My birthday party invites

A few years ago I started the tradition of throwing myself a scrapbook party for my birthday. I figure this way I'm ensured one birthday party that I enjoy : ). All three of the invites feature embossed flowers made with a cuttlebug embossing folder, a border stamp that alternates a flower and the word party (this stamp is an acrylic stamp by Fiskars) and sparkly flower paper that I picked up at Micheal's a few months ago. I tore the flower paper and matted it on the cardstock back. I then punched holes and set eyelets (using my new crop-a-dile punch, still need to use it more to get the hang of setting eyelets with it) and threaded ribbon through the eyelets. I mounted the embossed flowers on the ribbon using foam squares. Inside it lists the date, time, etc. I also stamped "forget the gift, just bring the you" from the same set as the party stamp by Fiskars.

More floral cards

I went to a friend's Stampin' Up party a few weeks ago and bought the background sampler stamp set. It came with 4 stamps, an argyle stamp, a line stamp, a dot stamp and a floral stamp. In the new catalog there was a design showing a flower stamp that was an outline that the inside had been stamped with the background floral stamp from this set. I got the set last night from the hostess, so today I decided to play around with them and try the same idea. I used the pre-embossed cards from Die Cuts with a view and colored them with my watercolor pencils.

I used the line stamp, the floral stamp, and the dot stamp to make the background of the petals. I used the "build a flower" set I bought a while ago that is by Autumn Leaves to outline the petals, using one of the stamps from that set. The blue and pink are chalk ink and the purple is dye ink. I stamped the background stamp, then stamped the petal and center stamps on the background and cut them out. I layered the petals behind the center of the flower. 2 of the flowers I popped up with 3d foam tape and 1 flower I adhered directly on the card. The background is embossed with flowers. This card was colored with a pink pencil.

Close up of the pre-embossed card and the background stamps.

This one is the same basic card as the one above, except I used 2 blue flowers instead of the one blue and one purple. I also used a blue pencil instead of pink.

Close up of the pre-embossed card and the background stamps.

This card has a 2 1/4 inch square in the middle that isn't embossed. I cut slits along the top and bottom of the square and layered 3 different shades of blue ribbon over the square. The pre-embossed design is dots on this card. Other than that, it is the same basic card as the two above, assembled the same way and stamped exactly the same way. I used a purplish pink pencil to color the background of this card.

Close up of the pre-embossed card and the background stamps.

Embossed Happy Birthday Card

I had purchased the Happy birthday Cuttlebug folder a few weeks ago so decided to play with it today. I embossed it and then sanded it with an Emery board (I couldn't find any sand paper) I then embossed some little brass stencils I had in light blue and then a gold and sanded those also. There are 2 party hats and two presents (one in each color) and then a tag that says "for you". I put micro eyelets on them and then strung them from blue twine from Stampin' Up. I adhered some dark blue spiral clips on opposite corners and tied the twine to them. I spread the embossed items out and then adhered them since they tended to bunch together if I didn't adhere them. All in all I think this card turned out well. I used blue since I have tons of girlish cards but not many boyish ones.

Updated flower cards

I made these cards a few months ago. I didn't really like how they turned out, so I revisited them last week, trying some new stuff to see if I could get them to look better. I had bought these flower stencils and embossed them. They were just too plain all by themselves on the paper.

This one was pretty easy to do. Just emboss the leaves, dot and flower. But it's just missing something.

To update this one, I just put yellow paper on the background diagonally and then mounted the flower, part on and part off the paper. It just gives it a little more pizazz.

The hardest part of this one was making sure the petals lined up like they were supposed to around the center. Again, it just looks funny floating in the middle of nowhere like that.

I tore brown paper and put it on the edge of the card to make it kind of look like a tree trunk. I then cut green paper with my grass edge scissors and mounted that over the bottom of the stem. Now it looks like a flower growing out of the ground instead of out of nowhere : ).

Again, the flowers just look like they are floating in the middle of nowhere.

This one I just added grass cut green paper. It grounds the flowers and makes them look like they aren't floating.

Yet again, the flower pot looks like it's floating in mid air.

I put brown paper behind the flower pot to make it look like the pot is sitting on a table.

Flowers, flowers and more flowers

I'm having fun making frilly cards. We only have 2 boys, so when I scrapbook I usually use masculine colors and themes. It's been fun making cards that are more girly.

This first one I used a Cuttlebug embossing template called "Textile Texture" to do the red layer. I then put blue organdy ribbon on it, layered with a white organdy ribbon with a ribbon charm that matches the swirls on the embossing template.

This one I started by cutting a piece of green paper with my Provo Craft grass pattern decorative scissors. I then stamped the flowers in 3 different colors and cut them out, adding a rivet (an eyelet without a hole) to the middle of the flower to give it a 3d effect. I then put the flowers on the card, drew the stems and leaves on and then mounted the clouds I drew and then cut out. I later added a butterfly stamp from one of the $1 Studio G sets. In the corner it says "Think Spring" in a rose color.

