New Year's cards

I haven't made any christmascard this year and only two New Year's cards which I like to show today. The first one was inspired by Ellen's card. I had some handmade kraft paper which tears perfectly. I heat embossed '2016' in the centre of the star (hardly visible on the pictures) and wrote a wish inside the card as I didn't have much space on the front to stamp a wish.

I used the same kraft paper on the second card. With some twine I created a centre on the design paper. I added two stars and stamped  a wish. Looks very simple, but it took me a long time before I was content with the result.  

Hopefully the postman did a good job and delivered these on time.The cards are also a little bit for you, dear readers. I wish you a very happy, healthy, creative and blessed 2016!

Twin brothers

I made a card for newborn twin brothers. I thought that these stamps from Mama Elephant's Sunday Stroll would be appropriate although they are not really about babies and so on. I don't have a specific sentiment for twins and I had not enough space on my card to add a sentiment, so I decided to leave the card without one and to just write a message inside.

Thanks for hopping by!

Shake it! #2

No handmade christmas cards for me this year. Haven't got time to create whole series. So, in the overload of christmas cards these days I've got some general cards for you!

In August I won a $100,- gift card from MFT and you can imagine that I performed a little dance after I read their e-mail with happy news. Of course I had a wish lists and my father wanted it to bring it after his visit to the States. Unfortunately, some of the products on my wish list were sold out, so I had to choose some other sets like this Birthday Bear set. It turned out to be a good choice. The bears are lovely and it has got great sentiments. I didn't order the dies, but it fuzzy handcut is no problem at all with this set. I created a shaker cards with quite a simple sketch.

The  London Mouse stamps and the London skyline die were a must have for me as a teacher of English. I wouldn't have ordered these sets if I had to buy them, because they are quite expensive. But with this gift card I couldn't resist these sets. I had seen so many beautiful cards made with them. However, I have some troubles with the stamps. I have great ideas in mind, but it doesn't work at all. This is the first card I have finished using the sets although I only used the London Eye stamp... Hopefully, more will follow! For this card I used the same idea as for the first card, but now I created a hill to give the card more interest. The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn and I stamped it with Stazon on acetate.In case you wonders what is under the 's' of congrats, it is just a sequin who could resist gravity...

All papers I used for today's cards are from Simple Stories. With some leftovers I created the last card. With the gift card I ordered some stitched circle dies as well and I used these dies for this card. The star is from spellbinder (without any border at all) and the Hello die is from Lawn Fawn.

That was it for today. Thanks for hopping by and I wish all of you a lovely weekend!

shake it!

Just a short post today! I've made a shaker card for a newborn girl. I used some papers from Simple Stories. The name is stamped with a Hema alphabet and heat embossed. A couple of months ago I bought this red filling at Xenos. Unfortunately, the jar was so full that after opening the red stuff was scattered all over my workspace. What a mess! Luckily there is more than enough left. And it is perfect filling material as is shakes very well.

Thanks for coming by!

Challenge - forgotten materials

Over the past few weeks I have seen many cards on blogs made with forgotten materials or leftovers. Many cardmakers do have tons of material in cupboards, drawers and boxes waiting to be used one day. I am not an exeption! I have a box full with paper pads, 12x12 papers and leftovers. Beautiful papers and lovely prints. But not used that often... I observe a tendency to buy new stuff and to forget all the nice stuff in my cupboard. Every month new products are released and the temptation to buy it is so big... And when these new stuff have been arrived, a new release is there and you really want to have that as well and forgot all about your previous purchases. Well, this scenario is a bit black and white, but I think you understand what I mean. At first I thought to challenge myself for 2016 to buy nothing except cardstock, glue and that sort of things. However, I know myself and I am pretty sure I cannot maintain this challenge. But being a bit more conscious is not that bad, is it. So, I challenge myself to dig more often into my boxes to find materials bought longer time ago and use these in my projects. For today's projects I used a lovely Basic Grey paperline 'Picadilly' and a flower die by Maggie Holmes for Crate paper (it was such a die I wanted to have very, very quickly after the release and since I've got it I used it only three times or so...).

First a card I made for GerJanne who celebrates her birthday today. By the way, the gingham border is a leftover from my previous project :)

Second project is the decoration of a Tony's Chocolonely. The paper of the bar (orange - caramel-seasalt mjum!) matches perfectly with the paperline!

That's it for today! Thanks for stopping by!

Love is all you need

Something totally different from my previous post is today's card. I created a background with glimmer mist and a stencil and I put a vellum circle to it. I adhered some metal thread, a banner with a 'is all you need', heat embossed with Lawn Fawn's Milo-ABC. I used 'Wink of Stella' to create a glimmer on the read heart. I die cut the love die three times and glued them together in a way to create some dimension in the die cut. Both love and heart are dies from Lawn Fawn. The card was a little empty without an extra background, so I decided to use a gingham paper.

