More Flamingos

 Hello Crafters, 

I hope you had a lovely Christmas, despite social distancing and reduced family opportunities. 

We sure did, even though it was sad not so see everyone. I am looking forward to having a full family Christmas again next year. With vaccinations started, I feel that by Christmas life should be better by Christmas. 

Since I am thinking pink for next year, I'll take the opportunity to share some more Flamingo cards today. They were both inspired by the incredible Jennifer her embossing folder techniques. 

I always feel that I don't use my embossing folders enough, especially this one. I love it because it's so unique. But it's not super versatile. 

So I made several impressions with different tones of ink and just added different sentiments on top. The last is a standard white impression, but I softly brushed some pink over the flamingo, to make it stand out more. 

As usual, I made them all Birthday cards, since this is what I use most of throughout the year. 

I hope you'll have a lovely New Year's Eve today. 

See you in 2021

Ela

Birthday Princess

Hi Crafters, 

today's card is a re-make of this card I made years ago. My daughter loved it so much, she wanted to re-create it for my niece's 2nd Birthday, which was 3 years ago today. Time surely flies. 

Happy 5th Birthday little one!

I think my girl will tell me off for showing her early works since she has made a lot of progress in her artwork in the past years. So please don't tell her.

I love her take on it and how much care she took.

Have a great day!
Ela

One layer stencilled Christmas card

Hello Crafters, 

I do hope you are still safe and healthy, wherever you are. And hopefully well on track with your Christmas preparations. 

I am not much in the mood this year, but at least I am less stressed about Christmas preparations than ever before in my adult life. I started early and am well on track at the moment. 

Today's card is one I actually made last year. We had two French exchange students staying at the time and had a little crafty session together. I made this simple one layer card with a stencil and some inks and sequins. Very simple, but I like that in a card. 

 

Have a lovely week!

Ela 

 

Hot pink Flamingo - Part 2

Hello Friends, 

and happy December. Can you believe it? Christmas panic is setting in. 

Here is the second Flamingo I promised you on Monday. 

As before, I coloured her in hot pink with my ZIG markers and fuzzy cut her out. Then I die-cut the letters to spell Birthday from black card stock and arranged them vertically on the card. The happy die-cut was once again coloured with alcohol markers since I don't have that bright pink card stock. I stacked it up for more dimension and adhered it across the Birthday.

So, which one is your favourite?

Have a lovely day

Ela 

Hot pink Flamingo

Hello Again, 

another week, who else doesn't want to go to work today?

To cheer you up, I have a hot pink flamingo card for you today. 

I love this cute flamingo girl so I started out colouring her with my ZIG markers in bright pink and cutting her out. Then I picked a bold sentiment die to be able to let her peek out from behind it. I couldn't quite decide on a colour for the sentiment, stuck between black, white and hot pink.

In the end, I die cut the sentiment from white card stock and coloured it black and pink with alcohol markers before stacking it up for more dimension. I love how that turned out. 

I thought the background was a bit bleak just plain white, so I chose the leftover negative space of a die-cut and adhered it to the card base. I also added the same flamingo on the envelope, just because it's so darn cute.

After I finished the card, I wanted to make the same card again, just different, but that's for another day. 

Have a lovely week

Ela

 

Personalized Birthday cards with alcohol inks

Hello Crafters, 

I am slowly working off all the cards I created last spring and summer. I wasn't even aware I did craft that much. It felt like I was completely out of Mojo all year, except for maybe the last 2 months. 

I had originally decided not to get any alcohol inks, on the basis that you can't have everything and that I'm not a professional crafter. Surprise: I caved and ordered some at the beginning of the first lockdown. 

When they arrived I created a bunch of panels just to try different colour combinations and try to achieve different looks. Basically to get to know them. 

Some of these panels are still around, but I think by now I managed to make most of them into cards. 

These two cards were created in much the same way, I die-cut the letters to spell out the recipient's names and added a heat embossed sentiment strip. 

 One of them I even forgot to send out in time, so I have that one for next year. 

Lots of Love and a happy weekend

Ela

Simple floral Birthday cards

Hello Friends, 

I hope you are still staying safe. 

We had a bit of an accident last week, my daughter dropped a glass bottle and couldn't stop in time, so she stepped right in the shards and cut her foot open deeply. Luckily I was able to stop the bleeding, so we could drive to the ER and get stitches. Both of us certainly could have done without that experience. I don't want to see any of mine bleeding like that ever again. 

Today, a week later, the wound is still very sore, but healing, without infection or complications. So, we are thankful for that. 

