Coral Lovely

Here is a card I made using the hostess set Oh, So Lovely. Old Olive cardstock has been used for the base, with a piece of the Olive Prints designer paper matted on black cardstock forming the next layer. A smaller piece of coral cardstock has been stamped with coral ink using the Canvas background stamp to provide a subtle texture, then matted onto black cardstock. The sentiment was made using two stamps from the Sincere Salutations set. There are several ways to get partial images from a stamp:

• use markers to colour the part you want to stamp
• mask off (or cover) the part of the image you don't want to stamp, then use your inkpad as normal. Remove the mask then stamp.

The image, stamped onto white cardstock, was then coloured using a watercolour brush with the coral and olive inkpads. This was then layered onto black cardstock and mounted using the foam pads to create dimension.

Products used (all Stampin' Up!):

• Stamps: Oh So Lovely, Sincere Salutations, Canvas
• Ink: Black Stazon, Cameo Coral, Old Olive
• Cardstock: Cameo Coral, Old Olive, Whisper White, Basic Black
• Other: Old Olive Prints designer paper

I'm still here!

Sorry it's taken me so long to update my blog but I've had some computer problems, then a bad cold/chest infection drained what little energy I've got. I'll try to do better in future!

Bad blogging coming up!

Hello and welcome to my blog! I hope to post some of my cards, detailing methods and materials used, and hope that some of it may inspire you to create your own. I will apologise now for the quality of the photos, I am hoping to improve my photography skills this year (along with a million other things!) Please feel free to comment, but don't be too hard on me!

Thanks for popping in.

Carte Postale card

The background was made by stamping French Script in Chocolate Chip ink on white cardstock. The smaller images were then stamped - the leaves with Old Olive, flowers in Cameo Coral and the bird in Chocolate chip. The bird was stamped again, cut out and raised on dimensionals to give a 3D effect. The edges are sponged with olive ink for a softer effect, and the sentiment stamped in Chocolate Chip on Cameo cardstock and placed in the metal frame (one of a variety of metal embellishments in the Hodgepodge Hardware).

Here's a great tip - if you don't have ribbon in the correct colour for your project, just make your own! Simply run your ribbon over the inkpad of your choice and allow to dry. I used this method to change my white 1/4" grosgrain ribbon to coral, then placed this on top of some 5/8" chocolate chip ribbon and wrapped this around my background. The card base is chocolate chip cardstock, standard A6 size.

Products used (all Stampin' Up!):

• Stamps: French Script, Carte Postale
• Ink: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Cameo Coral
• Cardstock: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
• Other: ribbon, Hodgepodge Hardware