Shades of Growing Green

Since I've been enjoying a long Easter break with my family, I haven't been able to join in with my usual challenges this week. But there's just time to squeeze a card in for the Less is More colour challenge: to use Three Shades of Green. Come and see:

Green is my favourite colour - I even used a stamp set with green in the title, Growing Green, which must have been a subconscious decision! The Stampin' Up greens are all gorgeous but I eventually narrowed my choice down to Certainly Celery, Old Olive and Garden Green. The central masked panel was supposed to be sponged in Certainly Celery but I think there must have been Old Olive ink left on my sponge! The dotty strip layered over it is one of three lovely, long stamps from the Borderlines set. (Borderlines is only available until the end of this month, by the way, along with everything else in the spring mini catalogue.)

I'm always fascinated by green flowers! These were given an Old Olive wash with an aqua painter and the centres coloured with Certainly Celery and Garden Green markers. Its easy to add matching leaves because Stampin' Up inks, markers and card stock come in all 50 colours and embellishments and designer papers are designed to match too.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card:

Stamps: Growing Green, Borderlines, Happiest Birthday Wishes (hostess set)

Ink: Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Growing Green

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Garden Green

Other: Markers, 2-step bird punch, Little Leaves die, paper snips, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. And don't forget to add a free pack of designer paper if your order is £45 or more (Offer limited to one pack per qualifying order - click here for details).

It's lucky I didn't live in Victorian times (which I didn't, despite my children insisting that I must have!) as I would certainly have chosen to wear a green dress. Unfortunately the green dyes of the time apparently contained hefty amounts of arsenic and a green dress could kill!

It's always lovely to take a break but it's great to be back too. I know that I'll never be able to catch up on everything I've missed in Blogland so please forgive my lack of commenting this week. Normal service will resume next week!

Have a great weekend and I'll see you soon,

Saying sorry with Growing Green

I'm always interested in using up left-overs when I'm crafting, so I've been trying to play along with Jules' Crafty Snippet challenge and ONLY using scraps. The card I've made for today was the result of that but before I show you, would you like to see how I organise my scraps?

First, my card stock off-cuts! I keep those in a vertical tub - transparent so that I can see what's going on in there. Periodically, I go through it and punch shapes from the very small pieces, which I keep in jars on my shelf.

This is my designer paper drawer. Because I'm a Stampin' Up demonstrator, it makes sense for me to use only current papers, stored by range in large poly bags. All the off-cuts go back into the bags so it's all kept together. I use my papers for cardmaking, scrapbooking and giftwrapping as well as for altered items such as notebooks etc.

I keep this tub under my desk and it's where I keep card bases I make but don't immediately use (on the right) and items that I've coloured and cut out or punched or embellishments I've made but haven't yet used (on the left). I purge the embellishmenty bit sometimes but am quite good at using things up. This system works quite well for me and I hope it's helpful to someone else!

Come and see the card I made using my scraps:

The starting point for this card was a left-over strip of Botanical Gazette designer paper - I adore this paper! In my embellishments tub, I also found this rose from Growing Green that I'd stamped onto water colour paper and coloured with my aqua painter. Whenever I use my Little Leaves die, I always make more than I need because they are so useful - so there were loads of these in my tub too. The card base was the other half of the A4 sheet used to make yesterday's card.

I mounted the DP onto an off-cut of Whisper White card stock that I trimmed with the eyelet border punch. It's topped with the leaves and then the rose cut out and mounted on a dimensional. I stamped the sentiment onto a scrap of vellum, curled it round a pencil and tucked it  under the rose.

Here's a close-up of the vellum sentiment with its snipped tail - and please, all you Latin experts out there, don't write in and tell me that you fainted when you saw this because the background I've used is full of rude words!

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Growing Green, Basic Phrases (sentiment)

Ink: Always Artichoke, Melon Mambo, Peach Parfait

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Whisper White, Always Artichoke, Pear Pizzazz, Vellum, watercolour paper

Other: Botanical Gazzette designer paper, Little Leaves die, eyelet border punch

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

I'm really enjoying having my children around. In between social engagements they come and chat to me while I'm crafting and we have a giggle together. This morning I made a silly quip to my youngest son and my daughter met my eyes over his head. "Oh Mummy," she said shaking her head affectionately. "You and your so-called sense of humour!" She is beginning to remind me of Dame Edna Everage!

