Monochromatic

Wow, that has been a long time ago! If you follow me on Instagram, you have probably seen that I am still spending time creating cards and other things, although I often lost my mojo concerning cardmaking. However, I haven't been very active in blogland. I was doubting about continuing my blog, but what I really like about having a blog is that it creates a kind of archive. It definitely shows your development. So I will post new pictures, but maybe not at a very regular basis...

Today's card is a monochromatic card. I saw a nice idea somewhere on the Internet of a special folding of the card, see the pictures below. That was my starting point. I knew that I wanted to use vellum, distress ink and I jumped in the current craze: Tonic's Nuvodrops. I started with colouring the cardstock with tattered roses distress ink and stamped some polkadots with the same ink. I thought that the stampset Floral Sketches from Papertrey Ink would be perfect with this card. I die cut some flowers, coloured them with the same distress ink and stamped the flowers with a darker colour of distress ink. I made a bunch of them and I adhered some pink nuvo drops, which I prepared some days ago, at the heart of the flowers. With nuvo drops Morning Dew I adhered some drops directly onto the card. After punching a hole at the top to get the two sides of the card together, I finished the card with a sentiment on a craft banner, a vellum banner and some twine. 

I made this card for Rhodé who is celebrating her birthday today. I added two colours of Nuvo drops to this card, hope she likes them as much as I do ;)
Thanks for hopping by and have a lovely weekend! 

Floral sketches

I have made two cards with PTI's Floral Sketches recently. The first one is lacking a stamped heart. I hadn't discovered the flowerheart stamps back then. Still, I like the card for its colours. I used a strip of Lawn Fawn plaid paper.

 

 

For the second card I used paper from Crate Paper, the birthday die is from Avery Elle and the 'wishes' from a PTI set, stamped on some vellum.

 

 

Thanks for hopping by! 

Birthday shaker

I made this card for Rhodé´s birthday which was a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot to show it here...
It´s made with a Crate Paper´s paper pad and the birthday die from Mama Elephant is one I borrowed.from Rhodé.

Thanks for hopping by!

Daisies

Sometimes I buy a mini stamp set, just because the price is so good. Quite often a set like that disappears in my stampboxes without being used. With Altenew's mini set 'Daisy' that isn't the case at all. Lovely set, very versatile. If you use different colours your card is totally different from the one you made before with the same set.
For today, I've got three cards with this set. I used the same sketch, but with different details. The first one got a sentiment die from Avery Elle and the 'wishes' stamp is from PTI. I added a strip of vellum and splashed a few drops of inks over the card. The second is in the same colour scheme , altough one daisy has gone. I stamped a sentiment from Els Brigé onto the vellum strip and I used some twine. Finally, a blue card. Again same idea!

I'd like to play along in the following challenges:

Addicted to CAS - Petals 

CAS-ual Fridays- Florals

Addicted to Stamps and More - anything goes

Casology - CAS (they celebrate challenge #200!)

Thanks for coming by and have a lovely weekend! 

Daisies

Daisies on a card mid-january seems a bit odd. However, I have seen many daisies lately, due to warm temperatures of course. So, I thougt I can use the daisy stamps for the Lawn Fawn Gleeful Gardens for a birthday card in wintertime. The papers are from SU.
This card is made for Miranda who celebrated her birthday last Sunday and is a frequent Lawn Fawn user besides her washi tape addiction. I was a little too late at the post box, so it arrived too late. Hopefully she has got the card by now. If not, Miranda, it is on its way to you!

Thanks for coming by!

Blue flowers

I really like cards with a background made with a cover plate. Unfortunately most cover plates are bigger that our usual card size in the Netherlands. But it still fits in an common envelope, so I gave it a try. I've got one cover plate with hexagons from Papertrey Ink and I used it in combination with the PTI stamp set 'Morning by Morning'. I stamped the flowers with blue ink which gives a fresh look. I splashed some ink on the base card. The sentiment is from Papertrey too.

Enjoy your weekend!

Travel the world

Today's card is made for a birthday boy. I used an older paperpad from Simple Stories with a travel theme. The sentiment is from Els Brigé and the little star from Papertrey Ink.

Back to my studybooks. Later today I've got some lectures and I have to prepare a bit more...
Enjoy your day!

Hello January

The year has started beautifully with lots of sunshine which gives me energy to start at school next Monday. I really love the Christmas break, but going back to 'regular' life is good also. Today I will do my preparations for next week's lessons and in between tasks I hope to create a card as well. In the last few days I cleaned my craft room and decluttered it (which was really necessary...) and I made some cards as well.
Today one of the birthday cards I created. I used some Studio Calico papers, a leaves die from Maggie Holmes and a birthday set by PTI.

Have a lovely weekend and thanks for coming 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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

Thank you, Cornelie!

