Sparkly Butterflies - Craft Your Passion Challenge #116

So here it is, my fourth and final week as guest designer at Craft Your Passion Challenges.  I've really enjoyed this opportunity, and I'm so thankful to Craft Your Passion for having me!

This week the challenge is Things with Wings, and is being sponsored by Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps.  I got to chose a digital image to work with, and I love this Floppy Latte Design called Butterflies in the Grass.

Once my image was chosen I had the idea to use three colours of washi tape.  I decided on which colours I wanted to use, I thought three bright colours would be pretty and summery.  I printed the image on cream cardstock, heat set the image, and coloured it to match the shades of tape. I corner rounded the image and inked the edges with green.

I chose a cream cardstock base, and kraft to layer  After corner rounding the bottom of both pieces, I added green ink to both the card base and the layering piece.  At this point I adhered strips of tape, using two strips of each colour, layering them slightly when pressing them down. I made sure that when tearing the ends they were jagged for a bit of interest.

Matching shades of satin ribbon was layered over the washi tape and knotted.  This was a cheater knot, as I cut the longer piece just long enough to zot each end to the back, then tied a separate smaller piece to make the knot.  I like doing it this way because you save ribbon, and it is much easier to get the knot to lie the way you want it to.  I secured the knot in place with a Zot.

Once the ribbon was adhered I foam taped the image in place.  I added Sakura glitter pen to the lighter areas of the butterflies, and also outlined each butterfly.  I decided that this wasn't enough though, and finished the image off with some rhinestones.

I decided to make this a thank you card so inside I added some strips of tape, and a small corner rounded piece of kraft with the sentiment stamped on it in black.  I added a few more rhinestones to finish it off.

I used the following products:

Cardstock:  Stampin' Up! Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake.  Gina K Designs Pure Luxury 120# Pure Ivory.

Stamps:  Stitchy Bear Butterflies In the Grass.  Stampin' Up! Kindness Matters.

Markers:  Stampin' Up!  Stampin' Write Markers Certainly Celery, Orchid Opulence, Bashful Bue, not Quite Navy, Rose Red, Summer Sun, Regal Rose.  Sakura Gelly Roll Clear Stardust.

Ink:  Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink Olive Pastel.  Memories Black.

Embellishments:  My Minds Eye Indie Chic Paper Tape, American Crafts Statin Ribbon, Stampin' Up! Basic Jewels Rhinestones.

Adhesives:  Tombow Mono Permanent Adhesive Runner, Zots, foam squares.

Other Tools:  Paper trimmer, scissors, bone folder,  We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, artist sponge.


I'm entering into the following challenges:

1. Deep Ocean - Welcome Summer
2. Creative Card Crew - Easy as 1, 2, 3 - 1 image, 2 butterflies, 3 ribbons and washi tapes 
3. Ladybug Crafts Ink - Double Trouble 
4. Charisma Cardz - Summer

'Bee' Happy - Craft Your Passion Challenge #113

I'm so exited - this is my first post for Craft Your Passion as a Guest Design Team member for June!

For this week, the challenge was to use chevrons.  An Inspiration photo was also provided:

Very pretty!  And how lucky I was that I have the perfect washi tape for such a project - from My Minds Eye Indie Chic collection.  Here is what I came up with:

Once I decided on the pattern, I had to decide on an image.  Since I got to choose from images provided by the sponsor of this week's challenge Delicious Doodles the most difficult part was just picking one (I have never been known to be a decisive person).  After some consideration I chose "Bee and Flower".  So cute!

I started with some kraft cardstock cut and scored to a standard A2 size. After corner rounding the bottom corners I added my tissue tape vertically strip by strip, matching the pattern as I went along, kind of like you would match up wall paper.  I left the bottom of each strip jagged and uneven as I thought this would allow for some interest.  For the same reason I lifted the strips on either end and tore them lengthwise before replacing them in their alloted spaces.  To add contrast I placed two strips of yellow tape with polka dots horizontally about a third of the way from the bottom.  Since the tape is semi-transparent you can still see a bit of the chevron through the yellow. I really like the effect.

Since this was my first card for Craft Your Passion I wanted to do something a little different and special, so I pulled some Stampin' Up! transparencies from my stash.  I've been hoarding these sheets forever but I thought they would be fun here, particularly the one with foliage on it.  To hide the adhesive I first attached the sheet to the card with Zots placed at either end of the yellow tape, since I knew I  would be putting ribbon or twine over that spot.  After the rest of the elements were added I carefully lifted the transparency and added more Zots under each so that the sheet was more secure.

I added some baker's twine and placed some Prima flowers over the foliage.  I heat embossed the sentiment on a banner cut strip of kraft and  corner rounded the opposite end.  The sentiment was adhered with foam squares.  Once this was done it was time to work with my image.

I was slightly nervous about this part as I have rarely worked with digi images, but I'm all for learning new things so I googled some instructions and got to work.  I printed the image on 120# cardstock and heat set it to minimize smudging.  I then coloured the image and added some Sakura glitter pen.  My original intention was to only add glitter to the wings, but then I added some to the antennae, then I thought some might look nice around the face, and then before I knew it, all of the black was covered in glitter.  Thats ok, I like glitter!  Once my image was finished I cut it out with some detail scissors and placed on my card with foam squares.

On the inside of the card I heat embossed the matching sentiment and added a touch of glitter pen to the letters.  Since the cardfront is fairly busy (like a bee maybe, lol) I decided that further decoration wasn't necessary.

