Clean and Simple Birthday card.

 It's one of my colleagues birthday today so I made a card for her.  Inspired by a video I watched by Christine Stokes on YouTube (you can watch it here)   I loved the idea she used to make her butterfly from printed paper using a background from PNGwing.   I have a few backgrounds in my saved files... so printed off one of them onto some off white cardstock and away I went....

Christine often makes square cards, so that's what I did today.   I cut my card base at 5" square, next layer was 4.5" and the main panel 4" - I used a Kaisercraft stamp - Botanical to partially stamp on the background.  I used Altenew's Petite Mountain Aven die to cut the paper I printed.  Love how all the different colours look on the flower and leaves.  Add the sentiment from Altenew Label Love set.  Added some little pinky handmade enamel dots and some glossy accents on the flower centre.  

Altenew June Inspiration Challenge - Inspired by Samantha.

 Last week I got an Altenew die set - Petite Mountain Aven.   I had to look up these flowers to see what they looked like.   They are sweet little white flowers with yellow centres.... but for today I was inspired by Samantha Pfrimmer - the guest designer and challenge setter for the June challenge at Altenew and made them little orange flowers.

I was still not well this morning so stayed home and after a bit of a sleep in, I got up and decided to CASE Samantha's card. 

I started by finding some sand cardstock for my background.   I then used some Distress Spritz Fossilised Amber to splatter the background.   Next I die cut the flower 4 times from some off white Fabriano 260gm card and used Altenew's Golden Sunset Crisp Dye inks to add colour to the petals.  I die cut out the centres with some dark cream card and used some darker Orange inks (Warm and Cozy inks) to add some blending.  Added some Gold Glitter pen to the last layer.   Used two different green card - one dark and shimmery and the other an olive green, to cut the leaves. Added a little ink blending on them.   I decided I needed something to "ground" the flowers so used the branch from Altenew's Itty Bitty Flowers die set.  The sentiment is stamped in black and clear embossed - from Classic Greetings and cut with the matching die.  

I'm entering this into The Flower Challenge 103 - Add heat/dry embossing - my sentiment was heat embossed. 

and also Darnell's NBUS - first time using the Altenew Petite Mountain Aven die set

 

CAS at Sweet Stampin' Challenge.

 It's time to share my latest card for our challenge at Sweet Stampin' Challenge   Our challenge this fortnight is CAS (Clean and Simple)

I had fun making this CAS (albeit two layers) card.   I used some linen look card and trimmed to just smaller than my A2(5.5"x 4.25") base.  I used my new Couture Creations score-board to add some embossed lines.   I used some of the printed vellum I made earlier this month, to die cut Birch Press Prime Peony Duo Contour Layers die.  I used my new Sticky Specks micro dot adhesive to layer together.  I'm loving this new to me adhesive.  Makes it easy to stick things together.   I used an older Hero Arts stamp set - All Occasion sentiments to stamp the sentiment with some Altenew Grey Denim Crisp ink.   

Do come and join us with your CAS projects. 

Just a Note Floral layering dies.

I've been using some of my new stash over the last little while...I got this card finished yesterday but didn't get to photograph it till late this afternoon.   My day was full on crafting with Grace as it was my day to look after her during the school holidays.   Her wish for the day..... to spend it "doing arty crafty" with Nanny.  More on that later...

Here's a card I made using Altenew's Craft A Flower - Dahlia April Heather Layering die. 

I googled this flower and got some ideas of colours - luckily Altenew had some suggested colours on the packaging, so used Buttercream, Magenta and Snapdragon inks together with Lagoon and Emerald for the leaves.  I cut the dies from an off white 240gms Fabriano card and used the inks to blend. The flower layering is nice and easy with Altenew's Keyhole layering.   For my background, I spritzed the ink left on my sticky mat after inking the leaves and smooshed it onto some card. I added black splatter with some Indian Ink mixed with water.   At the same time as getting the flower dies, I also got Altenew Scripty Sentiments dies.  I added some clear packing tape over some black card and die cut the sentiment.  Arranged my floral dies and the added splatters of Fossilised Amber Distress Spritz. 

As both my flower dies and the sentiment die are new, I'm adding to Darnell's NBUS challenge. 

And here are a couple of pics of our day today 

We tried so many different techniques...  dry and wet embossing, learning about using watercolour pencils, painting with watercolour paints, using "magic powders" and much more.

Pink Star Flowers

 I was in my craft room today as I had a design team card to make.   Once it was done, I got to play with a new die set that arrived last week.   

The die set is Star Flowers from Birch Press.  I have paired it with some Orchard Leaves from Poppy Stamps.  I cut them all from white card and used Altenew inks blended onto them.  I add some lines to left hand side with my Scor-Buddy.  I added the flowers flowing down the page.  The sentiment is from Couture Creations - a stamp and die set.   A few Lucy Little Things - Ice Cube jewels finished the card.

I made this in mind for The Flower Challenge #84 - the theme is Use a Die

Later this year, Birch Press is sponsoring Die Cut Divas, so I'm sure that you will see the Star Flowers in actions again.  

And as I opened the die package today and it was it's first use, I'm adding to Darnell's NBUS Challenge. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you get some time to craft over the weekend.   It's the start of Daylight Savings overnight, so one hour less sleep or one hour less to craft!   But the weather is not going to be spring-like with heavy rain forecast.   Great to spend time crafting!

Summer 2022 at Die Cut Divas.

 It's the last day of June - it's  winter here in NZ but summer over the other side of the world.   Here at Die Cut Divas we are having a "Summer Days" challenge..  Our lovely sponsor is Sheepski Designs.

I chose to you Emmy's Hat image for my card today

I printed it and paired it with an older Lawn Fawn stamp set - to make a polaroid photo.  I used my computer to print out Summer 2022 -  I used some little flowers and leaves I had leftover from last month, to add some embellishments to the polaroid frame.   I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder to make my background which I lightly blended some yellow ink - just using the ink on my blender brush.   

Do come and join us at Die Cut Divas... still a few hours to join our challenge  here.