While driving home from school I promised myself some crafting time before starting chores and writing an essay. I was really looking forward to it, although I didn't have anything specific in mind to create. To my surprise a big envelop waited on our dinner table. I expected nothing and I didn't order anything. So, after putting my bag down opening this envelop was the first thing I did . What do you say: Curious! I?!
Look what was inside:

A beautiful card and a bunch of gorgeous papers of Fancy Pants' Happy Go Lucky, sent by Cornelie. Wow! I fell in love with them at once. I knew Fancy Pants by name, but I hadn't seen any of their products before. It is such a pity that we don't have a good shop here in this area. Most of the time you'll find great paper pads in a real shop, not online. I'm quite jealous of Cornelie who lives close to Oma Dee.

Now you probably wonder why she sent me these papers. Nope, it wasn't my birthday and I haven't won a challenge or so. I will explain it. Last Saturday Cornelie showed some cards on her blog. I really liked them. While looking at the second one I wondered why I don't use design papers more often. If you have followed my blog for a longer period you know that I worked quite a lot with design papers before. But the last one and a half year I switched to a more CAS style, quite unconsciously, although there is more than enough paper in my stash. So, I wrote Cornelie a comment and told her that I should work more with design papers. According to her writing she sent me an e-mail, but unfortunately I haven't received it. As I understand from the card, Cornelie challenged me and I guess it was something like creating a card with design papers. Am I right, Cornelie? To make the challenge more fun, she sent me this bunch of papers. What a great start of the weekend!

So, I could do two things: send an email to Cornelie, ask her to send the challenge again and wait for her reply or make a card at once. I couldn't resist the second thought, too excited about these papers. I hurried to my craft room, looked up the sketch she has used and started. And this is the result:

It was like a throwing a little party in my craft room and I wondered a bit more: why haven't I created cards like this one for such a long time?! Maybe I should use sketches more often when I don't have any inspiration... Anyway, I used a stamp of Papertrey Ink (Birthday Tags) and distressed the edges of the papers with Tea Dye.

Looking at the picture, there is actually one thing missing what is typical me. Do you know what?!

Of course I am going to send Cornelie an email and take up the challenge she gave me. So I will be back with another card made with these great papers!

 Cornelie, thank you so much for the papers, your card and the inspiration you gave me! Isn't it wonderful to meet people online who feel like creative friends?

Thanks for hopping by and enjoy your weekend!

Sunshine

I've got two cards for you today, both with a background of sunrays. I love the effect of it! I used the Bright Days stamp set of Avery Elle. The first card is inspired by this one made by Chunyuan. I used the PTI Birthday Tags and I added some gems.

The second one is actually spam, don't you think so? I haven't counted how many cards I made with this deer... I'm so in love with it! I used Lawn Fawn dies for the hill and ther reactangle. The DP is from Echo Park.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hip hip hooray!

I've got two cards for you today. Both made with Crate Paper's Craft market. The thirst one is quite simple. Punch some circles, glue these onto the card base, add a sentiment and some thread and that's it! Still, I like this lay-out! With the first card I'd like to participate in the current challenge at City Crafter . They offer a moodboard with greens, browns, whites and some beautiful pictures. I think that the papers I used fit in this challenge.

 The second one is a 10x10 cm card. Love that size! I stamped a line of dots with gold ink which I also used for the sentiment. I die cut the butterflies and addes some silver thread as well.

Thanks for coming by!

Shaker card

Happy King's Day! Before heading off to some King's Day activities I've got a card for you.
Yesterday our niece turned 14! She becomes a real lady, so I made her a ladylike shaker card with a shabby-chic touch. I used Crate Paper's Craft Market dp and the flower die from the Confetti line, also Crate paper. To add some extra dimension to the flower I used silver thread and gold sequins. Between the layers of the flower I used foam tape. The leaves are from vellum. The shaker part is filled with silver and gold sequins. I personalized the card by stamping her name into the shaker part.

 

 

Thanks for coming by! 

 

 

Let's play

My sister asked me to create a card for her friend's daughter who turns two. I pulled out my new set from Lawn Fawn Let's Play, some Echo Park papers and started to build a nice scene. I used foam tape to add some dimension to the card. My sisters request was to use the name of the little one as well.The little dots of the ï were a bit of a problem considering the foam tape. So I added a piece of foam tape to the paper and ran it through my cuttlebug. Problem solved!

The next card is my mass production card at the moment. I stamped these balloons in all kind of colours depending on the receiver. Pinks, red, yellows and oranges for female cards and blues, greens and greys for male cards. Quick and easy! It is a 10x10 card. Love that size!

Last week I was in the UK with a group of students. It was a great week! However, I'm a little bit behind (read: far behind) household chorus and study things. I'm going to use this day off at the best!

Wish you all a blessed Easter!
 Thanks for coming by!

Oh Darling!

With some goodies from the 'Oh Darling!'line by Crate Paper I made two cards. One for a baby girl and a small square card for a birthday girl.

I've been a student again since last week. I have started a Master English. It will be time consuming, but I hope to find some time for card making as well! During an intake which I had with one of the lecturers I got one advice: "Make time for one hobby, otherwise you won't manage. It helps to relax!"
Of course, I will follow that advice!

Enjoy your weekend!