Happy Mother’s Day! Here in New Zealand, we are still in Level 3 Lockdown – meaning we can’t travel out of our region, retail shops are not open although online retailers are shipping. So today’s plan is to have cake with both mine and my husband’s mother via a Zoom meeting. Sounds fun right? Three cakes were ordered, but only one has made it to its destination so far – the couriers in New Zealand say their current workload is like Christmas on steroids!!
Anyway, back to the card my mother received in the post (sent in plenty of time for arrival prior to today!).
Close up of the rainbow sunflower – can you see the shine? Adding colour to the die cut sunflower, this doesn’t need to be tidily done as it will be hidden by the layers.
I was inspired by Laura Bassen@laurafadora and her card made with the sunflower stem from Simon Says Stamp. I loved the rainbow idea and bought this die solely to create my own.
I cut the sunflower five times, and left the petals intact in one of them so I could colour my rainbow for the bottom layer. I used copic markers, but you could use any medium you prefer.
Three die cuts, with the petals punched out were glued on top. I used my Art Glitter glue for this as I really like the super fine tip. If I had thought ahead, I could have applied stick it adhesive to my cardstock first to make the job of sticking the delicate die cuts together easier!
I also coloured the petals with my Nuvo Glimmer pen, and then added Nuvo Crystal Glaze for extra shine.
The final die cut sunflower was added to the top for a nice clean and crisp finish.
The background is the Simon Says Stamp Festive Berries stamp, heat embossed with Hero Arts Satin Pearl embossing powder.
The sunflower panel is raised with craft foam. I used the MFT stitched rectangles on both the card front and sunflower panel to get a nice stitched border.
I added the sunflower to the front and found a suitable Happy Mother’s Day sentiment in Mama Elephant’s Mini Messages. I heat embossed in white on Hero Arts Pitch Black cardstock and carefully cut the ends to create the little banner.
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!
Nuvo Confetti: Rose Gold Hexagons, Ice White Circles
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!
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!
My first class for the year was held at Scrapbook Central, Petone, Wellington.
Today’s class focused on creating a shaker card, and using the leftover die cut pieces to do some inlay, thus creating a second card. We also looked at some basic copic colouring and introduced the class participants to two colour blends – pink and orange.
Butterfly secured inside the shaker in such a way that it remains upright, but can still move about quite freely.
Die cut inlay and butterfly built and coloured in layers.
A shaker is an interactive card, which has depth and a window to see tiny elements such as confetti, sequins, beads etc freely moving about in a contained space. They move when shaken. We stepped up the basic shaker to include a die cut butterfly inside that is secured in such a way that it will never flip, fall to the bottom, always remaining the right way up but still moving freely in the shaker.
Die cut inlay is a technique where a die is cut twice and the inner pieces transferred to the second die cut outer frame – usually with contrasting colour ways – creating a smooth surface with great interest.
Supplies List:
Both cards were constructed onto a Bazzill Marshmallow 4.25 x 5.5 inch card base. All supplies listed are available from Scrapbook Central – you can order online, or visit instore.
Memory Box Side Butterfly Frame
Memory Box Jotted Birthday Script
Lawn Fawn Happy Happy Happy Stamp & Die set
Echo Park Mini Blossoms Background Stamp
Kaisercraft Blooms Embossing Folder
Circle dies – 3″ and 3.25″. I used the Hero Arts Nesting Circle Dies set.
Class attendees were given a kit with pre-cut elements. And chocolate. (Who crafts without chocolate??!). They inked, heat embossed, die cut and built two cards over the course of the workshop.
Our class getting underway – we had a full class of 12 participants!
We looked at easy ways to keep die cut pieces together for simple inlay, using adhesive on tricky intricate dies, some fun products to create shakers with, and built beautiful butterfly embellishments full of colour and dimension.
Progress pictures – there were some beginner crafters having their first try at inking with Distress Oxides, and confident crafters learning new (or perhaps re-remembering!) techniques.
We also had an introductory lesson in Copic colouring and blending. For further resources on colouring (including copics, watercolouring and other mediums), you can find a list here of my favourite online classes, where to find downloadable charts etc. Also, my Colour Page has information about Copic markers and other ways to add colour to your projects.
Thank you to everyone who attended today, and to Philippa & Jonathan for hosting me! It was a great day, full of creativity and laughs.
As promised, there is a second blog post with the extra card examples using the same products featured in today’s class – click here.
For more in-depth information about the best value supplies for your craft table, from cardstock, inks, adhesives, to the handiest tools, check out my Best of the Basics series.
I’d appreciate it if you hit Follow below, and/or follow my Facebook page so you’ll be kept up to date with upcoming classes. I regularly share other cards, along with tips, hints and ideas.
