Bright Silhouettes

Hi guys!

I am so very sorry for going AWOL for almost a week. In all honesty its been a pretty pants week. I was feeling really anxious about my job interview for the Pastoral Support job I'd applied for at school, I really, really wanted it was loosing sleep over the whole interview thing. Anyway the interview day didn't go entirely to plan, I had a bit of a melt down. Anyway I didn't get the job.....totally sucks!! Saturday I was out all day at Stampin' Up! regional training event in Telford - I'd been looking forward to it for months, unfortunately I had a migraine all day and really didn't manage to enjoy myself. Yesterday I spent in bed still suffering with headaches. I managed to drag my butt to school today but maybe I'd have been better off at home - more headaches and another melt down ensued when I got home. Thank goodness for my lovely mum who very kindly offered to come over and just "hang". It did feel nice to just chill and chat with her. I'm feeling a lot calmer now, I just need to pick myself up and carry on now. 

Anyway, enough of me babbling about my rubbish week, I hope the rest of you enjoyed the weekend - it was glorious weather!! To go with this beautiful weather and to cheer one else up who might be having a bit of a rubbish day, I have a happy and bright duo.

 As I've said previously Summer Silhouettes is a set I thought I'd love and haven't really used much. I've been forcing myself to have a play and experiment. I ended up fussy cutting out a ton of little flowers and came up with these two little flowers. 

Stamp Set: Summer Silhouettes, Express Yourself

Ink: Strawberry Slush, Crushed Curry, Bermuda Bay

Cardstock: Whisper White

Punch: Decorative Label

Embellishments: Pearls

White on white is such a subtle and elegant frame for the sentiment and gave a platform for a few little flowers. 

Along the bottom I just used a bunch of the flowers and leaves to make a sweet summer floral border. 

I ended up having a few flowers left over and seeing as I'd spent that time cutting them out I didn't want to just throw them away so I came up with this second card - more subtle but still just as lovely in my opinion. 

Stamp Set: Summer Silhouettes, Express Yourself

Ink: Strawberry Slush, Crushed Curry, Bermuda Bay

Cardstock: Whisper White

Punch: Decorative Label

Embellishments: Pearls

Other: Clear Emobssing Powder

I clear embossed a "meadow" of leaves and flowers along the bottom. I love the subtle shine the clear embossing gave here. 

The pop of colour is focused around the sentiment with some more of the bright and bold flowers. 

Of course both cards needed a little bling so I added plenty of pearls. 

Come back tomorrow for something else. I promise I'll try to be better at blogging. 

Happy Stampin',

Silhouette Blossoms

Hello! 

Its Saturday! Yay! After yesterday's flurry of creativity I've topped up my stack of cards to show you all, today's is for this week's Colour Q challenge. Don't you think this dress is just the sweetest? I love the bright cheery colours and blossoms! 

I was so inspired by the bright floral pattern I thought a card with a similar design would just look amazing! Here we are...

Stamp Set: Summer Silhouettes, Lots of Thanks

Ink: Bermuda Bay, Peach Parfait, Tangerine Tango

Cardstock: Whisper White, Coastal Cabana

Other: White Gel Pen

I decided to use Summer Silhouettes - I thought the blossoms would be perfect for this card and I'm trying to use my unloved stamp sets more! I'm so pleased with how it worked out - I think Summer Silhouettes was definitely the right floral set to use here!

I'm not sure why I haven't tried snipping up the leafy branch before but It really works - this is noted and I'm totally going to do this again.  I also decided that the flowers were quite bright and punchy so instead of covering the entire card like I'd originally planned, I'd just do a strip. There's still that wow factor without being too bold. Plus its a lot less hand cutting. 

I pondered for a little while the best way to add white dots to the background. A polka dot background stamp would work nicely but I didn't have one so I thought that the white gel pen could work. Usually I use the gel pen for adding little stitching details but now it makes beautiful little dots too! 

The sentiment is simply stamped on a strip of white - this is sort of emulating the white banding on the dress around the bottom of the dress and top of the pockets. 

Stuart is out picking up his suit for the wedding today so I'm home alone. My plan is chilling and more crafting! My perfect day!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Happy Stampin',

Summer Silhouettes

Hello there!

Woah, bit of an interesting day! I got offered a job! So its just a temporary job for a couple weeks working in the student services department at the school that I've been invigillating at. Its not much but I'm quite excited to try something new! It'll be a tiring few weeks though juggling this new job, Auntie Lil, Stampin' Up stuff plus I'm playing the role of Miriam in the church's Bible exhibition for local school kids next week! 

Do you have stamp sets that you got thinking you'd love them and use them ALL the time but rarely pick up? I sure do! One of those sets for me is Summer Silhouettes. I thought it was a really pretty set and I just loved the leaves in it, I've often gotten it out to use but just haven't made it work in the card. Anyway I decided I was determined to make some cards using this set, I'd gone on google image search to collect a few ideas - try and get myself out of the mental block I seem to be having with the set. I came across a really simple and sweet card by Julia and knew I HAD to CASE it. You can see her card here. The colours were just fabulous!

Stamp Set: Summer Silhouettes, Happy Day

Ink: Pistachio Pudding, Pear Pizzazz, Coastal Cabana, Bermuda Bay

Cardstock: Whisper White, Coastal Cabana

I kept the card quite similar to the one I was CASEing. I really loved the look of this homemade pattern paper (DSP) and really wanted that to be the focal point of the card. Its really quite a simple little card that you could make using some DSP.

This piece was one whole piece that I stamped and then cut afterwards so the flowers match up. Quick tip for knowing where you should stamp the sentiment, place the the "DSP" pieces loose on the card base where you'd like them then use a pencil to lightly draw a line where the gap between the two pieces of "DSP" will be. You can then remove your "DSP" and stamp between the two pencil lines. Rub them out and add your DSP with some dimensionals for a bit of added lift.

Happy Stampin',