Today's card was inspired by the incredible Jennifer McGuire, please find her video here. I absolutely adore the dark grey card she created and wanted to use the same technique, without creating an identical card. So I used white card stock and different colour schemes and created a set of Birthday cards. 

Which one is your favourite? I think mine is the rainbow one because it's bright and fun and it reminds me of the LGTB flag, even if it has one additional stripe. I used Birthday sentiments because I need those the most, but especially that card could easily be modified to be a pride encouragement card. 

I think I'd like to make some more of those cards at some point because it's such an easy technique if you just need a card in a hurry. 

Wishing you a happy day

Ela

Hello Pirate

Hello Everyone, 

how are you?

Today's card is a piece of ancient history. 

I found this pirate card panel in my stencil storage basket when I was re-organizing my stencils into a file folder. I had created it way back and ruined it with some glue on the front that left a shiny spot. So I never used it, forgot all about it and obviously managed to drop it into that basked by accident.  

Pulling it out again, I thought the shiny spot wasn't soo bad after all. I wanted to make it work.

I wanted my card base pale blue but didn't have any card stock that pale. So I blended some blue ink onto a white card base. Then I distressed the edges of my panel and adhered it to the base.

I wanted the Hello sentiment in the same pale blue so I blended some more ink on another piece of card stock to cut the Hello out. I also stacked it up to give it more dimension. I added a black sentiment strip and some sequins in strategic spots and now the shiny spot is still visible, but not very obvious anymore. 

I like how this card turned out, even though it's not quite my usual style. 

So, what do we learn? Mistakes are just an opportunity for embellishments! 

And probably that I am less of a perfectionist these days than I was in the past. 

Love

Ela

 

Rainbow street

Hello friends, 

how is life treating you? 

This is another card that I already made last summer. My daughters had a huge Playmobil dollhouse, that I meant to sort out when we moved 2 years ago. At that time, they were neither ready to let it go, nor to have it in their rooms, because it is huge. 

So we kept it in the hall, for the toddlers in the family when they came visiting. But it still was in the way, so last summer I decided to give it to my niece's children, who are still young enough to get a full childhood's worth of joy out of it. 

She lives about 5 hours drive away, and usually, we see each other at least once a year, but this summer I didn't know if we could go visiting, so I decided to mail it. 

Since I needed a card to go with it, I decided on houses as the general theme. I die cut the houses from white card stock and coloured them in rainbow colours with my alcohol markers. Then I grounded them on a dry embossed panel which I popped up from the card base. I also added just very faint blue ink blending to the card base, to set off the white panel and added a black sentiment strip. 

I added a vellum envelope because I love them and bright and colourful cards usually look great through the vellum. The downside is that I don't mail vellum envelopes, I use them either for hand-delivered cards or cards that go in a parcel. 

Have a lovely weekend

Ela

More wobbly snow angels

Hello Crafters, 

today I have another set of clean and simple Christmas cards with lots of white space for you. 

I love this stamp set, the snow angels are adorable. I missed buying them last year and was lucky enough to find them second hand in February, including the dies. I tend not to invest in the matching dies generally, but these cards screamed "action wobbles"... So here we are...

All images were coloured with my ZIG markers and adhered on action wobbles. All received a bit of pale blue ink blending and stencilling behind them. And of course the heat embossed snow angels outlines.

I kept two card bases white, one received some dark blue ink blending and the last (the bunny) two strips of washi tape. 

The sentiments are all the same and ready Merry Christmas in German. 

I love how they turned out, I could create snow angels cards forever. 

Lots of Love

Ela

Corona cards

Hello Crafters, 

since we are back in the grip of the pandemic, I feel like I might get the chance to send out these cards soon. 

My daughter doodled this digital virus for me, so I printed it all over a sheet of paper and created two cards with simple Hello sentiments. 

The stripey background was created with alcohol markers and a straight edge, just using different shades and varying between the chisel tip and the bullet tip. I popped up the panel and added a heat embossed sentiment. 

For the second card, I used coloured card stock for the base and popped up the coloured virus as well as the panel. I also added a grey shade to each of the viruses.

That's it for today, I hope you all stay safe and healthy. 

Ela 

Water colour sympathy cards

Hello friends, 

how do you feel about sympathy cards?

I don't much enjoy making them, just because I don't want to think about death. But on the other hand, you wouldn't want to have to make one in a hurry, right. So today I created a set of three using these beautiful serene leaf stamps and some watercolours. Both of which I do enjoy a lot. 

I tried my best to use more muted colours, not my usual brights and just dabbed in the colours into the pre-wet leaves, letting the water do the work. Mostly. 

