10 Wednesday Feb 2016
Posted in 3D / pop up, 3D projects, Birthday, Cards, General occasion, Thoughts and comments
I was browsing the discount bin at the local pharmacy (drug store) the other day and found a cute butterfly soap.
I remembered I had some butterfly paper in my card stash …
How cute is that?
I have a “tween” in mind who I hope will love this card.
Thanks for reading.
Caro
06 Saturday Feb 2016
Posted in 1 3/4 circle, 3D / pop up, Birthday, Jewellery tag, Masculine, Punches, Word Window
Hello
I am spending a rainy Saturday afternoon making some cards – and I thought I’d show you one I made for my brother, who is turning 30 this week.
He is a huge Star Wars fan, and also a bit of a maths geek, so I went with a Roman numerals idea – XXX is 30 in Roman numerals, so I thought I’d make the Xs out of light sabres!
I used Stampin’ Up! punches. The handles of the light sabres are made from the jewelry tag punch. The blades are from the word window punch.
The Death Star image is one I used on a Yoda birthday card a few months ago. I’ve uploaded the image to Dropbox for anyone who’d like to use it (the link is in the previous Yoda post).
I made the inside a pop-up card:
The good folks at Flaming Text have a Star Wars text generator, which I used to make the image. You can use the image for free as long as you keep on their watermark (which is there in my card, I promise, just hard to see in the photo!)
I hope he likes his card!
Thanks for reading.
Caro
08 Monday Jun 2015
Posted in 3D / pop up, Baby cards, Cards, Circle treat cups, General occasion, Kids cards, Kids craft ideas
As you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, when I’m not feeling well I like to sit on my couch and colour in. Which then leads to a bulk card making session at some future time. Today turned out to be one of those times!
I had to pop into my office and stumbled across a pile of images from the Stampin’ Up! fishing around stamp (now retired) which I’d coloured in and cut out a few months ago, but never got around to making into cards.
I decided they’d look really cute as snow globe cards, so pulled out a few circle treat cups and some glitter and voila!!
A tip for doing this without getting glitter ALL over your desk (just SOME of your desk!) is to fill the cups and stick the image on as a lid, then add extra glue before sticking the cup onto the card.
I stuck the “snow globes” onto 13 x 13 cm square cards. Cutting these (26 x 13cm) from an A4 piece of card stock leaves a nice strip to make an extra 7 x 7 cm notecards at the same time. Here are some of those:
Images used up, next batch of kids’ cards done, sorted!
Thanks for reading 🙂
Caro
16 Thursday Apr 2015
Posted in 3D / pop up, Cards, Embossing folders, Small Heart, Sweet treat cups, Wedding cards
Hello
I don’t know how many times I’ve started a blog post by apologising for the length of time it’s been since I last posted, but here I go again! Life just gets busy!
Today I wanted to show you some wedding cards I made for a dear friend’s wedding a few months ago. This is a snippet of their wedding invitation, which inspired me to make not one, but three cards for their wedding!
I tried to use their design as inspiration, and the colours they chose were uncannily similar to Stampin’ Up!’s Night of Navy and Very Vanilla.
Design one – wedding gate fold card
(I used my sponge daubers and pearls to add colour and sparkles to the embossed flowers)
(I love this teeny tiny sentiment from the Teeny Tiny Sentiments set)
Design two – embossed wedding card
This card actually used a Christmas embossing folder tipped on its side. You’d have to look very closely to see the Christmas details at what should be the top! Again, some sponging and pearl details set it off.
Design three – wedding easel shaker card
This was my son’s favourite! He loved the heart shaped cup and shaking the card to make a sound with all the little cut out hearts with the small heart punch.
I loved them all, but ended up using the gate fold card as my card to the happy couple. My son insisted on the shaker card being from him, and my parents ended up using the other card. So none of them went to waste!
Please let me know if you’d like instructions for any of these cards and I can post the dimensions.
Which one was your favourite?
Thanks for reading
Caro x
20 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in 3D / pop up, Birthday, Cards, General occasion, Punches
Tags
Hi
Just a quick post today to show you another way to use the Quintessential flower stamp from Stampin’ Up! (or the Five Way Flower stamp in the current catalogue).
I love the layers you can achieve with a stamp like this and coordinating punches.  And I always love to put a little button in the middle 🙂
Enjoy!
Caro x
18 Wednesday Sep 2013
Posted in 3D / pop up, Birthday, Cards, General occasion, Using up scraps
Hello. Thanks for reading Caro’s Pretty Things!
One of my first ever posts was showing you some layered cards I made with the Stampin’ Up! Quintessential Flower stamp. Â Â Unfortunately this stamp is now retired, but there is a similar one in this year’s catalogue called Five Way Flower. Â (Here’s a great video tutorial on how you can use these sorts of stamps by Karen Titus).
I have a box on my bookshelf with lots of extra embellishments or half finished projects. Â Ever since I made those cards I have had a few layers of the quintessential flower sitting in the box waiting for me to figure out what to do with them.
