Category Archives: Small Heart

What to do with all this colouring in?

29 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by in Birthday, Bitty Butterfly, Elegant Butterly, General occasion, Punches, Small Heart, Thoughts and comments, Tutorial, Using up scraps

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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 

When too many wedding cards are never enough!

16 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in 3D / pop up, Cards, Embossing folders, Small Heart, Sweet treat cups, Wedding cards

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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!

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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

Gate fold embossed wedding card

Gate fold embossed wedding card - inside

Sponged embossing

(I used my sponge daubers and pearls to add colour and sparkles to the embossed flowers)

Mr & Mrs sentiment

(I love this teeny tiny sentiment from the Teeny Tiny Sentiments set)

Scallop wedding greeting tag topper

Design two – embossed wedding card

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.

Sponging and pearls

Wedding day greeting

Design three – wedding easel shaker card

Easel shaker wedding 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.

Hearts in a heart shaped cup

Mr & Mrs heart shaker card

Wedding gate fold card (inside)

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

Easter Bunny treat boxes

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in 1 1/4 inch circle, 3/4 inch circle, 3D projects, Big Shot, Boxes, Candy Wrapper, Dies, Extra Large Oval, Gift bags, Home decorating, Kids party, Punches, Small Heart, Word Window

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Hello

Given we’re starting to head towards thinking about Easter crafts I thought I would show you some pictures of some little Easter gift boxes I made last year for our Easter brunch.

Candy wrapper Bigz die easter treatsThese are made with the Stampin’ Up! Candy Wrapper Bigz Die which is retired from the current catalogue, but thankfully making a return at a whopping discount in the current Clearance Rack *.

Here is a close up of one:

Easter Bunny gift box

The eyes are made with circle punches, the nose is an upside down small heart punch, and the ears are made from the extra large oval punch and the word window punch (cut off). I drew on the whiskers but you could probably be fancy and use twine.

These looked so cute on the table and lots of mini eggs fitted beautifully inside.

I hope that kick starts you thinking of some cute Easter craft!  Thanks for reading.

Caro x

*As always, please let me know if you’d like to purchase any of the Stampin’ Up! products you see on my blog, or any of the other products in the catalogue for that matter 🙂

Golden anniversary card

28 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by in 3D / pop up, Anniversary, Cards, Modern Label, Small Heart, Sweet treat cups

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The other day I showed you some Rudolph the red nosed reindeer decorations I made using Stampin’ Up! sweet treat cups.   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.

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I used gold card stock and ink and Very Vanilla for the stamped image.   The tag used the Modern Label punch and a greeting from the Teeny Tiny Sentiments set.  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

Leftover hearts?

01 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in General occasion, Punches, Small Heart, Using up scraps

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Hi

The other day I needed to punch out some little white hearts for something else I was doing.  As you do!

It seemed a shame to throw out the strip of white paper with all the empty hearts I’d punched.    So I glued it onto another piece of card stock I had lying around and voila.  Really simple, but I think it works?  What do you think?

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A little green heart in the top right corner was a little extra touch.  I think the whole thing took less than 5 minutes to make.    Next time I’ll pay a little more attention to the spacing between the hearts though …

I’m sure you could do the same thing with a flower punch layered over some floral or spotty paper as well.    I think I might have to go and look at my punches in a new light now and see which other ones might work as cut outs or frames!

Thanks for reading

Caro

Simple – but stylish – gift giving

15 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in Butterfly (retired), Full heart, Gift bags, Gift tags & wrapping, Punches, Small Heart, Using up scraps

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Hello!  Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Yesterday I showed you some cards I made using the Stampin’ Up! full heart punch.  I mentioned that you shouldn’t throw away the spare punched heart – and here’s why not.

After making the cards yesterday I needed a quick and simple gift wrapping idea to go with the cards.   Here’s a simple idea for a gift tag:

photo-5I used the cut out from the heart punch and another cut out butterfly on top (see how the wings aren’t fully stuck down to make it look like it’s flying?)   A little faux pearl and I think it looks perfect for a little girl’s present.

