New arrival cards

It was one of those mornings where I woke up at 5am.  Urg.   Had trouble finding inspiration for card making last night so read a fluff book on kindle ... a young witch, with a cat, investigating a murder...nice cheery escape :-)

A few months ago I got a new coordinating stamp/die set from Spellbinders—I wanted something simple without too much colouring and good for new baby congratulation cards.

Such an adorable image, and the layering dies are awesome.  Super quick and easy to dress up and put this together.

The background is a background die from lawn fawn.

Another set of swap cards - new baby congrats

Finished off a second set of swap cards today, feels great to look at these all!

This one's for a congratulations swap.

I also decorated the inside a little bit -- I always like to do a little bit extra on baby and wedding cards, as these are more often to be kept for sentimental reasons.

The image is from Mo's digital pencil, and I coloured them with Copic markers.  The sentiment is from Whimsy Doodle Stamps.

You look fabulous

I recently upgraded my MDS software to MDS2 and have to say I am LOVING it, not just for use with my SU digis, but other digis as well.  The coolest feature is that you can recolour pieces of the image or the whole image.  Here are a couple of examples featuring one of the images from She's All That.

As you can see, I was able to colour the sentiment, handbag, necklace and shoes to be the same colour as my card stock.  It was super easy to print that, and then I simply layered it using the card creator dies and the stamped image of the medallion in the corner to create a background to dress it up.

 

This second one was even easier, using the A2 Card Creator dies and the digi, it was a very quick card to make and came out lovely.  These are two cards I will be proud to gift.

I am entering the top card in the following challenge:

http://www.lovesrubberstampschallenges.com/ - create your own background

Congratulations swap

Yes, as you can see, I have been very much having fun playing in swaps the last couple of months!  Here are some cards I made for a Congratulations swap.  It seems I always need a card for a new baby, a wedding, a graduation, etc. so this seemed like a pretty useful swap to play in.

The first card features on old SU image and some fabulous Graphic 45 paper.  The image is lightly coloured with Copics.

The second card uses an even older SU stamp set, one which (as I recall) was one of the first stamp sets I bought.  LOTS of dimensionals used on here, though it is hard to see that, and I dug out a piece of fancy glittery silver paper to cut out the swirl.

Next is a baby card, the ones I seem to use the most of, and I paired it up with some sweet DP that I've been hoarding, another swirl, and a fancy label for the sentiment.

Finally, the let one using one of my very favourite Mo Manning images, and another fancy label die cut for the sentiment.  Colouring here too is with Copics.

Special delivery

Today I've got another baby card for you using the Bildmalarna Baby image from Paper Jewels.  You've seen a handful of these over the past few months, it seems so many folks are expecting or having little ones, and I do enjoy making cards for them.

The image is coloured with Copics, and I sponged some ink on the edges for depth.  DP from Micheals, and the coordinations paper is embossed and sanded.  Dug out my sewing machine on this one, seems to me that baby cards need to have sewing on them, LOL!  Also used my bow easy on the bow, sure do love that little tool!

Have a wonderful weekend, I hope you have time for some crafting and creativity :-)

Vintage Baby

For the third Tuesday in a row I'm happy to share with you another Baby card, using the Bildmalarna Baby image I got from Paper Jewels.

This card incorporated a "fancy border", which I think really dressed it up.  The Paper Jewels Blog has a challenge on right now to make a card with a fancy border, with one lucky participant to win a prize.  I hope you'll play along with us.

This is a special baby card, made for a friend of mine to celebrate her new baby.

For this card I went with a vintage style and a square card.  The image is coloured with copics, and I used the pen tip to pen tip technique for a lot of the colouring around the baby and basket, as well as the rabbit, since I find it is a nice blending technique on light colours.

The background is made using co-ordinations paper, run through the cuttlebug, then sanded, then I used my airbrush and copic E70 to add a bit of darkness to the edges.  Finally, went to the sewing machine and added some stitching to it, then added the safety pin.

Since this is a special card, hopefully a keepsake for the little one, I also decorated the inside, using DP, stitching, and a digi sentiment from Raindrop Echo Designs:

Girly baby

Tuesday's rolled around again and I'm pleased to get a chance to share with you another Baby card.  Last week I used this image, Baby, by Bildmalarna, to make a boy card.  This week it's a girly version :-)

As usual, the image is coloured with copics.  I made a big oopsie when trying to stamp a word in the banner area (which you can't see, but that black "shelf" is actually supposed to be a banner).  But the good thing about cardmaking is most things are fixable (and is that also a truth about life too LOL!).  So I coloured in the banner and turned it into a table.

Added some lace, pearls and a button, and Voila!

I hope this gives you some inspiration, especially if you have any baby showers or new baby celebrations coming up this summer.

Baby Blue

Hi Folks,

Today I'm happy to share a card made with a Bildmalarna image called Baby.  I don't have need for many baby cards, but I always want them to be special, since I know many of them become keepsakes, so they are always worth that extra effort.  When I saw this image in the Paper Jewels store I knew it was just what I had been looking for.

The image is coloured with copics, and then I used my sewing machine to add the stitching on, adhered the buttons and pin with blue dots, and added a sentiment--talk about easy!

A child is momentous

Today I have a special card to share with you.  So many cards I make are made to meet design team or other challenge requirements, and then there are the bursts of creativity, but once in a while I need a special card for a special friend for a special event, and this is one of those.

As you can likely guess, a friend of mine is expecting, and I'm so happy and excited for her as she and her husband have wanted this for quite a while.  So it is a very special thing, and needed the bestest card I could make.  So I dithered and dithered for weeks about what to make.  Finally, in my search of all possible images, I came across this Mother to be image from Mo's that seemed just perfect.  Then I needed the best sentiment possible, so I went and checked out what Raindrop Echo Designs might have, and got this one that is carried at the Whimsy store.  Lastly, I needed a layout, and then I saw this weeks OCC sketch layout and suddenly inspiration hit.  I modified it a bit as I wanted to use the velum layer.

If you want a better look at it, particularly the sentiment, you can click on the image to make it bigger.

As you who follow my blog know, I rarely have the patience to decorate the inside of the card, but this time I made that effort, and here's what the inside looks like:

So it's been passed to my friend now, and I am wishing this soon to be family health and happiness.

Mother and baby

This sweet Elizabeth Bell image is one I got in a swap, and it was so fun to colour--accenting the folds etc.  It's always good to have cards in the cupboard ready for life events, and when friends have new babies that's definitely a time to share a card.

New baby card

Here is one of my Saturday creations :-). This card is for a friend who had a baby boy recently. I wanted to do something a bit out of the ordinary, and was looking through what I have when I came across this free digi I'd downloaded from Dustin Pike. Isn't it adorable?

I really like a lot of his artwork, and especially the bears! I was thrilled yesterday when I came across a two week special he is having on all his older digis - you can get something like 130 digis for $25! Check out the link here

Anyway, back to the card, after colouring the bear and the moon and the star I was trying to figure out what to do--I wanted a night sky, but didn't feel like masking and sponging. Instead I used crystal effects to coat the coloured images and let that dry, since then it would have like a plasticized coating. Then when it was dry I sprayed the Graphite Tattered Angels glimmer mist over it, and then used a paper towel to wipe off of the area with the crystal effects. Then I had to wait for that to dry, and then I built my card. You can see in the below picture how the light reflects off it:



That's it for this morning, I'm going to putter around and get inspiration for some Halloween and Fall cards which I'll be working on in the next couple weeks. Happy Day!