Category Archives: General occasion

Fishin’ Around snow globe cards

08 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in 3D / pop up, Baby cards, Cards, Circle treat cups, General occasion, Kids cards, Kids craft ideas

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

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 

Some more colouring in /water colour therapy

24 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in General occasion, Thoughts and comments

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Another day of being sick on the couch, another day of some colouring in therapy! (I guess it makes a change from washi tape though!)

It’s good to do a bunch of images at once though so you can do a bulk card making session later on!

   
    

I think these flowers are my favourite:

   

  

  

  

  And these are kinda cute too:

   
  
I’m looking forward to feeling well enough to start making some cards with all these pretty pictures! 

Watercolour butterflies 

23 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in General occasion, Thoughts and comments

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

I have been sick for a few days and really can’t do anything other than lie in bed or on the couch.  I was going a little stir crazy and decided to do some water colouring. 

I got out my Papillon Potpourri set from Stampin’ Up! and made myself some colouring in sheets. 

  
The best part of this stamp set is the matching punches, so I wasn’t too fussed about being neat about the stamping or colouring as I will be punching them out for some future card making.  

I used my blender pen with some pastels and water colour pencils.   A nice way to feel like I was doing something a little bit active while still lying down.  I didn’t get too far before needing another sleep, but here are my butterflies:
   
              I try to use a few colours and then blend them together to look a bit more realistic. 

Stay tuned for these showing up on some cards soon 🙂

Thanks for reading.  

Caro x 

Two minute kid birthday card

24 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in General occasion, Kids cards, Kids party, Star, Using up scraps, Washi tape

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

Hi

Just a quick post to share with you a card I just whipped up in less than 2 minutes for a kid’s birthday party this afternoon.  

I had a vague thought the other day that some washi tape I was recently given with stars on it might go well with my star punch.  A piece of card stock, a few strips of washi tape and a star punch and ta da!!!!

  
What do you think?  Not bad for 2 minutes? 

Thanks for reading 

Caro 

Embossed butterfly cards

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Birthday, Cards, General occasion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

hello – thanks for reading Caro’s Pretty Things 🙂

Today I wanted to show you a really simple card using one stamp and some embossing.

Embossed Papillon Potpourri butterlyThis is simply a piece of Crumb Cake card stock, with a butterfly from the Papillon Potpourri stamp set stamped over the front in Versamark ink, then heat embossed with silver embossing powder.

Tip: when you are making a card with one repeated image, it’s a good idea to stamp some of the images partially off the edge.  It looks more authentic and just seems to make the pattern “work”.    (You can also use this technique to make your own gift wrap)

The butterflies look so beautiful embossed!

Silver embossed Papillon Potpourri butterfliesI also have to show you a card that my 4 year old made** – a special card for his grandma’s birthday.   He did an amazing job!

Embossed butterflies card - by Mr 4 :-)Although he did a brilliant job for a 4 year old, you can see here that he got some of the versamark ink around the edge of the stamp – which is made more obvious when the embossing powder sticks to it!   This is a good reminder to press gently when stamping!

Thanks for reading

Caro

** Although Mr 4 did the stamping himself, I held the heat tool with him and we did the embossing together.  Heat tools and unsupervised 4 year olds don’t mix!!!

 

Sweet Sorbet Circle Thinlit card

17 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in 1 inch circle, Big Shot, Birthday, Blossom, Cards, Circle Thinlits, Circles #2, Dies, General occasion

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Hello

I’m really excited to show you today’s card.  I wanted to make a special card for my Mum’s birthday and I’m really pleased how it turned out.   It is my favourite card I’ve made in a long time – and I finally got to play with my Circle Thinlits die which was an added bonus!

Sweet Sorbet Circle Thinlits 'flip' card

(I bought Mum the Circle Thinlits die as her birthday present so wanted to make the card with my die so she’d see an example of her present in action!)

The card base is die cut from Pistachio Pudding and I’ve used the Sweet Sorbet DSP you can get for free from Stampin’ Up! during Sale-A-Bration.   I followed the instructions on Sara’s Crafting & Stamping Studio blog to die cut the DSP layers – thanks Sara!

I cut 2 Whisper White circles from the Circles #2 originals die (largest circle) to stick on the circle ‘flip’ part.   I sponged around the edge in Crisp Cantaloupe to bring out the colours in the DSP.

Inside of Sweet Sorbet 'flip' card

The flower on the front of the card was stamped in Crisp Cantaloupe from the Mixed Bunch stamp set , and punched out with the Blossom Punch.   I used Pistachio Pudding to stamp the flower centre (also from the Mixed Blossom set) and punched it out with the 1 inch circle punch.  I stuck the layers onto the card with Stampin’ Dimensionals and added a pearl for added effect.

Mixed Blossom flower

 

I really loved how this card turned out.   I think I see a few more flip cards in my future!

Thanks for reading – and happy birthday Mum!

