Mixed Bunch Cased Card

Today I want to show you how you can take a card that someone else has made and make it your own.

We've all been there. You need a card but the inspiration well is dry. Staring at all your beautiful products just seems to make it worse. Where to begin?

This was the situation I faced this past Saturday. My husband had invited the families of our two oldest girls' soccer teams over for an End of Season BBQ (in the pouring rain ... but I digress). He's coached our girls since Marley started playing 3 years ago and this year he is saying good bye to one particular player who he has coached for 2 years - first with Marley's team and then with Paige's team. Her mother has also been an integral part of the team, as Assistant Coach and General All-around Go-to Person, so he asked me to make a Thank You card for her. Two hours before the party started! Now, I am a BIG proponent of the Quick Card but pulling off 3 cards (one for her, one for her daughter and then another for the Team Manager of the other team) in that amount of time while still finishing the prep for the party was a bit much.

My fellow Stampin' Up! Demonstrators to the rescue! We regularly meet and swap cards so I just looked at my Swaps Board, picked one then went hunting for similar products. This one is by Maureen Pollock (I looked to see if she had a site you could check out but can't find one - sorry.)

And this was what I came up with.

I started with a piece of Calypso Coral card stock and layered a piece from the Everyday Enchantment DSP pack from the Sale-a-Bration promotion. (I know that's all over with now but I've still got some and it was really nice stuff so it's just going to creep into the odd project or two!) I embossed an image from Mixed Bunch with White Embossing powder and then used my Blossom punch to create the 3 flowers. The sentiment is from Thank You Kindly and is also embossed in white.

Here's a close up of the embossed flowers. I added a Large Pearl jewel accent to the middle of the middle flower and tied a piece of (now no longer available) Calypso Coral 1/8" Organdy Ribbon around the whole grouping.

Inside I embossed a couple images from Flight of the Butterfly.

Tomorrow I'll show you the one I made for her daughter. It features the stamp set I'll be high lighting in my Birthday Cards for All Ages class on the 13th - more details tomorrow.

Hope you're having a great Tuesday. I've now got to organize a birthday party and find a babysitter for Thursday night! Gack!!

Birthday card and notepad gift set

Okay, I promised a view of the gift I made for my aunt. Here it is ...

I covered a piece of thin card board (actually, a cut down cereal box) with some Cheerful Treat DSP  and then added a note pad and a pocket to contain some cards.  

Here are the cards I made. I had some fun with the products and techniques for each card.

These first two may seem occasion/gender specific but I truly believe they can be used for any number of occasions. Graduation, marriage/engagement, new job, baby, etc.

I embossed the background paper then inked the edges with Soft Suede. The sentiment was cut out using the new Framelits Label Collection and stamped with the Elementary Elegance stamp set (available soon - it's in the Sale-a-Bration catty!) Believe it or not, the two pieces of striped patterned paper are from the same sheet of paper! See how where you cut out your label shape changes the entire look of the paper? Makes Stampin' Up!'s DSPs so versatile.

For this card I embossed the Melon Mambo card stock and then used my 2 1/2" circle punch to punch out the circle and half circles. The background image was created using various stamps from the Circle Circus stamp set in Melon Mambo, Blushing Bride and Concord Crush. For a little bit of sparkle I added some rhinestones. (I see that one has gone wandering ... oh well, too late to fix it now!)

For this one I used my Scalloped Trim Border punch all around a piece of Lucky Limeade card stock which I then stamped in Lucky Limeade with an image from the Take It To Heart stamp set. A banner in Melon Mambo and a few pearls finished it off.

This one may be my favourite. The butterflies are cut and embossed using the Beautiful Wings Embosslit die. I added the little antenae with a Stampin' Write marker. The curvy sentiment is from the Flight of the Butterfly stamp set.

And last but not least, I embossed the Concord Crush card stock and then rubbed some Whisper White Craft ink over the embossed image. Love that effect! The middle cut out was inked (liberally) with Lucky Limeade and an image from the Posy Punch stamp set was stamped in the middle. The Happy Birthday is popped up with Dimensionals.

To help keep things closed, I added these buttons and used some Bakers Twine to join them together.

Some Lucky Limeade Ruffled edge ribbon along the spine finishes things off.

Hope she likes it! Clicking on any of the links above will take you to my on-line store in case you want to purchase any of the products or check out pricing information. To see the new Occasions Mini, please click here.