I got the idea for this one from http://www.ilovecraftrobo.com/. The owner of that site has templates from classes she taught and one of them was a card basically like this, but it used prima flowers instead of stamped ones. I used the flower cut out she had made, but drew my own circles for the stamped flowers, cutting out both the circles and the big flowers on my craft robo. I stamped the flowers, colored them with my watercolor pencils and blended them. I then cut them out, added mini brads in the center and mounted them on colored papers mounted underneath the holes on the inside of the card. I then took the big flowers I had cut, layered them so each layer showed and added a brad in the center to hold the layers all together. I then mounted it on the rest of the assembled card. I didn't add any sentiment, but that can be added later if we want. I made this one for a spring card swap on scrapbookaddict.com and liked it so much I made 6 more for me to keep.

I was going through my paper sticker binders where all my precut die cuts, stickers and other embellishments are held looking for ones I could send to Mindy from scrapbookaddict.com who is going to start a cropping group for autistic children in her area (her daughter is autistic). I came across these Creative Memories flower and butterfly die cuts and pulled them out so I could make a card with them. I highlighted the raised area with chalk, colored the body part of the butterfly brown with a marker, and then layered them together, adding green paper cut with my grass decorative scissors. It's pretty simple, but I like how it turned out.

I first embossed the white layer with the "Divine swirl" cuttlebug embossing folder. I then ran my versamark pad over it, embossed with heat and stick powder, and added white perfect pearl powder to give it shimmer. I then embossed the swirl stamp (the one seen on the tag) on white card stock using clear embossing powder and my versamark pad so it would basically just be see-through. I then took a q-tip, dipped it in my blue ink pad, and covered about a third of the strip with blue ink, which served to highlight the embossed stamp. I repeated the process with green and then yellow (I really need to invest in a brayer soon). I then took a circle vellum tag, stamped the swirl on it, added a little bit of color with the heat and stick powder and luster rub-ons (which are kind of like chalk) and then added the color to the tag also. I then added eyelets to the tag to put the ribbon through, mounted the ribbon with brads to hold it in place and mounted that whole assembly on the card.

I embossed with the "Divine swirl" cuttlebug folder, but put the embossing facing the card so the design is set into the paper instead of being raised from it. I then cut a little piece of the blue paper with a set of decorative scissors, punched 3 holes and added ribbon in the holes. I embossed a flower template I had, cut it out, highlighted the edge with chalk, and mounted it in on a square of white cardstock which is then mounted on the purple embossed part. I found a epoxy sticker that I liked for the center of the flower.

This one is really simple. I embossed the flower and the stem and the leave (it's hard to see the embossing in the picture) and cut it out. I then mounted it on handmade paper I had bought that has little flecks of flowers petals in it and mounted that whole thing on the card.

This one is the same as the one above it, just a different flower template.

This one is embossed with "Divine swirl" again. The pink piece of paper is cut with the same decorative scissors as the previous one and has ribbon tied to that again. I used the flower from the Cuttlebug "2x2.75 Flowers" embossing folders that usually has dots around it, but cut it out around the petals eliminating the dots. I highlighted the embossed part with chalk and mounted a mini brad in the enter of the flower. I then mounted the flower on one of the Cuttlebug "2x2.75 decorative squares 2" and added that to the overall design of the card. Lots of embossing, but I feel it came together well.

This one is my favorite card I've done lately. I embossed the pink layer with the "Textile texture" cuttlebug embossing folder. I then mounted a strip of purple cardstock on top of that. I took some prima flowers Kathy M from scrapbookaddict.com had sent me for wining a challenge last year and layered 2 different colored ones 4 times onto a strip of pink cardstock with mini brads in the center. I then mounted that pink strip of cardstock with 3d foam onto the purple strip of cardstock, making it pop up from the card some. I cut a square from pink and then a slightly larger one from purple and mounted a pair of slightly larger prima flowers on the pink square with a mini brad through the center to hold it together and mounted the whole thing in the lower right corner of the card. I discovered that I love the prima flowers and wished that they hadn't been packed away with my nick-knacks for a year while we built our house last year : ).

This one I used the "Script" cuttlebug embossing folder to emboss the gold paper. I then stamped the word laugh on the red ribbon and on the gold rectangle. I mounted the ribbon across the top of the card and then mounted the gold rectangle on a bigger red rectangle and mounted those in the bottom right corner of the card. I added two blue primas layered and held together by a mini brad on a gold square mounted on a bigger red square and mounted that on the card also. I think altogether it makes a very striking card.

This one is the same card as the one above, just with the script embossed on orange instead of gold. I like the gold better, but wanted to experiment to see which looked best.

Thanks for looking!

Danielle