FWF Easter Baskets Continued

After making my first Easter basket, I got a request for another one.  So I decided to make it for Crop Chocolate's flower challenge and Unity Stamp's friends with flair.  The flowers were made with the income tax act and I used Unity Stamp's Heartly Barley stamp set (it's so versatile I love using it on projects for the kids).

Supplies used: Spellbinders Floral Doiley Motifs, Floral Doiley Accents, MME So Sophie Paper, DCWV Card Stock, I Roc Bling, Festive Berries and Dusty Concord Distress Ink, Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, Unity Stamp Co Heartly Barley Stamp Set

Easter Basket with Spellbinders

It's getting close to Easter here, although you wouldn't know by looking at the snow that is falling right now. I love using glitter paper with Spellbinders dies, and I decided to use it to create an Easter Basket for my daughter. I always enjoy making things like this for her because she appreciates them so much and this style is sturdy enough for a young child to handle without tearing. I used the Classic Bracket and Classic Triple Scallop Edgeabilities to create the handle from 2 layers of cardstock. I then added a decorative strip of the glitter cardstock down the center for a bit of sparkle. I then cut some more of the glitter cardstock and made some decorate strips with the Classic Petal because my daughter loves bling and sparkle. To finish it off I made some flowers with Spellbinders Rose creations and added some leaves and its now ready for the egg hunt.

Basket Detail

Closeup of the Flower

Supplies used:  Spellbinders Rose Creations, Classic Bracket Edgeabilities, Classic Triple Scallop Edgeabilities, Classic Petal Edgeabilities, Spellbinders Foliage, American Crafts Cardstock, MME Quite Contrary Paper, Glitter Cardstock, Prima Pearls 

Tax Act Flowers

Our the DT theme for this month was nature inspired, and I knew right away what I wanted to do.  I first saw flowers made with the dictionary a long time ago but I didn't have one and I didn't want to buy one just to cut up when I knew I had another book made of the same type of paper.  I am an accountant (not a tax accountant) and I have a few out dated copies of The Income Tax Act and they were perfect for this kind of flower.  I used Hearty Barely stamps from Unity Stamp Co.  They are so cute and just perfect for little note cards for my daughter.  She loves getting them in her lunch and in fact when she saw me making the flowers she asked if I could use them on cards for her and then picked out the stamps (little imp).

Step 1
Cut 8-10 scallop circles, I folded my paper and cut 4 at once

Step 2

Ink the circles

Step 3
Spray with water or glimmer type mist

Step 4
Scrunch the circles as small as they can get

Step 5
When the circles are dry flatten them out and stack neatly on top of each other, put a brad in the centre

Step 6
Starting with the first layer pull it up around the brad and repeat for the other layers, once they are all done you can pull them apart and "fluff" the flower, after I was done I inked the edges but this is optional

  
Products used:

• Winter Festive Berries Distress Ink
• MME So Sophie Savvy Paper
• MM Brads
• Spellbinders Scallop Circles
• Spellbinders Lacey Circles
• Unity Stamps Heartly Barley

My Core’dinations Creative Frenzy

My favorite cardstock to use is Core'dinations and I have to be honest I tend to save it for only my favorite projects.  What makes this cardstock so great is that it has a different color core and that means you can do wonderful things to expose it.  I love to emboss and then sand the embossed area to show the other color underneath.  It works so well with spellbinders, because when you emboss the die cuts you can sand them to show the color underneath.  Here are my three projects:

Quad Easel Card
This is a such a hard card to photograph and I wish I knew a way to take pictures that show all aspects of it because its very dimensional and hard to photograph as a result.  I love making easel cards and these are so much fun to make.

Supplies used:

• Core'dinations Aqua/Pink/White
• Core'dinations Whitewash
• Spellbinders Flower Bouquet Miniabilities
• Flowers
• Brads
• CTMH Ink

Easel Card
I have to admit I love making easel cards so for my next card I made a regular easel card.  I made the flowers using the Black Magic Card stock, and I like the contrast it gives to the flowers.  The top and bottom flowers were made using the same color I just rolled them in the opposite way to expose the other color.

Supplies used:

• Core'dinations Black Magic
• Core'dinations Rose/White
• Spellbinders Foliage
• Spellbinders Floral Doily Accents
• Twine
• Bling

Thank you card
This was a clean and simple card using the Core'dinations white for the base and flower and then I used the blue in behind the flower.  The flower was made using Spellbinders Blossom 2 and the tutorial can be found here (just scroll to the bottom).

Supplies used:

• Core'dinations white/blue
• Spellbinders Blossom 2
• Unity Stamps Blossom Stackers
• Memento Ink

FWF Snowflake Kisses

I know for a lot of people spring is on the way but it still feels like winter here and I have the snow to prove it.  I got this set for Christmas and I love using it, this sentiment is so sweet and I love using it on cards for my daughter.  I have been playing with Core'dinations this week and figured I would use one of those cards for this weeks Friends with Flair challenge.  I love this card stock and the white wash is definitely my favorite.

