Thanks to my Sicilian Saxophone Teacher

My Sicilian Saxophone Teacher  retires shortly and tomorrow is my last lesson.  Just so we're clear - that's a teacher of saxophone who is Sicilian, not a teacher of the Sicilian Saxophone (as far as I know there's no such instrument).
I made this card to thank him for everything he's done for me these past two years and also to wish him all the best in the future.
Since I liked the sketch from this weeks Sketch'n'Stash challenge so much, I thought I'd use it again.

Starting with some 6x6 DP paper which is actually a map of Southern Italy (how perfect was that), I inked up some glossy cardstock with yellows, browns and gold alcohol inks to tone in with it and cut 2 ATC cards using the Tim Holtz ATC die.  One I overstamped with a Cities of the World montage stamp from Katzelkraft, and the other with this music score stamp from Stempel Winkel.  On another scrap I stamped this saxophone, and fussy cut it out.  I then mounted this on the musical score with dimensional tape.  This saxophone stamp is really old.  I think I bought it for Gavin's 4th birthday invitations and he has just turned 20 - I'd say that qualifies for digging deep into the stash.

I also used Craft Individuals stamp set CI-239 to create the small elements on the left.  All edges were distressed with Antique Linen Distress Ink.  The sentiment was computer generated and cut with the Spellbinders Nested Pennants set.

Enjoy what's left of the week and the week end.  I hear the weather is supposed to improve here, hope it's good where you are :)

Thank you for a special teacher

Recently while looking for inspiration, I stumbled upon a wonderful sketch at Sketch'n'Stash.  It seemed perfect for what I wanted to do which was make a thank you card for Simon's teacher which included alpha and numeric images to represent the hard work she's put into teaching him to read and count these last 2 years.

Sketch'n'Stash also sets the other challenge of using your newest and/or neglected stash items.  I'm a great one for collecting stamp sets and die cuts and paper stacks and not using them.  I have wonderful plans for them when I buy them but alas they remain just that - plans.  So I hope to visit this blog often in the future with the aim of forcing me to realize some of those plans.

I recently ordered a Folk Art Alphabet die from WPlus9.  The 28 characters (& and ! are included) come wired together but can be easily separated if you so wish.  When it first arrived I had no particular use in mind so I just die cut a complete alphabet to try it out.  Afterwards, the negative caught my eye, it reminded me of an old fashioned stencil, and I thought it could make a good element for a card - particularly as the end of school year was drawing ever closer.  I did a little fiddling with the die and removed some of the letters so I could die cut a neat rectangle (the right side was uneven and had to be covered with ribbon but the top left and bottom were neat).  I adhered this die cut rectangle to some acetate and added the missing bits from the "A", the "B", "O" and "R".  

While at a craft fair a year or two ago I bought a wonderful little stamp called The Number Game from Technique Tuesday.  I did some playing around with it when I first got it home but hadn't ever really put it to good use.  For this card, I stamped it with Versamark and embossed with Clearsnap Pistachio embossing powder.  Just for the heck of it I die cut it with a Spellbinders Labels 8 die (another underused stash item).  I like how you can see through the letters to the numbers underneath.

The butterflies were punched with what was probably one of the first stash tools I ever bought.  It certainly is one of my oldest punches.  I now have several butterfly dies but they were all too big for this project.  I overstamped the butterflies with a text stamp from Crafty Individuals using Versamark.  I was going to emboss with the Pistachio embossing powder but I preferred the tone on tone look of the Versamark alone.

The little thank you tag was stamped with two stamps from the Waltzing Mouse Opera Tag Stamps set and cut with the matching die set.

The papers were all from a freebie paper stack which came with a recent edition of Cardmaking and Papercraft called Spring Jubilee from Pink Paislee.  I distressed nearly all elements with Worn Lipstick Distress Ink.

I hope you like it - I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

Pop up Sunflower

A friend of mine has her birthday today and I finally finished this sunflower card for her last night.  It's a little experimental so please don't look too closely at the details.  In fact it did cause me a bit of grief and I think this is Sunflower card mark III and with each attempt, attention to detail got poorer as I wasn't sure if it was going to be binned as well !!!
The green/gold/black colour combination are her favourite colours (according to her girls anyway) - being those of the Jamaican flag, which is why the sunflower sprung to mind as the focal image.
The distressed polka dots on the pot and sentiment page were stamped with Peeled Paint DI.  My dear friend Lena bought this for me at a craft fair in Metz I was unable to get to.  It's from a French company called Aladine.
The Sun image and "wishing you sunshine" sentiment are from a MyStampBox set called appropriately enough Wishing you Sunshine.  The rest of the sentiment was from the Waltzing Mouse Celtic Heritage set.
The sunflower is a sizzix Original die - Sunflower #3 cut from yellow card and distressed with Mustard Seed and Wild Honey DIs.  The leaves were cut using a spellbinders die which I bought at the same time as my cuttlebug several years ago and I have no idea what the name is.  The flowerpot was cut using a Spellbinders Pennant die.
Originally there was to have been a pull tag at the bottom.  But for some reason it kept snagging.  Pulling from the top worked perfectly so I added a filigree butterfly to the flower with a yellow brad and some some yellow embroidery floss to indicate it's to be pulled.  I also had to cover the semi-circle I had punched on the bottom of the front panel for the tag, so I created a saucer for the flowerpot with two spellbinders petite ovals.  Naturally once this was done the pulling mechanism came good and I could have gone with my original design after all.
Here are some intermediate step photos so you can see how the double slider mechanism works.  That white strip in the middle is a strip of plastic shopping bag.  As you can see there is a notch at the top and bottom of the slider panel so it resembles a spool.  I found this works better and the plastic is not so visible when you look down at the card from the top.

As my friends keep telling me to get out more, I am entering this in the Lawnscaping Challenge 60 to add dimension and layers on my project.  I hope this qualifies as dimension even though I didn't use any pop dots.