Dressed In Roses Card

Today’s card features my Dressed In Roses stamp from Hampton Art Stamps, which is such a lovely fresh and summery image. The colour theme of the card was inspired by the pretty Sangria Afterglow Floral papers from Karen Neuburger which coordinated perfectly with my all time favourite Präsent cherry blossom woven ribbon.

More often than not, a card from me has to have a beaded hat pin and this card was no different, and this one combines pearls, crystals and tumbled beads. The frosted flowers are also a favourite, with their beaded stamens. The swirly flourishes (quickutz) are embellished with pink crystals - yum!

Card Recipe:

Stamp: Hampton Art Stamps Dressed in Roses

Colouring Mediums: Promarker Pens, ColorBox Cat's Eye Fluid Chalk Ink

Paper & Card: Paper Adventures Karen Neuburger Sangria Afterglow Floral, Stardream Serpentine, Elegance Satin
Tools: Spellbinders, Quickutz, Crafters Companion

Embellishments: Präsent ribbon, hand-made beaded Hat Pins, crystals, mulberry cherry blossoms, beaded frosted acrylic flowers, Dovecraft gem brad.

Please do let me know what you think, I love to read your comments.

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Woven Easter Basket Project

Spring is definitely in the air with this lovely Woven Easter Basket project!

You will need:
Double-sided Card Stock
Paper Trimmer
Border Edger punches
Daisy Punch – medium and small
Butterfly embellishment
Twisted Flower embellishment
Ribbon
Rhinestone Crystals
Ultra Strong Tape
Dries-clear glue






To start, cut 14-16 2cmx30.5cm strips of double-sided cardstock, from 2 co-ordinating patterns (my cardstock was patterned on one-side and plain on the other).







Place 4 strips flush to each other horizontally. Weave in 2 strips vertically, move these strips over to be central to the horizontal strips. Check everything is flush and the edges are aligned, then weave in 4 more strips, two from the left and two from the right. Spend time adjusting and straightening your strips and then glue down the outer weaved edges. Leave to dry for 20mins.

If you have a pattern on your cardstock that you want facing out, turn your project so the outer pattern is facing down. Use a steel edge ruler and score tool, to score the base of your basket, then fold in each stake and burnish the score with a bone folder to achieve a sharp finish.

Now start the upper weaving. Taking a 2cm strip, place a small strip of ultra sticky tape to one end and anchor this to the inside of one the stakes. Weave all the way around. You will need to extend the strip with about 12.5cm cut from one of the remaining 2cm strips, but wait until you have woven your first strip and then measure how much of an extension you will need, as this is dependent on how tightly you weave as you go. Secure end pieces in place with another a small strip of ultra sticky tape. Now weave three more rows.

When you have woven all four rows, secure the spokes with of ultra sticky tape, then trim any excess spokes flush to the forth row. This will still look slightly “unfinished” so you will need to hide the raw edge.

You can do this with a ribbon trim, but I made a cardstock trim. Measure the four sides of your basket and decide how deep you want your trim to be, then add 1.5cm of depth. Cut your four edging pieces to size and, if wished, punch a decorative edge. Score the length of each border, 1.5cm in from the opposite side to the decorative edge, fold and burnish with a bone folder. Ink the decorative edges, then stick your trim to your basket, to hide the raw edges.






Cut a piece of cardstock 5.5cmx30.5cm, decorate with border punches and ribbon. Attach to your basket with brads or ultra sticky tape.

You will have various off-cuts left, use these to punch out daisy flowers. Layer these up and adorn with rhinestone crystals (from Wild Orchid Crafts). Decorate your basket with your embellishments in a way that pleases your eye. I’ve used one of my Ribbon Flowers with a Twist (visit my tutorial if you would like to find out how to make one too).















Fill your basket with pretty foiled wrapped eggs, and think how sweet!

Thank you for looking, please do leave a comment if you've enjoyed this project. Pin It Now!

Mother's Day Orange & Poppy Seed Blossom Cake

Ingredients:
For the cake:
200g organic unsalted butter
200g organic golden caster sugar
3 organic free range eggs
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
250g sifted organic plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
2 unwaxed oranges, zest and juice
50g poppy seeds

For the syrup:
1 unwaxed orange, zest and juice
25g organic golden caster sugar

For the filling:
90g organic unsalted butter
180g icing sugar
100ml orange curd

To decorate:
250g fondant icing
Sugar flowers
Ribbon

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A Card for Mothering Sunday

Tomorrow is Mothering Sunday here in the UK, so I thought I would share the Mother’s Day Card I’ve made for my Mother.  Her name is Iris, so I was over-the-moon to have tracked down a second-hand Iris PSX Botanical Stamp. 

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Party Presents Mice Birthday Card

Spring is definitely in the air today and must have influenced my colour choices for this super-cute Party Presents Mice Card.

The background papers are Fresh Print Blue Raspberry by Déjà Views and I think they certainly are fresh.  I’ve used double satin ribbon to accent the Crochet Lace Trim (by May Road) and narrow double satin on some of the buttons

The stamp is by Lili of the Valley, I really love Mice stamps and have quite a collection.  This was the first time I’ve used this image and it is stamped with a Rich Cocoa Momento pad onto Elegance Satin

and coloured using, what else, Promarkers.

The main image and greeting have been die-cut using spellbinders, and the background lattice is using a Martha Stewart deep border punch.

Thank you for looking!

