Neighbourly Thanks!

It has been a while since I posted any cards, I've been making lots of them but just couldn't get them posted.  We have had a busy and very lovely end of summer and early fall here.  Got to visit our son in Newfoundland several times and spent time with our daughter in Halifax too, doesn't get any better.  So now I have lots of cards to post :)  I'll try to get a bunch of them on in the next couple of days.

We have wonderful neighbours on the quiet road where we live and we owed one of them a huge thanks for their generosity.  This is the card that I made for them.

The card itself is made with SU - Chocolate Chip and the designer paper is Echo Park - Victoria Gardens and I distressed the edges with a Tim Holtz tool.  The brown trim through the middle of this layer is EK - Medallion Chain double edge punch and Recollections - Kraft paper.

The next layer is SU - Chocolate Chip and SU - River Rock.  I love this colour, it's one of my favourites.  The embossing folder is a Craft Concept - Silver Fern.  These two are layered and popped up with dimensionals. 

The third layer is SU - Chocolate Chip and die cut with Spellbinders - Floral Ovals.  This is a great set of Spellbinders, I have used them a lot!  The inside image was first stamped on white cardstock with SU - River Rock and is from a SU - Nature's Pace stamps.  I cut and embossed the oval with Spellbinders - Classic Ovals Sm and left the die on when I was finished.  Using a little finger dauber and SU - Chocolate Chip, I very lightly sponged around the inside. This makes such a cool effect!  These two are layered and popped up.

Then the decorations, I used Cheery Lynn - Fanciful Flourish in SU - Garden Green and Memory Box - Gentle Leaf in a medium green Bazzill cardstock.  The flowers that I've used on this card are from Tammy Beaver and they come in the most beautiful range of colours and sizes.  You can get them from Tammy, check out her website at http://www.dcands.ca/ and you can also get them at Scrapbooking Cafe Online, http://www.scrapbookingcafeonline.ca/.  The daisy had a pretty flocked center but I accidentally rubbed most of it off, so I glued some yellow Flower Soft on to make a new center.

The little "thanks so much" is from SU.  I stamped it in SU - Garden Green and cut it into a little banner and sponged around the edges with Chocolate Chip.  I rolled it over a pencil to get it to curve and then glued each side down and added brown half pearls.

Here's the inside of the card.  A layer of SU - River Rock and a layer of white cardstock.  The thistles are SU - Nature's Pace and are stamped with SU - River Rock.  The edges are sponged with Chocolate Chip.  The message was computer generated.

Thanks for taking a peek and stay tuned for more cards :)

Nautical Thank You

Hi everyone, this has been a good but busy day for me.  I was off making cards today with the girls, we always get together once a week and today was the day!  This is always a lovely day that we all look forward to.  I wanted to work on this card today and didn't have the original, so I posted a picture on SCS this morning so that I could have something to work from lol.  However, I didn't post any instructions and I hate doing that but today it was unavoidable. 

This is another thank you card that I designed for someone looking to purchase a number of cards to give to employees throughout the province of Nova Scotia so I wanted to make sure that this card said "Nova Scotia".  The paper in the background is the Nova Scotia tartan and it despicts the ocean which surrounds the province and the livelyhood that it provides to the people of Nova Scotia.  The ligthhouse is a Close To My Heart stamp called Perfect Day.  I'm really enjoying these stamps, they are clear and very easy to position and have beautiful detail. 

First I cut out a mask of the lighthouse stamp and placed it on white cardstock, I then brayed Hero Arts Shadow Ink - Pool blue for the water.  I lifted the mask and stamped the lighthouse using Stazon - Jet Black.  I sponged some yellow in the sky and some of the same Pool blue, keeping the colours light and soft.  A finger dabber workers really well for doing skies, I like the control it gives you.  I added a little bit of colour to the stamped image with watercolour pencils and an aqua pen.  I always use Ink Potion #9 in my pen instead of water.  It keeps the paper flat, no warping.  This is a fantastic product!  Kristy who owns Scrapbooking Cafe told me about it, she is wonderful!  Always introducing us to great new things.  Check her out at http://www.scrapbookingcafeonline.ca/

I cut out around the top of the lighthouse by hand and then placed the Spellbinders - Labels Twenty-Three with the cutting edge next to the image.  The cut out section is lifted over to the non cutting side of the Spellbinder and a small piece of tape on the SB holds everything in position while it's run through the Cuttlebug or whatever machine you use.  I love this technique, I think it gives the picture a really great dimension!  This cut out was adhered to the card with a tape runner.