As usual, I am not entirely happy with my colouring, but I think the cards overall look good. 

Have a good day

Ela

Just a note

 Hello Crafters, 

how is life treating you? 

My daughters' school is now back to hybrid schooling, meaning that only part of the class will be at school, while the other half will work from home. 

While this is putting a bit more stress into my working hours, I am glad to endure this for the sake of the reduced infection risk. It is no big price to pay, considering that my girls are already teenagers. They mostly do their school work with merely the occasional nudge from me. 

Today's card I created back during the first Corona lockdown. I had a small gift for a friend, a stamp set that I thought she might like, and since I am impatient, I decided to send it by mail. 

I kept the card very simple and just stencilled a few wildflowers onto my card panel. Since I needed to use a rather bleak envelope, I stamped this huge succulent to the front and added some shading with alcohol markers. 

Please, stay safe wherever you are. 

Ela

Happy Birthday Becky

Hello, 

today's card is dedicated to my friend Becky. 

Happy Birthday, dear! I hope your day will be as fabulous as you are!

 To the card: I cut out the huge stitched leaves several times and adhered them to the card base for a faux embossing effect. I love the white on white texture. 

Then I stamped and fuzzy cut the floral cluster, coloured it with my ZIG markers and popped it up on foam tape. 

Since I didn't want to cover up too much, I just used a tiny sentiment strip.

Have a lovely day

Ela 

Birthday shakers and ink blending

Hello Everyone, 

how have you been? 

A while ago, my daughter and I spent a wonderful evening together, ink blending background panels together. Look at this happy mess...

I created a whole lot of panels with the chevron patterns because I still wanted to create more shaker cards like this one: 

Meanwhile, I made a bunch of shaker cards over several days, one day die-cutting circles and balloons and glueing the die-cuts to acetate, next day cutting off the access acetate and creating shaker wells etc. 

The two striped panels were made with metallic watercolours. 

I love how all of these turned out. I still have lots more panels, so I might well make another batch soon. After all, shakers are always fun. 

Have a good day

Ela

More Christmas cards

Hello, 

after so many birthday cards, today I have a few more Christmas cards for you. I created them all with the same paper pack as before, using similar ideas. Not much to explain, I just added die cuts and sentiments, some with glitter, some with vellum, some die-cut sentiments.

 So, I'll make it a very short posting today. 

Wishing you all the best for this week

Ela

Birthday Balloons

Hello Everyone,

Today I have a bright and cheerful card for you, I created with another one of those shaker balloon stickers. I stamped a bunch of balloons, leaving space for the sticker. I tried to achieve a bit of shading, but it didn't turn out very obvious on most of them. 

Then I added the balloon and die-cut work to the panel, doodled in some strings and added a few matching sequins. 

I didn't like the look on a white card base, so I added to strips of patterned paper to the sides.

 

 Here is a closed look at the balloon. It says Happy in gold foiling, so I didn't have to use another sentiment strip.

I like this idea with the balloons just as much as the first one, so I am thinking to make more of this as well. Since none of the other balloons says Happy, I'll have to use a sentiment strip. 

Wishing you a happy weekend

Ela

Birthday photo bomb

Hello Everyone, 

I hope you are staying positive as best you can. I find it harder in cold weather than it was in summer. 

To cheer myelf and you up, I have another card with my beloved crazy llama. This time he is photobombing the armadillo. 

This is one of the cards that took me a week, just to figure out what else to do to it. 

I die cut all of the leaves from green cardstock, added some shading to the edges with a blending brush. and adhered them to the card base. Then I ran out of ideas.

A few days later, I came back to it, and decided to use the polaroid frame and pop it off the card base. So I coloured the armadillo and llama with my ZIG markers, cut out the llama ears so he could stick out of the frame and adhered the panel to the back of the polaroid. 

I wanted the sentiment to spell out 'smile it's Your Birthday' but didn't have the right sentiment, so I left it for another few days, before deciding on this wonky Happy Birthday. I think it matches the card pretty well. 

Last I just popped up the frame and added glossy accents to the eyes, because those are eyes that just need glossy accents. 

Stay healthy

Ela

Hello fellow crafters, 

today I'd like to show you two very clean Birthday cards, with a shaker sticker I found at a Euro store. I loved these instantly and wanted them to shine. So I spelt out Birthday in die-cut letters and coloured them in rainbow colours. Then I added the sticker with a bit off a doodled string to the letter A and a black sentiment strip with the word Happy to complete the sentiment. 

 I love how both of them turned out. I still have a few of those stickers, so I might make more of these. 

Have a lovely start into the new week
Ela