Second part of the Birthday Card Surprise!

  

In addition to the commissioned birthday card I shared yesterday, I also made a card to the same recipient from my boyfriend Geir and me. This time I chose to make a birthday set consisting of a Bouquet Envelope Box Card, a matching box and a Gift Card Envelope ( https://youtu.be/N9QQqq0lq1c)

    

                                            

The Bouquet Envelope Box Card is a card I have shared on this blog before, Envelope Box Bouquet Card, and it is as many of my cards inspired by Mixed Up Craft. Since I knew the recipient is a red and white roses kind of girls, I used Maja Design´s Summertime in the Garden - Garden Bouquet papers. I simply adore Maja Designs papers! 

 

Inside the card I used stamps from the Norwegian company Papirdesign (PD 1900274 Gratulerer and PD 1900154 Vin) 

I also attached the Gift Card Envelope on the inside with a small velcro dot.

The Gift Card Envelope is inspired by the Paper Pixie. It is a very quick and easy gift card envelope to make, so easy in fact, that I decided to make my own tutorial on how to make it.

https://youtu.be/N9QQqq0lq1c

The stamp on the front is from another Norwegian Stamp Company called Kort & Godt. Both the stampsets from Paperdesign and from Kort & Godt, have been purchased at the Norwegian based shop 

Kreativ Scrapping.

Inside the Gift Card Envelope I used another stamp from Paperdesign (PD 14921 Når du blir gammel).

The Gift Card Envelope is decorated with the same Maja Design Papers as the Card. 

The box is a Flip Lid style box, adapted to fit the card. To decorate I have used more papers from Maja Design, this time "Summertime in the Garden - Smell the Roses. The stamp is from the same Paperdesign stamp set I used inside the card (PD 1900274 Gratulerer).

Birthday Surprise

The card closes with ribbon.

This Six Panel Folio Book Card inspired by Mixed Up Craft, is a birthday card commission I did for a neighbor. 

I used silver metallic card stock as the base, and alternately added red and white card stock on top. To make this card as simple as possible, I decorated the card base with small panels of silver, and topped these, again alternately, with red and white card stock to be written on. I then made tiny "bouquets" of small red and white roses and glued them on with hot-glue.

The front of the card was decorated with a small post card from the "Miss Margit - In the Garden Collection" from REPRINT, as well as another small bouquet of roses. Silver Nuvo Drops add the final touch.

The inside of the card with the box lying in front.

The only thing that shows that this is a birthday card is a small panel with a silver heat embossed "Happy Birthday" in Norwegian.

The same silver metallic card stock is used as the connection between the individual panels.

The card is rather thick when it is rolled together, and I had to make a fairly deep box to hold it. It is decorated in the same style as the card, with silver and red, and I have used the same postcard from REPRINT to decorate the closure flap of the box, as on the first panel of the card. The roses that I have added on the front, are a little bit bigger than the ones inside the card.

Folio Book Card 

Tropical Magic Iris

                                 

Everything tropical, seems to be what is hot in the crafting world these days. So I couldn't resist creating a tropical scene, when I finally brought out my Magic Iris dies from Lawn Fawn. 

On this card I started by embossing the distress oxide smooshed paper that I planned to create my scene on. Unfortunately not much of it can be seen on the finished card. Then I chose the images that I wanted to stamp and color, before starting a production line of stamping, coloring and fussy cutting every animal, flower and leaf, that I wanted to put on my card. Then I die cut the coverplate and started to place all the different images around the opening of where the mechanical part of the magic iris would be placed. I also decided what image I wanted to peek through when the magic iris was opened. 

Since I think of bright and cheerful colors when I think of the tropics, I chose vibrant colors when coloring in my stamped images. I chose to use Copic Markers for my coloring work, both because I find them more vibrant than coloring pencils, (although I do feel like I give up some of the control I feel like I have using pencils, as supposed to markers), but also because I find that it is a lot quicker, and I didn't have the time to sit and color for hours. I finished the card off by putting on Glossy Accents on the eyes of the animals, the wings of the butterflies, and the center of the flowers.

This is SO exciting!