The little frame for the thank you was stamped with SU - Four Frames, I thought the little shore bird was just right for the Nova Scotia theme.  I cut it out using the co-ordinating SU punch - Decorative Label.  The "Thank You" is SU - Thank You Kindly.  Both of these were stamped with Stazon - Jet Black.  I sponged a little Pool Blue for a background and added some brown to the little bird with the watercolour pencils.  I added pop ups to it and placed it on the card.

The knot is called Lors knot and it's so cool and really easy to do.  I saw it on one of Trina Kuriger's beautiful cards and she had a really great tutorial on how to tie it.  Check it out -
http://mnfroggie.blogspot.ca/2011/05/tutorial-for-sailors-knot.html.  I used some twine that I had laying around to make the knot and ran a line of hot glue diagonally across the card and positioned the knot over it and then I cut the twine flush with the edges of the card.  I don't usually use hot glue on cards but the twine was too heavy to tuck under the edge of the paper to hide the cut edges so I thought this would be a good alternative.  I had these little sand dollars left over from another project and they worked perfect on this card.  They are real sand dollars, but very small, only about an inch across.  I added this with hot glue too.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog, hope you enjoy this card.  I love to hear comments that people leave, so please add your comments too :)

thank you in aqua

I was asked by a woman to make some thank you cards for her, this is the first one that I designed. 

I really love the pattern and details in this flower and leaves.  I didn't start out to make a brown flower.  I knew I wanted to use this stamp and I intended for it to be layers of different colours with only the bottom layer in brown, but I loved the brown on brown so much that I continued on with the other layers too!  and once I had the flower made this aqua paper complimented it nicely.

So, all the paper for this card came from Michaels.  The card is made from a medium aqua Bazzill cardstock and the designer paper is Recollections - Aqua Screen.  The ribbon is a wide aqua organza ribbon that I had from the dollar store.  The brown trim on top of the ribbon was done using EK - Medallion Chain double edge punch and Recollections - Kraft paper.  This is one of my favourite punches.  I glued a line of twine in the middle, Sew Easy Fancy Floss - Blue Lagoon.

The flower stamp is SU - Triple Treat Flower.  I stamped it 5 times on the Kraft paper with SU - Chocolate Chip ink and 3 of the flowers were cut out with SU - Fancy Flower punch.  I overlaped 2 of these almost half ways and this made the bottome layer of the flower. I attached this to the card with Skor tape.  The third one I shaped just a bit with a paint brush handle and I placed it in the center of the first layer.  The fourth flower was cut out using SU - 5 Petal Flower punch and this cut out just a portion of the stamped flower.  This was also shaped just a bit and popped up as the next layer.  I added a few very small white half pearls to this flower layer.  From the fifth stamped flower I used SU - 1/2" circle punch to cut out the center of the flower.  This circle was shaped on a soft mouse pad and popped up for the center of the flower. 

The leaves are SU - Day of Gratitude.  They were stamped on the Kraft paper and cut out with scissors and glued to the card around the flower. 

The butterfly was stamped with SU - Papillon Potpourri and SU - Really Rust.  I stamped it on Recollections - White Glimmer paper, this paper has a soft shine to it which you can see in the picture.  The butterfly was cut out with the coordinating SU - Butterfly punch, shaped a bit and glued to the card.

The sentiment tag I cut out by hand using the same Recollections Glimmer paper.  The stamp is SU - Thank You Kindly and I used Stazon - Jet Black.  I cut a second tag just a bit bigger from the Kraft paper and layered it under the sentiment, punched a hole in the tag and tied a piece of twine through the hole.  I popped this up on the card.  A few white half pearls in the corner finished the card.

This was a really fun card to make.

Thanks for stopping to take a look :)

Thank You in Blue

I made this little thank you card for a lady who had purchased some of my Easter cards.  The paper is from The Tradewinds Matstack by DCWV.  This is a 6.5" x 4.5" book of patterned cardstock and it has such nice patterns, lots of nautical paper.  I took one of the sheets and folded it in half, so this is a smaller card, but just right for a quick thank you. 

The bottom layer of the label is made with a medium blue cardstock and Spellbinders Labels Twenty.   The next layer is white cardstock and Spellbinders Fleur De Lis Accents.  Before I removed the Spellbinder die I sponged a bit of light brown ink - Hero Arts Shadow Ink in Soft Brown.  The sentiment is from SU.  I popped up the white layer and added white half pearls. 

Then to decorate it a bit I added a piece of white satin ribbon folded in half, a few leaves in a brushed gold metallic cardstock using SU Little Leaves die, and a flower from Tammy Beaver.  These flowers are simply beautiful and come in many colours.  You can get them from Tammy, check out her website at http://www.dcands.ca/ and you can also get them at Scrapbooking Cafe Online, http://www.scrapbookingcafeonline.ca.  I attach these flowers to cards with a little dab of hot glue.

Thanks for looking at my cards :)