The tag is a mailing tag I got at Officeworks – you can get a box of 100.  I normally like making my own tags, but sometimes when you’re in a hurry this is a pretty good alternative!

I also have a stash of blank gift bags I get from $2 shops for this kind of occasion.    A few punches from card stock and scraps of pretty paper and you’ve got a lovely gift with virtually no effort.

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photo-4I think they look gorgeous (if I do say so myself!) – and certainly they don’t look the result of 2 minute’s effort.

If you don’t have any punches, you can still make a really pretty gift bag just by cutting pieces of paper to cover the front of the bag.

Have a look at some bags I made for my son’s daycare teachers last Christmas.  The designs were just cut out with scissors from some Stampin’ Up! designer series paper.

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Again, simple and easy – but really nice to receive 🙂

Thanks for reading

Caro

Simple card layout

14 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Butterfly (retired), Full heart, General occasion, Punches, Small Heart, Using up scraps

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Hello

The other day I had to come up with 2 birthday cards for some lovely little girls.  And I had about 10 minutes max to make the card and gift wrap the presents.  (Note to self: make a few extra cards to have lying around the house for card emergencies!)

One of the little girls had had a lovely time playing with my Stampin’ Up! full heart punch when she came to visit one time, so I’d bought her one as her birthday present.   So I wanted to make a card using that punch to give her some ideas of how to use it.

Thankfully I have a few fail safe card layouts that are fantastic when you need a quick card that is still effective.   I’m not sure what it’s called, but I call it a ‘punch trick’ card.  I learnt this from Sally Ann Williams, whose blog is definitely worth following for lots of lovely (and simple!) card making techniques.

Here is the card:

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You can see I’ve cut a heart out of the front of the card and then another heart out of designer series paper.  (Don’t throw the card stock away!).   Stick the designer paper heart on the inside of the card and it makes a heart shaped “window” which can look really effective for a simple card.

TIP!  Don’t try and glue the heart on the inside of the card and hope to have the punched window and the cut out shape perfectly align.  It’s much better to close the card and stick the pretty paper through the window.  Perfect alignment every time!

I used some ribbon, another full heart punch from DSP and a punched small heart and faux pearl just to add a bit of extra detail to the front of the card.

You can see a bit better from this picture how the window and cut out works:

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And here’s a picture of the inside:

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Don’t think this layout only works with hearts either!  You could try birds, cupcakes, butterflies – or make a window to highlight a sentiment.  It’s a great card layout for using up small bits of pretty paper you can’t bear to throw away.

Here is what the same technique can look like with a butterfly punch:

photo-6photo-8[Sorry, those photos are pretty bad.  Must get my proper camera fixed!]

I mentioned that you shouldn’t throw out the heart/butterfly you cut out from the front of the card.   Stay tuned tomorrow and I’ll show you why not!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Caro

Kids robot cards

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Cards, Decorative Label, Horizontal Slot, Kids cards, Modern Label, Owl, Punches, Small Heart, Tag, Uncategorized, Word Window

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I while ago my little boy was invited to his friend’s robot birthday party.  So of course me being me, I had to think of a cute little robot card I could make for him.     After a bit of hunting around on Google, I saw this cute little card by Teneale Williams (someone else who’s blog gives me lots of great inspiration).

Modifying Teneale’s idea a bit, here is what I came up with:

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I used some corrugated paper I found at a $2 shop as it seemed to be very ‘robot-ey’, but normal card stock would work too.

My little robots are put together out of Stampin’ Up! punches:

Head – Tag punch

Body – Decorative Label punch

Arms and ears – Word Window punch (Tip: glue a word window on the reverse side of the head to make the ears)

Legs – Modern Label punch or Word Window punch

Mouth – Horizontal Slot punch (this is retired now but you could use a smaller circle (eg the eyes from the owl punch), the candles from the cupcake punch, or cut down the word window punch or draw on a mouth)

Eyes – I used the eyes from the Owl punch with some googly eyes stuck on, but any small circles would work.

For decorations I used the Small Heart punch, the heart and waistcoat from the Owl Builder punch.   One one of them I stuck lollies on the body.

These were so fun to make I soon had a little robot army!

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