Month: March 2020

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Frozen Shaker

I may have one of the only little girls in the world NOT obsessed with the Disney Pixar movie Frozen, but we still know who Elsa and Anna are! This entire card is one of those ‘one thing led to another’ scenarios.

The invitation in question – sans personal details. I was taken with the swirly purple, blue and pink tones together.

Amelie was invited to her little friend’s birthday, and the invitation was Frozen themed. I really liked the beautiful mix of colours swirling in the background of the invitation and wondered if I could recreate something like it myself. My first attempt was with alcohol inks, and funnily, was the most successful. Isn’t it weird when we try something the first time and it works amazingly, that subsequent attempts don’t? A couple of spectacular failures happened, that’s for sure.

Supplies used:

Gina K Designs Snowflake Background Stamp
Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks

I started off by white heat embossing the snowflake background onto the Alcohol Ink Cardstock. This is no different to heat embossing on regular cardstock, but always pays to be careful.

It is possible to heat emboss on Yupo paper – you must let your heat gun warm up for a wee while to get it properly hot, and heat the Yupo carefully. You gently move the heat gun across the paper without letting it heat too much in one spot, taking the heat away and bringing it back. Being this careful, it takes a little longer than heat embossing regular cardstock, but it is certainly worth the effort.

Alcohol ink is super fun to play with – so far everyone who has tried this at my craft table has become rather addicted! You do need some blending solution to really get the ink moving and a straw. Although you could use isopropyl alcohol (available from pharmacies), it does have a different result, so it pays to play. You could use an ink blending tool with felts instead of foam, which again gets different results. I ended up creating a few background pieces to keep in my stash – even failures can be cut up with word dies or something similar!

Once I had splashed about with the inks, I decided to cut up the birthday invitation! (I took a photo of the pertinent details first 😉 ) I carefully fussy cut Elsa and Anna from the back of the invite.

Placement was tricky to decide as I thought having the characters sit centrally would look better than having them sit directly at the bottom of the panel, but didn’t want them to look too obviously cut out from somewhere else!

The front of the invitation – I cut just above the gold symbols and fussy cut around the hair and shoulders.

I figured the best way would be to create a nice large window opening for them, which then led to creating a shaker card.

I die cut my panel with a stitched rectangle die, and then the curved window opening. Elsa and Anna are sat within the window, on top of the acetate, with strategic snips in their hair to make it look like they are standing in front of the window.

Part way through……..

A shaker requires acetate and foam strips to create a compartment to keep all the confetti and sequins in place. I wanted a bit of depth to allow space for beads and sequins to move freely. Stampin Up foam strips are a little deeper than other strips on the market, and they suited this purpose. You could simply have two layers of foam strips if you want depth for your shakers.

I sat and stared at it for a bit, and thought it just needed something GLITTERY.

Amelie and I then had fun cutting a bunch of snowflakes from various sets in my stash, choosing the smaller snowflakes from each. We die cut from white cardstock, silver, and vellum and played with creating the top of the window opening. Gems were added too, because why not! You only turn 4 once 🙂

I glued the shaker to a lilac coloured card base which finished this card in a pretty way. I included this card with a gift of a beautiful Elsa dress up costume – and we had fun at the party!

Bonus…..

Amelie’s card for Jamez

Amelie also created her very own card using some of the snowflakes she cut with me – here it is in all its glory. It is for the birthday girl’s big brother! I LOVE how she loves snowflakes 🙂

Didn’t she do well?

If you have any questions regarding the putting together of this card, please feel free to message me – I’m only too happy to help!

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It’s a Monster Ride!

This is a Happy Birthday to my nephew Max – he is turning 5, which means SCHOOL! This pair of Scary Pals from Avery Elle are racing to join in with his birthday celebrations, complete with gifts and balloons.

The outer frame is the Grand Photo Mat. This single die cuts all the pieces at once – the frame, the background scenery hill pieces and clouds. It also has a pretty line of embossed dots around the edge of the frame window. You can colour the pieces up however you like and put them back together, just like a puzzle. You could leave the background scenery out altogether, and instead have a brilliantly large photo frame.

I stamped the images with Gina K Amalgam ink. This ink is my top choice as it suits just about all mediums for adding colour, from alcohol inks, to pencils and watercolour, without smudging or smearing. You can stamp images and colour them months later and not have to worry about which medium you can and can’t use.

Flicks of the marker can create the look of fur

Copics Used:
Car & Red Balloon – R59, R29, R27, R24,
Tyres & Grill – C9, C7, C5, C3, C1
Headlights and Sky – B00, B000
Driver – BG78, BG75, BG72
Passenger – Y38, Y18, Y15, Y11
Gift – YR16, YR15
Balloon & Hills – G28, G09, G05, G03

I then cut them out with the matching dies – there are separate stamps and dies included in the set for their paws for extra fun.

The Happy Birthday was stamped along the bottom using Versafine Pigment ink – I like to use this ink for my black sentiments as it stamps in a crisp, dark black, and I clear heat emboss for a nice shiny finish. I prefer this method than heat embossing a sentiment directly with black embossing powder – very hard to achieve the same tidy result.

Glittery shiny finishes

Other finishing touches include Nuvo Glitter Gloss pen on the balloons, Nuvo Crystal Glaze on the balloons also, as well as the head lights and the driver’s eyes.

The Scary Pals were carefully secured to their car along with their gift and balloons, and the entire car is mounted onto the background with foam tape – on a slight angle to infer speed and a sense of excitement!

