Paper Smooches Fun - Cake & A Storm's Brewing!

Hi there, I thought I'd share a couple of little birthday cards with you today using the lovely Birthday Bash set by Paper Smooches. My daughter is friends with twin sisters, so I love being able to make two of the same card using different colours. Usually, it's purple and pink because they like those colours:

Here they are:

I had a play with this one and created a watercolour background for them both, using my Neo-Colour II Watersoluble Pastels . I have to confess, I've had them for over a year and it's mostly been ooh-ing and aah-ing over the gorgeous colours, but not really knowing what to do with them, so I'm really pleased with how they turned out. 

Watercolouring has been one of those things I really want to crack, I find being messy creatively* quite a challenge which is why I tend to use papers instead. *You might disagree with me if you saw my desk when I pull together card ideas lol.

So, I adhered the watercoloured background with pop dots. You probably can't see, but I added some glimmer mist for a bit of shimmer.

I then die cut two circles using MFT Die-Namics Wonky Stitched Circles Dies (I will use something else soon, I just love these dies and the square ones right now, and seeing as I've had them about a year too, it's time to start using them!) So, one white circle on each, and one using patterned paper from My Favourite Things, County Fair Plaid 6 x 6 papers.

I stamped and coloured the gorgeous cake from the Birthday Bash set, fussy cut them out (they don't do dies with this set - SOOOO sad!) and I adhered it with pop dots. Oh yeah, and before I stuck the base I added some matching twine to both. Finally, I stamped a happy birthday sentiment, and my job was done!

If you use Copics and want the colours I used, here they are:

E29, E27, E25 for the cakes
RV32, RV29, RV25, RV11 (pink cake)
BV66, BV63, BV31, BV01 (purple cake)
C3, C1 (cake stand)
YG03, YG01 (leaves)

I coloured the grey stand on the purple card slightly darker to make the purple stand out more.

Next up I created a special card for someone that had been camping and it hadn't been a very good experience, so we've been having some fun with them and I thought a card was in order. I dug out a few Paper Smooches sets for this one:

• Happy Camper (tent)
• Eco-Friendly (clouds, rain, lightning and wind)
• Fanciful Fall (squirrel) - my bestie let me borrow that one as it worked so well with the card
• Promenade (trees)

See those little raindrops? Well in the set the raindrop has a smiley face, so because this hadn't been a happy occasion, I masked them and drew on my own faces! I know, I must be mad!

So the card itself was simple, as the colouring was the most time-consuming of it all. I pop dotted a grey card base, that I'd hand-draw stitches around, before adding twine.

I had already stamped on the wind swirl so it was just a case of adding all of the little images, one at a time.

So for Copic lovers, here's the colours I used:

C7, C5, C3, C1 (clouds and rain)
Y19, Y17, Y15 (lightning)
E08, E07, E04 (squirrel)
YG09, YG07, YG05, YG03 (tree tops)
E29, E27, E25 (tree trunks)
B16, B14, B12

Hope you like. Ciao for now!


 

Feeding My Lawn Fawn Obsession!

Hi everyone

Note, this is a project heavy post!

In this post, I have a couple of challenges that I'm entering, so keep scrolling!

I missed last week's Retro Sketch Challenge and thought I'd give it another go this week. I was SO pleased to see that the card I'd made specifically for the challenge could still be entered because it's 'Pick Any Previous Sketch' to play with week, so I thought I'd enter last week's card.

As that kinda felt like I was cheating a bit I also thought I'd use a different sketch to come up with something new too.

I don't know about you but I do love a good sketch. I find it quite hard to come up with ideas on my own but once I have a sketch it seems to unlock some creativity somehow.

So first up is Week 233's sketch:

And this is what I came up with:

Our really good friends are about to have bubba number two, they know it's going to be a girl so I'm hoping they got that bit right! (Hey, if it turns out to be a boy, you might get a blue version on my blog too!)

So for the deets of how I made it:

I started by die cutting out a pink square and then attached a second square over the top of it in pink gingham paper, that I'd cut off at an angle. The dies are Wonky Stitched Squares by Die-namics.

I coloured three dummies and a stork with my Copics from the Lawn Fawn Plus One baby set. I used R85, R83 and R81 for the pink, and C1 and C0 for the grey. I used YR09, YR04 for his beak and a dot of R20 for his cheek. 

I don't have the dies for the storks or the rattles (yet!) so I just fussy cut them with scissors. Don't look too close, you'll see the bad cutting! I then stamped and die cut the clouds from another Lawn Fawn set, Blue Skies, and added a bit of BG10 to outline them.

Using the newer Big Scripty Words stamps and dies, I stamped the word 'Congrats' and cut it out. Finally, I added everything to the card, adding pop dots for dimension on one of the clouds, the stork and the rattles. 

It was a really fun sketch to use. I'm definitely going to be adding this to my go-to-sketch stash :)

For my next card, I chose Sketch #137

I created a little interactive card for my bestie, who LOVES Halloween. Hope she's not reading this blog post! The photo does make it look a bit bigger than it is. The card size is 3in by 5in (I think).

To learn how to make this card I watched this fab little video, so I'll just share the other detail rather than the way I did that bit. I cut a piece of patterned paper for the card background, and then die cut a circle out of a piece of grey card. The dies I used for the circle are Wonky Stitched Circle Dies by Die-Namics. 

My bestie is buying me the fabulous Lawn Fawn Dotted Rectangle Stackables dies for Christmas so I'm really excited to be adding those to my collection soon. Now you know why she's my bestie! Only kidding, she's amazing too!

Next, I die cut another smaller circle from the grey cutoff to make the little circle in the middle. I followed the instructions from the video for the coin and added my little Copic coloured ghost with the hat to the coin to make her interactive. I then stuck another little ghost on the middle circle and the little word 'boo'. 

Ooh I nearly forgot - the ghosts! They are the stamps and dies from the adorable little Halloween set by Lawn Fawn, called Booyah.

To match the XXX's I used 3 little silver gems, in descending order, and finally, I pop dotted the whole panel to add some dimension. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, I haven't made an interactive card like this before.

I then fed my new obsession with Lawn Fawn's Small Stitched Envelope Dies. I am honestly not joking. I got the die set for my birthday and I can't get enough of them. I've made get well notelets, packs of notelets for people to give away, bookmark pockets for myself, my daughter and the one below, thank you cards and more! We've had unicorns and flowers, and owls, and, and, and! They are SOOOO much fun to make! I am totally addicted!  Here's a close-up of the ghost...

See that adorable little tag that I tied on with twine?! Eeek, how adorable are they?! I used another one of my totally new favourite stamp and die sets - Lawn Fawn Tiny Tag Sayings & Dies. Another must have for your crafty collection. 

And finally, I've created these for the current Lawnscaping Challenge. The challenge is to be inspired by the colours in this Pinterest board:

Using the Lawn Fawn Science of Love set, their gorgeous Perfectly Plaid Fall 6 x 6 paper set and Paper Smooches Bookmarks Die, I pulled together this little set. Those cute little birds and all that colour make me so happy!! 

I thought my lovely little nerdy birds would look good in a peachy orange and yellow, inspired by the image so I made this little bookmark holder. As part of my coaching biz, I have LOADS of notebooks, so I love making little bookmarks to mark special places I need to revisit. This little pocket envelope is the perfect size to store them in. 

That's it from me today. I hope it's inspired you to get your coloured pens out and have fun! If you promise you won't get too bored, I may share some of the other things I've made with those mini envelopes soon too! I warn you though, you might end up addicted like me!