Minecraft Birthday Card

Today is my youngest son’s 8th birthday. Like every other child, he’s celebrating his birthday in a bit of a different way than usual this year. Tonight we’ll be getting a takeaway pizza and he’s having a ‘Zoom’ baking party with his friends on Saturday. As well as loving baking, he’s a huge Minecraft fan so I’ve made him this creeper card for his birthday.

To create this card, I cut lots of 1cm wide strips in various shades of green card. I wove them together and stuck them down onto card and trimmed into a square. I then layered this onto black and white mats to create the border. I cut the black creeper face and adhered it on top of the green woven panel.

Next I took a black card base and stamped the word Birthday on the bottom right corner in Whisper White. I die cut ‘8th’ and adhered it above the birthday. Lastly I added the creeper onto the black card base. 

This was a fun card to make although it involved a lot more sticking than I usually go for!

Thanks for reading,

Bec x

Christmas Card Challenge - Holly

 A very Christmassy theme this week - holly and red berries. 

Now despite my massive craft stash I struggled to find anything on this theme, but I found this tiny holly stamp so I started by stamping randomly around a white rectangle in Garden Green. When the ink was dry I added berries to the centre of each leaf cluster with 3D Pearl effects, and set aside to dry.

Next, I stamped and punched the sentiment in Real Red using a stamp from the Christmas Traditions punch kit. As it’s quite a small sentiment I punched another shape in Real Red cardstock and layered it behind the sentiment to make it stand out.

To assemble the card, I wrapped the white panel in red ribbon then adhered it to a silver panel before mounting the whole thing on a green card base.

I am enjoying feeling Christmassy all year round with this weekly challenge!

Thanks for reading,

Bec x

Happy Birthday card

Our Stampin Birds team has started doing a Monday morning challenge, and our first one this week was a Tic Tac Toe. If you haven’t heard of one of these before, it’s a 3x3 grid with nine elements to choose from. You have to select a line of three and incorporate these elements into a card.

Here is the card I came up with:

And this is the Tic Tac Toe grid. I chose the top line, using circles, birthday and favourite colour. 

To make the card I started with a Bumblebee card base and layered it with a piece of white card. I then took a square of the patterned circle paper and sliced it across diagonally. I positioned the two pieces on the front of the card then using Pretty Peacock I stamped the sentiment in the gap. The sentiment is from the Perennial Birthday stamp set.

I then took some more Bumblebee cardstock and punched two borders with the Decorative Ribbon punch. I adhere these just behind the patterned paper before adhering them to the front of the card.

I am looking forward to more weekly challenges; it’s a great way to inspire creativity and push you to try new things.

Thanks for reading,

Bec x

Stampin' Birds Blog Hop January 2021

 Hi everyone,

Today I have created a cute baby card for the Stampin' Birds January blog hop.

To create this card, I cut an A4 piece of thick Whisper White cardstock in half lengthways and scored at 148mm to make a card base. I then cut a piece of Playing with Patterns DSP measuring 148mm x 80mm.

Using a piece of scrap card, I stamped a teddy bear from the Cookie Cutter Christmas stamp set in Crumb Cake and punched him out with the co-ordinating punch. I also stamped the sentiment from the Priority Mail stamp set in Night of Navy; I don't have the co-ordinating punch for this so I trimmed the card and punched the end with the Banner duo punch. Finally I punched a 2" circle out of white cardstock.

I attached a piece of baker's twine round the DSP and adhered the panel to the front of the card base. I then attached the circle and sentiment to the front of the card using dimensionals. Finally, I adhered the teddy image to the circle, and stamped a greeting inside the card.

Although this is a retired stamp set, it is definitely one of my favourites, and I love the fact that it can be used for occasions other than Christmas. 

I hope you enjoyed this short tutorial. Please click on the NEXT button below and hop to visit Vickie Lou Designs' blog for some more crafty makes.

Thanks for reading,

Bec x

Christmas Card Challenge - Chocolate

This year I am participating in a 52 week challenge called ‘Make One Christmas Card Every Week’. The challenge is run by a Facebook group of the same name, and every week there is an optional theme to follow. The idea of the challenge is that by the time Christmas comes around you have your cards all made without the last minute rush! As we send quite a lot of cards I’ve been making two per week, but I generally make two identical cards as it’s almost as quick as making one. 

The Week 1 theme was Chocolate, so I’ve created this card using the Nothing’s Better Than stamp and die set.

I used a piece of Crumb Cake cardstock as my base and matted a piece of DSP from the Plaid Tidings collection on top. I stamped and die cut the chocolates from Nothings Better Than and adhered them to a piece of Shaded Spruce to create a chocolate box. I stamped the word chocolate on top with the Whisper White ink.

Using the Gift Wrapped stamps I stamped the bow on scrap card with Cherry Cobbler ink and cut out with the coordinating punch. Lastly a tiny sentiment from the Cookie Cutter Christmas stamp set, and then assembled it all as shown. 

This was my first card for the challenge, and I found it quite easy as I had stamps on the right theme. Future weeks may not be quite as straightforward but I plan to keep up with it. Please subscribe if you’d like to see more cards from the challenge.

Thanks for reading,

Bec x

Nothing's Better Than birthday card

Hi everyone,

Here's a card I made for my daughter's 9th birthday using the Nothing's Better Than stamps and dies from the current Stampin' Up! annual catalogue.

This was an extra large card using a full sheet of A4 Rococo Rose for the base. I layered it with two sheets of Smoky Slate DSP.

 I then took a rectangle of Whisper White cardstock, on which I stamped the word 'Chocolate' all over in Smoky Slate.

Using a piece of scrap I stamped the chocolate image in black seven times then filled it in with various shades of brown, using the stamping off technique to make some of them paler than others. I cut out all the chocolates with the co-ordinating dies and die cut the words from Smoky Slate cardstock.

To assemble the card, I tied an organza bow around the white panel and adhered it to the front of the cardbase on top of the DSP. I adhered the die cut words directly onto the card but popped the chocolates up on dimensionals to give them a 3D effect.

My daughter is a huge chocoholic and absolutely loved the card.

If you enjoyed this please subscribe to my blog so you don't miss any future crafty posts!

Thanks for reading,

Bec x

Arrange a Wreath Christmas card

Hi everyone,

I haven't blogged for a while, so this month I'm catching up on a few of my favourite cards from the last six months. This is a card I made for my Stampin' Birds team Christmas card using the fabulous Arrange a Wreath stamp and die bundle from the current Stampin' Up! annual catalogue.

I'm not a massive fan of traditional Christmas colours so I made this card on a Night of Navy card base, with a Whisper White panel adhered centrally to the front.

Using the dies, I cut out the two wreath shapes; one in Old Olive and one in Pear Pizzazz. I also cut two of the poinsettia flowers in Real Red.

On to the stamping: using a piece of scrap cardstock I stamped the partridge in Soft Suede and die cut it. I then stamped the wood panel in Crumb Cake with the sentiment on top in black. I carefully cut the rectangle out with scissors.

Finally I assembled all the pieces and added the red bow on top for a splash of colour. The sentiment was popped up on dimensionals for added interest.

I made five of these in total and found this was a great design for batch making as I did all the die cutting in one session, then all the stamping, and lastly the assembly.

If you enjoyed this please subscribe to my blog so you don't miss any future crafty posts!

Thanks for reading,

Bec x