Hearts and butterlies

This was one of my favourite Valentine's Day cards. I cased the idea, changed colours and added some things - but I cannot recall who did the original!

 

The colours are Blushing Bride, Coastal Cabana, Crumb Cake and Pistachio Pudding. The punched out hearts (with small heart punch) are from 3 different paper packs: Retro Fresh from Occasions Catalogue (Coastal Cabana), Sweet Sorbet from Sale-A-Bration (Pistachio Pudding) and Fresh Prints Designer Series Paper Stack from Occasions Catalogue (Coastal Cabana and Crumb Cake). Oh and there are couple of blushing bride card stock hearts there too.

The stamped hearts are from "Hearts a flutter" set - all stamped with Blushing Bride. The sentiment "kisses" is from a photopolymer set, as well as the arrow piercing the heart.

This would be one of those cards that you could easily make several fairly quickly - For me the longest time went for choosing the colours and papers :)

This second card is SO easy and the idea is cased from Shannon Jaramillo. If I recall, she used pool party and crumb cake as her butterfly colours. I just cut two different sized butterflies with the Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die using two designer series papers (both from the Sweet Sorbet set from the Sale-A-Bration catalogue).
And since the larger butterfly has Crisp Cantaloupe as it's main colour, I chose that as my card base colour also.

The sentiment is stamped with Sahara Sand, but the stamp is not from Stampin'Up! It wishes "happy nameday" in Finnish (yes, we celebrate namedays too!). Most Finnish names are in our annual calendar. Each day has usually several names - names that are alike. My name day is October 13th. On your name day you get some small presents and you usually have a cake in the evening. I LOVE namedays - it's so easy to check when people have their namedays - just open your calendar, whereas with Birthdays you need to know when a person was born!

I know that namedays are celebrated also in Russia and other Scandinavian countries. I'm not sure if Germany celebrates them too... I guess I should do some research on that :-)

You know how days sometimes just fly by....

Blushing Bride, Hearts a Flutter

Well that's the story of my life from the past couple of weeks. I have been creating and caseing several cards and had all the intentions to post them here gradually - well... here we are, several days overdue :-)

The first one is a case from Natasha Schwecke. I just loved this card. She used a different heart stamp and different colour card stock and some different embellishments, but the idea is from her. I tried it with different colours too.

I embossed the Hardwood background stamp with white craft ink and white embossing powder and then rubbed some Crumb Cake ink on top of it. I also inked the doilie with the same ink.

Here is a selection of different colour versions (both pictures are of the same cards - the lighting for my photos was not the best).

The top left is Pool Party with white embossing and the doiley is inked with Sahara Sand. It also has some Crisp Cantaloupe. The top right is Crisp Cantaloupe embossed with white and the doiley inked with Sahara Sand.

The bottom left is the same as the first picture on this page - blushing bride. The bottom right is Coastal Cabana embossed with white and Crumb Cake instead of Sahara Sand.

From left: Coastal Cabana,Crumb Cake / Blushing Bride,Crumb Cake / Pool Party, Sahara Sand, Crisp Cantaloupe / Crisp Cantaloupe, Sahara Sand, Pool Party 

Sweet Valentine's

I just love both of the following cards.

The first one is using Follow My Heart stamp set - now remember, the clear mount version has already sold out, but you can still get the wood mount. These Valentine's Day special stamp sets are only available while they last so get them while you still can. Also, the last day to order is Monday January 27th!

Blushing Bride, Crumb Cake

Scallope edged heart frame:
I first cut out a scalloped heart with the Hearts-a-flutter framelit from a scrap piece of paper, which I then placed on top of my card stock to use it as a stencil. Then I used the large heart punch to punch out a regular heart from scrap piece of paper and added that at to the middle. Then I spongd the formed "frame" with blushing bride and a bit of Crumb cake.

Then I removed the heart punch shape and stamped the opening with "off the grid" stamp (crumb cake).

Background:
Then I inked a clear acrylic block with blushing bride and stamped that on the card base. And did the same with crumb cake (that one I first stamped on a piece of scrap paper and then on the card stock - I didn't want it too strong.

Then I took a small heart stamp from last years occasions catalogue set "itty bitties" - I didn't even realize I used a retired stamp - oh bummer... well, any small heart stamp would work, and stamped that with both colours.

Then I stamped the greeting from the "Follow My Heart" set with Crumb Cake.

The Banner:
The stamps are from two different sets. The one with the key, stamped with Blushing Bride, is from the "Follow My Heart" and the "love" banner stamped with Crumb Cake is from the Sale-A-Bration set "Banner Blast"
Behind the banner I glued a piece of Hemp Twine. The Eiffel Tower is stamped with Early Espresso (it's from the Follow My Heart Set" and I cut it out with paper snips and mounted with dimensionals.

This next card is SUPER easy!

Pool Party, Crisp Cantaloupe, Whisper White

The Backgound:
The base of the card is regular Pool Party card stock. I embossed a slightly smaller piece of Pool Party coloured Core'dinations paper with the Alphabet Press embossing folder and sanded the top to bring out the lighter tone of the paper.

