Royal Celebrations

Welcome to post #50!  When I started this blog 50 posts seemed like an awful big number, lol.  :)  My 50th post deserves a celebration of some sort, don't you think?  Since it is the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this weekend I was inspired to make this card:

I started with a lovely paper pad from Authentique - I love these colours!  Totally not something I would have paired on my own but so pretty.  And then i decided to work with a Lost & Found Two stamp set from My Mind's Eye.  Honestly when I got the set I thought to myself that I may never use the crown stamps.  I'm glad I was wrong!

I chose some card stock to go with the paper pad, and since I wanted to make more crumpled flowers I chose several sheet that I liked.  I punched the bird and cage with my tag punch out of one sheet, and cut various sizes of circles out of the remaining of that sheet and the rest of the sheets I had chosen. I had decided already to go with various sizes of circles instead of just one size this time.  I sprayed the circles with water, crumpled them up and set them aside.

I cut and scored my card base, and cut another piece of gray to layer on top that I embossed with my Cuttlebug.  I then cut all of the sizes of paper I wanted and inked them all with either cream or gray ink.  I adhered the embossed piece to the card front with foam squares, and matted the argyle print with yellow and cream.  I added some gray ribbon, some yellow bakers twine to this panel and tied bows.  I had attached the tags to the twine before tying, but secured them down with more foam squares.  The panel was adhered to the embossed piece with more foam squares.

For the sentiment I decided I wanted to layer the stamps, so I first stamped the doily in gray, and sponged a bit of cream ink over the center to help the sentiment stand out.  After using my embossing buddy I embossed the sentiment in black over the doily and embossed the crown images in silver.  I was going to add some glitter at this point, but I decided in the end it wasn't necessary.  I adhered the image panel to a gray mat, added some mini brads and adhered this with foam squares over the ribbon.

At this point I went back to my crumpled circles and carefully opened them up.  Because the paper is thicker than what I usually use for this technique some of the pieces were still damp so I finished the drying with my heat gun.  I've found a tip when doing this - I put all of the pieces in a heat proof ramekin and then point my heat tool in the dish, shielding the top with my hand.  This helps the bits from flying all over my table and the walls of the dish reflect some of the heat so that the pieces dry faster.  Just be careful  because its easy to burn a stray finger, lol.

I assembled the flowers with a white button brad this time, and adhered a rhinestone to the center of each brad.  The flowers were inked with some gray, and I adhered them to the card front.  This card is very layery (the technical term, lol)!

The center was decorated with a matted piece of cream stamped with my favourite birthday sentiment, and a scrap of patterned paper. 

I love this card, the images, the patterns, and the colours.  My favourite part though is the flowers.  I love these flowers so much I think I may do a post just on those. I love making them and I love how they look, not to mention you never have to worry about not having embellishments to specifically match your project.  Stay tuned, such a post may be coming in the future!

I used the following products:

Cardstock:  Stampin' Up! Basic Gray, Very Vanilla,  Crushed Curry.  Authentique 6x6 Collection: Blissful.

Stamps:  Stampin' Up!  On Your Birthday.  My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Two Rosy "everything" stamp set.

Ink:  Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink Charcoal, Alabaster.  Stampin' Up! Going Gray. Memories Black.  Versamark Watermark Ink.  Stampin' Up! Embossing Powder Black, Silver.

Ribbon:  We R Memory Keepers Bakers Twine Lemonade, gray satin ribbon from stash.

Embellishments:  Recollections brads, Stampin' Up!  Basic Jewels Rhinestones.

Adhesives:  Scotch ATG, Zots, Foam squares.

Tools:  Paper trimmer, scissors, Cuttlebug, Spellbinders Nestablities Standard Circles Large and Small, Cuttlebug Scrollwork embossing folder, We R Memory Keeper brad setter, sponge, Stamp a ma jig.


I will enter this card into the following challenges:

1. Deep Ocean - Swirls 
2. Crafty Cardmakers - Distress it 
3. Party Time Tuesday - Anything goes 
4. The Paper Shelter - Vintage or Shabby Chic
5. The Cuttlebug Spot - Fit for a Queen
6. Really Reasonable Ribbon - Flowers and Ribbon
7. Fussy and Fancy Friday - Swirls and Flourishes
8. Charisma Cardz  - Bling
9. Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
10. Lets Ink It Up -  Use your favourite embellishments (handmade paper flowers)