Love is in the Air

It's that "Love" time of year again, with lots of weddings, anniversary's and engagement parties coming up.  With that in mind I thought I better start putting some ideas together for cards so I'll have a good supply on hand, and not be doing things at the last minute.  

Usually I make a more traditional card featuring flowers or scrolls, but when I saw these two adorable birds on Laura Lipe's blog, I knew I just had to case her card.  Don't you just love punch art? 

Closeup of the love birds.  The punches used were the ornament punch for the base, the round tab punch (you could also use the Butterfly punch for this section of the body), small heart for the beak, wings are from the 2-step bird punch, and the feet and head feathers are fromthe small flower in the Boho Blossoms punch.

 My second card is based on a two-step card made from a 6 x 6 sheet of cardstock that I've attached to a 6 x 4 1/2 card base.   I used Blushing Bride, Pear Pizzazz and Poppy Parade Incolors for the DSP, cardstocks and ink.  The Flower stamp is from the Punch Bunch stamp set and the Love sentiment is from one of the recent Valentine stamp promotion sets.

Life's a Bed of Roses for Monkey Challenge #55: Flowers + a Sketch

Wow look at this bright and inviting card sketch from A La Card Monkey. It's Monkey55:  Flowers + Sketch challenge. 

The moment I saw this sketch I knew I loved it and knew I had to make it.  I think you'll agree that the simplicity of this layout  would work for many different occasions. 

For my version, I chose to add some 3-dimensional flowers made with the scallop circle and 1 1/4" circle punches insteading of stamping a flower image.  I pulled the colour combo from the beautiful Springtime Vintage Designer Series Paper (DSP) featured in the Mini Occasions catalogue (Jan-Apr 2011). TIP:  It's so easy to match up your coordinating cardstock and ink because underneath the DSP pictures in the Stampin' Up! catalogues, there's always a listing and colour swatch of the matching colours. If you haven't used this feature check it out...........no more searching.

I love the richness of Rose Red so chose it as my base cardstock and then  layered it with Crumb Cake.  For contrast I was able to incorporate both sides of the DSP for the next layer and the flower centers. Accents in Rose Red and Crumb Cake were added for the straight and scalloped edge pieces as well as the 3-D flowers. The Petal Pizzazz leaves for the flowers were cut using the small oval punch and then embossed with the Square Lattice Embossing folder and leave edges were sponged with Always Artichoke ink.  For the sentiment I used the medium jewelry tag punch and Pear Pizzazz cardstock stamped with Always Artichoke ink.  To finish off this card I used smooch spray to give it some shine.  Here's my sample.

Closeup of the Flowers.  Scallop punched in Rose Red and then scallops cut to give it some dimension.

Closeup of the tags cut using the Medium Jewelry Tag punch.

View of the inside of the card. 

I hope you like my version of this sketch both inside and out, and leave me a comment. 

Carry Over Items from the Occasions Mini Catalogue

April 30th and the end of the Occasions Mini Catalogue arrived pretty quick.  I debated about putting in a last minute order for the Tulip Frame Embossing Folder but never got around to it, and was so disappointed I missed the boat.  Today I'm wearing a big smile because I have another chance to order that folder. Stampin' Up! released a notice that they will be carrying over some of the items, including the Tulip Frame, so I'm in luck.

If you'd like to check out what's on the carry over list just click on this link. 

Monkey54 Any Animal+ Sketch Challenge

Okay so I love this "My Digital Studio" scrapbooking stuff.  I decided to play along with this weeks challenge over at Ala Card Monkey  which was to design a scrapbook page or card using the Monkey Sketch 54 and an animal of my choosing.  Well that was a no brainer, I quickly pulled together a scrapbook page of my little mutt Murphy.  Our pride and joy, and here is my sketch.

Hope you enjoyed this.  It was fun to do and so fast.  

