Is Spring finally here ????

Hello,

I can't believe it we actually have some sun and a bit of warmth, well it is when you are in the sun, bit chilly when you aren't.  But its just lovely to see a bright fresh day.  I think it cheers everyone up don't you?  Hubby is currently in his greenhouse pricking out over 300 plants and I'm about to do some crafting and it is so nice to have the conservatory door open to hear the birds.

Well I have that many cards to show you I really don't know where to start so I think I'll spoil you and combine a couple in the same post.   It was my hubby's  birthday last weekend and, as you can imagine, I had quite a few cards to make.  I generally find it difficult making cards for men  but for these I just found a couple of sketches that I had save and worked from there.

The first card I'm going to show you is the one from me.  Anyone who knows my hubby will know that he is a tea-a-holic.  So what better set to use then the Tea Shoppe stamp set.   Stampin' Up couldn't have made a more apt set for him.  You don't realise until you use this set just how detailed the large cup is.

Now a blokes card, to me,  means mens' colours so I used Pool Party and Island Indigo (both from the 2011-2013 in colours) along with Whisper White card and here is the end result:

I stamped the image onto Island Indigo card-stock with Whisper White ink and put it to one side to dry.  Whilst the image was drying I cut out one of the sizes from the Labels Collection Framelits and then embossed it with the Perfect Polka Dots Folder.  By now the image had dried so I used the next size down
(I had already measured it check the image fitted) and die cut the image.  The rest is pretty much straight forward.  The two sentiments were from both from the  Tea Shoppe stamp set.

Now for the second card.  This is one that Little Leo sent his grandad.  Boy is he getting big now and his speech is coming on in leaps and bounds.  It helps that his mum interacts a lot with him and doesn't just sit him in front of the TV, they are always doing something :)

Anyway, Leo wanted to do a quite simple but colourful card for his Grandad so chose to use the Pennant Parade stamp set to create a party hat card.  The colours were Wisteria Wonder, Lucky Limeade, Island Indigo, Pool Party and Calypso Coral, well in fact all the in-colours for 2011 to 2013

Its the first time I have put all 5 colours together and I think they look good.  The sentiment is from the stamp set For My Family a very useful set to have.  The punches used were Curly Label and Decorative Label.  Also used was the 1/2" punch to make the pom poms on the hats.

Well I hope you have liked my double post.  I'll be back soon to show you the cards I made for the girl to give to Dad.  Until then take care and look after yourself and your family.

Oh I forgot to show you that Leo even signed the card himself...... don't you just love those memories?

Take care

Hugs

Tracy -x-

Sweet Cake

Oh dear what has happened to the lovely weather we were experiencing not so long ago?   I think I jinxed it by buying a new chair for the garden  so I could get a bit of a tan before I go to Vienna in 12 days.  I don't think that's going to happen now !!!!!!

Anyway, on to today's card.  Its my niece's birthday today and I have had the card ready to post for several days but dare not  in case she saw it on here via facebook, hence the delay in posting.  I have used the new stamp set from the mini call Sweet Cake.  I will be honest and wasn't that impressed with it when I first saw it but having seen some of the end products at various training sessions I soon changed my mind.

The card I used is from the 2012 - 2013 in colour collection, Calypso Coral and Pool Party with Very Vanilla. From the mini catalogue I have use the Edgelits Adorning Accents to create the shape down the side and then the Textured Impression Embossing folder that matches the Edgelits to create the embossed shape.  To emphasise the cut out section I layered the inside of the card with some of beautiful designer paper from the mini and that is Twitterpatted.

The layers on the top of the card are Twitterpated and Calypso Coral card which has been embossed with the heart folder again from the Textured Embossing folder. The main image was stamped onto Very Vanilla in Calypso Coral and then cut out using the Framelits Label Colletction.. Although it doesn't stand out so well I have glittered the Calypso Coral stripes on the image.  I haven't taken a photo by on the inside I have put a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock and stamped the sentiment "Happiest wishes on your birthday" from the Hostess set Happiest Birthday Wishes in Pool Party Ink.  The sentiment on the front of the card is from the Sweet Cake set.

All products used will be listed below and if you wish to purchase any of the just drop me a line or give me a call/text and I'll happily order them for you.

Hugs
Tracy -x-

Products
Stamp sets - Sweet Cake, Happiest Birthday Wishes ( Hostess set)
Card - Calypso Coral, Pool Party, Very Vanilla
Ink - Calypso Coral, Pool Party
DSP - Twitterpated
Big Shot
Bigshot tools - Edgelits Adorning Accents, Textured Embossing folders, Framelits Labels Collection
Accessories - Glue Pen, Dazzling Diamonds

Vintage Vogue and Greenhouse Garden

As I've already said on numerous occasions I  recently attended Regional training in Leeds and one of the tasks we had to do was make our own name badges.  This has never been requested before and, to be honest, I kept forgetting all about it despite several reminders from my fellow demo's.

You may have read that I didn't finish my swaps until 11.30pm on the Friday night before training on the Saturday so the last thing I then wanted to do was design a name tag.   I had in my mind what I wanted to do so I was half way there, I just didn't have enough time.

Anyway, Saturday morning arrived and I was up bright and early so that I was ready for when my lift arrived.  Having done what I needed to do I had 10 minutes spare so I thought, I'll try and do my badge, if it goes wrong I'll just take the one from convention last year, I know it was "cheating" but what was a girl supposed to do in a hurry!!!!!!l

I decided to use the Framelits Die ( have I told you how much I loooovvvve these dies!!!!) along with Vintage Vogue and Braodsheet alphabet set.   I cut the two largest sizes out in Perfect Plum and Very Vanilla.  I stamped my name in Perfect Plum Ink onto the Very Vanilla.  I was going to use the Stamp a ma jig to line them up but decided I didn't have the time so I just went for it.  To my utter amazement they all came out in a straight line....yay.  To decorate around the edges I used the foliage stamp from Vintage Vogue and the little flower from Greenhouse Garden.