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely weekend!

Post

Two cards made with Mama Elephant's Sunday Stroll. Just because it is nice sending postcards without any reason at all.

Thanks for stopping by!

roses are blue?!

When making cards your fantasy can go everywhere. I don't know if there are blue roses, but on my cards it is possible! I stamped a background with the roses and leaves stamps from SU Painted Petals. The sentiment (Papertrey Ink)  is heat embossed on black cardstock. Some metal thread and some gems are the finishing touch.

Maybe a little too sweet is the next one. Same idea, but now in pinks...

Enjoy the weekend!

Dots

I am a lover of dots! Some collegues call me 'Mrs. Dotty' as my school bag has got dots, I have one favourite dress with dots and my summer coat has got dots as well. I guess there are worse nicknames you can get... In the Stampin Up set 'Painted Petals' is one stamp with a row of dots which I used for today's cards. I was inspired by Lauren Bassen's bright and colourful designs. She often uses black cardstock and heat embossing techniques for her sentiments in combination with thread, for example this one. The sentiments I have used are from Els Brigé's ''t Is je verjaardag' set. Hardly visible, but I addes on some dots a little 'wink of Stella'.

I stamped a second card in same colour combo of greens and blues, but I heat embossed a sentiment with gold embossingpowder.

That's it for now! A dotty thank you for coming by!

Little hearts

This morning I got up very early to do some studying for my tests next Wednesday. But as you need a break sometimes I spent some time in my little 'studio'. This morning I saw on Jennifer McGuire's blog this tutorial and as I have many of these little stamps I decided to give it a try. I stamped one little heart in four different colours red and pink (good variety after the blues and greens in my previous post . I love the way Jennifer worked it out with blended colours and will give that a try one day.
After stamping I did some die cutting with Lawn Faws word die 'love'. Perfect card for a couple celebrating an anniversary.

Back to work now! Enjoy your weekend!

A bunch of cards - Blue & Green

I've got a bunch of cards for you today! And they have one common theme, namely blue and green. I am a lover of blue and I've got some new ink cubes from PTI with blue tones. Love them! So, here we go!

I have been a fan of Els Brigé for a long time. I love her versatile style, the soft colours she uses and the many techniques she performs. The last couple of weeks I couldn't catch up with reading blogs, so I totally missed the launch of her stamp sets. When I discovered them last week, I was over the moon! Finally, some Dutch sentiment stamps which I really, really like! So, I immediately ordered two sets ('t Is je verjaardag - warme wensen) and received them very fast. Today I show you some cards with the Birthday set.
For the first card I used Avery Elle's balloons and stamped them in blues and green/aqua. With this card I like to participate in the current Addicted to Stamps challenge.

For the next card I used a SU set. I have some troubles with this set. I have seen many card with it, which are beautiful, but when I ink the stamps and try to do something with it... well, it doesn't work that well. However, I'm quite satisfied with this one. Just some flower stamping and one bold sentiment. I distressed the edges with a paper distresser tool.

In my previous post I showed you some card made with Papertrey Ink's Twig Wreath. Well, this set works perfectly well with Els Brigé's stamps.

And finally, two more wreaths, but now with a sentiment from PTI and the other one made with a Lawn Fawn's ABC.

That's it! Thanks for coming by!

Twig wreath

My father has visited friends in the USA recently. I asked him to spare some space in his suitcases, which he was willing to do! So, I ordered some stuff at Papertrey Ink. One of the stampsets I ordered was Twig Wreath. This morning I inked this set for the very first time. I kept it quite simpel by stamping the wreath twice and then added flowers and leaves. I added a strip of the autumn line of Simple stories to the bottom and so I had two cards very quickly finished. Of course some twine to finish it off.

Hope to share some cards made with my new sets very soon!
Thanks for coming by.

Still alive and kicking

Yep, I'm still alive and kicking! First few weeks back at school were hard. So many things to do, so little time. I sometimes find my way to my craft room. However, I keep it quite simple and create cards based on earlier creations. Also this card. Still like the use of vellum. It has been a long time ago since I used PTI's Hanging Out, but it is such a perfect set for baby cards.The quality of the picture is bad. I took it with my iPad and lost somewhere on the way to this blog some pixels...

Next card is made with PTI's Garden Variety.

