Three minute grid card using DP

I suppose this isn't strictly a three minute card... it took a lot of mulling over and planning but cutting it out and putting it together took no time at all. I was inspired to make it by CASual Fridays where the challenge is to make a male card using designer paper and also by my friend Irene who has been making  the loveliest inchie cards lately and encouraging me to have a go! Come and have a look:

I really enjoyed making this! It was made with my husband's birthday in mind and I chose images relevant to him from the First Edition designer paper range as well as the retired Newsprint. Once I knew what I wanted, it took seconds to cut them out with my square punch.

My husband cycles everywhere locally and disapproves of short trips in the car. I do agree with him but feel that a six mile round hike every day to drop my youngest son off at school is stretching it a bit! He's also pretty tone deaf but adores all sorts of innovative music.

He loves to potter about in the garden although once, when he announced he was going to do a spot of pruning, I was aghast to find he'd chopped down some trees! I found this vellum bee in my scraps box (click here for details of how to make him).

Newspapers are a big part of his life (my husband's, not the bee's) and he spends Sunday mornings, oblivious to the rest of the household, poring over each section of the paper with numerous cups of strong dark coffee at his elbow. The map represents travel - he's not particularly bothered about being there, it's the getting there he loves!

This little inchie represents history! He's a bit of a historian and I sometimes have to rescue the children when I find them pinned into a corner with their eyes glazing over while he carries on an animated monologue about some obscure point of political history! Ahhhh! We love him with all his foibles!

Here's what you'll need to make today's card:

Stamps: Nature Walk (for the bee), Little Princess (for the sentiment - ironically I find this is a great male birthday sentiment!)

Ink: Basic Black

Card stock: Crumb Cake, So Saffron

Other: First Edition designer paper (and Newsprint retired), 1 1/4" square punch, antique brass brad, vellum, Daffodil Delight marker, paper snips

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

I've wittered on long enough today so I shall go away now, but do come back tomorrow if you have a minute and I'll show you the golden wedding anniversary card I made for my in-laws and photos of the manor house we stayed in with its 'wealth of beams'!

Hugs,

Shapely Apothecary Art

I wasn't satisfied that my shaped card yesterday was CAS enough and, since the Less is More challenge is all about er... less being more, I thought I'd try and redeem myself with a different idea. Come and have a look:

This is a shape cut out with the largest of my new Labels framelits and mounted onto the same colour card base to create a shape. Does this count?! I cut the bottom point off so that the card would stand nicely. The framelits are a nesting set and they coordinate with the lovely Apothecary Art stamp set so I was able to stamp this gorgeous image and cut it out with a smaller version of the card shape.

Here's a close-up of that pretty floral image. I stamped it in Lucky Limeade and coloured those delicate flowers using Blushing Bride and Pretty in Pink markers and adding Early Espresso dots. That gorgeous swirly sentiment is from Thank You Kindly and I thought it worked well with the ornate label shapes.

I ran some Crumb Cake seam binding ribbon behind the white label as I thought the card needed a little something. A pretty bow seemed to work well with the feminine image.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card:

Stamps: Apothecary Art, Thank You Kindly

Ink: Early Espresso, Lucky Limeade

Card stock: Crumb Cake, Whisper White

Other: Markers, Labels framelits, Big Shot, seam binding in Crumb Cake, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

My daughter has been trying out some new hairstyles and is delighted to have mastered the fishtailed plait. Being my daughter however, she had to show me while making fishy faces by sucking in her cheeks and pushing her lips out. Very attractive I'm sure!

It's Three Minute Thursday here tomorrow and I have a plan in my head involving inchies which I hope will turn out... Do come back and see!

Hugs,

No stamping butterfly shaped card

I make very few shaped cards as my card-making ethos is to keep it as simple as possible! But when I saw that Chrissie and Mandi at Less is More have challenged LiMettes to make a card any shape except square or rectangle, I remembered a frivolous little number we made at a Stampin' Up training session once. Here's my simplified version of it using Marina Mist and Bashful Blue, the gorgeous tonal colours suggested by this week's Dynamic Duos challenge:

There's no stamping on this little shaped Easel card at all (except the sentiment inside) and it's made using Stampin' Up's Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die. I like the way the bottoms of the wings tuck into the indented bit of wing on the card base to keep the card open. The layered butterfly on the front  is made using dotty designer paper from the Patterns paper stack and is embellished using white bakers twine and self-adhesive pearls.

To make the card base I used a folded piece of card stock and positioned it on the die just under the top points of the wings so I didn't end up with two pieces! I scored and folded the top part (the card front) and glued a single die cut butterfly to it to form the easel.

This is what the card looks like when it's closed...

... and a glimpse at the inside where there's just room for a tiny message. I think these are sweet little thank you cards which would certainly be remembered by the recipient - and wouldn't they make cute little novelties to pop in girls' party favour bags?!

Here's what you'll need to make today's card:

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes

Ink: Marina Mist

Card stock: Marina Mist, Whisper White

Other: Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die, Big shot, Patterns designer paper stack in Subtles, Basic Pearls, white bakers twine

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

My desk, which is in a real cold spot in our living room, is a fantastic place to be in this weather. The fingerless gloves and hot water bottles of the winter are a thing of the past and I'm cool as a cucumber with the French doors flung wide open. The cat doesn't know what to do with herself though. She wanders in and flings herself down on the rug for a few moments and then hoists herself up and slinks back outside where she is teased mercilessly by aimless flies and chirpy birds. My daughter describes her as 'Tuppence with lashings of tail'!

I can't wait to see all the shapely inspiration this week. See you soon!

Hugs,

Mixed Bunch thank you

I've adored May's floral theme at Make My Monday where I've been guesting this month. This week's twist is to make a card featuring flowers using the colours Pink, Green and White. This is a popular combination I know and it's certainly one of my favourites. I expect you're already thinking of your most gorgeous flower stamps and your favourite pink and green inks! Don't forget to link your card so that we can all see your creation!

Here's what I came up with:

I'm really attracted to these large, single-stemmed flower designs and have made several similar cards (here for example and here.)

The stem on this card is actually cut out of the white card to reveal the green card stock below and I punched the leaves out of matching scored card stock using my Blossom Petals builder punch.

I love the way the flower turned out. I cut one flower out of Blushing Bride card stock using my Blossom punch and then broke down the fibres in the card stock by running it through my crimper a few times and scrunching it up. It's easy then to peel the flower into two layers and the 'rough' side has this gorgeous soft suede look. I layered mine up using glue dots and decorated the centre with an Old Olive button threaded with a knot of white bakers twine.

I'd like to say a really big thank you to the lovely ladies at Make My Monday for having me as a guest designer this month. They're such a friendly bunch and have really made me feel at home, so I've really enjoyed it and will of course continue to join in with these really enjoyable challenges.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card:

Stamps: Thank You Kindly

Ink: Basic Grey

Card stock: Pear Pizzazz, Blushing Bride, Whisper White textured

Other: Blossom Petals and Blossom punches, Old Olive button, white bakers twine, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

We've just come back from a wonderful weekend away in the Cotswolds where we've been helping my in-laws celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. They didn't want a big 'do' as my father in law isn't well, so they rented a large house for themselves, another couple (one of them had been the bridesmaid at their wedding), their two sons and their families.

I'm sorry to say that in the general madness that is our lives, we forgot to order a cake so I bought a ready-iced one and had a go at decorating it... not a particularly fine effort but they seemed pleased anyway! I was happy with the card I made for them though - I'll show you that some time this week.

Have a good day today!