Sunburst Shine

Today's card has been brewing in my head for some time and I'm glad I finally got to work out my vision for it.

When I saw the Sunburst die in the Occasions catalogue, I got the idea of using the die off-cuts - as is my habit of late - for additional sun rays. Once I got to fiddling around with the bits I decided that I would use them on top of the main die cut part. This is what it looked like once I had all the Sunburst pieces put together.

I have also had the idea of using the metallic threads for stitching kicking around in my head for some time, and I thought it would work really well with the Sunburst die as more sun rays. When I was doing the colours for the sun I realised that the die had little holes in it that would work great as a guide for the stitching.

I used three In Colors in this card, two of which will be retiring soon. I know I have said it before, but I see it happen every year... people wait till the retirement list comes out to purchase In Colors products and sometimes they have sold out within the first day and they miss out. So this is another reminder - get in and order those 2014-2016 In Colors before it's too late!

Sunburst Sayings clear mount stamp set & Sunburst thinlits die bundle  140807, Tangelo Twist A4 cardstock 133684, Blackberry Bliss A4 cardstock133682, Crushed Curry A4 cardstock 131288, Delightful Dijon A4 cardstock 138345, Perfect Plum A4 cardstock 108615, Blackberry Bliss133642 stamp pad , Perfect Plum stamp pad 126963, gold metallic thread 138401, Metallics sequin assortment 138390, 2" circle punch 133782, Circle collection framelit dies 130911, dimensionals 104430

Mother's Day Rose

Yes, I know I said it'd be a while before I had another card with the Rose Garden dies, but I have to slip in this one even though it is very early for Mother's Day. I usually start thinking about Mother's Day cards when it's Easter as that is the next "big day" on everyone's calendar, aside from all the birthdays that are scattered (or clumped...) through the year. Easter Sunday is tomorrow, though it is at the "early" end of the possible timeframe for Easter.

The main reason that I had to share this now is that awesome glitterly strip down the right side of the card will not be available very soon. Sale-a-bration ends March 31, less than a week away! So you have less than a week to earn fabulous free goodies like the Metallics Glitter Tape. This was just the sort of thing I was wanting last year when working on Christmas cards, so I let out a huge "YES!" when it was released among the second wave of Sale-a-bration products. It will not be carrying over into the new Stampin' Up! catalogue so if you don't want to miss out you have only a few days left to snap it up. Sale-a-bration items can be earnt on any order for any products that total $90 and over.

Back to the oranges and yellows for this one!

Teeny Tiny Sentiments wood-mounted stamp set 130042, Rose Wonder stamp set & Rose Garden thinlits dies bundle 140804, Cucumber Crush A4 cardstock 138342, Pool Part A4 cardstock 124391, Tangelo Twist A4 cardstock 133684, Crushed Curry A4 cardstock 131288, thick Whisper White A4 cardstock 140490, Pool Part stamp pad 126982, Cucumber Crush stamp pad 138324, Metallics Glitter Tape 141020 (free with qualifying order), fine-tip glue pen 138309, dimensionals 104430

Santa's Gifts

We are moving ever closer to the end of the year, and the end of the 2015 Holiday catalogue. Remember that many of the products in the catalogue are retiring and are only available while stocks last, so your chance to snap them up is growing smaller every day. Santa's Gifts is on that list, a very cute set that is great for watercolouring, like I did for the card I am sharing today:

Aw, look at that adorable reindeer... how can you say no to this guy? I still have a few sheets of the old watercolour paper floating around, so I used a full piece for this. I stamped Santa and the reindeer with Basic Black archival ink, then made a little mask for Santa's hand by stamping the image on a sticky note so that when it was cut out I had some of the sticky on the back and it would stay in place while I stamped the gift. Masking is such a nifty little technique! Once I had all of these stamped on the water colour paper I did a wash of Bermuda Bay in the background. Yep, all of that is Bermuda Bay. By using a lot of water and little ink I could achieve a nice pale colour. While I had the Bermuda Bay ink out I did the reindeer's scarf, using a lot less water and a lot more ink to get a more intense colour. For Santa's face I used Blushing Bride ink, which I left out of the colour combo graphic because... well it was such a small bit and doesn't stand out that much. For Santa's suit I used Rich Razzleberry. Such a lovely colour, and true to it's name - rich! It's a nice middle ground between the traitional red for Santa, and my favourite colour of purple. Santa's boots, and belt, along with the reindeer hooves, were done with Early Espresso - lots of ink and little water in the brush for those so the colour is so dark it is nearly black. The body of the reindeer is all Early Espresso. I know I have talked in the past about how brown shades in particular are made up of a mix of colours and tend to separate into these when you watercolour with them. I deliberately made use of that this time, the side taking on a warm reddish-brown tone and the face and inner ear a tan with a tinge of pink where I pulled the colour into areas where I already had a lot of water on the cardstock so the colour became quite diluted. To finish off the watercolouring, and for some real "pop" on the card, I used Tangelo Twist on the present.

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Boo! Howl-o-ween Treat

The other item I made this week were some bags for my kids for Halloween. They are kind of a trick AND treat bag with both chocolates and plastic bats and spiders inside, hehehehe.

It was hard to get a good, full length shot of this as it was made from a full 12x12 sheet of patterned paper. The bag itself was made using the giftbag punch board and following the score lines for the large bag. While the paper was obviously larger than the board, and thus score lines didn't go right to the edge, you can turn it around and line things up to finish each score line, use your paper trimmer or the stampin' score to finish off the score lines, or just not worry about it and carefully fold along the bits that are scored then continue the fold to the edge (just make sure things are lined up at the edge nice and square). Being owl fans I had to use the fab owl image from the Howl-o-ween Treat set for their bags. The sentiment is literally hanging by a thread, being attached only in the middle behind the owl layers so it will swing around on it's silver thread.

Here's a close up

And the colours used were...

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Butterfly Basics One Layer Card

When the new Stampin' Up! catalogue launched the new thick Whisper White cardstock was an insta-buy, but I haven't actually done a lot with it yet. One thing I was very keen to do was use it for a card base. Then old thin Whisper White was a little flimsy for a card base, and while I haven't stacked heaps on this card I can tell the card holds up better than it would have with the thin.

I think I have totally got into the mindset of not thinking of the bottom layer of a card being white unless there is minimal embellishment, but I'm sure I will get there! Thanks to the wonders of polymer stamps I was able to bend the fern frond image around more than it's natural curve and get more of a circle from it when stamping a second one opposite. I'm a little annoyed I didn't notice till I was editting the photos that the lace isn't exactly centered - it's not that noticable is it???

Today's colours are definitely not my usual choices, but I figured if I was making yet another card with butterflies I should mix it up with the colours at least!

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