Playing with Dolls - the first WMS Pyjama Party

You're never too old to play with dolls.  I've just stayed up practically all night to get this card finished for the first WMS Pyjama Party (or Pajama Party if you prefer).  This is for Challenge 2 - You're a Doll, but as I used the mini crackle stamp to give age to the dolls, I am also entering it in Challenge 3 - In the Background.   I hope to enter the background challenge again before the link closes at Midnight UK time, using my favourite background stamp WMS Cabin Plaid Backgounder.

I got most of the way last night before fatigue forced me to have a short nap, and I couldn't wait to get started again this morning (I like this lady of leisure business).

I wanted to create a card using the different sizes of dolls and the different variations of dolls available in the You're a Doll set.  I've also used the You're a Doll Additions set for the sentiment which I selectively inked, and as it complements these sets so perfectly, I also used the Folk Art Medallion set for the pull tag on the bottom and one of the tummy embellishments for the medium doll.

Here are the various stages of the Waterfall Card I've made for this challenge.

Card Closed  - One Doll and "Beautiful" visible.

Card Stage 1 - Two Dolls

Card Stage 2 Three Dolls.

Card Stage 3 - Big Heart and "You are Beautiful" visible.

I wanted a story to develop as the pull tag emerged so I used some of the story lines from Half Pint Heroines, which I ordered last week and arrived just yesterday at lunchtime.



This is for my beautiful niece Natalie who has one of the biggest hearts I know.

I am also entering this in the Paper Players Sketch Challenge PP156

Belated Bird-day Card

A Belated Bird-day card for my dear friend Michaela - so belated these birds have all flown the nest LOL!
The DPs I used to cut the grass and birds were very thin and I wanted to add them on dimensionals, so I adhered them before cutting to some heavier weight cardstock with Pritt.  The grass was cut with Marianne D. Icicles die for the longer grass and a Martha Stewart edge punch for the shorter grass.  The birds were cut with the Memory Box Meadow Bird die.
The nest and branch were constructed by using some of the elements in the Spellbinders Cherry Blossoms die set and trimming them where necessary.
The sentiment stamp is from Waltzing Mouse Stamps Fancy Phrases Set.
I inked the background using a cloud cut with one of the Memory Box Marshmallow Clouds and some Broken China Distress Ink.
I'm entering this into the Seize the Birthday Linky Party.  As I write there are 232 cards entered in this challenge, so if you want some inspiration for your next birthday card you need look no further !

While adding the labels for this post, I realised the branch die from the Marianne D. Flower and Branch set might make this little nest a bit more realistic, and maybe some little flowers in the grass as well.

A sunflower that grows on you !

Many, many years ago (at least 10 I think) my son James went to a birthday party for my friend dear friend Lena's youngest daughter Emilie whose birthday falls in the early spring.  As a party activity and take home treat she provided all the guests with a flower pot, which they decorated at the party and planted with a sunflower seed.  We brought it home and lo and behold it actually grew (we are not known for our green thumbs here so we were pretty amazed).  By the time we went on holidays at the end of August it was about 3ft high.  Unfortunately it didn't survive the 2 weeks of drought while we were away and had to be given a proper burial once we returned, but I don't think any of us have ever forgotten the excitement of that summer watching it grow almost visibly each day.  What a great take home treat - how many plastic yo-yos, superballs etc.,  have given such a wonderful memory not just to the young child who attended the party but to his entire family.  But then she is pretty clever my friend Lena !!!

If you looked a ways back on my blog, you'd see I've been trying to create an interactive sunflower card that could actually grow.  Previously I tried a double slider card, but this was a bit clumsy.  Well yesterday I had an idea based on a card by Tara Cardwell who did the July Friendly Feature spot over at the WMS Blog recently.  It's such a simple idea - the type that makes you kick yourself and say why didn't I think of that!  She did it with a Russian nesting doll, but I realised yesterday that it could work for my sunflower dilemma too, so thank you Tara. 

I started with a 5x7 card base which had the fold on the short axis not the long axis.  I cut down an A3 sheet of white card to 5x14" (12.5 x 35 cm).  This was 300gsm card stock, quite sturdy so it needed to be scored first.  I scored it in the middle for a tent fold and then folded the front in half again.  I placed the sunflower on the top and the flower pot (a truncated Spellbinders Banner overstamped with a distressed spots stamp from AladinE) on the bottom.   

Naturally I had to do something with all that white space first.  So I cut some clouds (Memory Box Marshmallow Clouds) and used these as a mask to create a cloud bank with Broken China DI.  This was my first ever attempt at this technique, so I started off a bit scratchy but eventually got the hang of it I think.  

