Pale Pistachio Pachyderm

Pistachio Pudding is such a sweet shade of green. It is also so soft that it is perfect for a baby card, either boy or girl. Colour me..! suggested this colour.

I've had this idea brewing for a few days but had no time to put it into effect. Today we ended up having an impromptu family lunch with 16 of us here, before my eldest son and D-I-L took their two boys to an evening football match. After dinner, I have bathed my baby grand daughter, popped her into bed, and added the finishing touches to a card she has been 'helping'  me make this afternoon. We also had a lovely walk this afternoon in the crisp winter air, down to the local lake to feed the ducks.






The Zoo Babies stamp set was used again for this little card, stamped twice onto white, and the head, ears and trunk were cut and raised on Dimensionals. The sentiment came in my order yesterday, its a future hostess set called Good Greetings, and there's 19 of them altogether!!! They are mainly for holidays, but they're all in this pretty font, so I can see a lot of use for them. I chose 'hello love' but perhaps I could have used 'hugs & kisses' just as easily.
I find it difficult to believe that I didn't like the All Abloom Designer Series Paper Stack when I first saw it in the new catalogue, because after I received it yesterday, I could hardly wait to begin using the pretty patterns. So many of them are florals, like this delicate sprigged one under the tag, but the reverse is often geometric, striped or spotted. The Zig Zag paper is from the retired Watercolor Wonder DSP and there's a recently retired Pistachio Pudding embellishment at the corner of the tag too.

Now, I'll just add a couple of family snaps from today's happy gathering.

Isaac and Tyler

Oliver, 3 months, in cardigan Grandma knitted.

Duck feeding with Alice

Thanks for popping by,

Rachel

Zoo Babies Wood Stamp Set

$48.95

Zoo Babies Clear Stamp Set

$38.95

All Abloom Designer Series Paper Stack

$11.95

Table by StampinBuddy. Try it FREE.

Best Things STS#23

Have you found your favourite new In Color in the Stampin' Up! range yet? I'm see-sawing between Lost Lagoon (blue) and Blackberry Bliss (deep purple) but it's Blackberry Bliss I've used today. I wanted to make some cards using other suggested colour combinations. This combination is Blackberry Bliss, Smokey Slate and Melon Mambo.
Feel Goods is a lovely stamp set with 5 'word' stamps, quotes or just well known phrases, like the one chosen for this card:- the Best things in life aren't things.
I stamped it onto Watercolor Wonder DSP, a faint Smokey Slate spot, before cutting it with one of the Apothecary Accent Framelits. I decided paper piercing was in order for this large label too, the template is from the Essentials Paper Piercing Pack. I have fallen in love with paper piercing, its so easy to do and adds an interesting definition to a card.

The new Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack, along with the matching flower from Something To Say have been getting a big workout in my craft room lately, just because they're new, exciting and oh-so-cute! However, I decided to add in some blossoms from Petite Petals this time also, both stamped and punched and just punched.
Using the sketch from Seize The Sketch really helped me put this card together, but if I'd looked a little harder, I'd have also added a thin piece of Melon Mambo ribbon under the label cut out of Smokey Slate. Lots of the design team haven't used ribbon, but I think it would have probably been a positive addition to my card,

Now, there's no time to linger, as I have a visit with my youngest grandchild happening in an hour, and what can be sweeter than an 8 week old baby?

Rachel
Post script: Found out today, 9th July, that Jen at Sieze The Sketch has picked this card as a runner up! Happy day, happy dance!

Cupcake birthday FMS130

There's not much stamping on this card, mainly because I can't find my Create a Cupcake stamp set ANYWHERE! I can't imagine why not. It's been a while since I used it, and I have cleaned up recently, so I don't understand why it isn't in it's spot. Fortunately, you can still make a great little cupcake with just the Cupcake Builder Punch. So with that and some Watercolor Wonder Designer Series Paper ( yes even the pale grey spot is from that pack), I've put together this cheerful little birthday card. The greeting comes from Just the Ticket and even that stamp set has a matching punch, the Ticket Duo Builder.

I made it quite late at night, which isn't always the best conditions, but in the morning light, I'm so pleased with these bright colours on the soft, spotted paper.The Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder added some texture to the 'icing' and I scored the paper patty base.