The card front is adhered to a card base of Neenah #110 white cardstock and this complete’s Max’s birthday card! Amélie was super excited to give this, along with a gift, to her cousin and celebrate with him.

Links below to products used, including NZ shops where I can. Please check with your local craft store and see if these products can be ordered in for you directly as I do like to support our small businesses where possible. Otherwise, these links will take you to where they are currently available. Some are affiliate links – this means I get a small commission from the store when you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you. This helps to keep my blog and craft activities going, so thank you for your support!

https://linkdeli.com/widget.js?1559654439292

For handy information about the best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock and inks to the most useful tools, check out my Best of the Basics series.

If you have any questions regarding the putting together of this card, please feel free to message me – I’m only too happy to help! Thank you for visiting 🙂

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A Cheeky Birthday Wine

It’s a good friend’s birthday (Happy Birthday Jo!), and I am celebrating her with a cheeky wine – both in my glass, and on this card!

I was inspired by a cute layout from Marieke Slaats featuring a wine glass shaker, and wanted to create something along similar lines.

Supplies: (please note some affiliate links used whereby I may earn a small commission when you shop at no extra cost to you).

I white heat embossed the background stamp – this is just a small stamp, which doesn’t actually cover the entire card front, but perfect for a party backdrop. For information and instructions on how to Heat Emboss, click here.

I then masked off the bottom fifth of the card front using Post-It notes, and inked above them using Distress Inks and a Tim Holtz mini inking tool with foam, covering the heat embossing we’ve done in the previous step with ink. I used the Vintage Photo at the bottom, Wild Honey in the middle and Fossilized Amber towards the top, going dark to light. Buff the embossed image with a rag or cloth to remove excess ink from the confetti, this makes the embossing look nice and crisp.

The wine glass die set makes it very easy to create a quick shaker with the matching pouches. My Favorite Things have a great variety of pouch shapes to suit various dies they have in their collection.

You can see the confetti sitting in the pouch

I cut the wine glass twice, and heat embossed one of them a couple of times using Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder. I glued them together, and glued the shaped pouch in the middle.

I placed a little pile of confetti carefully on the card in the area I wanted to place my glass, and carefully glued the glass down with liquid adhesive – the confetti can now be shaken about in the pouch.

For shaker cards and windows, you can use tiny punched shapes, glitter, beads, buttons, sequins or microbeads in the shaker pouch – whatever you happen to have on hand.

A close up of the little fox and the birthday sentiment.

I stamped with Gina K ink, coloured and cut the cute critters from the Stacey Yacula Sending Sweet Celebrations stamp set – the fox carrying a gift, the cake and the banner, which I cut down to fit the top corner of the card. I popped them on the front of the card and used foam tape for dimension.

I was flicking through my sentiments, and stumbled across the Taylored Expressions Big Grump – he has some brilliantly snarky sentiments, and this one fits perfectly with the theme of the card.

I stamped the sentiment along the bottom uninked area with Versafine Black Onyx ink. This is a pigment ink, and I like to use clear embossing powder to set it. Once the embossing powder is heated and melted, it gives a glossy black printed finish to the sentiment. I have had much better success using this ink and clear embossing powder technique than with black embossing powder directly – I always manage to get dots of black embossing powder everywhere which is disappointing at this stage of the card making process!

Now for the shiny finishing parts!

Nuvo Crystal Glaze
Shimmer Spray – available in Gold, Silver, Sparkle and Shimmer
Radiant Amplify – a liquid that fluffs and puffs when heated with a heat gun

I added sparkle to the card using Tsukineko shimmer spray, and shine to the cake and banner with Nuvo Crystal Glaze.

The party hat has a little fuzzy pom pom on top created with Tsukineko Radiant Neon Amplify – you put the liquid where you want it, and use your heat gun to make it fluff right up – such a FUN little detail, and perfect for pom poms, clouds, fluffy hats and scarves, bunny tails, beer foam, I could go on……

I like to use a piece of white kids craft foam between my card base and card front, for flat, smooth and even dimension. It’s far cheaper and more effective than screeds of foam tape! I buy mine from Lincraft online, and I have sometimes found it at Emporium type shops too.

That completes the card! Thank you for reading this far – I’d love to know if you give this a go too.

If you have any questions regarding the putting together of this card, please feel free to message me – I’m only too happy to help!

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Exciting News!

I have been invited to be a new Affiliate Partner with Scrapbook.com! This means I can include links here on my website, blog, and some of my social media posts, which take you directly to their website. If you like what you see, and make a purchase, I can earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

You can browse, shop and have goodies delivered directly to your door with super fast and brilliantly cheap international shipping. My friends and I have been very happy customers with Scrapbook.com for a few years now, they offer over 50,000 different products, including many of our favourite stamp, die, ink and paper brands.

Scrapbook.com also have their own range of exclusive stamp sets, dies, inks and tools.

I will be spending some time over the next few weeks setting up my own gallery at Scrapbook.com (this is something you can do too and share your cool creations!). I will also be learning how to share amazing coupon deals, projects and products so you can have fun creating along with me.

You can start here with 10% off your purchase, plus a free gift.

Be assured, I will still continue to share how you can shop for your crafty goodies in New Zealand – after all, supporting our local businesses is still very important to me. I have a list of New Zealand retailers here.

For information about high quality, best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock to the handiest tools, check out my Best of the Basics series – this series is dedicated to where you can find the products I list in New Zealand, and that won’t change.

Thank you for stopping by and sharing in my exciting news!