01 Tuesday Sep 2015
Posted in Birthday, Cards, Corner rounder, General occasion, Punches, Using up scraps
When I was rummaging through my stash of saved scrap paper the other day I came across some designer series paper I’d previously cut into the perfect shape to go on a card front. I have no idea what I was planning to do with them originally, but a few minutes with a corner rounder punch and some ribbon and ta da!
At about 2-3 minutes a card, what could be easier?!?
Thanks for reading.
Caro x
30 Sunday Aug 2015
Posted in General occasion, Star, Thoughts and comments, Using up scraps
Today I went to show you a few more cards I made from some colouring in some scribbles I’ve done.
I cut a star out of this one and made a notecard:
Then made this one from the cut out mirror image:
I made a few from some cut out heart shapes I’d scribbled as well:
It’s nice taking some random scribbles and making something people will hopefully enjoy.
Thanks for reading.
Caro
29 Saturday Aug 2015
I’m pleased to report in finally starting to feel a little better! Still off work, but I’ve graduated from lying down all day to being able to sit up for a few hours at a time. Progress!!!
Today I realised how many notebooks of scribbles and coloured in pictures I have lying around the house.
I have a lot of long teleconferences in my job. One of my favourite things to do while listening on long calls is some doodling/colouring in that my son likes to call my “scribble scrabbles”.
Today I decided to make some cards out of one of my “scribble scrabbles”. First – to my punches! Today I used large and small butterfly punches and a small heart punch:
Tip: the small heart punch is brilliant for using up the edges from paper where you’ve needed to leave spaces between larger punches. However it can be tricky to use the punch with very small pieces of paper! Here’s a quick tip: put the small piece you want to punch on the sticky side of a post it note. Too easy!
I had a lovely time sorting through my pile of old card stock and mixing and matching with punches. A great way to use up scraps! Here are some of the results of my playing today:
It felt so nice to be making something today!
Thanks for reading
Caro
05 Wednesday Aug 2015
I have bought some concert tickets for an upcoming birthday present. But the tickets are those ugly print at home ones, which are hard to get excited about! So I picked up a brochure for the event and decided to make a kind of gift card holder for the brochure.
I made it from scratch and figured it out as I went along so didn’t take any measurements. I did take photos at each step though so I’d remember what I did for next time!
The first step was to roughly figure out the dimensions to make the flap that holds the brochure, and the fold for the cover:
Doing this on top of a scorer if you have one makes it even easier. If you don’t, just fold and smooth along the creases.
Next step was to cut off the excess so the gift folder wasn’t too wide:
(In retrospect it would be better to do this step first so you’re not cutting folded paper!)
Then I put some sticky strip along the sides of the “holder” part:
Then fold up to make the folder:
I then used the extra strip I cut off to decorate the front of the folder:
Then I decided that wasn’t pretty enough, so I added some ribbon:
Then I decided that STILL wasn’t pretty enough, so I needed a gift tag!
And voila!
This same technique can be used for smaller gift cards, vouchers etc – just adjust the folds and cuts. A great way to use up those scraps of paper you’ve been saving for a rainy day!
Now I just have to be patient because I can’t give this gift for another 2 weeks!
Thanks for reading.
Caro x
13 Monday Jul 2015
Posted in 1 3/4 circle, Bird Builder, Birthday, Jewellery tag, Kids cards, Kids party, Masculine, Owl, Tag, Word Window
It’s a good friend of mine’s birthday tomorrow and he is a bit of a Star Wars fan. So I decided to update a Yoda card I made a few months ago for his birthday.
All of the instructions you need to make Yoda are in my previous post here.
Here is a close up of Yoda, as well as some of my jewel stars and planets:
And a close up of the greeting, written over an image of the Death Star.
I am a little bit chuffed with this – I made it in Microsoft Word to fit inside my 1 3/4 inch circle punch. I’ve uploaded the image to Dropbox in case you’d like to use it yourself. The text in the image is white, and I printed it out on Very Vanilla card stock to match Yoda’s robe.
A 12 x 12 cm Very Vanilla piece on the inside sponged in silver ink finished the card off.
I hope you enjoy!
Caro x
07 Sunday Jun 2015
Posted in Bird Builder, Chalk Talk, Dies, Framelits, Invitations, Kids cards, Kids craft ideas, Kids party, Owl
We’ve spent this afternoon making birthday invitations for my son’s upcoming birthday party. He decided on Ninjago invitations (for those not up with small boys, that is a type of Lego based on ninjas!) His favourite Ninjago is Kai “the red guy”.
I had a grand vision for how these might look, but then had to tone it down to match the vision of the birthday boy. Which is after all the point (allegedly!!)
I was planning on using the top note die to get a nice curve on the yellow mask top and bottom, making the eye brows from the branch of the bird punch as the eye brows, and layering black and white circles from the owl punch for the eyes. However small boy was most insistent that we should draw the eyes and eyebrows ourselves, and it turns out that dropping liquid paper onto the eye balls to make the whites of the eyes is super fun when you’re 5!!
So, here they are in all their glory. Perhaps not as glossy as I’d planned, but made with love by the birthday boy 🙂
Next challenge: Ninjago cup cakes for the big day. Red icing anyone? 😉
Thanks for reading.
Caro
Btw I cut the yellow strips with one of the labels from chalk talk framelits. I was very happy with the pretty rounded edges but he decided they should all be chopped off!
11 Monday May 2015
Posted in 1 inch square, Labels collection, Wedding cards
Tags
On the weekend I attended a wedding that was actually a vow renewal ceremony, as the couple had been officially been married for some time but wanted to have their “big day”. Which posed a little bit of a challenge on the card front! I played around for a bit with the idea of I Do x 2. Here’s what I came up with:
I chose the colours (Night of Navy, Very Vanilla) to match their wedding invitation. A dark coloured card base can be a bit of a challenge when it comes to writing the message, so I used my labels framelits to make a nice space to write the message. 
I was pretty happy with how it turned out – and it’s nice to have a little bit of spare time to be making cards again!
Thanks for reading
Caro x
24 Friday Apr 2015
Posted in General occasion, Kids cards, Kids party, Star, Using up scraps, Washi tape
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
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
25 Thursday Sep 2014
Posted in Cards, Invitations, Kids cards, Kids craft ideas, Kids party, Owl, Punches, Word Window
Tags
birthday party, clever ideas with punches, Kids cards, kids party, owl builder punch, owl punch, party invitations, punch art, super heroes
Hello! Sorry it has been such a long time between posts. Life just gets busy! In my last post I showed you the card I made for my Frozen obsessed son’s 5th birthday. I’m pleased to report he loved it 🙂
Today I want to show you the invitations I made for his birthday party. He wanted a dress up party, but he (and I!) were going as super heroes, so he wanted to have super hero themed party invitations. So here’s what I came up with – super hero owls!
They looked pretty cute all lined up together:
Here’s a closer look at the super heroes, made from the Stampin’ Up! owl builder punch:
Here are a few pictures of how I put the owls together. Basically I just used various colours cut from the owl punch, and the yellow belts are made from the word window punch.
Making super owl:
One tip – it’s easier to cut the yellow belt to size from behind:
Making spider owl:
(the black circle is also from the owl builder punch)
Making bat owl:
Put them all together and you get some cute little super heroes!
I have to say I was a little sick of making owls by the end of this process though!
Thanks for reading
Caro x
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