Autumnal Colours - Oak House Studio September Challenge

Hello, today I'm sharing a card I have made for the Oak House Studio September Challenge, the Theme is Autumnal colours.  (As always the materials list and links are at the end of the post).

Lately I have been playing again with Gap Cards, they have always fascinated me and I thought it would be nice to incorporate a subtle gap element to set off some lovely floral stamps from Oak House Studio.

I first needed to create a background for my card.  I chose papermill Ivory Smooth card and randomly blended distress inks in 3 colours across it (Spiced Marmalade, Tea Dye, and Squeezed lemonade), spritzing and working with water to help blend.  (I don't have any Oak House Studio inks at the moment but they are very much on my wish list).  I then over stamped this piece using one of the flowers from the 'Flowers and Circles' stamp set, and stamping with all three of the distress ink colours used on the background.

 I scored and folded papermill Mocha Brown card to make a card base and removed a strip of card from the front to create the 'gap'. The finished stamped background was then cut to shape to fit onto the front panels of my card front.  I did ink around each panel with 'Tea Dye' to add definition before fixing the panels to the front with double sided tape

Now to create the focal point and means to hold the card together.  For this I chose 2 of the flowers from the 'Flowers and Circles' stamp set.  Stamping them with gilding glue onto Mocha Brown card, and then gilding with flakes and burnishing to remove the excess.  These gilded flower heads were then carefully die-cut into circles and 3D foam mounted onto larger circles.  These larger circles were punched from Ivory Smooth card and then inked with 'Tea Dye'.  Carefully positioning these 3 circles to span the 'gap' and also hold the card together by using cosmic shimmer glue on the parts that overlap the card panels.  Hopefully I managed to evenly space the circles too. I then created a sentiment by again stamping with gilding glue and gilding as before onto 'Mocha Brown' card.  I chose to use 'Best Wishes' which is from the 'Script Sentiments' stamp set, a really useful set too as the font is lovely and the sentiments cover all occasions.  The finished sentiment was die-cut into a tag shape, matted onto 'Tea Dye' coloured Ivory Smooth card to create a layered tag shape.  A double bow of cream and brown paper twine and a small pale orange faux gem provide the finishing touches.

 I really like how this card experiment has turned out.  The stamps of course stamp out beautifully and first time too, which is really important, especially if using glue and flakes, you know you can rely on them stamping evenly and so no waste. I can highly recommend Oak House Studio stamps and my wish list keeps getting longer.  If you've not tried them before, then why not pop over to their Blog or facebook page to find out more, perhaps you may even be inspired to enter their regular challenges too. 

**Update, so thrilled that this card was picked as a winner!!**




Materials List:
Flowers and Circles stamp set - Oak House Studio
Script Sentiments stamp set - Oak House Studio
Ivory Smooth Card - Papermill Direct
Mocha Brown Card - Papermill Direct
'Brighton Pier' Gilding Flakes - Indigoblu
Gilding Glue - Imagination Crafts
brown and cream paper twines
Small pale orange faux gems

Christmassy Makes with Papermill card

Hello, another week has gone by so fast, and the weather is cold and grey today.  What happened to that promised heatwave?  Actually I'm not much of a sun lover, so the cooler days do suit me, but not so good for taking pics.

This week 'Forest Green' 160gsm is on Offer at Papermill Direct, where you can snap up a small (approx 140 sheets) A4 box for just £7-36. It's always worth taking an extra look at the Special Offers section as there is often some other goodies to tempt you too.

So what have I been up to this week?  Well I made a Tutorial for a Halloween card, which you can find over on the papermill blog, and I also made a couple of Christmas Cards to share with you :)  As always the materials lists and links are at the end of the post.

First up I thought I would try out a new stamp I bought at a papercraft show recently, it's the dinky little snowman stamp, which I watercoloured by taking a slightly wet brush to lift the colour from the tips of the water-colour pencils.  The snowman was stamped onto supersmooth white card which is especially fabulous for stamping onto and I found it easy to water-colour onto too.  I used Mocha Brown card to create my card base and die cut a snowflake frame and 'Merry Christmas' sentiment from white pearlised, as I liked the added little sparkle effect.  I embossed the Sky Blue card with a snowflake design embossing folder and this may seem strange but afterwards i ran it through the big shot with the embossing mat just to flatten the design a little, as I wanted a more subtle emboss.  I matted and layered the watercoloured snowman onto die cut circles and attached with 3D foam pads to give some height. A few faux pearls in different sizes to finish off the snowflakes.