The sketch is from Linda at Freshly Made Sketches. As usual a great one, I want to CASE so many of the design team's samples, go on over to their site and check them out!

Looking forward to a lovely crafty weekend here, are you?

Rachel

Try Stamping On Tuesday

This is the first time I've come across Try Stamping on Tuesday, and then I lost it again, so now I've safely bookmarked it. I love this sketch and had another idea for it, which hasn't worked out unfortunately.
Never one to give up, I tried this idea.
It's another Quick and Easy card, with a bit extra - I'll explain.
Choose a favourite Design Series Paper, this one is from the NEW Occasions Catalogue - Watercolor Wonder. Tangerine Tango is listed as the co-ordinating color in the pack of DSP but with that lovely water-colored effect, all shades seem to match, so I selected Crisp Cantaloupe to cut strips just an eighth of an inch larger. I also grabbed the Envelope Punch Board with its built-in corner-rounder punch to round off just one corner of each rectangle. Once everything was adhered to the Smoky Slate card base, I stamped the scalloped round greeting from Sketched Birthday in Smoky Slate and punched. Next the inner section was inked with Stampin' Write Markers before stamping and punching out with a circle punch. Don't punches make life so easy? Dimensionals between layers raised this greeting up, and its all done!

One suggestion from the challenge was keep warm, and I think my colors are quite warm.














Of course everyone in the northern hemisphere is experiencing winter, whereas, in Australia, especially the southern states, we are onto our umpteenth week of  'above 30 degree' days, frequently above 40 degrees - like today!!!! For those of you still using Fahrenheit, as I remember it, 38°C is 100°F.

I had two of my grandsons spend the day here yesterday, with their parents and it was still okay to be in our little pool, but today you'd be fried alive outside I suspect, (great for stamping indoors) so no difficulty keeping warm here! It was a delightful day of relaxing, sharing the supervision of the boys so the adults could attend to the things that needed to be done. When they went home after dinner last night, they were truly tired, but so happy.

Life is good, I hope you have an opportunity to enjoy some good times too and thanks for reading my blog,
Rachel

Envelope Punch Board Boxed Cards

Now that life is beginning to settle back to normal routine, I've had a chance to have a big play with my Envelope Punch Board. I tried out various sizes of envelopes, a bow for a card, a bonbon (mine is more a Valentine's Day version) and some gift boxes. All good fun, but I wanted to try out some small boxes or large envelopes to hold a set of cards. There are lots more samples at Just Add Ink's blog, they're setting the Envelope Punch Board or Thinlet card as their challenge.

I wasn't sure where to go until a fellow demonstrator pointed me here, to Stamp & Scrap with Frenchie. Frenchie has sorted out the formula for making boxes of any size, its well worth taking a look.
 So, for some reason I decided to make a set of cards 5½ inches square. That's WAY big really, and it meant I had to search out a piece of 12" by !2" card for the box. Never mind, I had some So Saffron that size and even though it isn't listed as a co-ordinating colour on Watercolor Wonder DSP, like most of the Stampin' Up! colours, it fits in beautifully. These papers are gorgeous, you'll find them in the NEW Occasions mini Catalogue, so I mounted a 4½ inch square of DSP onto another shade of card and kept stamping to a minimum. Did you notice the rounded corners? The Envelope Punch Board has a corner rounder incorporated, so now I don't have to go searching everywhere for my long lost corner punch. Some of the cards are stamped with an image or two from Happy Watercolor, also in the new Mini catalogue. Others have a greeting from A Dozen Thoughts. Between those two stamp sets you have things covered. The envelope is quite easy to construct, fits 4 cards and 4 envelopes very comfortably (could possibly fit more) and then you get to decorate.

Envelope, Bonbon & Bow

I decided to go crazy with my flower punches and the leaf die from Secret Garden. I crumpled the flowers and worked them with my bone folder to soften the paper fibres and you get a softer looking flower. That is attached with dimensionals, and then you can slip the tip of the envelope under neath to hold it all closed. I added a belly band, only for decoration in this case. I love the gelati colours, what do you think?



I have a lot more crafting and blogging to do before I head back to my "other" job next week. Would you like to leave a comment so I know you visited?

Catch you soon
Rachel