I sometimes take a look in blogland and visit pinterest, I try to create a card, I do some stitches and I'm so looking forward to a time where I will have a little more time :)

Vellum #2

Inspired by the challenge at CAS on Sunday and the card I made for it, I continued with vellum. I used two stamp sets from Stampin Up: Lotus Blossom and Painted Petals. I was really fond of these sets when they were released, but I struggle a little when I want to use them. However, with these two cards I am really satisfied. I stamped the sentiment onto the vellum. A strip of patterned paper, kraft and some sewing to finish the card. Unfortunately it is hardly visisble that I used vellum as a layer over the cardbase, but trust me I have used it for sure!
With the first card I'd like to participate in the current challenge at Addicted to Stamps - #159 CAS

Enjoy your weekend!

SU meets PTI

I really love matching and mixing papers, stamps and brands. Last year I bought patterned paper from SU and I wanted to create something with it. So, I looked at the papers and thought of  Papertrey Ink's Ruby Rose. Perfect Match! The sentiment is from PTI as well.

I have been working since Monday after a lovely summer break. New schoolyear, fresh start! Have to find my rythm again, but after the first week I will be used to it again.
Thanks for coming by!

Vellum

As I wrote yesterday I've got time to participate in challenges this week. Today I like to show the card I made for the CAS on Sunday challenge 'Vellum'. I stamped some balloons from Avery Elle onto white cardstock. I cut a part of vellum, same seize as the base and adhered it with stitches at the top of the card. With a Hema Alphabet (Thanks, Rhodé!) I stamped 'hip hip hooray' using StazOn ink. Finally, I added a bow of twine. On the second photo you can see the effect of vellum. I stamped the balloons in the same colour using the same cardstock I used for the base. I like the soft look the vellum gives to a card. I stamped the balloons also in brown and pink for a more feminine look and I did also some stitching on the bottom of the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Make your mark

This week is my final holiday week and I try to spend as much time as possible in my craft room. Next week school starts again and in two weeks time the lectures for my Master course will start. I'm not sure if it will leave me any time to craft. It is also a week that I have a bit more time for challenges. So, today I'd like to participate in the challenge over at the Addicted to stamps blog.  Its theme is: 'Make your mark'. I created a card with some dp from Crate Paper. I left some marks by stitching the scraps, stamping some hearts and splashing with glimmer mist. The Hello Die is from Lawn Fawn (again in gold!) and the wooden embellishment from Studio Calico.

Have a nice Tuesday!

Pretty Flowers

I'm in a flower mood, so I got three cards with flowers for you! I used two sets of Papertrey Ink, Mini Blooms and Natural Beauties. I think more flower cards will follow! I need some stash and these cards are quite easy and simple to create.

Thanks for stopping by!

Who's afraid of gold?

To be honest, I am not very fond of gold, so when I wear jewellery I prefer silver to gold. However, a couple of weeks ago I bought some gold cardstock and I have to say, I like to work with it. For today's cards I used the gold cardstock with two word dies and the theme at Cas-ual Fridays which is 'Pretty Patterns'. For the first card I stamped a background of dots with a sponge dauber.  As you can see I did it quite randomly to give it a nonchalant look. I splashed a little with glimmer mist, stamped a sentiment, added the PTI die 'birthday' and finally added a small banner in the right upper corner.

For the second card I used again the same dauber and ink to colour a background. I love the soft tone you get. With the same colour of ink I stamped a polkadot pattern with a stamp. I die cut hello with the Lawn Fawn die, added a banner as well and for the finishing touch I tied a bow.

  That's it for today! Thanks for coming by!

Precious

The theme of this week's challenge at the Casology blog is 'precious'. Many cards I make will be sent to precious people. Persons who I love and appreciate. For this challenge I used some precious materials. Well, of course, they aren't, but they give a feeling of being precious. I used some silver thread and gems. The leaves and flower stamps are from Avery Elle's Faboulous Flowers, the sentiments are from Papertrey Ink.

Now I am off the to beach to spend some time with some of our nephews and niece.
Thanks for coming by!

Chance of Rain

We didn't have any rain at all during our holiday, so that is perhaps the reason why I created two cards with Mama Elephant's 'Chance of Rain' stamp set. Although we had lots of rain when we came back home... I created a cloudy sky with Lawn Fawn's Puffy Clouds. Don't you love that little bear? I added some 'Wink of Stella' at the second umbrella. I often buy stamps with dies, but this time I cut the images with my sciccors and I am quite happy with the result. And it saves lots of money as dies are quite expensive! Recently I bought Tim Holtz' softgrip scissors which definitely helps me to cut more precisely. I can recommend these scissors!

 

Speaking about umbrellas, during our trip through Italy we visited Ferrara and we saw this 'umbrella street'. Love a project like this!

Thanks for coming by!