It has been so cold here over the past few days anyone would think it was winter, not spring! The sun has at least been shining today, but that wind is still so chilly – brrrrrr!
So I decided to cheer myself up a bit and got out my scrap box to make a card. Inspired by a card I saw on Maria’s blog – this is what I came up with …
Lucky limeade is a beautiful shade of green and one of my favourites – I love how it looks with real red for a fresh, Christmassy look.
I stamped the leaf, from the french foliage stamp set, in cherry cobbler and old olive inks onto scraps of real red cardstock and then cut out each one using my paper snips.
Once I made the first flower it was hard to stop making them, and so I just kept going until I was out of scraps!
I found a strip of punched cardstock amongst my scraps too. The punch is now retired but I loved how it looked on the edge of the dsp …
To achieve the two tone effect on the label, I first inked up the large label from the layered labels set using certainly celery ink, and then added some darker ink here and there using an old olive stampin writer marker pen, before stamping the image onto naturals ivory cardstock and cutting out with the matching apothecary accents framelits.
Here’s what I used to make today’s card – all supplies from Stampin’ Up!:
cardstock: lucky limeade, real red, naturals ivory, shimmery white; stamp sets: french foliage, more merry messages, layered labels; inks: cherry cobbler, old olive, basic grey, certainly celery; punches: large oval, border (retired); accessories: adhesive pearls, stampin’ dimensionals, apothecary accents framelits, big shot, parker’s patterns designer series paper, old olive stampin’ write marker pen.
Whilst still designing my daughter’s wedding invitations, I took some time out to make some for a friend. I was a little out of my comfort zone with this style of card, but the bride knew exactly what she wanted … a vintage-distressed look with a large mix of colours, from soft pinks, lilacs and beige, to darker colours such as grey and navy. The bride also had a long list of images she wanted which would tie in with her wedding theme … bird cages, flowers, postage stamps, flourishes and, of course, the Eiffel Tower – as this is where her fiancé had proposed. You may remember the engagement card I made for them here.
So, here are my bespoke vintage wedding invitations for Sarah…
I used several different stamp sets to create the collage to be able to include all the images the bride had asked for, including the hydrangea from a retired hostess set, which I love and cannot bear to part with. The bride loved the finished effect with its tiny, fork-tied bows …
I also stamped the envelopes, front and back, to match …
The cards were lovingly hand-stamped and distressed -
and took many hours to complete…
Each card was unique in its own way and made a pretty keepsake for each of the invited guests…
So, there’s a vintage style wedding ahead - a wedding unique in design and with the intricacy of the collage, and the high quality Stampin’ Up! materials I used, the invitation has given a little glimpse of what’s to come.
I’ve been so busy lately! The Easter holiday was a blur; mainly because I was on a mission to make a VW camper van cake to celebrate Mick’s 60th birthday!
Now when I’m in cake class, I have my teacher demonstrating how to make the cake. She is always on hand to help answer questions … this time, I was on my own! My teacher loaned me a book with basic instructions for the cake, but it only showed how to make a cake topper, and I wanted to make a full sized cake. I think I bit off more than I could chew … literally!
It took a whole afternoon just to mix and bake the sponge as the cake tin I’d bought was huge! While the cake was baking, I iced the board and made the icing sugar base that the cake would rest on. I was trying to colour white icing black …nigh on impossible. I settled for a dark grey and painted the edge that would be seen with black food colouring; a good compromise I thought … Once cooled, I cut the sponge into a general camper van shape and added the jam and buttercream … and called it a night.
Day two, I started icing the cake early morning. It took 1.5kg of grey icing to cover the cake. At least now I had a fair idea how big the final cake would be. I made the headlamps, side lights, door handles, and wing mirrors as these would need to dry overnight so they would keep their shape on the finished cake. I enlisted my daughter’s help to make the VW sign for the front of the van. She had the patience to cut the shape freehand … wow! She made a fab job of it! I dusted the top half of the cake with edible silver dust for the windows.
Day three dawned, the day of the birthday celebration, and I was up early to finish the cake. I hadn’t even had chance to make his card yet!
I coloured the next layer of icing pale blue, measured and rolled it out once… twice…three times… maybe more - I lost count – I just couldn’t get it how I wanted it to look! I took a breath and went for it…not bad…could be better, but I was ok with that. I cut the top of the van freehand – it wasn’t perfect but my daughter said it looked good, so I moved on to making the tyres, windscreen wipers, etc – time was ticking after all…
By now the cake was quite heavy - it contained 1lb flour, 1lb sugar, 1lb butter and 8 eggs… and not only was there all that butter, sugar and flour in it, but I reckon there was about 4lb of fondant icing on it too!
I was on my feet for the whole day – the fiddly bits took lots of time, and I finally finished with an hour to spare. I just had time to get ready to go to Mick’s party, but I didn’t have time to make him a card! Oh my word! That’s what I do for goodness sake! My daughter said she thought he would forgive me as the cake was so special and personal to him. I was exhausted but really pleased with how it looked…
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My daughter bought sparkler candles for the cake …
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I know that Mick loved it – the front number plate said “UR 60” and the back one had his name on it. They thought the cake was too good to cut into! I finally got a text a couple of days later to say they had plucked up the courage to cut the cake, and that it tasted as good as it looked so I was a happy bunny!
Although I didn’t get to make Mick’s card, I did make a card for a friend who turned 50 recently.
I am always inspired by the beautiful projects on Pauline’s blog, and cased one of her cards, using similar colours, inking up my wedding sweet and french foliage stamp sets from Stampin’ Up with crumb cake ink.
I added a teeny tiny crumb cake bow and some rhinestones too…
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I just love these colours together – the pink goes so well with the crumb cake card and ink.
I think the card looks a little bit vintage but with a modern feel …love it!
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All papercraft supplies from Stampin’ Up!
Card recipe: cardstock: crumb cake, pretty in pink, very vanlilla; stamp sets: wedding sweet, french folliage; inks: crumb cake; accessories: crumb cake seam binding ribbon, rhinestones, glue dots, stampin dimensionals.
I’m still in love with the vintage look…can’t get enough of seam binding ribbon, distressing, the images, the lot! And when I needed a farewell card for a friend recently here’s what I put together for her…
I used a mixture of images from the Artistic Etchings and French Foliage stamp sets. These two sets go soooo well together – love it! And it was so easy to make my own background paper by stamping the images in random pattern onto very vanilla cardstock. Job done!
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