Oh dear, I've written a novel again! If you're still with me, thank you so much for putting up with my wittering! I've had an idea for this week's FTL sketch so hopefully I'll be able to show that to you tomorrow. Hope to see you then,

French Foliage meets Growing Green

Yesterday, when I said I'd be combining French Foliage with Growing Green, I was really half-joking but the idea took hold of my mind. I'd also been thinking about this sketch on the Clean and Simple Stamping site, as well as the challenge on Make My Monday - to make a floral tag, either on its own or as part of a card. Naturally all these ideas blended into one and this is what I came up with:

The background was made by masking off areas with post-it notes, sponging in colour and stamping over the top with this gorgeous leaf image from French foliage. There's a fabulous ink splodge image in this set too and I added a bit of that over the top.

The label was made with a piece of Whisper White card stock shaped at the top with a corner rounder. I stamped it with leaves using the stamping-off technique which gives a lovely faded look. The rose from Growing Green was stamped in Cherry Cobbler ink and then coloured with my dark red water colour pencil and a blender pen. I cut it out with my fab paper snips, pierced a hole through it and the tag, popped it up onto the tag and tied it on with a length of Baja Breeze seam binding.

All it needed was a sentiment and I thought this gorgeous birthday stamp from Perfect Punches was ideal. It was easy to colour just the bits I needed using markers.

Supplies needed for this project:
Stamps: French Foliage, Growing Green, Perfect Punches
Ink: Marina Mist, Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Always Artichoke, Soft Suede, Cherry Cobbler
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Watercolour pencil, blender pen, markers, Baja Breeze seam binding
You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

How excited am I about the French Foliage set? Well on a scale of 1-10 it has to be about 29!!! It's Three Minute Thursday tomorrow and I won't be offering any prizes for guessing what set will be featured... Thank you so much for dropping in today and I'll hope to see you tomorrow.

Growing Green roses!

Oh dear! I just can't leave the Growing Green set alone! Today I made another birthday card using the rose image. Come and have a look:

Now this may look a bit like this design that I showed you last week but it uses a different technique. I stamped the rose image onto Confetti White card stock, using Rich Razzleberry ink, and washed the colour into the petals using an aqua painter. When this had completely dried, I added the leaves and then sponged over the whole card with Bashful Blue ink.

Here's a close-up to show you the purplish tinge you get when the blue ink brushes over the Razzleberry - quite subtle but I rather like it.

I stamped a stitched frame in Cherry Cobbler ink using one of the stamps I made from the In Stitches wheel (see here for how I did it!) and then sponged the edges of the card front with a touch of Rose Red ink. The sentiment is from one of this year's Sale-a-bration sets, retired now.

Supplies needed for this project:

Stamps: Growing Green, Vintage Vogue, So Happy For You (retired), 

Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Bashful Blue, Cherry Cobbler, Rose Red, Basic Black

Card stock: Confetti White

Other: In Stitches wheel

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your door. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

I might just have finished making things with Growing Green for the time being because my friendly UPS man has just delivered a box which contains a certain French Foliage set that I've had my eye on for ages! Or perhaps I can combine both... now there's a thought! Thank you for looking at my card today and if you'd like to pop back tomorrow, I'm sure I'll have something a bit leafy going on!

Growing Green coordinated gift set

'Better late than never' they say, so here without further ado is the coordinated gift set I promised I'd show you yesterday! Growing Green is not the only stamp set I own - I promise! - but I am obsessed with it at the moment. I had an idea for a design using the rose from the set and the little leaf from another favourite set, Vintage Vogue. What do you think of them together?

I love the line-drawing style of this set which lends itself perfectly to being coloured in as well as being left as a line design as I did here. It was so quick to stamp the flower and leaf design that I was thinking of it for Three Minute Thursday, but then I decided on a mixture of stamps to make the sentiment which tipped the time over a little.

The 'just' comes from the hostess set Afterthoughts and the 'a note' comes from a stamp in Thank you Kindly. I love mixing sentiments like this and with a stamp-a-majig and a collection of sentiment stamps, you can pretty much say what you like!