This was a really fun card to make.  I love the combination of the chevrons with the flowers and the bakers twine, and I love the shine of the transparency, and the leaves under the flowers.  Best of all, I really love the little bee - she's so cute!  I think it is fair to say that I am over my fear of digi images - I foresee more projects with them in the future!  :)


I used the following products:

Cardstock:  Stampin' Up!  Crumb Cake.  Gina K Designs Pure Luxury 120# Pure White.

Stamps: Delicious Doodles Bee and Flower (digi), Stampin' Up! Petite Pairs.

Ink:  Versamark Watermark Ink, Martha Stewart Bright White Embossing Powder.

Markers:  Bic Mark Its Fandango Pink, Sunset Orange, Pink Flamingo Peach Parfait, Yellow Blaze, Forest Green.  Copic W5, W3.

Embellishments:  My Minds Eye Indie Chic Paper Tape, Prima Flowers Mellisse Nature Garden, We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy Bakers Twine Blueberry, Sakura Gelly Roll Clear Stardust. Stampin' Up! Clearly Thanks printed window sheets.

Adhesive:  Zots, Foam Squares.

Other tools:  Paper Trimmer, scissors, bone folder We R Memory Keeper Corner Chomper.


I am also entering the following challenges:

1. The Paper Shelter - Vintage or shabby chic
2. Charisma Cardz - Bling
3. Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

A Birthday with Patterns Galore.

One of my favourite colours is green, and when I saw the Pile it On challenge this week - mix your pattern scales - I thought of the perfect green patterns I could use for this.

I love these patterns, and I have wanted to use them for a while but I didn't have the right idea for them until today.  These are Jillibean Soup patterns, and I love how graphic and bright they are.  I decided to use a kraft base, and since I can never leave well enough alone I decided to round all of the corners on all papers and ink the edges with brown.

I embossed the sentiment on a small piece of kraft, banner cut the end, and inked the edges of this piece as well.  I had chosen this lovely piece of green seam binding to coordinate and was just going to put that around the middle, but felt it was not enough, so I added some kraft washi tape with printed text underneath the ribbon. I added the sentiment with some foam tape, and adhered some coordinating Prima flowers with Zots.

I still felt as though something was missing so I added some different sized self-adhesive pearls, and placed them as if they were sprinkled over the sentiment.  Lately that is one of my favourite things to do.  :)

For the inside of the card I corner rounded some leftover scraps, inked them in the same brown ink, and embossed the matching sentiment in the same white.

I really love how this card turned out and I hope my friend I had in mind while making it will enjoy receiving it!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

1.  Creative Craft Challenges - Distressing.
2. The Paper Shelter - Birthday Cards with Sentiment.
3. Moving Along with the Times - Keep it Real/ No Fantasy Figures.
4. Pile it On - Patterns, Mix your Scales.

I used the following supplies:

Cardstock:  Stampin' Up! Crumb Cake, Jillibean Soup Summer Squash Soup, Blossom Soup 6x6 mini pad.

Stamps:  Stampin' Up!  Petite Pairs

Ink:  Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink Chestnut Roan, Versamark Watermark Ink pad, Martha Stewart Bright White embossing powder.

Embellishments:  Ribbon Carousel Moss Green vintage Seam Biding, Washi tape purchased from Le Box Boutique, Prima Flowers Camille Almanac, Stampin' Up! Jewels Basic Pearls.

Adhesives:  Tombow Mono Permanent Runner, Zots, foam squares.

Tools:  Paper trimmer, scissors, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, sponge.

The wonders of Washi tape

Sometimes no matter how hard I try I just can't sleep.  Other times I will go to bed early because I am so tired, but then I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep because maybe I wasn't as tired as I thought.  When that happens I will sometimes surf the web until I am tired again, or I may make something.  That is what happened when I made this card.

Clean and simple cards are not something that comes to me naturally, I usually have to think about it and if I think about it I usually over-think it and then its not clean and simple anymore.  This clean and simple card was pretty easy though, probably because I was half asleep at the time, lol. 

I had just received an order of washi tape in the mail, so it was on my mind when I got the idea for this card.  I started with Gina K's 120# white cardstock and embossed it with a Tim Holtz Texture fade. Once embossed I randomly added various stripes of washi tape, tearing each end so it was a bit jagged.

I love this stuff!  I've never worked with it before, but since its everywhere I thought I would try it out.   It is so nice, repostionable and pretty.  I will definitely be purchasing more. 

I stamped my sentiment on a strip of white cardstock, trimmed the end to points, adhered it with foam squares, and as an afterthought added some bakers twine I received as a gift with my washi tape order.  I was going to add some ink to the embossed space, but I really don't think it was necessary.

Since this was a simple card I left the inside plain except for the sentiment.

I'm really impressed with what I can do when I'm half-asleep, lol.   My husband said that this was one of the brightest cards I've made in a while.  I decided to take that as a compliment. :)

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

1. Simon Says Stamp Challenge -  Anything Goes
2. Simon Says Stamp and Show - A Kaleidescope of Colour
3. Creative Craft Challenges -  Anything Goes
4. The Pink Elephant - Springtime
5. Craft Your Passion - Lots of Texture
6. Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

I used the following supplies:

Cardstock:  Gina K Designs 120# Pure Luxury Pure White.

Stamps:  Stampin' Up!  Petite Pairs.

Ink:  Memories Black.

Adhesive:  Foam Squares.

Embellishments: Washi tape purchased from Le Box Boutique.  Bakers Twine was a gift with purchase.

Tools:  Paper trimmer, bone folder, scissors, Cuttlebug, Sizzix Tim Holtz Texture Fade Checkerboard.