Next design is a festive Tree shaped card.  I cut the card base from Forest Green card (the standard 240gsm).  I stamped randomly all over with 2 different swirl stamps using a gilding glue and then applied gilding flakes.  I also randomly stamped a 3 small circles stamp in Cosmic Copper ink and a sentiment of 'Ohhh Christmas Tree' was stamped in Cosmic Copper onto Buff card. The sentiment was 3D assembled on top of a  cream & gold ribbon finished with a little bow on the top. 

I used Buff card for the 'pot' part of the tree, eagle eyed amongst you will recognise it as the Leather version of the Buff (which was a past special offer), but any card or colour would work. 

I quite like the look of the gilded tree, the swirls remind me of tinsel and the circles of baubles.  What do you think?  As always really happy to answer any questions and love reading your comments.

Materials Lists:
Mocha Brown card - papermill direct
Sky Blue card - papermill direct
White Pearlised card - papermill direct
Super Smooth White card - papermill direct
Snowman Dinky Stamp - IndigoBlu
Snowflakes Framelits Die set - Sizzix
Circle Framelits Die set - Sizzix
Merry Christmas Sentiment
Watercolour pencils
faux pearls
Forest Green card - papermill direct
Buff card - papermill direct
Gilding Glue and Gilding flakes - IndigoBlu
Sentiment Stamp
Cosmic Copper Brilliance Inkpad
Cream & Gold ribbon

if you have a moment, please do pop over and check out the other papermill teamies blogs and see what they got up to this week:
Barbara
Lisa
Ruth
Sylvia
Sandie
Sharon

2 Wedding Cards and a papermill Offer...

Hello, this week we are thinking about Weddings, and at papermill there are lots of different types of card suitable for Wedding Cards and Stationery.  White Linen is of course very popular and this week is on Special Offer at just £7-50 for a small box in A5 size.  Whilst you are checking out the White Linen, you may wish to have a browse through some of the other card textures and finishes like the pearlised?  I have chosen to work with the pearlised card this week in both a natural white colour and the ivory colour. 

First up is a new version of a style of card I have made before and you may recognise the shape.  This time though I have embossed the bodice of the dress with a swirls embossing folder and used the de-bossed side to cut 2 sides of skirt panel.  I love how you can achieve a subtle change of pattern just by mixing up the embossed and de-bossed designs. 

 I think this card would make a great 'Thank You Bridesmaid' card or even a card you could send to the 'Bride to Be'?  I have used mini faux pearls to scatter over the skirt part of the dress, to hopefully help keep the design delicate looking.  I also chose to use a contrast card in a burgundy colour called 'maroon' as I think this would be perfect for Autumn & Winter Wedding themes and have embossed this with tiny dots. Lace rose ribbon trim in Ivory, Cream ribbon trim, mini faux pearl strings and faux pearls in 3 sizes to decorate the dress.

 My 2nd card has been created by using Tonic Dies to cut and layer up a shaped card base. I used Natural White Pearlised and the Maroon card again to give this an Autumn / Winter theme. 

 

His and Her heart images have been stamped with  'starlite black' ink and then covered with double sided adhesive sheet and then with Clear Micro Glass Beads. The hearts were attached to the card front with 3D foam pads. 

 'Your Wedding Day' was cut with tattered lace sentiment dies. and carefully positioned onto the centre panel. I avoided adding any extra bling or ribbons to this card as I felt the layered heart panels and the glass micro beads were enough to carry the design.

Materials Lists & Links:
Ivory Pearlised 300gsm card - papermill direct
Maroon 240gsm card - papermill direct
Swirls embossing folder - Cuttlebug
Lace rose trim, cream ribbon trim, mini faux pearl trim, mini faux pearls in 3 sizes

Natural White Pearlised 300gsm card - papermill direct
maroon 240gsm card - papermill direct
Love Arch Verso Dies - Tonic
His & Hers Heart Stamps - Creative Expressions
Sentiment words dies - Tattered Lace
Clear Micro Glass Beads - Creative Expressions
Starlite Black inkpad -

Please pop over and check out the other papermill teamies blogs and see what they got up to this week:
Barbara
Lisa
Ruth
Sylvia
Sandie
Sharon

Baize is for Autumn, Snails and Beauty!!

Hello and welcome to this weeks blog post featuring DT makes for a fabulous offer card from papermill direct.  This week it is a Baize Green 270gsm card.  (A small box of A4 costs just £5-50 and that gives you 75-80 sheets to play with!! )

As Autumn is our main theme this week, I thought I would start with this 'Autumn' 'Gap Card'.  The card base is the 'Baize Green' offer card. Leaves have been cut from Bright Orange and Buff card and embossed with cuttlebug embossing folders.  I have positioned the leaves to span the 'Gap' along the lower section of the card.

