Scrapbook tag inspired Valentine’s day cards

Hey folks! It’s been a little crazy around here so I’m behind (again) on blogging.

A few weeks ago I went to my favourite LSS Scrappin’ Great Deals to get some inspiration for new Valentine’s day cards.

I found these great scrapbook tags and designed a new set of cards around them.  I’ll be sharing them with you all week.

  Here’s the first one I spotted, I loved the pun (as always) and loved that it wasn’t all pink and red.

I found some of my favourite Bo Bunny paper from these baby cards and got to work.

 

 

Because the tags were meant for scrapbooking, they’re quite large and I needed something bigger than a standard A2 card, so I made these ones 5x7. 

 

The card base is So Saffron, I colour I love, but often forget about.  An Old olive mat for the Bo Bunny paper, with a scrap of a hot pink paper I found- it matched the border on the tag very well.

I found some heart shaped brads on my last trip to Michaels, and thought they added enough Valentine vibes but weren’t too over powering.

The Bee Mine card is available online at apaperbuffet.com.  We’ve added an Express checkout so you don’t have to create an account, and you can shop in US or Canadian Dollars.

Happy Sunday!

Ciao for now,

Technorati Tags: valentines day,bee mine,handmade greeting cards,apaperbuffet,valentine

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Yay for ScrappinGreatDeals Garage sale!

If you’ve been blog hopping to any London-area blogs, you may have heard about the ScrappinGreatDeals garage sale.  It was the first of it’s kind and I’ve heard it was a total success!  Everyone who wanted to participate purchased a box, priced their scrappy stuff how they wanted and the wonderful ladies at SGDs sold it for us!

It was a chance to clean out what I don’t use and offer it up to a better home.  I stayed far away because I knew that there was a possibility that I would accumulate as much stuff as I was trying to get rid of!

Whatever you sold was transferred into a SGD gift certificate; what’s left over, or wasn’t sold and not picked up, is being donated to local schools, clever eh?

I went today to see how well I did, with my gift certificate purchase already lined up.  I was really happy with the results, and donated just under $7 worth of stuff that didn’t sell, mostly some stamps.

So what did I bring home?

Yay for Scor-Pal!! I have wanted one of these for soooooooo long, but they were hard to find here in Canada, shipping it from the US was mucho costly, and then when I found SGD, there was just always something else on my list I needed more.  I had enough from my garage sale proceeds to buy the Scor-Pal and I threw in the Mat for myself for a job well done ;).  I’m very excited to use this tool and I have a million ideas swimming around in my head right now.

I won’t be using it tonight, however…I’m wiped out from my concert last night (Dave Matthews Band totally brought down the house…the first outdoor concert of the summer, what could be better?)

Tomorrow and Friday I’m on the road all day for work, so I’m not sure if I’ll get to use this before Saturday…but I’m hoping to coincide it with a new product and a big launch for my Esty store :)

I also want to take a minute to thank everyone who’s left me comments, overall and in the past few days on my custom order cards and envelopes.  It’s very surreal for me to think that I have my own business and that someone out there wants to buy my work and appreciates it.  I never never thought this would happen.

Thank you all so much for your kind words and encouragement. I am truly blessed.

Happy Wednesday!

Ciao for now,

Technorati Tags: scrappingreatdeals,Score-Pal,A Paper Buffet,Etsy

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One Bella; Two Looks

I bet you clicked on this post thinking it was going to be about Bella Swan (it is Twilight Tuesday after all)…but not this time!

I’m talking about Stamping Bella!

I finally brought home my first Bella stamp; I had been eyeing them for a loooooooong time, but just never got around to ordering any.  They’re a wonderful Canadian company with great products, and I just love their style.  I found some Bella stamps on my trip to ScrappingGreatDeals, as I mentioned last week.  The Bella stamps were one of the things that just jumped into my basket!

Remember my rule? For every black and white card I make, I have to make one with colour.  This was one of the few times that a colour card came to me before a black and white one. Shocking, I know.

So without further ado, here is my colour card (sorry the pics are a bit dark):

I used my new favourite paper from Little Yellow Bicycle…isn’t it perfect!? I only bought one sheet of each, but good thing ScrappingGreatDeals is only a 5 minute drive!

