Nature

One of my favourite card themes is "Nature", and the gorgeous Indigo Blu stamp sets are perfect for a lovely nature card. That indigo blue is also my favourite colour is pure serendipity :-)

"Nature Card"

The stamping for the main panel is in different colours of distress inks over a blended, distress-inked background. Second and third stampings were used for extra depth.

"Butterfly with acetate wings"

Butterfly wings were stamped onto acetate using archival inks and cut out before adhering over the stamped images with a little glossy accents. Bending the acetate slightly on each side of the thorax lifts the wings and provides a narrow, flat area for the glue.

"Crackle butterfly"

The larger butterfly is stamped and coloured on thick watercolour paper before coating with rock candy crackle paint and rubbing some chipped sapphire into the cracks once dried for a lovely antique effect.

"Sentiment"

Distress markers were used to stamp the sentiment in different colours before heat embossing in clear.

"Flower stalk"

These dried sage flower stalks make a pretty embellishment with a short length of ribbon wrapped around the stems to hold them together and attach to the base card.

Ingredients:

Indigo Blu stamp sets: Nature I, Wild Meadow, Discover Your Passion

Distress Inks, various blue & green colours

Distress Markers, various colours

Archival ink, cobalt

Enbossing powder, clear

Dried sage flower stalks

cardstock: white 300gsm, white 160gsm, black 160gsm, blue pearlised & patterned 120gsm

dark blue lace (thanks Lee!)

adhesives: glossy accents, PVA

Entered for the following challenges:
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Anything Goes

Mother's Day Card Number 2

Here's the second of my two Mother's Day cards for this year:

"Happy Mother's Day"

This card has an acetate tunnel construction (for details of the construction method, see my tutorial under the heading Project three - fish tank). The back has patterned paper, and the front is stamped with distress inks to match.

"Deer"

An antlered deer was cut from patterned papers and adhered to the acetate, and a Graphics Fairy image was cut up to make the deer's family in the background.

"Images"

Images were cut from the patterned papers, shaped and adhered using Pinflair. Lace edging was coloured to match using distress inks and fixed to the top and bottom of the card with glossy accents.

"Butterfly"

The butterflies are stamped in clear versamark and heat-embossed in gold before colouring with distress inks, cutting out, shaping, and gluing in place with Pinflair.

"Box"

The box is made from kraft & stamped to match the card using Distress inks.

Ingredients:

Kaisercraft Secret Bird Society 6" x 6" paper pad
Sizzix Framelits: Circles

Graphics Fairy image

Meadow stamp set (can't remember who made this, if anyone recognises it please let me know and I'll edit!)

Butterflies stamps

Distress Inks: Antique Linen, Pumice Stone, Tumbled Gladd, Bundled Sage

cardstock: white, thick

acetate

lace

sentiment "Happy Mother's Day" from a swap

Entered for the following challenge:
Simon Says Stamp and Show... Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp - Mother's Day
Dream Valley - Mother's Day
Pan Pastel - Girly / Mother's Day
Penny Black Allsorts - Springtime
The Stamp Man - Vintage
Joanna Sheen - Spring / Easter
Crafty Ribbons - Celebrate your Mum
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Vintage / Shabby Chic

Metamorphosis

A sea of cogs and gears metamorphose into colourful butterflies.

"Metamorphosis"

The butterflies are cut from either blue foil card or a sheet of silver mirror card decorated with Adirondack alcohol inks. Some were embossed with silver cogs from a Creative Expressions stamp set.

"Metamorphosis"

The background is a sea of cogs and gears die-cut in silver mirri card using the Spellbinders' "Sprightly Sprocket" and Tim Holtz' "Gadget Gears" sets.

"Metamorphosis rhs view"

The lettering is die cut from offcuts of the same coloured card as the butterflies.

"Metamorphosis lhs view"

The acetate tunnel-card construction aids the 3-dimensional illusion of butterflies emerging from the middle and flying off the edge of the card.