Lots and Lots of Cards

Hey Cheeky,
A while ago I bought myself a paper pack and some extras from the Reject Shop. I bought the paper pad, the journal cards and the die cuts for a collection called Twig and Twine. I also bought some alpha stickers that matched. I then decided to make a card using each different design.

If I ever decide to do something like this again, remind me to pick a paper pack that doesn't have as many different designs. There were 20 different patterns and they are lovely, but holy crap there were a lot! Oh well. They turned out pretty well I think.

OK, on to the cards. Let me know your favourite.

This was the first card I made and it was so simple to do. I cut some gold paper to the size of the card front, trimmed the paper down a bit smaller, and added the alphabet stickers. That was it. So simple.

This sentiment is from one of the journal cards. I had to trim it down because it had rounded corners and I wanted them to be straight. Then I added twine (always useful when I can find ways to use up all the twine I have. The dots are Nuvo glitter drops and they're soooooo lovely. I adore them. I need all the colours!

This one uses another journal card, and the little girl is a Kaisercraft stamp. I stamped it on watercolour paper and coloured it with water based markers and a water brush. I was so happy when I discovered the right water colour paper to use because it is so effective and I can get cool effects without having to use expensive pens. I'm all about the cheap stuff you know!

This is another card based on a journal card, but there is also a page that has a whole bunch of words on it so I used that for the sentiment. The butterfly is from the die cuts pack and the frame is from another paper in the pack, but I'll get to that card later. Plus I also used brads. I think I've had those yellow brads for at least 15 years. Ooops. Stash? What Stash??

I really like this one. It was an early favourite. The flowers are stamped on watercolour paper and coloured the same way as before, and embossed with gold embossing powder. I die cut them all out and one of them got a bit chopped off. It moved when I was die cutting it. So it's kind of half hidden under the bunch of flowers. Waste not want not right? The sticker is from a Reject Shop pack I bought ages ago. I think I might have sent some to you as well, not sure.

This one was difficult to figure out. The paper is just a basic green. It has a textured pattern, but I wasn't very inspired. So I heat embossed some leaves onto it, added the various die cuts and made a label. The strip down the side is embossed as well, with Lawn Fawn Rose Gold embossing powder. I love that colour so very much. The card ended up ok but it's not my favourite.

This one turned out really well I think. I was inspired by the die cut, so I used those colours. I actually used an embossing folder. I have so many of them and don't use them very often. I was originally going to leave it white (The paper from the paper pack is the strip down the side) but then I decided to make it look like it had measles, so did black dots with nuvo drops. Have I mentioned I love those things? I want them ALL!

The next paper pattern was a wood grain one and the first one that I really struggled with. I tried to do something and it didn't work and for the first time I gave up. Usually I just keep plodding along and manage to fix something but not this time. I used the paper later, but not as a main feature so I'll show it later. So I did this one instead. Another super simple one - just added the sentiment and some nuvo drops, this time they're clear. The sentiment is stamped and embossed.

Do you recognise this stamp set? I had fun colouring this one with my alcohol markers. The houses are embossed in the rose gold again, which matches the paper in the background. The sentiment was fitting I thought, Believe in your selfie!

This is one of my favourites I think. The tag die is one from a magazine and it is so very pretty. I did it in velum, added some black ribbon, and cut down a journal card to fit the tag. I like the edge of the tag - I dragged it against my versa mark pad, then added embossing powder, and so it ended up giving it this really awesome texture. Oh, and the brad was the wrong colour so I added embossing powder to it and melted it as well. I was so glad it worked and didn't melt because yeah, that would have been annoying!

This was another paper that caused me a bit of grief. It's nice enough but it looked a bit too much like wallpaper we had when I was a kid. Oh, and the wood grain paper I said I had trouble with? I've actually used it in this card. There is a tiny little slice of it on one of the banners. I had planned on making it bigger but it mostly got covered up. Oh well, it's been used so yay! I love the tree, so pretty. A pain to get out of the die, but very pretty.

