Madly Mauve in the Secret Garden DD#76

I love these mauve shades that Dynamic Duos is challenging us with this week. They remind me of bunches of hanging Wisteria, Iris, Clematis and all things floral.

I've finally used my Secret Garden Stamp Set and matching Dies to cut the blooms and leaves, after having them on my shelf from when they were released - how long ago? Trouble was, I loved the stamp, wanted to make all the gorgeous things I'd seen on blogs and Pinterest but had too many other stamp sets, and not enough time. Feeling awfully embarrassed about this, I vowed to break it open as soon as possible, and today was that day.

masked image

Its a great bonus having dies to cut leaves and flowers out (Although you still have to hand-cut the inner flowers if you decide to layer that way). Its also a BIG time-saver if you want to create a mask for stamping, as the cut is so exact. Just stamp onto a sticky note, die cut, and place over the original stamped image.
As well as Wisteria Wonder and Perfect Plum I have introduced Basic Gray and a little Whisper White.
One of the flowers has been stamped in Versamark onto lovely thick vellum, by Stampin' Up! of course, and heat embossed with white embossing powder. It has been coloured with a Perfect Plum Stampin' Write. The other flowers were stamped onto coloured card, in the same colour. There are some other smaller punched blossoms scattered about and all finished with pearl centres. Curly Cute stamp set has  greetings in a lovely, fancy font which seemed to suit these flowers.



Thanks for visiting my blog
Rachel

More Zoo Babies

Believe it or not, I have done more today than make cards! I spent an hour or so gardening, enjoying the few rays of sun we saw today. I have cooked tonight, baked a fruit cake AND prepared chicken, rice and ginger meatballs for tomorrow nights dinner.

I have been hanging out to try the Circle Thinlet  Die Flip Card, which was in my order on Friday, and you can order it now too. Because I stamped a number of different images trying to get the first Zoo Babies card 'just right' I have some spares. I used a scalloped framelit which came with the Circle Thinlet Die and laid it onto a 2½ inch circle punched from Crushed Curry card.

On the reverse of that cute little rotating circle is the greeting "you can never have too much happy" - isn't that the truth! That one comes from Yippee-Skippee (and that is 25% off till tomorrow night).

Of course I was then tempted to pull out the Stamp-a-ma-jig and stamp happy in a rainbow of colours. I used Curly Cute and inked it up each time with Stampin' Write Markers.

I learnt a few tricks to make even better use of this die recently, so if you'd like me to show them to you, or demonstrate the Stamp-a-ma-jig, send me an email and we can see what we can work out. Pop over to my online store if you want to grab those stamp sets while they are discounted.

Catch you next time
Rachel

Moving Forward with RetroSketches#65

Tomorrow the retiring list is released for Australia and New Zealand, but it is no secret that Moving Forward is to retire. That's because it is a special stamp set for Ronald McDonald House and $3 from each sale goes to the charity - that sounds like such a good idea! Buy stamps sets that are just so cute, AND help out a worthy cause, don't you think?

Moving Forward is an absolute favourite for me, you can use it for a wide range of events, with the tricycle, sailboat and this blimp among the main images. I've used the Ink to rubber technique for this card, check my class schedule for June if you live nearby.
Paired with the birthday greeting from Curly Cute (also retiring) and some Comfort Cafe DSP, it is based on this sketch from RetroSketches. You know, whenever I lack inspiration I go straight to a sketch or colour challenge and find that usually that will get the imagination going. I also entered it for the Make it Masculine challenge at CAS on Sunday

Just a short post today - back tomorrow with the retiring list!
Cheers!
Rachel

Curly Cute