A stem, a couple of leaves from a Spellbinder's Leaves and Acorn set and some grass and I had me a fairly instant sunflower.  Despite having a Sizzix Original Grass die and a Martha Stewart edge punch I used the Marianne D. Icicles die for grass because I was so hot I couldn't afford the energy required to root these out and could lay my hands on the latter immediately.  I only wish I could have laid my hands on some real icicles this afternoon (had to resist the urge to climb into the freezer for a spell) and ended up at my friend Bethia's house with a wet towel draped around my neck for most of the afternoon.  The card is for her mum's birthday next month.

I did add a "Happy Birthday" sentiment to the top left corner (had to hide my shaky start to cloud bank building) though didn't get an opportunity to take a photo afterwards, so I'm entering it into the Seize the Birthday Challenge.  

Have a great day, thanks for stopping by

A Songbird that has a ring to it !

Don't you just love it when you stumble across something by accident.  I had some elements on my workspace for more than one project (okay it's a complete shambles and it's getting hard to find anything - it needs a tidy up badly) and a rejected little bird from my previous post ended up with a rejected hollowed out circle left from an even earlier post and I quite liked the effect so I went with it and this is the result.  Plus having a circle meant that I was pretty close to the fab sketch #128 over at Try Stampin' on a Tuesday - which I've been wanting to play along with for a while now.

We had a brief respite from the heat this afternoon and the temperature dropped by 12 degrees in a matter of 20 minutes or so with the arrival of some much needed rain.

Thanks for stopping by.

Songbird

A simple little birthday card I made today.  The paper is from a free A4 paper collection which came with a Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine from Raspberry Road Designs and the card colour choices were all steered by this pretty paper plus I still have 3 more A6 pieces so 3 more cards.

As for the layout, I had some help from Mojo Monday 303 (yay I finally made it on time), but I rotated it.

I really noticed the heat today - not the slightest suggestion of a breeze.  Looks like we might get a storm tonight though- I can hear thunder in the distance and the wind has picked up a bit.  

Amelie rocks

A friend's sister just had her first baby - a little girl and as this occasion merited a special card, I knocked this one up earlier today.  Having three boys I love to get all girlie !!!

The plaid background was stamped with the WMS Cabin Plaid background and embossed with white EP.  The two larger Spellbinders Splendid Circles, a white glitter Spellbinders Petite Scalloped circle and a shop bought pastry doily framed the little tartan rocking horse cut with the Sizzlit Rocking Horse.

Her name was spelt out in white glitter card cut with the WPlus9 Folk Art alphabet (I'm loving this set) mounted on little banners cut with Spellbinders Nested Pennants and strung across the top of the card on pink baker's twine.

The little sentiment is stamped using the WMS Celtic Heritage set and embossed with white EP - I can really recommend this Detail White embossing powder from Stampendous.  Even this tiny, finely detailed stamp embossed beautifully. The little tag is a really old Spellbinders die, which I bought at the same time as my Cuttlebug eons ago.  Sorry, don't know what it's called but I daresay it's been discontinued anyway.

CAS - not quite

An experiment in CAS.  Well it is Clean if not Simple - no distressing at all and I limited myself to only two colours.  It has lots of white well green space anyway but I suspect far too many layers for CAS, but then with this Folk Art Medallion stamp from WMS, I just can't resist piling on the layers - could you?
Thanks for stopping by :)

Just in the neck of time

This was a very quick card to welcome Andrew's niece's new baby boy.
The giraffe was cut from yellow gingham paper which I backed with cardboard first.  I knew I wanted to pop it up and the paper needed support.  I've had this medium Sizzix Original giraffe die for years now and I think this is it's first real outing.  The spots were die cut from the same die, and some of them I placed off the edge and snipped them to fit.
The blue plaid background was stamped with one of my favourite stamps - WMS Plaid background.  It's a very versatile stamp but especially good for baby cards I think.
I wanted to personalise the card and had wanted to do bunting across the top of the card.  However as Sebastian is such a long name I couldn't fit it on without changing the card size or layout or both and I was getting short of time by this point so decided on printing a label from the computer.  I stamped a frame from WMS Opera die tag stamps and cut it with the matching die.
I backed the giraffe with a pastry doily and tried laying it on a lemon 5x5 card base but it needed more matting.  I had a piece of the same white hemp weave card stock I had used to stamp the plaid background on, but it wasn't big enough so I punched four squares from it and created a quick and novel matting.  Necessity sometimes leads to ingenuity don't you think !
I did manage at the last minute to cut SEBASTIAN from the same blue card stock using the WPlus9 Folk Art alphabet for the envelope.  No time for a photo though.
I spent the whole morning ironing and packing.  We left at 3 yesterday afternoon to drive to Frankfurt airport and Andrew caught the plane to Australia with our two youngest.  Gavin and I said good bye at about 8pm and we got home last night at half past 11, so I was too tired to post last night.  Lady of leisure today though.

