Single-layer mother's day cards

Yesterday, we celebrated mother's day in Antwerp.
For this weeks finally friday challenge, I created 2 single-layer mother's day cards.

I kept the first card very simple. I masked 3 squares and sponged them with distress ink.
In the masked squares, I stamped little flowers.
Rounded the corners of the card and finished it off with a sentiment of stamped red letters and black handwriting.

For the second card, I clear-embossed a few swirls on a piece of white cardstock.
Then, using a mask, I sponged the rectangular shapes with 6 different colours of distress ink (top to bottom: victorian velvet, fired brick, wheatered wood, stormy sky, peeled paint and forest moss).

Rounded the corners of the card and finished it off with a sentiment of white letter stickers and black handwriting.

Here's a little close-up of the letters:

Hope you like it!

Bye!

Good Luck!

For my sister-in-law who started a new job this week, I created a quick card to wish her good luck.


























I used cream cardstock, cut out a rectangular card and rounded the bottem two corners.
Stamped the Leaf Flourish stamp on the same cream cardstock and used a green, handmade paper as contrast.
As a sentiment, I stamped a 'succes' greeting, attached it to a Tim Holtz fragment and tied it to the card with some green ribbon to finish it off.

Tomorrow, we celebrate Mother's day here in Antwerp and I've got some more card to show you, so watch the blog :)

Have a great Sunday!

Embossed resist - part two

So, as I promised in my previous post, here's the second part of my resist embossing adventures.

Again, I used the embossed resist technique to create a background, this time a more feminine one.

 

This background is made using the Hero Arts antique flower backgroundstamp and the flower circle is the poppy background.

Distressed with victorian velvet and fired brick distress ink, added a sentiment and: voilà, done :)

I also made a blue variation using stormy sky and weathered wood:

Hope you have a great week!

Bye!

Embossed resist - part one

Last weekend, I experimented with the embossed resisted technique.

I used the technique to create some backgrounds.

For this card, I first stamped the friend definition stamp with archival coffee ink.
Next, I stamped a diamond-shaped backgroundstamp with versamark en clear embossed it.
Then I sponged over the card with some distress inks (I think I used peeled paint, forest moss and walnut stain).

To finish it off, I added a strip of cardstock and a greeting (I didn't have the right colour of cardstock, so I took a piece of green and sponged it with the distress inks I used on the background to make it match the rest of the card).

And here is the result:

Here's another picture. I made a few of them, and they all have slightly different backgroundcolors (the one on the left has less green, but more walnut stain).

I'll be back soon with a more feminine card using the same technique.

Thanks for dropping by!

Nature card

Here's a quick post with a card I made for my nephew last week.
For this one, I decided to go with a nature-theme.

So, a simple stamped background with distressed edge. Added an embossed and sanded tag, a little bit of twine and some letters and the card was finished :)

More cards to come soon!

Bye!

Wedding splendour

After a few weeks of silence, I thought it was time to make myself heard again...
I may have stopped blogging for a while, but I haven't stopped crafting, so I have a few creations to share over the next few days / weeks.

First, I'll start with a weddingcard I made for a friend who got married about a month ago.
I wanted to use simple, elegant colours, so I went with cream and red.

Here's the card I came up:

I stamped the background with a script stamp in old paper distress ink.
On top, I stamped swirls with versamark ink and embossed them with pearl embossing powder (this was a new purchase from a few weeks ago and I'm totally hooked!).
The two hearts were cut out of a red metallic-shiny paper and then covered with glossy accents.

The '2 hearts'-sentiment is stamped on a piece of vellum (hard to see in the photo).
Als main focal point, I took the Hero Arts Leaf Flourish stamp, stamped it with bright red en embossed with clear embossing powder.


To show you the great pearl embossing shine and the glossy hearts, I took a second photo from another angle. Here you can see the reason why I fell in love with the pearl ;)

What you can't see (forgot to take a picture :-s) is the sentiment on the inside that says: '1 dream' to finish off the card.

I hope you enjoy it!!

Black & white

Decided to make a masculine card to enter in the Hero Arts April challenge :)
So with some pieces of black and white cardstock a bit of staming and embossing, this is what I came up with:

Hope you like it!!

Have a great - and sunny - weekend! :)

Neverending card

A week or two ago, I learned how make a 'neverending card'.
It's a card that you can turn and turn and turn and ... you get the picture ;)

The base of the card is pretty simple, it's the decorating and the stamping that takes up most of the time.

I took pictures of every side.

The front of the card:

If you turn it once, you can see two small tags on which I wrote some birthday-wishes:

Turn it again to reveal the real birthday-wish:

And turn it once more to see the stamping I did on the back:

Turn again to see the front once more :)

I had a lot of fun making this neverending card!! Pity the pictures don't show the colours as they should (I should really learn to take pictures in daylight in stead of at night :p).

Hope you enjoyed it!

Bye!

March birthday card

March is a month in which we have/had several birthdays and I didn't have that much time to make cards the last few weeks.
And I know it's April already, but I wanted to share the (again :p) quick birthday card I came up with.

A bit of light backgroundstamping and as a focal point, I stamped a flower, embossed it with clear embossing powder and traced the outside with a light blue copic marker.
I've tried to get a close-up of the flower, but it came out a bit blurry...

So, I'm off celebrating Friday-night ;)

Bye!

Quick birthday card

Just a quick post showing a simple birthdaycard I made some weeks ago.
Inspiration here was Jennifer McGuire, I love her stamping style! :)

I'm off, have a wonderful Sunday!!

Sympathy card

Today, I'd like to share with you a sympathy card I made last week.
I used to hate making sympathy cards, because I think it's very hard to express your feeling with just a piece of paper and some stamps. It can't be too cheery, but you don't want it to look boring either.

That's why, a month or two ago, I bought the perfect stamp for cards like these (I bought it at Elke's store).
With the perfect sentiment, you can make something very simple and make it look just right.

So here's what I came up with:

For those of you who don't speak Dutch, the sentiment says: 'Every goodby is the birth of a memory' (hope my translation is correct :p)

So there it is: a very simple, quick, yet meaningful sympathy card.

Now let's hope I don't have to make any more of those for a long time!!

Bye!

Father's day

Hmmm...it's been a while since my last blogging activity...
We've been busy here with all sorts of things and to be honest, I was missing some creative inspiration...
And what do you do when spirits are low? My answer to that question is: go shopping :)
So that's when I did this weekend and we bought lots of fuuuunnn stuff!

To test some of my new stuff, I made a simple card for father's day.
I stamped the background with several colours of distress ink and some background stamps and on top, I stamped a floral swirl and embossed it with distress embossing powder.
The sentiment is mostly hand-written with a bit of simple stamping in the word 'vader'.
This is what it looked like:

This card was really simple and quick and I think it got me back on the right inspiration-track... :)

Have a nice Monday! :)

Boxed birthday greeting

A while back, I wanted a bit of a challenge. I wanted to make something completely different.
That's when I thought of a template of a little box that I bought a year ago and haven't used since.

So, for the birthday of my grandmother, who was in the hospital at the time and could definitely use a bit of love and support, I made a box-birthday-card.

I spend about 4 hours making it, but it was well worth it! I think it turned out spectacular :)
Take a look yourself:

This is how it looks from the front. You can see the stamped butterfly that I covered in glossy accents, so it has a nice shine.

I'll give you a look on all the sides of the box...

I stamped the sides of the box with the Hero Arts Antique Flower Background as you can see here:

And on the back,  I attached a tag that I made using a Tim Holtz fragment. Those fragments make the most beautiful additions and I really love using them :)

For those of you who don't understand Dutch, the tag says 'enjoy'.

On the inside, I put a tag with my greeting on it. I also included a tealight as a little gift to lift her spirits.

As far as I'm concerned, this was an afternoon well spent :)

Recycling canvas

A year or two ago, I bought some painting canvasses because I wanted to try making a painting.
As a lot of ideas that sound perfect in my head - the execution of my plan was a bit harder and now, serveral years later, the canvasses are still as empty as the day i bought them...

To put them to good use, I thought I'd try stamping on them.

This is still something I need to work on, but I think my first attempt didn't turn out so bad.
Here's what I came up with:

I'm gonna go and practice some more... Have a great Sunday!!

Saturday kissing

What's a better way to relax after a long, stressful week of work than a little crafting time? :)
To really get in the weekend-mood, I thought I'd give the new Hero Arts-challenge a try.
This month, the featured technique is the 'kissing technique' (who can resist such a name? :p).

I found that Hero Arts has some really nice backgroundstamps that are just perfect for this.

Take a look at the card I came up with:




















I almost can't believe that the letters started as plain, white cardstock...
This kissing technique is the best! (and I'm not only talking about stamping - LOL)

I'm off to relax some more ;)

Crazy about circles

As of a week or two ago, I'm the proud owner of my very first circle cutter (one of the newbies I talked about in my previous post. 

And of course, with a new tool, comes the need to experiment and play! :)

So I tried out a few basics and came up with the following card:

I stamped the background with a checkered backgroundstamp and versamark ink.

The only problem was that afterwards, I couldn't emboss my sentiment any more, the embossing powder kept on sticking to the background (even after it was left to dry overnight...).

To solve the problem, I took a white marker and wrote the damn thing myself :p (as you can see, that's not yet one of my specialties).

Another thing I really need to practice, are my coloring skills...

Inside the card, I stamped a little boy which I colored with aquarelpencils (notice the stripes on his face :s) But they say practice makes perfect right? (let's hope so! :p)

Here's a view of the inside:

And that's an other tool tested... up to the next one :)

Custom embossing

It's been a while since my last blog-message...
The big problem is time...we've had a very busy period at work, so when I got home, I barely had energy left to make diner. Afterward, I would just lie in front of the tv (bright side: I caught up on all the movies/series I've been taping for the last weeks :) )

But today, I managed to squeeze in a little creative time!
Over the last 2-3 weeks, I bought some new card-making-stuff (...some? I'd say A LOT actually :p)

Of course, all these newbies need to be tested and experimented with!
And that's what I did...

For this card I used my new Hero Arts negative flower stamp and let me say I just LOVE it!

Here is the result:

For the embossing, I mixed up some clear embossingpowder with a scoop of red perfect pearls.

The effect in real life is stunning!

You can see it better in the close-up:



Hope you like it...

I'm off experimenting some more, I'm on a roll :)



Blogging time

After a few days of silence, it's blogging time again :)
Of course I just hopped a few amazing blogs on the Hero Arts blog hop.
The beautiful creations of the different hostesses gave me a lot of inspiration to spend my evening :p

But before I start crafting, thought I'd quickly share a card I made a few weeks ago.
I learned the folding technique from my aunt and think it makes a nice card (although I have to admit that this are not my favourite colors, but this card is for a familymember who turned 91, and she thinks floral/classic are the best :p)

Here's what I came up with:

The tags inside the card have our names and a little birthday-sentiment on them.

And now I'm off to go stamping on this beautiful Monday evening :)

Have a good one!

And another one

Because I was feeling creative today, here's a second post on this nice Wednesday :)

I gave Lucy's sketch for day 5 a try...

This is what I came up with:

Also a basic one, but I can't wait to send it to someone for their birthday!! :)

And after 2 posts, I'll call it a night... I have to be up bright and early on my birthday tomorrow - LOL! (can you tell I'm excited?! :p )

Goodnight!

Sales ... sales ... SALES :)

One of my favourite things in January...sales, sales and even more sales... :D
Spend all day yesterday (and some more today) strolling around in stores, looking for the perfect addition to my wardrobe and ...of course also looking for the perfect addition to my craft-cabinets !

So this afternoon, tired but satisfied, I started experimenting with my new finds -- which is an absolute MUST after every shopping trip ;)

This first one is inspired by the sketch that Lucy Abrams posted on her blog yesterday.
I just HAD to use the new circle cutter that I purchased and this was the perfect oppertunity!

So Lucy, one day too late, but I hope you still enjoy the card I made :)

Very simple combination of stamping, distress ink and patterned paper...

I wish everyone very productive sales ! :)