Once I had figured out what I was doing, this was another super quick card. The fleur de lis and the sentiment are wood, and I'm pretty sure you gave me both of them. Maybe the thank you are from the Reject Shop. But yeah. Another quick card that I wasn't sure about but ended up liking.

I was looking forward to using this paper, it's so beautiful. Just needed a sentiment, some pearl stickers, and I was done. Some of these florals are really lovely.

This one I actually did earlier, but I'm trying to put them in the same order as the paper pad. The full sentiment says "Chase happiness and you will end up exactly where you need to be." The Chase Happiness is from the word sheet, and it was fun the way it managed to come together. I have to try and resist the urge to fiddle with the text on the card though, to make it clearer. Maybe I will do something but I'm worried about messing it up. Oh well.

This one was fun! I coloured in the stamps, embossed the top of the front cup to make it shiny, and added clear nuvo drops on the iced coffee cup. I was trying to figure out a way to bring it all together, and then I looked up and saw the striped ribbon in the ribbon box and I was actually amazed that it all matched. That was cool. When I stuck everything down it was a little too high up, but I wasn't sure what else to do, then mum suggested adding a cake. So I found one, added it to the bottom and it balanced everything out. Woohoo.

The girl in this stamp always reminds me of a girl I knew twenty years ago (God I'm old!). I coloured her in to match the paper, and I thought that with the sentiment on the front (another journal card)it could make a good encouragement card or maybe a congratulations card. Like, you could put on the front "You're nailing it!" or something. '

I really wanted to use my cactus stamps, and I thought this worked well with it. I water coloured them. As in, actually used watercolour this time rather than using the pens. I wasn't sure what sentiment would work, but then I thought - cactus are desert plants, so why bot say 'warm wishes'! I crack me up! (And yes, I'm a dork, I know this. So what?)

I knew that I wanted to use these flowers with this paper, but I wasn't sure what exactly I was going to do with them. So I painted them, cut them out, and left them for a night. Then I thought I really wanted to use the journal card that said 'The struggle is part of the story' but again, what the hell was I going to do with it? It seemed a bit of a harsh thing to put on a card, even though I wanted to use it. Then I was looking through the book where I've got all my sentiments stamped and I found these two. They're from a Kaisercraft mini set. Everything seemed to work together and it's a good support card, or a don't give up card. Better than my original thought, which was to make a 'with sympathy' card. Might not be the best thing to give somebody who was grieving hey?

This is another one that I really like. I am not usually very good at layering things, so when I manage it and it seems to work out ok I want to do a bit of a dance. The 'You' is from a die that actually says Thank you, and I just had to trim a bit off. Then I added my own velum shadow. I don't have a fancy die to cut that out, so I faked it. Plus I got to use another colour of nuvo drops. I think I've used all of them on these cards, but I only have five colours so that's not saying much. Still want them all! But yeah, I think there's at least 50. Oh well.

This was another one that was pretty simple. The scene on the paper is lovely, and the sentiment says "Beauty Surrounds Us'. It's one of the die cuts from the pack. I added some confetti stars, and that was it. The hardest part of this card was not getting glue everywhere when I stuck the stars down.

These last two use a die I got from Ali Express. It's very useful for using up scraps. I just die cut the shape out of card for the card fronts, and then from the offcuts of the papers, and stuck them all in. I added double sided tape to the back of the cards, and that made piecing them together much easier. The black one has glitter in the corners, so yay for using up some of that!

Ok, That's me done! The next challenge I want to set myself is to make a card using each one of my stamp sets. Not all of them on the one card, there wouldn't be enough space, but one card using one set. But I'm not going to wait until I've finished before I post about them. If I did it would be the world's longest blog post, and probably incredibly boring as well. Well, even more boring than usual!

Right, I'm going to post now so that mine gets up before yours, since we're writing these at the same time.
Hugs
Dorky