I have always wanted to purchase monthly paper crafting boxes, but as I live in Norway and these boxes have to be shipped here from abroad, I have never signed up to receive any. I have basically considered it to be a too great of a cost to justify signing up for any . 

Well, those of you who follow this blog, know how much I LOVE Sam Calcott and her blog and YouTube Channel Mixed Up Craft. You might also remember that I mentioned that she was given the chance to design and release her own brand of products a while back. Very exciting! And in late May I learned that she was going to be the designer of the Papercraft Society Box for July! Of course I signed up!

Today I received it! Yay! And what I have decided to do, is to make my own box reveal, right here on my blog! 

Here we go:

https://youtu.be/x1GjErikmwo

 

Funky Monkey

Today's post is a result of me playing around with backgrounds and heat embossing. The backgrounds that I have used for all these cards, are made with various ways of using distress oxide inks. 

On the first card, "Funky Monkey", I have done ink blending. I did this one a while back, so I don't really remember which colors I used, but I remember that I was after a fall-leaves colored look. When I was happy with it, I spritzed it with some water mixed with Perfect Pearls, Perfect Pearl Mist, which I have mixed myself, adding water to the shimmery Perfect Pearl powder. 

I have a collection of these really beautiful animal stamps, and I have used three of these animals in these cards. I stamped all three on the backgrounds with Versamark Ink, and then I heat embossed them. The monkey and the lion are heat embossed with Copper Penny heat embossing powder from Martha Stewart, and on the whale I have used Vintage Royal Blue embossing tinsel from Stampendous!.

On the other two cards, the whale and the lion, I have done distress oxide "smushing". Smushing is when you rub your ink pad onto a surface like for instant a glass media mat, or something that the ink doesn't attach to, so that it will transfer easily onto your card stock. Then you can either spray the ink with water, or just smush/rub your card stock into the ink on your work surface. That is what I did, I first smushed my paper in the ink with no water added, and then afterwards I diluted the ink with water and went back and smushed again. It is important to remember to dry the paper in between each "smushing", otherwise you will most likely end up with a big muddy mess. To finish these two backgrounds up, I dipped a painting brush in some water-diluted ink and tapped it to get a drop effect on the surface. Last, but not least, I used some matching Nuvo Drops to add a little extra to the cards.😂

I just love the effect of the copper penny embossing powder on the monkey and the lion card, and so far heat embossing is the method of using these stamps that is my favorite! I have tried to color them as well, however, as they have no clear defined borders, it is hard to know how to color them.

Making envelopes out of scraps, can lead to ideas for cards.

I very often use A3 sized sketch paper to make my envelopes. That means that I often have quite a few scraps left over. The scrap pieces of sketch paper aren't something I tend to grab when crafting cards, therefore it tends to accumulate over time. Yesterday I got the idea that I should make smaller envelopes out of the scraps, but since I didn't want to have a bunch of small envelopes lying around, I decided to make smaller cards to go with them. Since I like the idea of having thank you cards available should I need them, I went with that idea and cut down some pre-scored cards to 5"x3 1/4". I then started die cutting elements that I wanted to be on the cards, and since I wanted to make a set of cards, I chose to use a different color on each of the cards. I did six cards in total. Since I am here in Norway, I decided to keep the sentiment in Norwegian. Therefore I simply called the card set "TAKK".

A Birthday Card for my better half!

Today, July 2 is my boyfriend's birthday. I have postponed making a card for him, and rushed to make one today while he was at work.

I decided to go for a Z Fold Wiper card, as I have made them before and therefore feel comfortable making them, but I wanted to make it a little more challenging by doing a double wiper and not just a single. 

Since I was making a masculine card, but also because I know that my boyfriend likes blue, I chose to go with blue as the card base. I looked through my papers, and since I knew that he used to sail when he was younger, I went for a pattern with sailboats. Luckily for me the paper had some really great stars on the other side, and to change it up a little I decided to use the stars on some of the panels. 

On the wiper elements I wanted to express some of the things I like about "my man", so I stamped words that I thought describe him, in blue on white.

Happy Birthday, Geir!💙