cut from the Sycamore Street DSP.  The sentiment is from the fabulous Itty Bitty Banners set (not in the promotion), and the little heart icon is stamped with Pretty Petites (in Tangerine Tango) and cut with the Petite Curly Label punch.

I'm not sure how I feel about this card really.  In my head it looked different, which is a bit weird I know.  I love the embossing panel - can see that I will use the embossing folder a lot. And I like the cut-out motifs from the DSP - just not convinced it works really.  Oh well, it can go in my box of ready made birthday cards.

Thanks for looking in, I'm really appreciative of your comments.

Take care and wrap up warm!

Michelle x

Hello

Well, apologies for the absence.  I won't bore you with all the details, but we have been a very poorly house recently, so crafting and blogging have taken a very large back seat.  I'm slowly getting round to visiting other blogs and leaving comments.  I feel like I have missed out on seeing lots of lovely inspirational work.  I've even had a box of new goodies from Stampin' Up sitting on my living room floor for nearly two weeks without barely giving it any attention at all.  Inside are all the lovely Hearts a Flutter stamps and framelits, as well as the More Amore DSP, intended for Mark's Valentines card - well that didn't happen!

 

Anyway, I'm back on track.  It's half term and I'm feeling crafty!  Robbie Williams is on the CD player.  I've set myself a goal to spend the morning scrapbooking and card making and then catch up on other stuff in the afternoons.  I'm having a little break to write this post - and feeling rather virtuous as I have completed a scrap book layout for Emily's album this morning.

 

I would like to share a card with you that I made a few weeks ago before the lurgy struck.  I've copied it from one I saw in Pinterest, so I can't take any credit for it at all, and all the materials are from Stampin' Up, apart from the gems.

 

The stamps used are from the Best of Everything stamp set, which I really love.  The colour scheme is dictated by the paper - a retired hostess set called Cheerful Treat - Lucky Limeade, Concord Crush and Melon Mambo.  I've used some matching stitched ribbon and a couple of gems for the middle of the flowers (punched with the flower punch  from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack - a very versatile punch).

 

So that's me for now.  I'm going to delve into that box of SU goodies and see what I can come up with.  Hopefully there won't be such a long gap until my next post.

Hope you all have a good day.  Thanks for dropping by, and as ever I really appreciate your comments.

Take care

Michelle x