I haven’t joined in with any of the challenges yet on The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers blog, but I came across this sentiment yesterday while looking for something else, and I decided I couldn’t go past joining in the Z is for Zombies challenge. It really makes me laugh, and would make an awesome non-mushy Valentine’s Day card! 😛
Supplies used:
Inks: Red Velvet, Dusty Rose, Sweet Mango, Sweet Corn by Gina K Designs
Sentiment: Sassy Pants Birthday Greetings by My Favorite Things
Splatters: Gorgeous Grunge by Stampin’ Up! (retired), and Red Hot embossing powder by Gina K Designs
Day 9 of CardMaynia … I used a fussy cut flower and leaf from my first ever colouring exercise when I started cardmaking last year. Trying to use up things that have been sitting around unloved.
Oh boy I’m way out of my comfort zone with this one – I actually combined three challenges in one this time, covering a sketch challenge set by a new team, along with completing this week’s Tic Tac Toe Challenge, and today’s card for my personal CardMaynia challenge.
I decided to choose column 1, which is: White on white, Silver, and Die cut.
This one uses all Stampin’ Up! products, which was tough for me to do:
I managed to combine two challenges into one card, as well as getting a Mother’s Day card ready to send to NZ. Mum doesn’t know me anymore and can’t converse, but I still try to send her some bright cheery cards regularly to brighten her room.
For Tic Toe Challenge 159 I chose bright colours, ribbon of twine, and Mother’s Day.
Supplies used:
Stamps: Flowers & leaves: Pretty Perennials by Stampin’ Up! (retired) Sentiment: Dressed to Impress by Stampin’ Up! (retired)
Dies & Embossing: Perennial Petals by Stampin’ Up! Scalloped Contours by Stampin’ Up!
Inks: Inks by Stampin’ Up!: Tahitian Tide, Daffodil Delight, Magenta Madness, Granny Smith Green
Embellishments: Luminous Lemon baubles by Trinity Stamps Stained Glass embossing folder by Kaisercraft Magenta Madness ribbon by Stampin’ Up!
Today marks my one-year anniversary of cardmaking – I’d signed up for some Stampin’ Up! monthly card kits from a local demonstrator 18 months ago but didn’t get a chance to start making any as I had a call my Mum had had a stroke in NZ and was unlikely to survive. My life was turned upside down and I managed to eventually get quarantine accommodation so I could fly to NZ to be by her bedside and spent a few months emptying the family home (my Dad passed away not long before Covid hit). There were also lots of work upheavals as well, so it was the perfect storm emotionally for me and my resilience took a real beating. BUT I started cardmaking as soon as I got back home to Australia as it helped me take my mind off things back home.
It’s amazing how the simple act of learning a new craft and bending your mind into a different direction really helps to feed the soul and take your mind off your worries. It’s been a long difficult road this year, but I’m incredibly blessed to have found this new hobby of mine (my bank manager might disagree, however).
As a long-time cross stitcher as my main hobby, I’ve been used to participating in ‘StitchMaynia’ or similar events where we work on a different stitching project each day throughout the month of May. I’m not really stitching at the moment because cardmaking is still my ‘happy place’, so I’ve decided to do my own version this year and call it ‘CardMaynia’. My aim, all going well, is to create a card (or at least make a start on a card) using a different stamp or die set every day in May. I hope to be able to finally christen some sets I’ve purchased but haven’t touched (and, ahem, there are LOTS), especially some that I bought while I was in NZ doing ‘comfort shopping’.
So, here is my first card for CardMaynia – using one of the first stamp sets I’d ever ordered (from a secondhand Facebook group) … ‘Wetlands’ by Stampin’ Up! (an older retired set). As it was a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator that got me started on my cardmaking journey, I thought it only fitting that it should be the brand I kicked off with today.
While scrolling through Pinterest and seeing some alcohol ink background cards, a totally unrelated card idea came to mind – to use some curvy dies and Ink Drops papers from Craft Consortium to make a clean and simple card. To say I’m in love with the results would be an understatement – it’s such a versatile and simple design that has a totally different look depending on the choice of cardstock and papers used. I see many of these in my future, and it’s a perfect way to use up some larger paper scraps!