And so now I present – some quintessential hot air balloons!
I loved how these turned out so much I wanted to show you them separately. Â The button in the middle (stuck on with a mini glue dot) just seemed to add that little bit extra for some reason?
I think that is the end of my hot air balloon obsession for a little while. Â I wonder what I’ll obsess about next?!?
Thanks for reading 🙂
Caro x
17 Tuesday Sep 2013
Tags
Hello
Yesterday I showed you some hot air balloon cards I made using the Stampin’ Up! A Little Treat stamp, which is now retired. Â I said I would show you how you could make one of these cards even if you didn’t have this stamp set. Â I thought of 2 ways you could do this: using the Stampin’ Up! cupcake builder punch and a square punch with a pair of scissors.
Method 1 – the cupcake builder punch
The first way is to use the cupcake base from the cupcake builder punch as a basket.
You can see that the base is not quite ‘square’. Â That doesn’t bother me when I’m sticking the hot air balloon on the card at an angle, but you can always cut just a small amount off to make it straight:
Here are some hot air balloon cards made with the cupcake builder punch baskets:
You can also use the cupcake tops as clouds!
You can also give your basket a little ‘bling’:
Method 2 – Using a square punch
Another way to make a basket is to cut a square and cut down the sides to make a basket.
Here’s a balloon made out of a square punch basket:
(I can’t help myself and had to use up a tiny scrap of lace I’d had lying in my scrap pile!)
I hope you enjoy making some of these.
Caro
16 Monday Sep 2013
Posted in 1 3/4 circle, 3D / pop up, Birthday, Cards, General occasion, Kids cards, Using up scraps
Tags
Hello 🙂
I think I’ve mentioned before that a lot of my craft time these days is focused on making cards for my son’s various birthday parties? Â He’s very interested in hot air balloons at the moment (no idea why!) so he thought he might like to give his friend a hot air balloon card.
I have a retired Stampin’ Up! stamp set called A Little Treat which has a hot air balloon at the base. Â One of my quick ‘go to’ cards for several years has been to stamp the hot air balloon base and cut a 1 3/4″ circle out of DSP to act as the balloon. Â Literally the 2 minute card to make and I’ve made many over the years.
This time I wanted to step it up a little and try for something a little fancier! Â I had pinned these gorgeous cards several months ago so decided to make some of my own. Â Here was the end result:
They were so much fun to make I made a few!
OK, I’ll confess, I may have made more than a few … more like lots!
You may have guessed that they are a) very easy and b) very addictive to make! Â You just need to punch out several circles from your 1 3/4″ circle punch. Â Another brilliant way to use up scraps of DSP! Â Fold each circle in half and stick them together until you have a ‘ball’ of circles for your balloon.
Here’s a close up of a balloon:
And of the stuck together circles:
These are so much fun to make it got me thinking – how could you make them if you didn’t have the basket stamp?   Interested?  Stay tuned tomorrow to find out 😉
Caro
28 Wednesday Aug 2013
Posted in 3D / pop up, Anniversary, Cards, Modern Label, Small Heart, Sweet treat cups
The other day I showed you some Rudolph the red nosed reindeer decorations I made using Stampin’ Up! sweet treat cups. Â Today I wanted to show you another card using sweet treat cups – a card I made for some very dear friends’ golden wedding anniversary last year.
I used gold card stock and ink and Very Vanilla for the stamped image. Â The tag used the Modern Label punch and a greeting from the Teeny Tiny Sentiments set. Â I used my Small Heart punch to punch out lots of little gold love hearts for the inside of the cup.
This card is made with retired products (Sweetheart stamp set for the flower and heart border as well as the heart treat cups), but you could make a similar card using the round sweet treat cups as a flower.
I’m looking forward to someone having a major anniversary soon so I can make this card again!
Thanks for reading
Caro
18 Sunday Aug 2013
Posted in 3D / pop up, Cards, Christmas, Uncategorized
Tags
Hi
A little while ago I posted a tutorial showing you how to make easel cards. Â While I was doing the blog post I made a card to show you the steps, but then had to figure out how to decorate it. Â It was left a little half finished, like this:
All dressed up and nowhere to go!
Today I wanted to show you how the card ended up. Â And randomly, it ended up a table decoration for a Christmas in July celebration! Â (yes, in August …)
Every year we have a Christmas in July celebration with some close friends. Â This year July was just too busy for me for work so we arranged to have Christmas in July in August. Â We live near the beach so we decided vaguely on a ‘Christmas in July at the beach’ theme. Â That does kind of defeat the purpose of Christmas in July, but whatever!
So here you go … my “Christmas in July in August at the Beach” table decoration easel card!
The blank card was sitting on my desk for several days – and then inspiration struck.  It must have been all that red!  It’s a little bit silly/random, but that is what Christmas in July (in August!) is all about 🙂
Caro
PS Did you notice the cute little Santa hat? Â Stay tuned and I’ll show you how to make it. Â It took me a while to figure out how to make it so I should share the love!
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