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Card Box & Tray Liner Set

With Mother’s Day fast approaching, I thought I’d share a tutorial on how to make an extra special Card Box with Tray Liner.  Mothers are very special and if, like me, you spend a lot of time and effort making a lovely card for your Mum with lots of dimensional elements, then a plain envelope to enclose it will just not do.  This Card Box with Tray Liner elevates your card into a true gift. The dimensions that I give will be a perfect fit for 16.5cm square card. 

You will need:

• 1 sheet of A3 cardstock (I’ve used Opal Stardream for a luxurious finish)

• Patterned paper to coordinate with your card (I’ve used K & Co papers)

• A steel edge ruler

• A circle punch

• A paper edger or decorative scissors or a spellbinders die
• PVA glue

• Glue Stick

• Double-sided sticky tape

• Toothpick

You are going to be cutting a piece of A3 cardstock and a piece of 23cmx23cm double-sided cardstock into the following shape:

To make the outer box

Trim 1.5 cm from the end of your A3 card sheet so that it measures 29.7cm x 40.5cm.  Starting from the right and moving to the left, mark with a pencil top and bottom at 17.5cm, 19.5cm, 37cm and 39cm, then score these lines from top to bottom.  From the bottom, mark up 3.5cm and 21cm, and then score these two lines from left to right.  Using a steel edge rule and craft knife, trim away the unwanted sections, as per the picture below.  Finally score the left-most oblong length-wise at 1.5cm from the edge, and trim off corners.  Do the same at the bottom right flap.  For the top “envelope” flap, score 2cm from the attached edge of the flap (I forgot to do this in my pictures, so do what I write not what I did, lol!). Trim the edges off the 2 bottom flaps. 

 
Crease and fold all your score lines, using a bone folder to achieve a crisp finish.

Select your decorative papers and cut:
2 pieces 17.2cm x 17.2cm

2 pieces 17.2cm x 1.8cm

2 pieces 17.2cm x 6.2cm

3 pieces 17.2cm x 1.7cm

Ink all the edges.


 
 
 
Using a glue stick, stick the 17.2cm x 6.2cm to the front and back of the “envelope” flap. Set aside to dry for at least 30mins. When dry, cut a decorative edge to the flap using decorative scissors, or a punch (able to punch heavy-weight cardstock as it will be going through 3 layers) or a spellbinders edgeability. Ink raw edges. Attach the remaining decorative papers to the panels using double-sided sticky tape.

Apply PVA glue to the bare, uncovered bottom and side flaps (I find you need to use a wet glue for this, if you use double-sided tape, it will not hold over time). Stick your box together and put aside to dry.  When dry, punch two holes through the “envelope” flap and then mark through those holes to the box base so that the holes are properly aligned, and then punch them as well. 

To Make The Card Tray Liner

To make the tray liner, use a double-sided cardstock.  If you don’t have a coordinating double-sided cardstock, trim two pieces of decorative paper 25cmx25cm (this is slightly larger than you will need but you will then trim to size and this means that you don’t need to have perfectly aligned the papers when stickling together).  Use a glue stick to stick the papers back-to-back and set aside to dry (at least 1 hr and preferably over-night).

Cut your double-sided cardstock to 23cm x 23cm.  Mark and score each edge at 1.4cm and 3cm.  Trim away as per the picture below.  Using a PVA glue, stick the short flaps into place.  Hold each flap for about 30secs until the glue takes proper hold. 

Run a line of PVA glue along the long flaps.  Use a toothpick to spread the glue over the entire flap.  Fold over the flap and run a bone folder up and down the box side until the glue adheres.  This may take a minute or so, don’t panic, just keep pressing down with your bone folder and you will achieve a good finish.  Repeat for the remaining 3 sides. Allow to dry, then take a circle punch and punch away a thumb-hold in the centre of one of the sides.

Your completed project will now slot together perfectly and the two elements should look like this:

This card box and tray liner set does take a little time to make, but the effort is worth it for special cards for special people. I do have a pdf file of the template dimensions you need to make this, but I don't know how to add pdf download to Blogger, if you know, do leave me a comment explaining it!!!!


Thank you for looking, please do leave a comment if you've enjoyed this project.

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Glorious Dress Card

This card was a swap-card for a forum Birthday Card Swap that I run. Not only was it the first time that the recipient had participated in a card swap, but it was also her 60th Birthday as well. So the card needed to be “a bit special”, I hope you think so too!

The background image is from a lovely set of Best Creations papers that I’ve been “saving” for a special card, I’ve stroked them lovingly for about a year, but the time had now come to use them.

The stamp is by Stamps Happen and is called, appropriately, Glorious. Have I mentioned that I love dress stamps? Once or twice, or maybe a tad more! I coloured the image with Promarkers onto oyster cardstock. The stamp has a fine-line outline, but I trimmed the coloured image close to crop this out, as I didn't want to obscure too much of the background

Chandelier.

I inked the edges and stamen of the large gardenia mulberry flower with a promarker to tie it with the stamped image. Tucked behind the mulberry flowers are a pair of Teardrop Hatpins with glass pearls and bicone beads(perhaps you’d like to take a look at my hatpin tutorial)?






As this card was for a special birthday, it was dispatched in a custom-made coordinating box, for ideas on making special card boxes, do visit my card box-making tutorial.











Post-script
After writing this post, my forum friend very sadly had a bleak diagnosis, she is very much in my thoughts, perhaps you can think of her too, and say a little prayer.  However, my goodness me is she a fighter, and she has beeen fighting harder than Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson and Henry Cooper rolled into one.

 


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