I was very pleased with the end result especially as it only took me 5 minutes to make so at least I wasn't the odd one out at training....lol

Thanks for stopping by, a full list of products will be shown below this post.  Take care until next time

Hugs
Tracy -x-

Products
Big Shot and Framelits dies
Stamp sets - Vintage Vogue, Greenhouse Garden, Broadsheet Alphabet
Inks - Perfect Plum, Rose Red
Cardstock - Perfect Plum, Very Vanilla
Accessories - Adhesive pearls

Tea Shoppe

As I type this I am sitting in my garden enjoying this lovely weather.  I hope it continues over the next few days as I'm not back at work until Monday.....yay

Now over my last couple of posts I've been promising to show you the swaps I made for Leeds training last weekend.  However, I forgot to take a picture of all the swaps together but luckily I kept two back for my friends that couldn't attend so can at least I can show you two of the colours.

I love the framelits die so couldn't resist using that again for my swaps.  I also like the Tea Shoppe stamp set from the summer mini so I came up with the idea of creating a pop up card using these two elements.  Little did I know what I was letting myself in for !!!!

To start with I'll show you the top of the swaps.  These were done last and, I must admit, not as nice as I wanted them to be but I just ran out of time.  Anyway here are the tops -

The colour combinations I went with as the main card were all from the bright family and consisted of Daffodil Delight, Tangerine Tango, Pacific Point and Melon Manba.  The ovals on the top matched the Double Sided Paper in the middle and all products will be listed at  the end of this post.

Ok so everything looks nice and easy so far doesn't it?   Then I went onto the next stage which was the embossing section.  If you are like me you will have a lot of items, be it SU or some other brand, that you don't use that often so I wanted to use something that I tend not to use but have most of the colours and thats the embossing powders.  So brain box here decided it would be good fun to heat emboss 64 cakes from Easy Events and 64 cups from the Tea Shoppe set.  That wasn't the painful bit, that came when I had to cut them all out so that I was able to create the inside of the card to look like this:-

This is the sentiment, again from the Tea Shoppe set that was stamped on the bottom half of the card 

It took me nearly 3 days to die cut all the card and dsp, emboss the images and then cut them all out.  My fingers were not only numb at the end of it but had a permanent dent in them as well....lol.  Well  I think everyone that received one of my swaps liked what they got which makes it all worthwhile :).

Thanks for stopping by my blog and I would love it if you would leave a comment.

Hugs
Tracy -x-


Products used:
Stamp sets - Tea Shoppe, Easy Events
Inks and cardstock  - Daffodil Delight, Melon Mamba, Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango
DSP- Twitterpated, Sweet Shop, Beyond the Garden, Paisley Petals
Punches - Extra Large Oval, Oval Scallop
Big Shot and Framelits Dies
Accessories - Heat Gun, Gold, Silver, Melon Manba and Wild Wasabi embossing powders, Versamark Ink, Paper Trimmer

Bordering on Romance

Sorry I haven't posted for a couple of days but this week saw me return to work after 51/2 months off.  Thankfully I am on a phased return and even though I have only worked 4 hours each day since Monday I've felt too tired to do anything so its been a real effort to get some cards done that I needed for yesterday and here is one of them, the other I'll share with you tomorrow :)

Yesterday was my lovely daughters birthday so obviously I needed to make her a card.  I was pondering on what stamp set to use and I remembered I had bought the lovely set Bordering on Romance but hadn't used it yet. I even took the brave decision to use my Aqua Pens and do a bit of "adult" colouring in !!!!! As Stampin' Up! inks are water based I stamped the main image in Stazon to prevent any "bleeding" of colours. Now I have never been one for colouring in as I always do a botch job but I was very pleased with my outcome on this card.  I'm sorry the picture isn't quite straight but, as usual, it was taken in a "need to get going" moment but I think it picks up all of the detail perfectly.

As you can see I have used many products from the new Summer Mini catalogue (which you can view by clicking on the image on the right) and enjoyed every minute of making this card.  It's great how the new Edgelits dies and matching embossing folders work so well together, Stampin' Up! really spoil us with their wonderful products don't you think?

The colour theme is Lucky Limeade and Wisteria Wonder in card/ink plus Rose Red ink and the paper is Speciality Sweet Shop DSP.  Now for those of you who are eagle eyed you may have noticed two things with this card?  Firstly the second layer of the Framelits dies is actually the reverse of the spotted paper, I've done this to show the de-bossed side as the white dots are actually raised and the second thing is that I've used the "waste" from the edgelits along the join of card and paper after all us crafters don't waste a thing do we????.  Here is a close up -  

I even put a little decoration on the inside of the card and envelope.

I think she liked it, although not as much as the money and new outfits we had bought her...lol

If you would like to purchase any of the items used to make this card just get in touch, a shopping list is at the end of this post.

Many thanks for visiting my blog and if you would like to leave a comment please do as I always enjoy reading them.

Hugs
Tracy -x-


Shopping List:
Stamp Sets: Bordering on Romance, For my Family, Happiest Birthday Wishes (hostess set)
Card- Wisteria Wonder, Lucky Limeade, Whisper White
Inks - Wisteria Wonder, Lucky Limeade, Regal Rose, Stazon
Big Shot 
Big shot accessories - Framelits - Labels Collection, Edgelits - Adorning Accents, Embossing Folders - Textured Impressions Adorning Accents and Designer Frames
Punches - Modern Label, Extra Large Oval
DSP - Speciality Sweet Shop
Accessories - Adhesive Pearls, Glitter Brads (Subtle)