Not your typical wedding card!

Not your typical wedding card but then the invitation came by way of tea towel so I've tried to be a bit quirky.  

The tea towel was printed in a light teal colour so I have tried to match it or at least tone in with it.  The top of the tea towel has bunting and announces the names of the intended, while the bottom features a bicycle built for two along with the line of that song.  

Well the bunting was easy, I cut several bunting flags using the Spellbinders Nested Pennants, and spelt out CONGRATS using the Wplus9 Folk Art Alphabet die.

The bicycle built for two was a bit harder.  I have a bike stamp but not one built for two and it's a little small.  In the end I borrowed this Crafty Individuals stamp from my good friend Lena.  It's actually perfect because as ballet dancers for the Australian Ballet the young couple have danced at many of the big cities mentioned in this montage stamp and the postage mark which unfortunately is partially obscured by bunting is from Melbourne - their home town.  Andrew is flying down under tomorrow night for the wedding along with sons #2 and #3.  I'm staying here and making sure son #1 doesn't get up to too much mischief.

I used Mojo Monday's Sketch 301 for inspiration and would you believe missed the deadline again.  Oh well it is a great sketch isn't it.

Guit-Ta

 Burgundy ... Terra Cotta ...Icy Blue

Anyone else in love with this colour combination.  I swooned when I saw it over at the Play Date Cafe

last week.  I had a one or two things to take care of this week - like a birthday party for 17 children at the zoo (aaah) so I was late posting and missed the deadline.
This card was for Gavin's guitar teacher Michel.  He has been teaching one or other of my children for 10 years now so I really didn't want to miss making him a card for Gavin's last lesson.

Talk about digging into the stash.  The ribbon and metal book plate were from a Keeping Memories set which I have been hoarding for 2 or 3 years now.  It's so beautiful I have been reluctant to use it, but as the colour was perfect I decided now was the time.
The paper was from the Funky Vintage paper stack from Dovecraft. The guitar was from an old Inkadinkadoo set.
Though I would like to take credit for the Ta pun, it was only that I wanted a really small sentiment  to stamp on the star and the "Ta" from WMS Opera Tags stamps set was the only one small enough to fit.  It was only afterwards I realized the pun.
The music score background - one of my most used stamps - was from Stempel Winkel.  The guitar was stamped on the background sheet and I also stamped it on another sheet of the same paper and fussy cut it out (minus the broken strings and swirls) and popped it up on some dimensional squares.
Gavin managed a "Bien" in his final exam by pulling out all the stops at the last moment.  Because of his Baccalaureate exams and his end of school trip away he only just got one of the pieces he had to play the week before.  Sometimes I am in absolute awe of my children's talents.

Accentuating the Negative

Couldn't resist making another card using the negative die cut as an accent.  I needed  another Teacher Thank You Card for end of school year so I pulled out the WPlus9 Folk Art die set again to create this card.

It's rather bright isn't it.  Simon picked the background paper from a freebie paper stack called Totally Tropical by Kate Knight, and I followed this fabulous sketch from Mojo Monday who are celebrating their 300th challenge.  I've been wanting to try this sketch out all week, so glad I got a chance even though I've just scraped in by the skin of my teeth.

Stamps : The Number Game from Technique Tuesday
               CI-258 Uplifting Words from Crafty Individuals
               Opera Tag Stamps from Waltzing Mouse Stamps

Dies : Folk Art Alphabet from WPlus9 
          Opera Tags from Waltzing Mouse Stamps
          LR0106 by Marianne Design
          Spellbinders Circles

Merci for the Music

A quick card for Simon's solfege (ie. Musical theory) teacher, which explains all the musical imagery.  

Because time was limited, I CASEd a previous card of mine which was based on
Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge WMSC110.  

Stamps : WMS Fancy Phrases, Victorian Frippery, Cabin Plaid

Stempel Winkel Musical Score

Heindesign Judikins F-00601170 (Musical notes), StampWorld Saxophone C174

Inks : Lemonade Adirondack, Smokey Gray Versafine

Dies : Spellbinders Fancy Tags, Spellbinders Classic Squares

Others : White card stock, Pastry Doily, White Satin Ribbon