Caro x

Upcycled container card sets

10 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in 3D projects, Blossom, Card sets, Cards, General occasion, Gift card holders, Love notes, Punches, Tutorial

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Hi!

I mentioned in a blog post the other day that I love to look at ordinary, every day things and figure out how to make them prettier.   The other day I was in my kitchen rinsing out some plastic containers that berries and cherry tomatoes had been stored in, when it occurred to me that they would probably make perfect little gift card holders?  And they did!

Yesterday I showed you some gift cards I made with the Stampin’ Up! blossom punch:

Blossom Punch gift card setHere’s what the cards looked like packaged up in a plastic cherry tomato container!

Upcycled tomato container gift card holderYou can see a little better on an angle:

Upcycled tomato container gift card holderThe cherry tomato containers comfortably hold 8-12 note cards plus envelopes.

Check out these little blueberry containers!  They hold 4 cards plus envelopes.

Upcycled berry container gift card setI decorated the inside and the top of the containers so they look really cute inside and out:

Berry container gift card setBerry container gift card setAnd here are a few sets looking very cute all grouped together:

Upcycled plastic container gift card setsI am so excited with this idea.  I may never recycle a plastic container again!!!!

Now to find the lucky recipients of some little gift card packs … 🙂

Thanks for reading

Caro x

Blossom punch gift cards

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Birthday, Blossom, Cards, General occasion, Gift tags & wrapping, Love notes, Using up scraps

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Hi

The other day I had an idea for a gift card set which is just a little bit genius (if I do say so myself!!!).   I’ll show you that idea tomorrow.

But first I needed some gift cards …  so, it was off to my craft desk to make some!    I have been wanting to use my pack of Garden Party DSP from the current Stampin’ UP! catalogue for months so I started with that for inspiration.   I pulled out my Blossom Punch and some buttons, and voila!!  Here are some of the cards I made:

Blossom punch Garden Party gift cardBlossom punch Garden Party gift cardBlossom punch Garden Party gift cardBlossom punch Garden Party gift cardThey looked so cute all lined up together!

Blossom Punch gift card setBlossom Punch gift card setCome back tomorrow and I’ll show you my clever idea for packaging them up 🙂

Thanks for reading

Caro x

 

Quick butterfly card

16 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Birthday, Bitty Butterfly, Cards, Elegant Butterly, General occasion, Kids cards

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Hello

I am sorry for the long break between blog posts.   I haven’t had a lot of time to craft or blog over the past few months.    I finally had a chance to get back to a little card making today so thought I had better update the blog at the same time!

Like usual, my card making was inspired less by a brilliant idea, and more by the nature of the birthday party my son would be attending that day!   Today he had a 4th birthday party for a little girl who loves all things pink and ‘princess-ey’.

I only had about 5 minutes to make the card, so resorted to one of my stand by card layouts:

Butterfly card

This is really simple – a standard sized card cut from half a piece of A4 card stock, with the stripey paper 10cm x 14.2cm (ie, 0.5 cm smaller than the card dimensions on each side to leave a small border).  This is in Melon Mambo.   I sponged around the paper in Melon Mambo to make it look like it has a border.  A strip of ribbon and an embellishment popped up on a dimensional and you’re done.

Butterfly punch embellishment

For this card I used the Bitty Butterfly and Elegant Butterfly punches with a little ‘diamond’ stuck on top.     You could equally have an oval or circle punch with a greeting.

Just a simple card to show you today.   Stay tuned tomorrow for the other card I’ve made this afternoon, which I’m really rather pleased about!

Thanks for reading

Caro

Winter Frost non-Christmas cards – Papillon Potpourri

14 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by in Birthday, Cards, General occasion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Hello

Yesterday I showed you a 30th birthday card I made using the Winter Frost DSP. Today I wanted to show you two similar cards using the Papillon Potpourri set and my silver embossing powder:

Embossed Papillon Potpourri

Coastal Cabanna Winter Frost Papillon Potpourri silver embossed butterflyThe butterfly looks amazing with the silver embossing.  It’s a bit hard to capture in a photo but a close up might help:

Silver embossed Papillon Potpourri butterflyThe second card has an embossed message ‘Always thinking of you’ (from 2013 hostess set ‘Express Yourself’) on the bottom left:

Embossed Express Yourself

I learnt a tip when doing this embossing.  Make sure you emboss and THEN stick your paper to your card.    I decided to emboss this message after I’d already made the card and the heat gun made the glue come a bit unstuck which I had to go back and fix.  Lesson learned!

As I said yesterday, I really only bought this DSP to give myself a challenge by working with colours outside of my comfort zone (and it’s a bargain, a stack of 48 sheets, 24 each of 2 double-sided designs for $11.95)  As it turns out though, I absolutely LOVE these cards and can’t wait to try more using this paper.    I still can’t imagine using it for Christmas cards though!

I hope you enjoy.  Thanks for reading.

Caro x