Supplies used:

• Unity Snow Flake Kisses Stamp Set
• Spellbinders Create a Flake
• Core'dinations White Wash
• Bling

My Sweet Sammy -Pleated Heart

This project is a layout I created for the Fur Baby Love theme at Crop Chocolate.  I was "inspired" when I saw my daughter looking at a card she had created for her cat (he passed away a few months ago), I was working a few feet away from her and she said in a small quiet voice "oh Sammy, if only you knew how much I missed you".  It took everything I had not to cry myself and I waited for her to finish with her private moment and we had a good talk.  I wanted to hug her right away but I could tell she thought she was alone and I wanted to give her some privacy.

This was such a tough layout to do and the journalling was the hardest, I really need to redo it to make it neater but I get so teary that I keep putting it off.  She was so heart broken and as a parent it was one of the hardest things I have ever dealt with (there is no making it better).

Doing the layout and journalling really helped her and I am glad I did it.  Looking at the pictures its hard not to feel a bit sorry for the cat but they were very close.  He always slept with her in her bed and tolerated her "love" when she was younger.  It was months before she stopped missing him at bed time, he was always there when she woke up.  He was such a patient cat and he is missed very much by everyone but especially by my daughter.

Here is a tutorial for the pleated heart

Step 1.  Cut a piece of paper 1 3/4" x 6" and draw a shape similar to the picture (just free hand it), this will be your template

 Step 2.  Cut out the shape

 Step 3. Take a 1 3/4" x 12" piece of paper and fold in half, trace the template on to this paper, make sure the fold is lined up on the dip part (see picture) 

Step 4. Cut out the shape and unfold

 Step 5: Take the paper and score it every 1/4"  

Step 6. Attach the ends together then push the shape together and glue it to a heart shape as the base

 Step 7.  Embellish as desired 

Supplies used:

• EP Love Story
• Black Soot Distress Ink
• Fired Brick Distress Ink
• Cameo
• Spellbinders Scallop hearts
• Charcol Twine
• Red Cardstock
• Scotch Quick Dry Glue
• Washi Tape

Stair Step Card

This is a stair step card, I made for a Crop Chocolate challenge.  It was my first time making one and also my first time using my Unity Stamps Blossom Stamps along with the matching Spellbinders dies.  These were alot of fun to use and I can't wait to use them again.  They add such a nice effect and there are so many stamps to match the dies.

Supplies used:

• Unity Stamps Blossom Stackers
• Spellbinders Blossom Stackers die
• Carta Bell Paris Girl 6x6
• Liquid Pearls 
• Black Cardstock
• Ribbon

Blog Hop Winner

First I want to say thanks to everyone who participated in the blog hop, your comments really made my day I always enjoy reading them.  Now for the winner, I used random.org and came up with number 14.  That means my blog winner is :

Gaylnn- "Lots of detail there for sure. Very creative with those nice colors. :)"   

Gaylnn, can you please email me your information to cswagner at (use the @ symbol) sympatico.ca. 

Unity Stamps Color Challenge

I made two cards for the blog hop and planned to enter them both in the Unity Stamps Challenges.  I realized afterward that each entry must be a separate blog post, I entered the sketch challenge already and this is for the color challenge.  Here is the inspiration photo

 

And here is my entry, its hard to see in the photo but I stamped the entire card with red butterflies before adding the paper.  It's a subtle effect but it looks nice in real life, just very hard to get a decent picture.

 





 

 

Julie's Blogoversary Blog Hop - Celebrate Friendship

Welcome to Julie's Blogoversary Hop, my friend Julie is having a one year anniversary for on her blog and decided a hop would be a great way to celebrate.  You should have arrived here from Karen's blog, if you just stumbled on this start at the beginning at Julie's blog. The theme for this hop is friendship, which was a hard one for me because I don't normally make "friend" type cards.  I wanted to use Unity Stamps for this (I am becoming addicted but they are awesome) and I didn't have any stamps that fit the theme for a layout so cards it was.

I am also using these cards for the new Unity Challenge and its based on the sketch below.  I made this card using mostly grab bag stamps I won in a Friends with Flair contest and the butterflies were EP Be Mine.  The colors are not ones I normally would use but they had an inspiration picture and while this is not my entry for that challenge I loved the colors so much I carried them over to the card sketch which is unusual for me since these are not my usual colors.

Blog Candy !!!
Thanks for stopping by, please leave a comment and become a follower for some Blog Candy from not only myself but to be eligible for Julie's blog candy.  The hop closes on March 3 11:59 pm.  Your next stop is Kary's blog, good luck to everyone.