I used my watercolour pen to colour; for the jeans I layered Bashful Blue, Bordering Blue and Not Quite Navy.  I am not very patient when it comes to watercolouring, so waiting for each colour to dry was somewhat painful.  For Bella’s top I used Pretty in Pink, Pixie Pink and Pink Passion (Bella Swan would hate all that pink!)

I coloured Bella’s belt orange and her flip flops too.  I used Crystal Effects on the Martini.

I also got to use my home-made dew drops.  Yes! Home-made! All you need is a hot glue gun, and a silicone mat, and glue away! These were made using glitter glue, it’s very subtle and doesn’t photograph very clearly, but if you click on the picture, you’ll be able to see it a bit better.

Now for the sentiment, which is the reason I picked up the stamps in the first place.  Oh wait, they jumped in my basket. Right.

Isn’t that saying fabulous!!??  I struggled with the inside of the card, I still think it’s a bit boring, but I’m not sure what else to do.

Ok, here’s the second look for this Bella stamp.  I love how a few different colours and different paper can give it a whole other look.  This is definately what I think of when I think of Chanel:

This is a BIG card- 5.5” by 5.5”.  It was really the only way I could fit the sentiment on the front, which I really wanted to do in the colour card, but it just wasn’t big enough.  I picked some paper from Me and My Big Ideas in my fav black and white and went to town!  There’s lots of bling, but it’s Chanel, after all!

I coloured Bella’s hair brown, and her pants are black, shaded with some grey ink, again all watercoloured.  I used my MS glitter in Hematite for her flip flops and her tank top.  It’s not quite black and not quite silver, the perfect glittery combination!

Again, I used Crystal Effects for the martini. Some satin ribbon, paper flowers and a rhinestone brad filled up the left corner, it was looking somewhat empty and I’m happy how it balances.

These cards demonstrate one of the reasons why I love stamping so much; all you need is some different paper and you can create an infinite number of designs with the same image.

I mentioned it is Twilight Tuesday, meaning there’s another challenge up at TwilightTuesday.com.  This week’s challenge is about Carlisle Cullen, Edward’s dad.  I’m going to have to think about this one for a little while, nothing has come to me as of yet; but make sure to check out what everyone else has done!  I’m going to take a little break and then start my blog hop and check out everyone’s entries.

Happy Tuesday!

Ciao for now,

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A New Look and a TECC birthday card

You may have noticed…a new banner and blog look!

The background is from thecutestblogontheblock, I just picked another background instead of the other Madison Ave look.  But I’m most excited about my new banner.  If you have a peek at my Etsy store, you can see they match now.  The blog banner, Etsy banner and a few other things (business cards, labels and custom order Etsy shopholder) were designed by the wonderful Stacey at Pixel Cafe.  She is an absolute delight to work with, and incredibly patient with someone like me who knows NOTHING about graphic design.

I sent my new business card to the printer yesterday, they should be in this week, I can’t wait to get them back.  I feel like a real business owner now. Once they come in, I’ll share with you :)

I have a few things cookin’ here, but they’re not ready to share yet.

I did manage to finish a card for Taylor’s challenge this week.  I skipped last week, but when I saw this week’s sketch, I knew it would be perfect for some birthday cards I need to make. 

I had been putting off buying the oval Nesties, but after I saw Taylor’s sketch, I knew I couldn’t put it off any more.  Part of the reason I had waited so long was that Nesties are hard to find up here, I always had to order them from the U.S.  With the dollar being what it is…it’s pricey.  But then! my friend Andrea told me about this wonderful little place- ScrappinGreatDeals.  It’s a 5 minute drive from my house (and you can order online) and has all the Nesties I could ever dream of owning.  She’s got wonderful paper (also used in the card, I just couldn’t resist!) and lots of other fab stuff- which I’ll share later in the week.  So much stuff just hopped in my basket- don’t you hate when that happens? It was begging to come home with me, what could I do?

This was also the first card where I got to do some paper piercing, using my new Mat pack from SU.  What a difference the right template makes!  I had some other templates from another company, but they don’t hold a candle to the SU ones.  I’m pretty happy about the card, and used ribbon from Michaels that I bought nearly 3 years ago and hadn’t used yet!

Well, I have a few errands to do today and my plan is to clean the car-ick. But it’s a beautiful sunny Sunday and it’s got to be done!

Happy Sunday!

Ciao for now,

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