Summer Blooms

That is what comes to mind for me with this card. I picture my friend's garden out on Vancouver Island, where you don't have to nurture things to keep them going, and everything is lush and verdant. Beautiful gardens filled with hydrangeas, peonies, giant hostas.....but I digress. My simple attempts at gardening here in central Alberta reflect  our local sandy soil, the ongoing battle to keep the deer away, and my distinct lack of a green thumb. So I have to create my gardens on paper.

This card began, as it often does, with the patterned paper by My Mind's Eye. I love the soft aquas and lilacs. I matted it with orchid c/s (a retired SU colour) and attached it to a 6x6 white card base. All card stock here is from SU.

The medallion has a bottom white lacy circle die cut, topped with baja  and white standard circles. On the white circle, I stamped my sentiment in orchid ink and sponged more ink around the edges while it was still in the die. I attached this top layer to the rest with dimensionals.

The flowers and leaves (pear c/s) are from a set of Marianne Creatables dies. I wanted something light and airy feeling. I cut two dies for each of the two blooms, sponged on a bit of the orchid ink,  then shaped them a bit and offset them. There are seven leaf die cuts, and I flipped a few of them.

The inside is another cut of the patterned paper from a corner where there was a bit more open space to leave room for words.

I hope you like my garden. Happy stamping.

The Simple Things

Yesterday, we spent a beautiful afternoon and evening at our friends' cottage on Jackfish Lake. The weather was perfect, not too hot and with a bit of a breeze. Some mutual friends were visiting from Arizona. I think they were curious about Alberta, and why we leave it every winter and why we come back every spring. They also took in the Calgary Stampede. Funny, we have lived in Alberta for 36 years and have never done that. Maybe next year....

So having enjoyed a simple day at the lake and good friendship, the sentiment on this card is a perfect reflection of the day.

This is the inspiration for my card. I had not seen this lady's work before but I really like it, so if you get a chance, visit her blog here.

The patterned paper I used as my starting point here is by BasicGrey. The solid colours of rose red and kiwi kiss as well as the white c/s are all SU.

I die cut two lotus blossom shapes (Spellbinders), and then trimmed off the outer layer of the design on one of them. I find, strangely, that I do not have a good die for large circles (Really? With all the dies I own, how can that be?) so I was reduced to tracing a bowl and hand cutting it for the two circles. The rectangle is two smaller ones cut with SB's small label die and laid together to make a longer shape. There are some dimensionals under this rectangle to give the card some depth.

I used SB's Labels 18 to cut the sentiment label, then left it in the die and sponged on some rose ink (SU) The words are from the simple Things set by Our Daily Bread, stamped with Espresso ink.

The rhinestones were in my stash, source unknown. I fussy cut the two floral elements out of the patterned paper.

Finally I added some rose c/s and a strip of patterned paper to the inside.to dress it up a little.




Today, after I get a bit of house work done, I hope to have some more fun in my craft room.  I hope you, too get in some fun time and get your fingers inky.

Back in Action

Hello fellow bloggers, and my apologies to anyone who has been checking in (both of you) for being so conspicuously absent for so long. Summer has been presenting far to many distractions. Also, this travelling back and forth is, I find, disruptive to my creative process.

I have made a few cards in the last weeks, but they were on an 'as needed' basis and so last minute that I did not even have time to take pictures before giving them away. There was also some sewing of baby gifts that took up a good 10 or so days. I finally sat down a couple of days ago to CREATE.

Here is the first of several that were the result of this creative surge.

The story behind this card is, I was perusing my favorite inspirational online source, Splitcoast Stampers, and came across this card which I decided to CASE. Then when I was finished and went back to link the original, I discovered that it was , itself, a CASE so I am linking the ORIGINAL original here as well. I find it ironic that when I got to the original card by Kittie, she had used the same die for foliage as I did. Thanks to both talented ladies.

I started with some beautiful Kaiser Craft patterned paper as my inspiration.The rest of the products except for the dies are all from Stampin' Up!. The plain c/s is vanilla, and the leaves, cut with the Cheery Lynn Tropical Flourish die are just the back side of the patterned paper. The message is stamped with espresso ink; I had to stamp each word separately as the stamp is one vertical line, so I used the marker to ink it up.Then I popped it up with dimensionals.

I really like this skinny sheer ribbon and how well it worked to lace it through the die cuts , which are Spellbinders Lattice Rectangles, I should mention.

The flowers (are they not the cutest) were attached with crystal effects. The cool thing about these little darlings is that you can die them with re-inker, and make them any colour you need to match your project.

Of course, I had some little strips left over, so I used them to pretty up the inside along with one more die cut.

I am quite pleased with the result. Now I need someone to have a birthday so that I can send it.

I will be back soon, as I have a couple more cards to show off. I hope that this is just the start for me, and that I am back on track.