ScrapSketch30 Challenge Using My Digital Studio

In case you haven't heard, May is National Scrapbooking Month, and this upcoming Saturday, May 7th is National Scrapbooking Day. Whoo Hoo!!  So in honour of this special month, I thought I would take advantage of what some of the very talented Stampin' Up Demonstrators who are experienced scrapbookers are doing with My Digital Studio. One of those great scrapbooking gals is Alesha Walls a certified instructor for "My Digital Studio". This month Alesha is issuing a challenge on her blog to get out there and scrapbook.  She'll be adding a new scrapbooking sketch every day.  I decided tojump right in and try my hand at her ScrapSketch30 Challenge and show you how easy it is to create a scrapbook page. Here is Alesha's sketch.

And here is my rendition of it. What do you think?  It took me less than half an hour to complete this sketch, and thanks to Alesha's great instructions on how to add a picture to a punched image, I was able to insert my pictures into the two punched hearts.  

Laura and mom Kim at their recent recital.  She looks so sweet in her little white Tutu!

If you would like to learn more about My Digital Studio just visit my Stampin' Up! web page and check out this flyer. There is so much that you can do with this product, and I would be happy to share my experiences in using it with you.  Also don't miss Stampin' Ups! National Scrapbooking Promotion to take advantage of all the great savings on products and on becoming a demonstrator during this promotion.

Welcome New Baby Boy!!!

A very good friend of mine recently became a Grandma for the first time.  She has been so excited all through her daughter's pregnancy, and now he's finally arrived. I'm over the moon excited for her and her family.   The picture she sent of her "grand son" made my heart melt.  He is just so adorable. 

So I got busy trying to design a perfect card to commemorate this happiest of occasions!  I chose a retired Stampin' Up set called "A New Little Someone", mainly because of the sentiment stamp and this adorable Bunny image.  The cardstock base, Designer Series Paper and Classic Ink are also retired, but one of my favourite colors - Soft Sky. I stamped the Bunny image in Soft Sky on Whisper White card stock.  Isn't it cute?  This layer was mounted on Soft Sky cardstock, then on Whisper White card stock.  The following layers are Soft Sky DSP and then a Whisper White layer that was texturized using the Square Lattice Embossing Folder, then another layer of DSP and finally the card base.  The bow is made from 3/8" Whisper White Taffeta ribbon.  I've adhered a row of Basic Rhinestones above and below the Bunny's picture to give it some sparkle. 

Here's a view of the inside of the card - the verse says "Bottles and booties and bibs and more, a new little someone to hug and adore". 

I love the way this card turned out and will be making one for a girl in Pink Pirouette, and another boy one, but I'll be using Baja Breeze.

Colourful Impressions Swap Cards

As promised here are some views of the cards I received from the Colourful Impressions Swap on April 18th.  They are all so beautiful.  I haven't included the names of the creators as in some cases they didn't put them on the back of their cards...... such a shame.  I will say though that these are some of the nicest swaps I've received in a long time.  Thanks ladies.

Sunny Fun Stamp set page 16 of the Summer Mini.  Coloured with Markers

Gift Bag made from Paisley DSP from Summer Blossoms Campaign.

Isn't this scooter sweet?  It's from the "On the Grow" stamp set in the Summer Mini.

Bold Blossoms StampSet from Summer Mini

Love this little tag and cover made with the Owl punch.

Label is from Four Frames in the Spring Blossom campaign.

This card features the fabulous "The Open Sea" set from the Summer Mini. 

This adorable card features another fun image from the "Summer Fun" set.

This gate fold card featured a beautiful sponged Fun Flowers Die from the Occasions Mini Catalogue.

This card features one of the awesome Fabric Designer Brads from page 36 of the Occasions Mini.

And finally here are some pictures of the two make and takes we made at the meeting:

This card features the faux fabric technique.  The flower images are made from the new and exciting Triple Layer punches from the Summer Mini catalogue.  The three coordinated punch images are easy to make and fun once you get the hang of how the punch works! 

This card features the new textured impressions embossing folder called "Flower Garden".  Do you recognize the stamped flower image?  It's actually from the Fifth Avenue Floral Set and it's mounted on the new Postage Stamp Punched image.  Great card to make!