I made a box to go with this card, slightly different from my usual boxes. In fact I must sort out a tutorial for it because I think it's rather useful.

The 1/4" grosgrain ribbon was perfect to tie the box closed and I made a little tag to match the design.

I stamped one rose, cut it out and punched a hole in it to make a tag. The sentiment is actually the rest of the sentiment the 'just' came from so it all matches beautifully.

Here is the box with the card - don't they make a lovely couple?!

Here's how to make the card:

• Cut a 9cm x 18cm piece of Whisper White card stock. Score and fold it in half to make a card base.
• Stamp the rose stamp over the card front using Rich Razzleberry ink and add leaves with Old Olive ink.
• Use a Basic Black marker to colour only the 'just' from the Afterthoughts stamp. Stamp it on the card front using a stamp-a-majig for accurate position. Now colour the 'a note' from the Thank You Kindly  set and line it up on the card front with the stamp-a-majig before stamping.

Supplies
Stamps: Growing Green, Afterthoughts (hostess set), Thank You Kindly
Ink: Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Basic Black marker

I was looking for the cat as I was typing this but she has abandoned her usual spot on the sofa by my desk and I can see her in the garden with her nose in the air. She's probably sulking because I had to shoo her out of the kitchen last night while I was cooking the roast chicken -  she appeared to think it had been cooked specifically for her and took exception to me telling her it wasn't so!

It's Three Minute Thursday here tomorrow - so if you'd like inspiration for some fast cards, do come and join me then. Thanks for looking here today.

Three Minute Thursday - Using Growing Green again!

Good morning! It's Thursday and that means it's time for another lightning fast card design. I've been using Growing Green a lot this week so it was out on my desk and this is what came of that!

I used this beautiful little flower image from the set and water-coloured the petals with my aqua painter.  I know you're not supposed to but I used it on Whisper White card stock and have found that as long as you keep the flow of water to a minimum, the card stock doesn't buckle. Practice makes perfect!

The Tempting Turquoise makes the flowers look very delicate and I love the way the water-coloured petals look when they overlap like this. The centres of the flowers were coloured quickly with the brush end of a marker and then dark dots added with the fine end of another marker.

Here's how to make the card:

• Cut a 9cm x 18cm piece of Whisper White card stock. Score and fold it in half to make a card base.
• Stamp a garland of flowers running randomly from the top right to the bottom left corners of the card front.
• Squash the lid of the Tempting Turquoise ink pad against the ink while it's closed, then open it to reveal a pool of ink in the lid. Use this to colour in the petals of the stamped flowers using an aqua painter. Be careful not to use too much water or the card stock will buckle.
• Stamp a sentiment in Pacific Point ink using a stamp-a-majig to make sure it's straight.
• Colour the centres of the flowers with a Certainly Celery marker and add dots with a Pacific Point marker.
• Curve the bottom right-hand corners of the card to finish.

Supplies
Stamps: Growing Green, Party This Way (sentiment)
Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Certainly Celery and Pacific Point markers, corner rounder

I always feel the need to see what these things look like in other colours. Does anyone else have this problem?

I got to see what my card looked like in Peach Parfait with Cherry Cobbler accents... and then I was asked if I could please make dinner for my family. Honestly! You wouldn't believe the demands that are made of me!

There really is something very satisfying about making quick cards - you can get together quite a stash in a short space of time or just whip one up when required. I hope you enjoyed Three Minute Thursday today - thank you for popping in. I shall be back with more crafting tomorrow and I'll hope to see you then.

PS Can I just apologise for the terrible photos today... I don't know what's got into my Bad Camera! (What's that saying about a bad workman blaming his tools?!!)

Growing Green birthday card

I didn't tell you about my birthday did I? For my birthday treat I was taken to the David Austin rose garden at Albrighton to smell the roses! I adore roses - the many shapes, colours and fragrances of them - and I also LOVE the idea of slowing down our lives and taking time to 'smell the roses'. Anyway, before you go off yawning, the only reason I mention it is that my card-making seems to have been inspired by roses a lot just lately - you'll see a couple of floral cards this week!

