#849 – Another New Year card!

Hello and welcome! Here’s another new year card. I made this one to send to a dear blogging friend of mine. Hope she liked it! 🙂

I was totally inspired by this card made by Jennifer McGuire (the last card in the series). I don’t have any such die, but I wanted to achieve a similar effect. So instead of a single die cut, I used many!! 😉

Of course, as you can see, I made the card a more-or-less tone-on-tone, rather than colorful, as I first intended to. I kinda liked this look! 🙂

I first started with a card panel – 6″x4″. I used MFT Flutter of Butterflies and die cut a few of the butterflies from the panel. I then used the flower and leaf dies from Paper Smooches Flowers and Flowers 2 dies, and die cut from the gaps in between the butterflies. I also added a few dotted swirly lines using Paper Smooches Stitched Flourishes 2 die. I retained all the die cut pieces, to use them later in my card.

I first adhered the die cut panel on a cream colored cardstock. I then started adhering the die cut pieces, layering a few and finally embellishing a the butterflies and flowers with cream half pearls.

Finally coming to the sentiment. After finishing the card base, I had no idea how to proceed. I finally settled on using the happy die from Mama Elephant along with a strip of stamped sentiment from Reverse Confetti Whole Lotta Happy. I first die cut three pieces of the die and stacked them. I added some liquid glue behind both the die and strip and just laid them on the card – no pressure, so that they would appear floating on top of the butterflies.

And that finished the card! With this card, I am joining the following challenges –

Just us Girls challenge #514 – Trends Week: Create Dimension

Global Design Project #223: Celebration

Happy Little Stampers January Anything Goes with Dies challenge

Just Add Ink challenge #488: Celebrate! A BIG congrats on completing 10 years of the challenge! Wow! What an achievement!!

Thanks for stopping by!

#847 – Happy New Year!

PE: Honorable mention at Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes with Dies challenge!

Hello! I am already almost half a month away, but I think I can have the whole of January to wish someone a Happy New Year, so there! 😀

These are the cards I made for the family this year.

As I do for every year, this time too, I have common theme and design. This year, I planned to

• Use colored cardstock as my card base
• Use layered flower stamps as the focal
• Use dies for the background
• Have some kind of a different fold than the usual.

For these cards, I made the card open in between. The bottom half is tucked in between the foil strip and the colored card base. So, one has to kinda pull the bottom half of the card towards themselves to open the card.

For the first card, I used navy blue cardstock, added pieces die cut from Simon Says Stamp Clustered Flowers die. On this I added a strip of silver mirror card stock. I then adhered all the leaves and flowers in layers. The focal flower comes from Hero Arts Flower Layering Hibiscus stamp set, and the other pieces are from other stamp set.

For the second card, I used Spellbinders Doily Circle dies, die cutting cream and yellow cardstocks and alternating them between each circle when adhering. I used a gold mirror cardstock strip on this one, and the focal rose is from Altenew’s Build a Flower: Rose.

For the third card, I used Stamplorations Bloomtangled 1 die with a strip of silver mirror card stock. The flowers are a stamp set  from Right at Home called Sunflower.

For the fourth card, I used Altenew’s Doodled Lace die cut, a strip of gold mirror cardstock and then Altenew’s Layered Lili as the focal point.

On all of these cards, I used the sentiment which is a combination of Lil Inker Designs’ Rustic Spring and Reverse Confetti’s Whole Lotta Happy stamp sets. I used the same on the self made envelops as well. This time I used Fabriano Tinta paper to make the envelopes.

With these cards, I am joining the following challenges –

Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge: Something New

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Fun with Florals

Happy Little Stampers: January Anything Goes with Dies challenge

Virginia’s Show and Share for January. Thank you Virginia for hosting it!!

Thank you for stopping by!

#806 – Happy New Year!!

Hello and welcome!! Its going to be the new year in a few more hours, and so… wish everyone a very happy and prosperous new year!! 🙂

Of course, this also calls for some cards! The newest installment of the new year cards – the cards I made for my family this year –

As always, I used the same concept on all of them. This time, though, I had no idea how to start or where to proceed, so I am really glad they came out well! I initially thought of making something interactive or even a shadow box, but all of that went to the dumps. I ended up with just a folded card – with florals…florals always!! 😉 I used white and ivory cardstocks for two cards each. Most of the floral images come from Altenew. The ‘happy’ die cut is from Mama Elephant cut out from cardstock with gold foil and the rest of the stamped sentiment is from the same company’s Calli Letters.

Of course, the envelopes also need to be handmade! I used the same design as the background I had used on the cards. I swapped the die cut to a colorful one, using the rest of the sentiment as is.

