Baby Lucia's Filigree First Birthday Card

Gosh, where did the last 12 months go?  I can't believe that it's my niece's first birthday this Sunday.  So, it is going to be a series of Baby Birthday blog-posts at the moment, we've had the Button Wall Art last week, now it's the Baby First Birthday Card, and there's the cake to come too!

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A Gaggle of Gift Tags using Tonic Studios Indulgence Pop Up Sentiments

This is a great little project for using up offcuts of card left over from your crafting projects, and I'll do a step-by-step on making these in a week or so.

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Diamond Wedding Anniversary

It's my parent's Diamond Wedding Anniversary in a month and I wanted to make a real show stopper.  This colour combination of platinum, greys and champagne is one of my favourites, and I think it's softer and more elegant than the traditional white and silver.

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Be Still My Pleated Heart Card!

Apologies for the pun title, but I think you will forgive me when you see how pretty the pleated background looks on this heart card (I hope so anyway!).

And it fits perfectly with the Valentine theme over at an Oldie But A Goodie Challenge this fortnight.  My "oldies" are my designer papers, card and gems, which I have combined with my brand new Indulgence Affections Dies from Tonic Studios. 

Card Recipe:

Paper and Card: Textured, Prima, Stardream
Tools: Tonic Studios Affections Square Heart Base, Affections Heart On Mother's Day, Pillow Box Die and Sentiments, Scallop Layering Squares, Grand Calibur 
Embellishments: flatback pearls and crystals

How to Create the Pleated Heart Focal Point

The focal point for this card is the pleated background to the central heart section. To achieve this, I first die cut and embossed my patterned paper using the following sequence:

1. Die cut and emboss outer two detail dies from Affections Square Heart Base (but not the edge dies), outer detail and inner heart edge dies from Affections Heart On Mother's Day
2. Remove dies and waste, then cut out the outer edge using the largest scallop layering square
3. Die cut a piece of pink stardream paper using the outer edge cutting die from the Affections Square Heart Base
4. Carefully position and adhere the patterned paper to the pink stardream backing paper.  Resit the inner heart edge die into the central section and die cut to create aperture.
5. Cut two 3.5 cm wide strips of coordinating 15cm patterned paper, score these every 0.6cm and concertina fold.  Adhere the two strips together.  Take the pink "waste" heart die cut from the aperture and coat generously with wet glue.  Push the centre of the concertina strips down onto the glue to form a rosette.  Place a light weight on top of rosette until glue has dried
6. Apply a thin line of wet glue to the reverse of the heart aperture on the topper and adhere to the rosette.  Apply a double depth of 3D foam tape around the edge of the reverse of topper and mount onto your card.
7. Decorate with flatback pearls and crystals, and add your die-cut sentiment

I've also subsequently filmed a step-by-step video tutorial on how to make this card from start to finish, just click on the picture below

Here's one last look at this card.....

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Fruit of the Vine Men's Card

My Dad spent a lot of his working life in the wine trade, so what could be more apt than this card for his birthday.  Cheers! 

Card Recipe:
Stamp: Stamps Happen Wine Collage
Colouring Mediums: Memento Black Ink, Promarker Pens, Flexmarkers,
Paper and Card: Creative Imaginations, Textured, Joanna Sheen's Elegance Satin
Tools: Tonic Studios Gothic Square Die Set, Tonic Studios Gothic Border Punch, Tonic Studios Verdant Vines Die, Corner Rounder, Grand Calibur
Embellishments: Raffia, Buttons, Twine, Glossy Accents
The main image is stamped with a Wine Collage stamp by Stamp Happens - it's actually an oblong, but I just chopped off one end to make it square shape as that's really what I needed for my card.

I coloured the image with Promarkers and washed the background with Flexmarkers (you just can't see that in the photo though). Finally, I used glossy accents over the glass bottles and wine glasses (again, really difficult to pick up in the photograph).

This stamped image has a very peculiar graphic in the bottom left corner, I have no idea what the artist meant if to be, so I just stuck my sentiment over it!

My corners are (appropriately) cut using Tonic Studios Verdant Vines corner dies to echo the wine feel of the card, and topped one off with this grapes on the vine button that I've had in my stash for years.

The wine papers are also old stash, from Creative Imaginations, I think that they work really well on this card.  

Some raffia and buttons tied through with twine add so additional accenting to the card.



I'd like to enter this card into the following challenge:
Moving Along with the Times - Birthday Boy











So here's one final look

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Tonic Studios Simplicity Projects

Today Create and Craft are featuring some terrific offers on Tim Holtz Tools, Tonic Simplicity Punches and Medium Punch Packs. 