This one was triggered by this week's Make My Monday challenge where we've been asked to make cards with red flowers.

I've recently rediscovered my Growing Green stamp set and this card is made with the rose image from the set. Last week I found that you can water colour nicely on the Confetti range of card stock - so naturally I've not been able to stop doing so! These roses have been stamped in Riding Hood Red and then the colour has been smooshed around haphazardly. (And no, I didn't think spellchecker would like the word 'smooshed'!)

I wanted a graphic look for this card so I used this punchy sentiment from the hostess set Afterthoughts and added a scored border round the card front. I did this really easily using my Fiskars trimmer and a bone folder. Honestly, I really could not do without my Fiskars - I sometimes think I could ask it to make me a cup of tea and it would oblige!

The card really needed something to link the sentiment with the pile of roses so I added my favourite embellishment of the moment - these gorgeous butterflies made with the Beautiful Wings embosslits die. And then, because a girl sometimes gets carried away, I added a touch of Dazzling Diamonds glitter to the roses! Can you see that in the photo?

Here's how to make this card:

• Take an A5 piece of Confetti Cream card stock. Score and fold it in half to make a card base.
• Stamp the bottom and right of the card front with the rose image from Growing Green using Riding Hood Red ink. Use an aqua painter to pull some of the colour out to fill in the petals.
• Use a ruler and a soft pencil to mark the corners of a border on the inside of the card front - my border is half a centimetre in from the edges. Use the pencil marks as a guide to score your border, then rub them out with an eraser.
• Sponge Marina Mist ink over the sky areas on the front of the card - the raised border will catch a lot of the ink. Sponge Riding Hood Red over the rose-stamped parts of the border.
• Stamp a sentiment in Riding Hood Red ink, using a stamp-a-majig for accuracy.
• Add three Baja Breeze die-cut butterflies and some touches of Dazzling Diamonds glitter to finish.

Supplies
Stamps: Growing Green, Afterthoughts (hostess set)
Ink:  Riding Hood Red, Marina Mist
Card stock: Confetti Cream
Other: Beautiful Wings embosslits die, Dazzling diamonds glitter

I really enjoyed my birthday which kicked off with my youngest son coming into my bedroom wearing a pair of underpants, a clean tea towel folded neatly over his arm and a beaming smile. "May I take your breakfast order?" he asked cheerfully. He went on to suggest some specials and then sped off to ask his big sister to get on with it!

After I'd done full justice to pancakes, juice (with ice) and coffee, my lovely family showered me with gifts and then whisked me off to see the roses where I spent a lot of time doing this:

And I'm afraid the boys thought it was hilarious to make vulgar snorting noises!

We had a lovely lunch in the café, where everything was served in or on beautiful china decorated with roses.

Afterwards, my husband asked me to choose my favourite rose - and bought it for me! It was the Generous Gardener rose, a gloriously scented climber - just gorgeous!

Thank you so much for joining me today and for allowing me to go on about my little life! Do come back tomorrow when I'll have a lot more crafting and a lot less wittering! (I promise!)

Hope to see you then,

Growing Green birthday card - and my new flower tutorial!

I am so excited today because I get to show you my exciting new flower! I've been in the middle of making today's card for a few weeks but it just needed a little something to finish it... and today I came up with that something! Come and see:

The stamped background is made with the utterly stunning Growing Green stamp set. I've been in heaven stamping the beautiful designs onto watercolour paper, and happily colouring them with my aqua painter, but I did wonder what would happen if I used everyday Whisper White card stock. So I tried it and this happened! Perfectly acceptable! But have you seen the flower?

Lots of the Stampin' Up punches make gorgeous 3D flowers so what's so special about this one?  Well, have you noticed that the stamped flowers have four petals? I needed my focal flower to echo that of course! So I used my Petal Card punch to make one. This extra large punch is one that cuts and embosses at the same time and is usually used to make cute little envelopes to embellish cards or open-out messages, but I thought it would be also perfect to make my four petalled flower. Here's how to make it:

Normally I'd recommend turning the punch upside down so that you can see what you're cutting but because this extra large punch embosses as it cuts, it needs a stable surface to punch on. Pop your card stock in the punch (I've used Pink Pirouette) and use the heel of your hand as shown.