I stamped letters to spell the word 'autumn' onto Bright Orange, Buff and Christmas Red papermill  card and layered them up and attached with 3D foam pads.  Dark red paper twine and green & white bakers twine wrapped around panel and tied with bows to finish.

For my next card I thought it would be fun to use a little snail character from a set of stamps I bought recently, I also used one of the sentiments from the set 'Snail Mail'. Card base is the Baize Green offer card, front panel has been embossed with a cuttlebug dots folder. Snail image is from a stamp set by Clearly Besotted and stamped with 2 colours of whispers inks onto Ivory Papermill card. This panel has been die-cut into a circle and matted onto a circle of Baize green and then onto an embossed panel of Buff card and then a final panel of ivory card. 'Snail Mail' sentiment has been stamped with memento ink and die-cut into a tag shape. Green and white bakers twine and eyes have been added to the snail to finish. I think this is my favourite card this week.

And lastly 'You are Beautiful inside & out'. Card Base is Papermill's Plain white card. For the embossed panel I used a Sizzix embossing folder on Papermill's white linen card, then matted and layered onto Maroon and then Baize Green card. The Peacock Feather has been cut using a Cricut Mini from Baize Green offer card, with a little yellow, pale turquoise & maroon card. Stamped greeting 'You are Beautiful inside and out' is from a stamp set by Clearly Besotted and has been diecut into a tag shape and attached with pale green ribbon. Stickles glitter glue in 'mercury glass' to decorate the feather and 2 faux gems to finish.

So all very different designs, but all using that fab Baize Green card.  You can see it is sturdy enough to be used as a card base, cuts really well with both manual and electrical die cutters and embosses beautifully too.  So which design is your favourite?  As always I love to read your comments and answer any questions you may have, and a big thank you for popping by today.


Materials List & Links:
Baize Green 'offer' card - papermill direct
Bright Orange, Buff, Christmas Red,Pale Turquoise and Maroon card - papermill direct 'colours' collection
Ivory Smooth, Plain White & White Linen card - papermill direct 'essentials' collection
Alphabet Letter Stamps - PaperArtsy
Script & Dots Embossing Folders - Cuttlebug
Snail & sentiment from 'Build a Bug' stamp set - Clearly Besotted
Sentiment on peacock feather card is from 'Flight of Fancy' stamp set - Clearly Besotted
peacock feather card embossing  is from 'Bohemian Botanicals Set' - Sizzix
'Mercury Glass' stickles Glitter glue
Cricut Mini to cut leaves (Flower Shoppe cartridge) and feather (Art Nouveau cartridge)
Black memento ink, Brilliance dewdrop 'starlite black', whispers coloured inks
Ribbon, paper twine,bakers twine,gems from stash


Why not pop over and see what my fabulous papermill teamies have got up to this week?:
Barbara
Lisa
Ruth
Sylvia
Sandie
Sharon

Black & Orange, perfect for...

Halloween makes of course!!  I love black and orange and as a colour combo it has become synonymous with Halloween. Many of us will be thinking ahead and planning on making our own decorations and now is the perfect time to get your materials together as Papermill's special offer this week is a mixed box (10% off at just £7-36) containing approx. 40 sheets of black and 40 sheets of bright orange card, that's plenty to keep your own little monsters busy making their own special creations.

But for now, I will share a few of my own creations using this card mix.  First up is a Pumpkin Card, this little card rocks as it has a rounded base.  

 Next up is a really quick and easy Bat shaped card, it has googly eyes and a white pen adds some cute details. I cut this on my Cricut but it's a simple shape that you or your child could draw by hand easily to make a cute fun friendly looking bat.

And finally the hanging 'Happy Halloween' sign' which has been decorated with stickles glitter, liquid pearls and has a polka dot ribbon to hang it up.

If you're wondering about the ornamental gourds in the pictures, they are real ones, grown in my garden and I thought they would look right at home with the Halloween designs.

As always I love to read your comments and answer any questions you may have, and thank you so much for popping by today.

Materials List
Black & Bright Orange card - Paperill Direct Special Offer
Forest green and Christmas Red card - Papermill Direct Colours
Googly eyes
Stickles Glitter Glue in 'Mercury Glass'
Liquid Pearls in 'Onyx pearl'
Polka Dot Ribbon, Black & White Bakers Twine
White Pergamano Pen
VersaMarker Pen


Why not pop over and see what my fabulous papermill teamies have got up to this week?:
Barbara
Lisa
Ruth
Sylvia
Sandie
Sharon