… as if they had surprised a butterfly in a winter wood

I’m sharing a card today featuring a stamp from Magnolia’s first Vintage Box, a lovely wood grain pattern, and a Noor! Design Butterfly diecut.

This card was inspired by the current Fusion inspiration photo.  Rather than a musical background I decided to go with the wood grain.  I embossed this with white embossing powder to create a resistant outline before using some Brusho and Color Burst powder to create the smooshed effect from the inspiration photo.

At Less is More they are looking for shadows so I’ve added in two on my card.  The first is incredibly subtle; in fact, the whole sentiment is almost invisible (turns out those colour powders are harder to control than I thought!).  I stamped my sentiment in Old Olive ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder before shifting my paper ever so slightly to create the shadow in black ink.  I split the sentiment into two; my first stamping (the ‘wish’) was a much better shadow effect than the second.  But then I added in the colour powders and it all kinda didn’t matter so much as I realised, too late, I should have done the sentiment in a contrasting colour.

The second shadow is on my butterfly.  I cut two, one I inked in black and doused in clear embossing powder to form my shadow; the second I left white and covered in some Shabby White Fran-tage for some bling against my otherwise rather grungy background.

The current challenge at Crafting When We Can is CAS so I am linking my card up there too.  I’ve not as much white space as I had planned; again, it was my inability to control the colour powders that is to blame.  I do like the effect though and will definitely be playing some more with these.

Ingredients:

Chalks & Powders etc

Colourcraft Brusho ~ Sea Green

Ken Oliver Color Burst ~ Burnt Umber

Stampendous! Embossing Powder ~ Detail Clear & Detail White

Stampendous! Fran-tage Embossing Enamel ~ Aged Shabby White

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Noor! Design Die ~ 6003/0023 Butterfly

Inks & Paints etc

Stampin’ Up! Stampin’ Pad ~ Basic Black & Old Olive

Tim Holtz Distress Ink ~ Embossing

Papers

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow

Bellbird Paperarts ~ Cotton Blend Card

Stampin’ Up! Cardstock ~ Always Artichoke

Stamps

Magnolia ~ Wood Grain from Vintage Box 1

Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection ~ THJ009 Saying Stuff

Challenges

Crafting When We Can #143 ~ Clean and Simple

Fusion ~ Musical Butterfly

Less is More #326 ~ Lucky Dip Shadow!

Thanks for stopping by!

Shining in the East, beyond them far

Sharing the second Christmas card I’ve made today as the rain keeps tumbling down outside, this one feature some dies from Noor! Design and Clearly Besotted.

I’ve based my card on the current sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch.  Stars take the place of the cloud thanks to the current theme at Happy Little Stampers Christmas.  The largest star is actually a small shaker element, I’m loving making up little shakers to add a bit of interest to my CAS cards.

The colour scheme comes from Sparkles Christmas where they want to see projects that use silver or gold.  Using the metallic cardstocks makes for a lovely elegant card with just a touch of extra sparkle from the bitty gems, which replace the raindrops from the sketch.

Ingredients:

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Clearly Besotted Dies ~ Merry Christmas

Noor! Design Dies ~ 6002/2003 Sparkling Christmas

Embellishments 

Little Things from Lucy’s Cards Shaker Selections ~ Antique Christmas 

Zyneri Hotfix Rhinestone Crystals ~ 2mm Clear 

Papers 

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow 

Core’dinations Kraft Core Tim Holtz Collection Metallics Cardstock ~ Gold & Silver

Couture Creations ~ Acetate

The House of Paper Romanesque ~ White Champagne 

Challenges 

CAS(E) This Sketch ~ Sketch #213

Happy Little Stampers Christmas ~ Star

Sparkles Christmas #74 ~ Use Silver or Gold

Thanks for stopping by!

Come, on wings of joy we’ll fly...

My card today has been made for a colleague for her wedding and features die cuts instead of stamping as the focal feature.

The design of this card was inspired by Redanne who made a beautiful butterfly version, check out her blog to see her original and other gorgeous pieces.  I loved her card from the moment I saw it and knew I wanted to make one someday for something special.  So I went out and bought an accordion card die and then I waited for that special event, which finally came in the form of a wedding.

The bride is not really the traditional white flouncy sort which ruled out an all-white version.  So I was checking out challenges for some colour inspiration and it came from the elegant photo over at Cupcake Inspirations.  The lovely creamy icing looks (at least on my monitor) like the colour paper I’ve used to die cut the birds, the dusting of golden sugar flakes inspired the dusting of gold foil on my birds.  I didn’t have any cardstock in the same cupcakey beige so decided to go with some Kraft instead.  I liked the contrast of the dark table under the cupcakes but thought black would be too harsh for a wedding card so I used a darker brown cardstock to layer over the frame.

I’m not sure how Redanne managed to get her acetate pieces to glue together; I couldn’t so finally cleaned off all the hardened glue and attached them with jump rings.  Guess that’s what happens when you try something new!  And this card does feature a few new things for me, the bird die set is a recent purchase and never used before, the accordion style card is new for me and frankly using brown for a wedding card is a new thing for me too.  With all my new things I am entering my card over at Die Cut Diva’s current challenge.

The current theme at Penny’s Paper-Crafty is for more than one fold, which I have in this card so I am also linking my card up there.

Ingredients:

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Elizabeth Craft Designs Die ~ 772 Accordion Oval Card & 777 Oval Flourish Frame Edges

Noor! Design Die ~ 6002/0258 Blue Oval

Tim Holtz Alterations Decorative Strip Die ~ 659425 Birds in Flight

Papers

Core’dinations Smooth Cardstock ~ Kraft

Core’dinations Textured Cardstock ~ Chocolate Mocha

Couture Creations ~ Acetate

House of Paper Romanesque Card ~ White Champagne

Challenges

Cupcake Inspirations #341 ~ Elegance inspiration photo

Die Cut Diva’s ~ NEW Technique, Die, Stamp, Colours

Penny’s Paper-Crafty #259 ~ More than one fold

Thanks for stopping by!