Here's the shape it cuts - and can you see the embossed lines? We don't need those today so let's put the shape in the crimper a few times to break down the fibres in the card stock. And screw it up for good measure! (Great thing to do if you're feeling a bit miffed about something?!)

The flower-to-be should now look like this (this is my favourite photo of the day!)

Now you can start smoothing out the card stock with your thumb nail. This carries on the job of breaking down the fibres in the card stock and makes it quite soft and malleable.

 Use paper snips to separate each petal. Can you see the shape emerging?

Take a sponge dauber and sponge the edges of the petals with Regal Rose ink.

 Gently peel apart the card stock so you end up with layered petals and sponge those edges too.

 Punch a hole in the centre of your flower and decorate it with a rhinestone brad - this large green one from the Circle Ice collection is a real favourite of mine. Now the flower is ready to embellish your card.

And there we have it! The four-petalled flower. If you decide to have a go at this, do let me know - I always love seeing your projects! Just click here to email me.

Supplies for today's card:
Stamps: Growing Green, Sincere Salutations (sentiment)
Ink: Rose Red, Bravo Burgundy (sentiment), Regal Rose (to sponge flower)
Card stock: Rose Red, Whisper White, Pink Pirouette
Other: Certainly Celery 5/8" grosgrain ribbon, Certainly Celery marker, Circle Ice rhinestone brad

Thanks for dropping in today. I hope you have a fabulous weekend.

Birthday card using Notably Ornate

Today I want to show a birthday card I made for a lovely lady who has always got a kind word for everyone and is a pillar of the community. My sons think she's wonderful (she's the grandma of two of their friends) and they have excellent judgement! I chose these irises for her because she once mentioned that she likes the colour purple.

This is one of those cards where I've used stamps from all sorts of sets. As I've said before, I don't do this very often because it's harder for readers to recreate, but it is one of my greatest pleasures so I hope you'll forgive me! What I'm really excited about is the lacy background which I created with the frame image from Notably Ornate. I stamped it in river rock - which is the perfect ink to have when you want a neutral background with a bit of a subtle gold feel.

The floral image has been water-coloured with my aqua painter. I stamped and coloured each element separately leaving each one to dry between each layer. The card is finished with a knot of the 1/8" taffeta ribbon - one of my favourite kinds!

Here's how to make this card:

• Take a 21cm x 12cm piece of Very Vanilla card stock, score and fold it in half to make a card base. (This isn't a standard size but you can adapt this card to any size.)
• Stamp the frame image onto the card front in River Rock ink using a stamp-a-majig. The images will need to overlap if you want the 'lace' to show evenly on each side of the focal image. 
• Cut a 9cm x 5cm piece of Elegant Eggplant and knot a piece of Old Olive 1/8" taffeta ribbon around it.
• Stamp a sentiment onto the card front in Elegant Eggplant ink, using a stamp-a-majig, then glue the card stock above it.
• Now make the floral tile: Cut a 4.5cm x 6cm piece of watercolour paper. Stamp the leaf in Always artichoke and use the aqua painter to pull the ink into the centre of the leaves. Let this dry before colouring the iris stamp with Old Olive and Perfect Plum markers and stamping over the top of the leaf. Add definition to the flowers with the Perfect Plum marker and smooth the colour with the aqua painter. Leave to dry and then repeat with Old Olive and Elegant Eggplant.
• Curve the corners of the tile with a corner rounder and attach to the card front.

Supplies
Stamps: Growing Green, Just Believe (for the tile), Notably Ornate, So Happy for You (retired sale-a-bration set)
Ink: River Rock, Always Artichoke
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Elegant Eggplant, watercolour paper
Other: Old Olive, Perfect Plum, Elegant Eggplant markers

Have I mentioned before how much I love my aqua painter?! You can get all sorts of wonderful effects using it and it's such fun experimenting - so much fun, in fact, that the housework might never be done again! Hmmm. Actually think I'd better slink off and see if I can find the hoover...

I've got a great idea for Three Minute Thursday this week so if you have a minute, do come back tomorrow and see! Hope to see you then,