Blue Chrysanthemum

Another pretty, but simple, 5x5in card.

I started out with nothing but white card and paper.  I cut the mats using Tonic layering dies, the corner is the Tattered Lace Oriental Chrysanthemum and the greeting is from the All Occasion Sentiments, also by Tattered Lace.  I coloured the bottom mat, the chrysanthemum and the greeting with a single Spectrum Noir Pen (TB3) and put everything together.  I really like this monochromatic look, hope you do, too.

Study in blue and white

I wanted to make a very quick and simple card which looked lovely and would go in the post easily, so I came up with this.

All the dies I used are from Tattered Lace.  I cut the Bloomsbury die and the greeting, using the All Occasions Sentiments dies, from white Centura Pearl Card, and the flowers, Mini Blooms, from white irridescent paper, and coloured them all with a Spectrum Noir pen (TB3).  After shaping and layering up the flowers, I stuck everything onto the card.  I added pearls to the centre of all the flowers, including those on the central panel.

Lace and Roses

For today's card I folded a piece of A4 card and cut through both layers with a square Tonic layering die to use as the card base.  I took a second piece of the same card and cut a frame to overlay the front of the card base.

I cut two of the Tattered Lace Double Delights Adore and adhered them to the back of the frame, at the top and the bottom.  I cut off the excess that was overhanging the frame, and glued the frame to the card.  I cut a circle from the Tonic scalloped circle layering dies and coloured it with a peach Spectrum Noir Pen.  I cut a slightly smaller plain circle from the same card that I used as a card base.  I stuck the two together, added a greeting and placed it in the centre of the card.
I made six roses from the Britannia Small Rose dies and glued them along the join between the two Double Deligjts Adore.  I made two roses from the medium Britannia Rose dies and put them in two of the corners.  All of the roses were coloured with the same peach pen as the scalloped circle.

Pop-up box card

This was my first attempt at making a pop-up box card.

I saw these on TV where they were selling kits of die-cut boxes and flowers and I thought to myself "the box would be easy to construct and I make my own flowers, so....".  So I worked it out and made one.
I started with a sheet of card and scored it at 7, 14, 21 and 28cm. This left a tab at the end to glue the structure together.  I then scored across the tab and the next three panels at 10cm down.  I cut down the 10cm score line between each of the panels and the tab, folded the card at all the score lines and cut the top of the tab off, as you only need to glue the bottom.  Before construction, I embossed two A4 papers with two different X-Cut embossing folders.  From one paper I cut three panels of 10.5 x 6.5cm.  From the other I cut three panels of 9.5 x 6.5cm and one panel of 20.5 x 6.5cm.  I coloured all of these panels with Bundled Sage Distress Ink.  I laid the card down flat and glued the first three green panels to the bottom panels of the card.  I then folded the top panels down and stuck the next three green panels onto these.
The next stage was to construct the box.  I put wet glue, or you could use strong double-sided tape, onto the tab and stuck the box together so that the tab is on the inside.  I stuck the final green panel onto the inside back panel, thus covering the tab and giving a nicer finish.
The next step was decoration.  I used two borders that I cut from the Joy Crafts Butterfly Border die, coloured them with Shaded Lilac Distress Ink and put these around the base of the box.  The large butterfly is the Demure Butterfly from Tattered Lace, which I coloured to match the butterfly border around the base.  The other butterflies are the Cheery Lynn Small Exotic Butterflies with angel wings, which I coloured using Spectrum Noir alcohol pens.  I cut the Tattered Lace Mini Blooms and Beautiful Blooms several times, coloured them with Spectrum Noir pens to match with the other colours used, shaped them and layered them up to create dimension.  I finished off by adding pearls to the flowers which hadn't already got a centre.

Oops, have got to edit this as I missed a bit - as if it isn't long enough already.  When constructing the box I cut two additional pieces of card measuring 8x1.5cm, scored in from each end at 0.5cm and folded into a Z shape. I added a 6.5x1cm strip of the green embossed paper to each and glued these pieces horizontally into the box, lining the top each to the top of the box.  I cut three strips of 1cm card and coloured it green (you could also use acetate) and stuck one of the butterflies onto each.  These were then glued to the strips going across.

Blooming Roses

My favourite flowers are roses and so, when I found some dies for cutting rose petals and stamens, I was delighted.  Each die cuts four rose petals and two stamens with each pass through the machine.  As I use 160gsm paper I cut two sheets together of the three different sizes of rose and the leaves at the same time.
Today's card is one I made last year and the first one I made using the roses.  It was for my Mum's birthday and I certainly used a lot of them.

The dies used are the small and medium rose dies, the rose leaves and the medium lattice from Britannia.  The one with the greeting on is by Spellbinders. 

I started with two pieces of A5 card, cut the lattice into both ends of each and joined them together with an extra piece of card to form an easel card.  I made loads of roses and buds, and because I had cut them from white paper, I selected several of the paler colours from the Spectrum Noir pens.  I also coloured the leaves.  I laid out the leaves, roses and buds to form the initial C, coloured the square die to match some of the roses, added a greeting and put this into the empty space with more leaves and a rose.  I adhered three flowers and some leaves to the bottom card to form a ledge to rest the top card against to make the easel.

As I said earlier this card was for Mum's birthday last year and her birthday is nearly upon us again.  I've got absolutely no idea what to create for her this year. Whatever I do has got to be something pretty good as (1) I want it to be better than the card above and (2) Mum's a crafter too, so it's got to be pretty impressive.

Butterflies and flowers

I made this project using an 8x8in card blank and two mats.  I used a punch to round all the corners.

I coloured the base mat with Shaded Lilac Distress Ink and, after embossing the top mat with a stencil from Clarity Stamps, I coloured it with Bundled Sage Distress Ink.  I cut four of the Tattered Lace Detailed Flourish and coloured them with DG3 from the Spectrum Noir Pens.  I cut the Tattered Lace Mini Blooms several times, coloured them with Spectrum Noirs and layered them up to create dimensional flowers.  I used the Cheery Lynn Small Exotic Butterflies set and coloured the 'Angel Wings' with the Shaded Lilac to match the base mat.  For those of you who don't know 'Angel Wings' are the solid bit behind the filigree wings.  I added two matted circles just off-centre and a sentiment that was cut from the Tattered Lace Elegant Alphabet dies.  These were coloured with shades already used.  To finish, I added small blobs of Cosmic Shimmer Pearl Glue to the centre of each flower.
Isn't it amazing what can be made from plain white card and paper, colouring mediums and a little bit of glue.

Ornate Frame and roses

Another 8x8in card using the Papermania Parisienne Blue Capsule Collection.

I covered the card with an 8x8in paper, then placed a co-ordinating 6x6in paper onto a mat that I coloured with a Spectrum Noir pen to separate the patterns.  I cut the three Tattered Lace Ornate Frames and coloured the outer and inner parts to match the blue mat.  I coloured the other frame in a contrasting colour, layered them up and added a gold mirri 50 which was cut using the Tattered Lace Elegant Alphabet.  I cut some gold mirri swirls from the Tonic Frond Finesse set of dies, and made some roses from the Britannia Large Rose dies.  I coloured the roses in the same contrasting red as the second frame.

Red, white and blue

Today's project is an 8x8in card.

I used a 6x6in paper from the Papermania Parisienne Blue Capsule Collection pack and placed this on a mat towards the top right of the card.  I cut the four Chantilly Petal corners, by Tattered Lace, from white Centura Pearl card and coloured them with a Spectrum Noir pen to match the blue on the paper.  I cut a central panel and again coloured it to match.  The sentiment is from the Tattered Lace All Occasions dies.  I cut two strips of a satin finish paper, coloured them to match and added them to left and bottom of the card to look like ribbon.  I cut and made the roses from the Britannia Rose dies and added these for embellishment.  

Bird in a frame

Now for something a little different.

Today's project is small frame made from hardboard.

First, I painted the whole unit white as I didn't think that the natural brown colour would work as well.  All the papers used, apart from the pink mat in the centre, are from Papermania's wonderful Botanicals Collection.  The pink mat was coloured using Spectrum Noir pens with a topper added.  I cut the green frame and, after attaching a ribbon loop, covered the back with the same paper to keep everything tidy.  The butterflies were cut using Cheery Lynn dies and the flowers and leaves from Tattered Lace Mini Blooms. The pink ones were coloured with the same colour Spectrum Noir pen as the mat.  The butterflies and flowers were then sprayed with Crafter's Companion Spray and Sparkle Pearl Diamond Glitter Varnish.  I added tiny gems to the flowers on the central image and to the flowers and butterflies on the frame.  I think that this would make a lovely small, but inexpensive gift.