I’ve also created a quick visual tutorial of how I created the cardfront panels, as I’ve had a few people ask how to do these. I hope this is helpful 🙂
Using Ink Drops Dusk paper pad by Craft Consortium, #9 Borders Etched Dies by PhotoPlay, Harvest dies by Stampin’ Up!Using Ink Drops Dusk paper pad by Craft Consortium, Quite Curvy dies by Stampin’ Up! (retired), various flower dies by SpellbindersUsing Ink Drops Dusk paper pad by Craft Consortium, Quite Curvy dies by Stampin’ Up! (retired), Eucalyptus 3 die by Paper Rose, edges swinked with Versamark ink and heat embossed with brass embossing powder by Hero ArtsUsing Hydrangea Lawns (12×12) paper pad by Dress My Craft, and Quite Curvy dies by Stampin’ Up! (retired)
How to create the card front
Supplies needed:
Cardstock for the curved layers – I used white in this example
Card base – I’m using a US A2 card size
Patterned paper or previously created background – I’m using a paper from the Ink Drops – Dusk paper pad by Craft Consortium
Curvy die of your choice – I’m using ‘Quite Curvy’ dies by Stampin’ Up! (retired)
Take your piece of cardstock cut to the size of the card front. Place your curvy die in the location where you want the bottom curve to be on your card. In my case I like the curved panel to sit approx 1/3 from the bottom of the card so that’s where I placed my die. I don’t measure at all, just eyeball where I think the die should sit.
Do the same thing with your top curve. I decided I like to have the curves with a bit more ‘movement’ so I flipped my curvy die around so the curve went in the opposite direction at the top – that gave me a mix of wide and narrow parts on the card. You can also keep the die the same way for both cuts and it’ll just give a more consistent wave across the card front. Once again I decided I like my card to have a wider margin of open space towards the top of the card, so I kept the top space a bit larger than the bottom – but there are no rules to the width to use.
Next I took my card base and placed the two die cuts in place – I measured between the width between the top of the die cut spaces to below the bottom of the die cut spaces (make sure to allow for the holes). This is how to work out the height of the paper needed to fill the space. In this example I was able to use a piece of patterned paper 2.5″ high.
After I cut my strip of patterned paper I placed that on the card front. I overlaid the die cut pieces on top so I can be sure that the paper will sit behind the open spaces. Sometimes you need to move the paper around a bit to get the placement right.
Once I’m happy I keep one hand on the paper piece while I move the die cuts out of the way, and I put a small pencil mark at the bottom of the paper strip so I know where to line it up.
Use your adhesive of choice to glue the paper strip to the card base, using the pencil mark as a guide for the bottom edge of the strip.
Glue your bottom die cut in place on top of the card base, aligning the bottom and sides with the card base.
Do the same with the remaining die cut panel at the top of the card front. Then embellish it as you want.
I hope that all makes sense – but if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to answer.
I’ll be honest I created this background maybe 9 months ago, and never really liked it. The colour choices didn’t work for me, and it was too busy for my liking. That’s the great thing about experimenting, though, if we don’t try colour combinations that take us out of our comfort zone we never learn from the experience. In this case I love the stamp set (Sketched Bouquet by Simon Hurley) but I didn’t love the Nuvo shimmer powders I used.
I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, though, even though it was unloved – and over the last few months I’ve noticed other designs just using a portion of busy backgrounds and got the idea to chop up the background for other uses. What was a very ugly (to me) background became three cards I’m pretty happy with overall … it’s a reminder to never give up on something, you just never know what its future holds.
Here’s the original background:
And here are the three cards I made out of it:
Here I used Plum Punch (and Ivory) cardstock and a happy birthday die by Gina K Designs – I ink blended the ‘happy’ die cuts with a bit of Plum Punch ink to dark it up slightly. The matte gold cardstock is from Tonic.
I’ve not very good at doing clean and simple cards, so this was a challenge – but I really loved the elegance of the finished card. I’ll add a small sentiment once I’ve decided what to use the card for. I used my Scor-pal to score lines down the sides, then once everything was stuck down I felt it was a bit plain, so I threaded a matte gold strip underneath the boxes and it just finished it off beautifully. I really like this one!
After I’d made the first card, I wished I’d thought of embossing the cardstock first – so I decided to do that with my final strip of the background, and I really like the effect. I kept the sentiment really simple this time around, and I’m pretty happy with the result of this one too. Amazing how different cards can look with just some small changes made to the design! Once again using Plum Punch and Ivory cardstocks and Plum Punch ink by Gina K Designs, and the sentiment is from the Beautiful Butterflies 2 stamp set, also by Gina K Designs. I used the Tin Tile embossing folder (retired) by Stampin’ Up!