Embellishments:
I cut one Paper Doiley in half, glued it on top of the embossed core'dinations paper and wrapped some Hemp Twine around the card - tied a double know on the top (to the left side). Then I cut 2 paper banners from the Sale-A-Brations paper "Sweet Sorbet" and adhered them on top of the doiley (tucked them under the twine. Then I took a piece of the Natural 5/8" Chevron Ribbon (Occasions Catalogue) and folded it in half. Then I tied it on top of the card with the left over twine used to wrap around the card.

The Sentiment is from the "Label Love" set, the edge is couloured with Crisp Cantaloupe and the center centiment is with Crumb Cake (you cannot see the difference in the photo as well as in the real card) and mounted with dimensionals.

Valentine's Day products - only available until January 27th, or while they last

 

 Remember, these following items are available only until January 27th, or while they last!

Get yours before they run out!

 

visit my online shop

Flowerfull heart $11.95

Follow my heart $19.55 (Clear mount sold out!)

Love you More Clear $20.95 Wood $26.95

Monster Hugs Girl $7.95

Monster Hug Boys $7.95

Sweet Sayings cards and envelopes (12) $7.95

Sweetheart Treat Bags (12) $6.95

Monster Hugs - get yours while you still can!!

Aren't these SO cute???

Available until January 27th,

or while supplies last!!!

 

The card base is Crisp Cantaloupe and the embossed part is Coastal Cabana. The saying is from the Just Sayin' stamp set (with matching framelits!!!) - so super easy so far.

 

Then the "pièce de résistance" is the cute girl monster! And the easy peasy part of this is that the monster comes from a kit - you just adhere it to the base, adhere the treat to a tape ALREADY on the monster, clasp the hands, stick on a sticky heart that COMES WITH the kit and add the googly eye - yes, you guessed it  - IT ALSO IS IN THE KIT!!!

 

It literally takes 2 sec's to make the monster part!!!



kit of 18 monsters - 7.95CAD (plus tax & s/h)
ALL included, comes to less than 45 cents per monster

The monster also has a back side with a little area for a note so you can also use the monsters on their own as Valentine's Day treats for friends, school mates and family

 

and the best part - the kit costs 7.95 and includes supplies for 18 (!!!!) monsters, which means a single monster costs LESS than 45 cents WITH shipping and taxes included!!!

 

Okay, a whole lot of exclamation marks in this post - but this just blew my mind!

And one more thing - there is a kit for the boys too - with blue monsters!!!



This is what the monster looks from front and back



One monster, with googlie eye and heart

 

 

Now remember, this kit is only available to order UNTIL

JANUARY 27th - next Monday OR until product lasts - so get them while you still can!!!

 

Card Class on Monday February 11th

You can still sign up for my next card class, which will be on Monday February 11th at 7pm. Just RSVP by Saturday afternoon.

 

The cards work both for Birthday or Valentine's Day.

 

All cards use Sale-A-Bration stamp sets!

Valentine's Day Mini Mailbox Class on Monday January 23rd

Here is a sample of the Mini Mailbox we will be doing on my SPECIAL Valentine's Day class.
RSVP by emailing me latest on Friday January 20th

Occasions Mini starting in January - great new products

I am SO excited about the new Occasions Mini album. I think my order from the catalogue will be much bigger than I planned :-) Great spring colours, new Designer Series Paper, new fabric and several new stamp sets. And not to forget the new pleated ribbons!!!

We will surely be using the new products in my January Valentine's Day classes and most likely in many other spring classes - I'm already having ideas for my Mother's Day cards too :-)

I'm hoping to get my preorder finalized this weekend and hope to get the products before Christmas so that I can post the samples for my Valentine's Day classes during the holidays!

Enjoy the season and all the wonderful Christmas lights around the city!

Spooky Halloween is almost here!!!

My Spooky Halloween Card Class is scheduled for Monday October 3rd and I had some great ideas for those cards. Finally this weekend I got the time to start working on the cards.

Well, I should have learned by now that the best way for me to create cards is to "go with the flow", not be fixed with a certain idea. So, yesterday I spent couple of hours trying to figure out how to corporate the "halloween" word into my card. Then I finally figured out a nice way to do it.

Then I also learned another lesson (well... I should have learned it already couple of times but no...)

REMEMBER:

Remove the retired products from your shelves!

First I made a great halloween card (idea cased from Stampin'Connection but unfortunately I don't have the name saved), but I didn't have all the products from the original project, so I decided to use what I have (which then ended up being retired products - not on purpose). So then I had to redo the card with the CURRENT products. But it turned out great :-)

But at the end I managed to create 4 great cards for my Spooky Halloween Card Class :-)

Halloween must be one of the most difficult holidays for me to create cards for - we don't celebrate Halloween in Finland so I have no real experience on this holiday. Another difficult one for me is Valentines Day as that also is a North American and English holiday. It has made it's appearance also in Finland in the past decade, but more as a Friend Day, without the romantic content.

We will see how much I cope with the Valentine's Day in the coming spring :-)
I'm pretty sure one of the cards then will have the "Be My Valentine" from the "Festive and Fun" set which is in the current Holiday Mini Catalogue.

Here are all the 4 cards for my Halloween Card Class: