Sending all the happy

Today I have an eclipse cas card to share. When I saw that Loll had brought back the CAS Mix Up challenge, I was determined to join in.

I needed a card for a 17yr girl who has her birthday in August, so I decided to make the number 17 the eclipse element.

I have used the stamp set called flower field stamps by Christina Werner with Concord & 9th. This is a large 6x8 inch stamp, so not appropriate for a CAS card. I therefore used a circle die to cut a section after I had coloured it with the matching stencils. I used my nesting circle dies to cut a mat gold frame and small number dies also by Concord & 9th to cut out the numbers from the image. I stacked them 3 times. The flower centres and little bee (from a different stamp set) were coloured with sparkle pens.

I hope you can see the eclipse OK. I took the photo above at an angle to try and show it better, but I am not sure it has made much difference, you can, however, see the shine from the gold card and sparkle pens.

The sentiment is from the same set. In retrospect I wish I had stamped it directly on the card front, but as I have the matching dies I used them. I wanted to add a little bit of bling so included a few teeny tiny gems around the sentiment and the numbers. I hope I haven't ruined its CAS credentials.

Thanks to Carol of Inkyfingers for giving me the inspiration for using this stamp.

I am sharing this at:

CAS Mix Up July Challenge - eclipse

Seize The Birthday #330 - One or more numbers. The sentiment inside the card reads 'on your 17th birthday'

We Love Stamping July Challenge - Summertime

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

Lots of Embossing

Hello

I have recently been enjoying making cards with my 3d embossing folders and when I saw Leslie from running with scissors use vellum covered card in an embossing folder, I just had to have a go. I thought it looked really good. You cover a piece of coloured card with vellum using double sided tape and then emboss it and look what happens....

Here I used yellow card and ordinary vellum and embossed the piece using a folder by Honey Bee Stamps called Sandie's Garden. I trimmed the panel to fit a 7x5 inch card and mounted it onto a dark green coated cardbase. The sentiment dies are Yana's layered script sentiments by Spellbinders. I covered a piece of the yellow card with sticky tape before cutting the sentiment so that it has a shine.

I didn't want to cover up that wonderful embossing so I finished the card off with 3 yellow enamel dots.

I am sharing this at:

Girlz Creative - Challenge 25 yellow and/or green

As you see it challenge - 376 embossed. Today my favourite embossing folder is Sandie's Garden by Spellbinders.

Can you handle the pressure - 6/2026 Anything embossing goes

Of course I didn't just make one card.....

This one uses Spellbinders beautiful blooms folder and a little hello sentiments by Lisa Horton for Spellbinders.

This one uses Spellbinders flower frenzy folder and birthday wishes Betterpress sentiments. The flower is a stamp and stencil by Alex Syberia for PinkFresh. The vellum this time is pearlescent by Lawn Fawn. It is more opaque, so the underlying kraft card doesn't show through in the same way, but it does have a lovely shine,

I made this one for my eldest granddaughters 14th birthday, which is later this month. Slightly over the top, but sometimes that's a good thing. The daisy die is from a set by Sizzix, the vase with heart flowers in it is called a jar full of hearts by PinkFresh. The sentiment is from the same set as used on the card above.

Another reason why I am enjoying embossing folders at the moment is they make doing the insert and the envelope really quick and easy, as long as you get the folder the right way round that is!

This is such a great technique, I hope you give it a go and thanks Leslie for bringing it to my attention. 

I would love to know if you have a favourite.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

June Card Chain Challenge Reveal

Today is 2nd of the month so time for the Card Chain Challenge big reveal. This month 25 card makers took part and I sent my card to Linda in MN USA.

Here is my card:

From all the options this month I used the colours, black, white and your choice, the theme of friendship and the technique of embossing.

I decided to use my favourite embossing folder from Spellbinders and the background inking technique. I wanted a good ink coverage so I used my Catherine Pooler midnight ink. This ink is really black, which is great, but it also has a tendency to stain everything it touches. Thankfully it did clean off my embossing folder OK. I am pleased to say that it worked well and gave a really good coverage on the background.

I decided to use gold as my third colour and simply cut these heart flowers from matt gold card and adhered them behind the gold foiled sentiment, which is also Spellbinders. I didn't want to cover up the embossing too much. I wasn't that happy with this one when I first made it, but it has grown on me. I am pleased to say that it reached its destination in good time and Linda seemed to be happy with it. I do love the effect of the embossing though, it is my current favourite technique.