Simplicity Giveaway1 with Free Dotty Punch	Simplicity Giveaway2 with Free Floral Strip Punch	Simplicity Giveaway3 with Free Delicate Lattice Punch
Tim Holtz Giveaway with Free Craft Knife and Blades	Medium Punch Giveaway1 with 4 Free Punches	Medium Punch Giveaway2 with 4 Free Punches

Here's a selection of my projects using Tonic Studios Simplicity Punches and Dies

New Beginnings	Sewing Bee	Annabel and Friends
Fabulous At Fifty	Chocolate SlipWrapper	Fruit of the Vine
Kaleidoscope of Butterflies	House Mouse Big Apple-tite	Roses and Butterflies
Football 70th Birthday	Best Dressed	Cracker and Star Box
Lucia Isabella	Poker Face	Father's Day Card
Lemonade	Trick or Treat Bags	Baby's First Christmas
Paper Roses	Girly Peaches and Greens	Christmas ATCs

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Sew-Nice Mice!

These cute little Mices were just "sew" nice, that I couldn't resist them, especially when paired with my Mannequin die set! 

Card Recipe:
Stamp: Crafter's Companion
Colouring Mediums: Memento Rich Cocoa Ink Pad, Promarkers, Distress Ink Pads (Antique Linen and Pumice Stone)
Paper and Card: Stardream, My Mind's Eye, Neenah
Tools: Tonic Studios Layering Squares and Scallop Layering Squares Die Sets, MannequinTag Die, Grand Calibur
Embellishments: Lace, Double Satin Ribbons, Spool Button, Lace Doily, recycled MOP Button, Metallic Thread, flat-back pearls, hand-made Pearl Hatpins
My main image is Sewn with Love Makey Bakey Mice from Crafter's Companion, stamped onto Neenah card, and cut out with the oh-so-useful Tonic Layering Square dies using the off-the-edge technique so that the upper-most mouse and the top of the stamped mannequin poke off the top of the die cut edge. I coloured the image with Promarkers, paper-pieced the mannequin body with an off-cut of my patterned paper and then ink-dusted the edge of the image with a combination of Antique Linen and Pumice Stone Distress Inks.

Those mices do look industrious in their activities!


I echoed the patterned paper piecing technique on my Mannequin Die Cut (one of my favourite dies of all time), and embellished the neckline with flat-back pearls.  

My mats and layers are some lovely My Minds Eye papers that I've had in my stash for quite a while, all cut with the new Tonic Studios Layering and Scallop Layering Squares Die Sets.

I colour-matched my double satin ribbon by colouring two different widths with Promarker Pens, before weaving the narrow length through the top edge of a piece of lace.  I do love this effect, it's a bit of fiddle to do but worth the effort.


It's always great when you have the right embellishments already in your stash to accent your card, such as this lace doily which I topped with a MOP button recycled off an old shirt.  

I've had the wooden thread spool button in my button box for about 10 years, and I wrapped some coordinating metallic thread around.  I always make my own hatpins (I have a tutorial on making decorative hatpins here) and am happy when my card lends itself to using them as an embellishment.

This card was a Top Pick in the following challenge (Thank You!):
Crafting for all Seasons - For the Girls

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Bevelled Squares & Scallop Circles - No Stamp Required

This card is a bit of departure for me, as there is no stamping required, just some lovely patterned paper and pretty embellishments combined with simple matting and layering.

Card Recipe:

Paper and Card: Textured, Watch The Birdie, Stardream
Tools: Tonic Studios Scallop Layering Circles, Layering Squares, Everyday Sentiments, Grand Calibur
Embellishments: flat-back pearls,  zva crystal swirl, hatpins, mulberry flowers, double satin ribbon, pearl strand, crochet flower

I'd had this idea for a mosaic-style card as soon as I got my new layering dies, but instead of creating a set of mats and putting different toppers onto them, I used my dies to create a set of identical mini apertures and used different elements from some gorgeous Watch the Birdie double sided patterned papers to create the focal points.

So here's a couple of close up photos of a few of those apertures.  Here you can see where I've used just a snippet of a Zva Crystal Swirl and then echoed that with a trail of flat-back pearls leading to my Butterfly die-cut.  

I make my own hatpins (it's kind of an obsessions) and if you would like to have a go at simple ones like this but don't know where to  start, take a look at one of my most popular tutorials Creating Hatpins.  The great thing about making your own embellishments is that you can always match them to your project.










Here's my tip for making sure that your apertures are all identical, use low tack tape to secure the two dies together, and keep in place for each of the nine squares.

You don't need to die cut the backing papers to each aperture, but as I had space on my die cutting mat, I did use the next die down to cut my papers.  The advantage to this is that can position the die and centre it over the most interesting elements of the patterns.  The beautiful images on Tonic Studios Watch the Birdie double-sided card pad was perfect for this project.  

Here's one final look at this card...

This card was a Top Pick in the Simply Create Too - Anything Goes  challenge, thank you! Pin It Now!

100th Blog Post Prize Draw Winners!

Hello Peeps - apologies that this is a little late, it took me a while to de-duplicate the entries and find out how to create random lists!  All sorted now and I'm really pleased to announce the prize draw winners.
Winner of the set of 4 Verso Corner Dies is ...... Pamela.

Winners of the sets of Metal Embellishments are ......Anne Nellist and Hazel Rodgers.



Ladies, I have your email addresses so will send you an email asking for address details.  Congratulations and thank you so much for entering. Pin It Now!