On the first card, I used a combination of Altenew’s Garden Treasure and Peony Bouquet stamps. The background pattern is using Lil Inker Design’s Really Rosemaling.

On the second card, I used, once again, Altenew’s Garden Treasure and Peony Bouquet with leaves from Beautiful Day. The background is a stencil from The Crafters Workshop, called Mini Solace.

On the third one, I used Altenew Build a Flower: Rose and Vintage Flowers. The background is Waffle Flowers Layered Marble.

And on this last one, I used Altenew Bride-to-be and Winnie & Walter In Bloom: Victorias Very Merry Flowers. The background uses the stencil from The Crafters Workshop called Mini Garden Gate, which I used twice for two colors, overlaying for the second color to get that illusion like effect.

And here’s how the card opens up..and where I’ve written out the message.

With these cards I am joining the following challenges –

Timeout challenge #125: Inspired by words

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp Work it Wednesday challenge: Try Something New (the Z-fold cards are new to me)

I hope you liked the cards as much as my family did (yes, I’ve already given it to them, as they will be going on a trip tonight)! If you would like to checkout what I had created for the last few years, check them out here – 2018, 2017 and 2016.

Thank you so much for stopping by!! 🙂

#708 – Best of 2017

Hello! So I finally decided to compose a post about what I think are my best cards from each month of 2017. I went back and forth quite a few times about whether I wanted to publish this post or not, but finally decided to go ahead. I mean, it feels good to see my best creations.. hopefully it will lead to a good creation spree in 2018! 😀

I have 137 posts from last year, and more cards than 137.. not sure how many, since I’ve posted multiple cards in some posts, single cards in others. Some others are about mixed media creations, and others – not even cards! But it definitely has been a fun year! And I have a lot of favorites to share, even if I was out of mojo too many times throughout the year! 🙂

So here we go! (Since I have more than 1 card for some months, I am linking the image with the post where I published it.)

January

I started trying new techniques this year. I loved the technique LauraJane uses for coloring, so I tried something similar. The first card below is the result. I even came up with a marbling technique using alcohol inks – something I would love to try once again! 🙂

February

The very first vintage card of the year – I started liking this style very much by the end of the year!

March

I think this (the first card) is the only heavily textured card I made throughout the year. And somehow, the entire month turned out to be very ‘green’!!

April

Getting a few new stamps in the stash is always wonderful. I made cards just to be able to use them!

May

Both these cards are for my parents – turns out my best cards are those which I give to my family! 🙂

June

I’ve even been trying to make cards without using too many embellishments. Stamping and coloring the entire card, and using other ways to highlight sections – like die cutting, vellum and embossing.

July

Finally starting the get accustomed to making CAS cards… but still, flowers do make everything easy! 😉

August

I went all out on painting, colors and techniques this month – everything was new and fresh!!

September

Attempts at no line coloring – something I absolutely adore – so happy that they came out so well!!

October

And I finally started getting the hang of making cards using critter stamps – something I have a hard time making.. Gotta try some more!

November

Bringing a portion of mixed media into card making, is the highlight. Also tried out the double heat embossing technique.. one of my favorites to achieve that fabulous, sparkly, metallic look! Jennifer McGuire rocks! 😀

December

Getting the verdigris embossing powder made me create a few cards! I also tried bringing in some acrylic paints into cards, and the combination of the paints with embossing and foil is just spectacular! Gotta try it again!!

So these are all my favorite cards from the year past! Have I missed any of your favorites? You can check them all here.. and tell me if I’ve messed any!

Cheers to the year past and the fresh one coming ahead! May we all have some cherishing crafting times!! Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#706 – Celebrate! Happy New Year!

Hello! With the new year just a couple of days away, I thought of making a few new year’s cards… And also, I wanted to experiment this new cardstock I got.

Since I live in India, its difficult for me to get my hands on some quality cardstock – and I wouldn’t like to make orders from abroad for this basic crafting supply. I tried a lot of stores, before coming across the CrafTangles cardstock. I like the basic colors they’ve got, and the quality of the card stock too – it withstood heat embossing very well and the stamping looks great on it… so I tested some more – I tried my Zig brush pens on it…

…with mixed results. When I was coloring them, I felt that the colors were blending well, and was happy. Only when they dried did I see that the colors were kinda sucked by the paper – so there was less of the colors, and also, the blending wasn’t looking as good as before. 😦 Well, it still wasn’t bad enough for me to discard the whole card, so I continued with it.