I was very lucky to receive this gorgeous card from Greta in Oregon. It's stunning, I love the glitter paste. Thanks Greta.

If you would like to take part in the next card chain challenge, you have until 6th to sign up here

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

In The Garden

Hello

I had meant to post this card in time for the Allsorts 17th birthday challenge, but sadly didn't get there in time. Now I see that their challenge theme is in the garden. Perfect for this card. When I saw this stamp and stencil set, I just had to buy it. It is by Kristina Werner with Concord & 9th and it is called flower field.

I stamped the image and clear heat embossed it and then used the matching stencils to colour it. The stamp set contains 6 different sentiments. This thank you is one of them. The little bee is from the sweet bee stamp set also by Concord & 9th, and I am afraid I can't remember which set the little dragonfly comes from.

I coloured the bee, dragon fly and the flower centres with sparkle pens. I used Catherine Pooler inks with the stencils. You can see the sparkle on the next picture. This is a large 6x8 inch stamp and as this card is 7x5, I have had to trim the panel down a bit.

I am sharing this card at:

Allsorts #851 - Anything goes from the garden.

Triple B June

We Love Stamping June '26 - Sports and Hobbies. Gardening is my hobby

I don't normally make large cards so having stamped the image several times I managed to make a number of metric A6 cards (2per image). Here is a selection. I have used Catherine Pooler inks.

This one had some glossy accents added to the flower centres.

Instead of using the matching stencils for this last card I painted it with my Gansai Tambi gem colour metallic watercolours. Because the image is quite large it was easy to watercolour and it made me wonder why I had bought the stencils, but they do give a different look, which I really like.

As this stamp was so large, I did have some difficulty getting really good impressions. Eventually I found a way that worked. I placed the stamp in the bed of my misti stamping tool and put the paper on the lid. I was able to get a much better impression with this method. I was getting quite frustrated with it, so I am glad I found the solution. The stamp lines are quite thick and ink kept getting trapped on the stamp so cleaning it was a challenge too. I do love the results though, so I am glad I bought it.

In my Garden
I am going to finish with a few picture of my garden. June is its time, mainly because of the 2 rambling roses that grow along the fences on both sides. Sadly since they came into flower, we have had a lot of wind and rain, but they still look fantastic and smell pretty amazing too. They will be gone in a week or so, meaning that it is important to appreciate the moment. I am doing my best to do that despite the rain.

This is rosa glauca. I love its grey/green leaves and pink and white flowers.

Some more views:

You can see some of my succulents in these if you look carefully.

Lots of photos today. Hope you don't mind.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

Card Chain Challenge May Reveal

Finally, I am back. I realised it is exactly 2 months since I last posted. I didn't take part in the April card chain challenge. It was the first month I had missed since I started playing back in 2018. Life just got too much for a little while and I had to take a break, but things have settled down now so I hope to be around blogland a little more, but maybe not quite as much as I used to be.

Today is the 2nd of the month so time for the Card Chain Challenge big reveal. This month 24 card makers took part and I sent my card to Daja in Germany.

This time I decided that I would like to used one of my neglected Spellbinders Pressplates. This one is called 'a friend like you bouquet', which I thought was perfect for the themes of floral and friendship.

As this is quite a large plate I have made a 7x5 inch card. I pressed the plate onto watercolour paper using brilliance pearlescent olive ink. The 2 sentiment plates are from the same set and I used brilliance rocket red gold ink. The small sentiment reads happiness is having a friend like you. It is quite small and unfortunately a little hard to read, but I decided to go with it anyway.

I splattered the panel with some gold watercolour paint and then coloured the image with coloured pencils. I quite like the soft look on the textured paper. I finished it off with a piece of real ribbon and a few rose gold gems. I managed to get an image on the insert by taking the paper to the plate and rubbing it firmly to transfer the ink. I didn't want a deep impression on the insert. It worked reasonably well. I splattered the insert with the gold paint too. Just for once the post worked really well. I posted it on the 9th of May and Daja, who is in Germany got it on the 12th.

I was very lucky to receive this gorgeous card from Tina in Slovenia. It's a beauty, thanks Tina, and for the little extras you enclosed.

If you would like to take part in the next card chain challenge, you have until 6th to sign up here

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it.