Lilacs in Ivory & Grey

This PSX Lilac stamp is one of my all time favourites, I could easily use it almost all of the time.  However, this time I’ve rung in the changes with colour scheme. Instead of the obvious lilac and lavender tones (and I do love those colours too), I’ve gone for ivory, grey and crystal. The card also features a number of different techniques, including:

Paper piecing ● Decoupage ● Distressing ● Embossing ●  Digital Die Cutting ●  Manual Die Cutting ●  Glittering ●  Flower embellishing ●  Accenting ●  and (of course) Hat Pin Making! 

Card Recipe:

Stamp: PSX Botanical Lilac

Colouring Mediums: Memento Ink Pad London Fog, Promarker Pens

Paper & Card: K&Company Elegance Shimmer, Stardream Opal
Tools: Spellbinders, Silhouette Cameo, Grand Calibur, Creative Expressions Embossing Folder

Embellishments: Berisford satin picot ribbon 10mm, hand-made beaded Hat Pins, crystals, pearls, mulberry flowers

To make this card, using my Silhouette Cameo, I cut the card base and butterfly base from stardream cardstocks. I also cut the flourish background, flourish border and butterfly on K&Company Elegance Shimmer. 

I then embossed an offcut of stardream card through my Grand Calibur using my new Tied Together embossing folder.  Once embossed, this offcut was paper-pieced together with an offcut of coordinating K&Company Elegance Shimmer patterned paper and the join was covered by a strip of picot edge satin ribbon, then die-cut with Spellbinders Labels 1. 

I stamped my image with Momento London Fog and this was also cut out with a Labels 1 die.  I have a really great tip for cutting smaller filigree shapes on the Cameo. I shrink the whole shape to the size that I want, then ungroup the image and use the outline tool to increase the size of the smaller filigree elements so that they enlarge and cut cleanly.
 

To accent the card, I inked edges with promarker pens, which I also used on the butterfly filigree layer and the mulberry flower edges and stamen.  The stamped image, flourish border and filigree were flittered with glue pen and crystal glitter.  I accented various pieces with flat-back pearls and rhinestones.

This card was shortlisted in the following challenges:
Allsorts Challenge - Flower Power

 I ♥ ProMarkers - Layer it Up

Joanna Sheen Challenge - New Beginnings

Love to Create Challenge - Three Favourite Colours (ivory, grey and crystal silver)

Hope you like this; do leave a comment if this has pleased you.

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Life Begins at 80! - Birdcage Tri-Fold Card

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety” is most definitely a phrase that aptly describes my Mother, recently celebrating her 80th Birthday and a lovely, wonderful lady.  As such, she deserves a lovely card so I made this tri-fold, custom-cut Birdcage Card. 

Card Recipe: 
Stamp: Imagination Crafts 
Colouring Mediums: Memento Black Tuxedo, ProMarker Pens 
Paper & Card: First Edition Isabelle, pink textured card
Tools: Silhouette Cameo 
Embellishments: Prima Flowers, hand-made beaded Hat Pins, crystals, pearl swirls, glitter, glue pen

I love to use my Silhouette Cameo to custom cut card bases.  In this case, I choose a Birdcage shape.  Using the Outline tool, I created a lightly larger image, use the mirror tool to create 2 further images and welded them together to produce a bird-cage shaped card base.  I cut this from an A3 sheet of pink textured cardstock using my extended cutting mat.  I cut the birdcage shape from white card and (using the offset tool) slightly smaller mats from patterned papers from the Isabelle premium paper pad.  Finally I cut a doily shape, 80 and a fancy heart-shaped tag with Mother welded to it, all.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE my Silhouette Cameo, especially with the extended cutting mat. 


I stamped the pretty floral image onto an offcut of the pink textured cardstock and then stamped extra floral images onto patterned paper from the Isabelle premium paper pad, which I then decoupaged onto the base layer.  I coloured the rest of the image with ProMarker pens.










To ensemble, I mounted the offset patterned background mat onto the front of the card.  The bird-cage layer was distressed with Promarkers, glittered and embellished with rhinestone crystals. The stamped image was mounted onto the card.  I added Prima flowers, which I layered up and added crystals to, pearl swirls and hand-made hatpins




As my lovely Mother doesn’t feel like she’s 80, nor does she want too much to admit to it, I made sure that any reference to 80 was on the inside of the card, and this was featured on a doily on the middle section of the tri-fold card.  Finally, I added a pretty heart shaped tag to the final fold, on which to write my message.  I cut this tag with my cameo and welded the word Mother to the top of the tag.  I coloured the Mother with Promarkers to make is stand out and then accented with glitter, and added a feature of paper lace to the centre.

 I am entering this card into the following challenges: 
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Anything Goes
Oldie But a Goodie Challenge - Lace, Pins and Pearls

I’m always so grateful when someone is kind enough to leave a comment, thank you so much - it makes my day :) Pin It Now!

Elegant Ivory & Lavender Sugarpaste Celebration Cake

I love making celebration cakes, beautifully decorated in fantasy sugarpaste flowers. I had this idea of using large, overblown flowers on my Mother’s 80th Birthday celebration cake, in soft subtle tones of ivory and lavender.

I made the sugarpaste flowers by cutting a flower shape in 3 sizes on my new Cricut Cake Machine. I used three four different sized bowls dusted with cornflower to act as formers, after shaping the petals with a cone tool (I know I’m meant to use a ball tool but personally I get a better result at thinning and ruffling the edges with a cone tool).

The flower centres were made from edible pearls using a half ball mold. I coloured the lavender pearls myself, using a small amount of SugarFlair paste in grape onto white pearls – I’m very happy with the end result and it means that you can always have pearls coordinating with my chosen sugarpaste colour. The soft sheen on the cake and flowers is achieved by using PME Pearl Lustre Spray – I am seriously addicted to my pearl spray and gun!

Most importantly, my Mum loved her birthday cake and I was very happy with how it looked.

Please do leave me a comment if you have visited this post and found it of interest – I do love to read your comments! Pin It Now!