Coming back to the card.. I used Altenew Hennah Elements and gold heat embossed the images on this beachy brown cardstock. I then colored it with Zig brush pens. The sentiment is two part – the die cut is from Neat and Tangled, called ‘Celebrate’, which I die cut and heat embossed twice in gold. It is layered on top of vellum, die cut using another die from the same set – the second part is stamped, using Reverse Confetti Whole Lotta Happy stamped in black ink.

I am joining the Altenew Year Review Inspiration Challenge, my colors inspired by the August challenge colors –

Global Design Project challenge #119: Home for the Holidays

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes

Now off to experimenting some more!! 😉

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#571 – New Year’s Cards

Hello! I usually post New Year’s cards I make for my family right on the first day of the new year..this time I am late since I was just plain lazy, carrying over the sloth to take photos of the cards to the new year.. please don’t mind me, I am pretty sure I’ll pick up in a few months! 😉 😛

Here’s the set of cards I made –

I had a very simple design concept in mind – I wanted to do stamping, no other special techniques, just simple stamping followed by die cutting and inlaid die cut pieces in silver (I painted them silver using acrylic paint) for the sentiment.

Now that I had decided this, I of course, went for my favorite stamps – flower stamps to make my cards! The flowers came from different stamp sets, as you see, and once done, I die cut the panel, added the sentiment using some scotch tape and then mounted it on my card base.

Event the envelopes are all the same. I wanted the sentiment font to be as similar as possible to the one on the card, so I chose Reverse Confetti Whole Lotta Happy stamp set. I stamped this in black ink first and then stamped it again using Memento Brilliant Galaxy Gold ink.

Before I stamped the sentiment, I used Hero Arts Leaves and Flowers background stamp on the envelope, stamping using Versamark watermark ink and then wiped some Perfect Pearls, each corresponding to the color or the envelope. However I was a bit unlucky with this, as the ink somehow didn’t stick to the paper and the neither did too much of the Perfect Pearls; and since I hadn’t used MISTI, I couldn’t stamp it again, without messing it up big time. But I thought it was still ok.. since the cards were pretty! 😉

Here are the details –
My Favorite Things Emmitt Alphabet
Altenew Layered Lily
Altenew A Beautiful Day
Altenew Watercolor Wonders
Simon Says Stamp Sketch Ranunculus

Submitting my cards to the following challenges –

Card 1 –

CAS-ual Fridays: Celebrations –

Card 2 –

Happy Little Stampers: January Watercolor Challenge: Anything Goes (I misted the stamps with water after applying distress inks, spreading the colors using a brush whenever required, so that’s a bit of watercoloring!) –

Card 3 –

Paru’s Card Challenge: Anything Goes (Congratulations on First Anniversary!!) –

Just Us Girls Challenge #375: Word Week – New – (Altenew A Beautiful Day is a new stamp for me; plus, the card itself is for a new year!!)

Card 4 –

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Start Afresh –

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: New Something –

Simon Says Stamp: Work it Wednesday: Something New with a New Product –

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

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#390 – The Best of the Past Year

Hello!

I began this blog in May 2014. The beginning of the year 2015, I saw many card-making bloggers post the best of their cards from the previous year. I loved that idea so much, I wanted to try it myself. But since I had started only in the mid of the year, I thought of postponing this idea to the next year, when I would have posts throughout the year. And that’s what this post is all about. I am posting here cards which are my favorites, from each month of the year 2015. I mostly have chosen a single card from every month, but I have more in a few others, where I just couldn’t choose which I like the best!

Here goes… 😀

January – original post here

February – original posts here and here

March – original posts here and here

April – original posts here

May – original posts here and here

June – original post here

July – original post here

August – original post here

September – original post here

October – original post here

November – original posts here and here

December – original post here

I had a tough time selecting these cards – more so for some months than the others. I skipped cards I had made for family – if they are included, I would omit some other favorites of mine and the post would be too long! 😛 But I did love to see my own cards after such a long time! I’ve written a total of 280+ posts this year, and more cards than that!

Since I started with card-making, I have been knocked off my feet by so many card makers, inspired and inspired again by their fabulous creations. I’ve been lucky enough to win in challenges, even honoured by others to participate as Guest Designer. I have even been graced by the friends I’ve made over blog land, who comment on my post, giving me so much support. Most of all, by my family, who have never once said a word against me buying so many supplies, instead praise even the worst of my works!! 😉 I couldn’t thank you all enough, but I must say – Thanks, from the bottom of my heart! 😀

Last but not the least, a very happy new year to every one of you! May the year ahead bring you lots of happiness, peace, health and joy of achievements and success!

And here’s looking forward to another fantastic year! Thanks for stopping by! 🙂