On Your Retirement

My Mother asked me to make a “special” card for a friend of her’s that is retiring.

Special’s my kind of card making, and I love to make a coordinating box, with the card nestling in layers of tissue paper for that extra special touch.



This is also my first play with my extended Cameo Silhouette cutting mat – I used to the cut the fancy edge card blank with the matching frame. Very happy with the result. I will be using this technique again on other shapes – it was a doddle to do.




Card Recipe:
Stamp: Kanban
Colouring Mediums: Momento Ink Pad Cocoa, Brown Pigment Ink, Promarker Pens, Tattered Angels Glimmer Spritz
Paper & Card: Kanban Printed Cardstock, Stardream Opal, Opalescent Vellum
Tools: Spellbinders, Silhouette Cameo, BigShot Pro, Quickutz
Embellishments: double satin ribbon 10mm & 3mm, hand-made beaded Hat Pins, pearls, mulberry roses, gardenia & cheery blossom.

To make this card, using my Silhouette Cameo, I cut the card base from stardream cardstock, the frame from Kanban Printed Cardstock and the flourish background from Opalescent Vellum. Additional swirls were die-cut from a Quickutz die in my Big-Shot Pro from both the Kanban Printed Cardstock and Opalescent Vellum.

I then embossed an offcut of stardream card through my Big-Shot Pro using a spellbinders embossing folder. Once embossed, this offcut was paper-pieced together with an offcut of coordinating Kanban Printed Cardstock and the join was covered by a strip of double satin ribbon, then die-cut with Spellbinders Labels 1.

My brown pigment ink was not as deep as I wanted so I inked up the stamp first with a layer of Momento Cocoa and then added a layer of brown pigment ink. This was then embossed with clear powder and coloured with promarker pens. The finished image was then cut from the smaller Labels 1 die, using the ‘outside the die’ technique so that the tassle came below the cut line of the die.

I printed my greeting onto an offcut of Kanban Printed Cardstock and die-cut it out.





To ensemble, I mounted the flourish background onto the backing card, topped off with the frame and inked all the edges. The mounted stamped image and greeting were added . To embellish, I used mulberry paper rosebuds, gardenia & cheery blossom flowers, handmade HatPins, flat-backed pearls and a double-satin ribbon bow. Finally, the entire project was spritzed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Spritz, for a subtle shimmer.

Hope you like this; do leave a comment if this has pleased you. Pin It Now!

Keep Calm & Have a Bath!

And Relaxxxxxx! Girly and feminine, this card is for all ladies who love a pampering soak (and that most definitely includes me)! This multi-dimensional card also features a hidden message tab, slotted into the folds.

Card Recipe:

Stamp: Kanban

Colouring Mediums: Encore Ultimate Metallic Ink, Promarker Pens

Paper & Card: Kanban Printed Cardstock, Kanban Foiled Cardstock, Stardream Opal, plain burgundy

Tools: Spellbinders, BigShot Pro, Tim Holtz Ruler, Martha Stewart Punch Around The Page, Heat Gun, Guillotine

Embellishments: Satin-edge sheer ribbon 10mm, hand-made Pearl & Crystal Hat Pin, mulberry flowers, Pearl Brad, crystals

To make this card, using my Guillotine, I cut the card base from stardream cardstock, and the mats from Kanban printed and foiled cardstock and plain card. The hidden tab was punched out using Martha Stewart Punch Around The Page. To echo this on the front of the card, I used my Tim Holtz Ruler to pierce holes all around the edge of the top cardstock layer.

The lovely bath stamp is by Kanban image, which I inked up Brilliance Pigment and then embossed the image with clear embossing powder and a heat gun. I then coloured the image with Promarkers.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Bunny Zoe's Challenge - Ribbon or Twine
Really Reasonable Ribbon - Feminine
Stampin for the Weekend - Layers
Dream Valley Challenges - For a Special Lady
Oldie But Goodie - Dies & Punches
Crafts&Me - Favourite Colour Combo

I love to read your comments, they are a highlight of my day, so do let me know what you think of this or if you have any questions.  Thank You!

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How to Make Felt Flower Pins/Brooches

This tutorial covers how to make these simple felt flower embellishments, which can be used on cards or scrapbooks, but also turned into a brooch or hairgrip.

To make the first brooch from the left, I cut:
  From Spellbinders Rose Creations:
      2 midnight blue felt flowers, 1 printed cotton flower, 1 felt leaf and 1 linen leaf
  From Spellbinders Nested Circles and Scalloped Circles:
      1 printed cotton circle and 1 felt scalloped circle

Using a contrasting thread, I used a running stitch to attach the cotton circle to the scallop felt circle. They great thing about using spellbinders dies for this is that they leave a faint embossed edge, which is a useful guide for stitching. I ran the same outlining stitch around both leaves and then stitched them to the brooch base.

I also stitched an outline on the base midnight blue felt flower before layering the three flowers, then used a pearl brad to hold them together.

 I glued the flowers to the brooch base with Pinflair gel glue. As I’m using my flower on a card, that was my project finished, but if you want to make this into a brooch, cut 1 additional scallop circle from felt, stitch on a brooch fixing and glue to the back of the flower, to hide all the “workings”.

For this broooch, simply:
cut 2 midnight blue felt flowers, 1 printed cotton flower, 1 felt leaf and 1 linen leaf from Spellbinders Rose Creations, and 1 printed cotton circle and 1 felt scalloped circle from Spellbinders Nested Circles and Scalloped Circles.
Contrast stitch with backstitch the leaves, large felt flower and cotton circle.
Make up a coordinating Hat Pin (see my tutorial on Creating Hat Pins for more instructions on this)
Stitch flower to backing mat, then add glass pearls to centre, and finally push hat pin into place.

For this broooch, simply:

cut flowers from midnight blue felt, printed cotton and mushroom felt leaf, plus leaves in printed cotton and mushroom felt Spellbinders Rose Creations, and 1 printed cotton circle and 1 felt scalloped circle from Spellbinders Nested Circles and Scalloped Circles.
Use a running stitch around the circle and leaves.  Attach 3mm satin ribbon loops to thr leaves, and layer onto backing mat with flower.  Finally stitch a mother of pearl button to the centre.

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