What on earth................??

Hello, Crafters.

I imagine the title of today's blog is what you thought when you first saw today's card!! LOL!  When I showed hubby, who's my best critic, he frowned and said "What's the connection?" which surprised me a bit considering we're going out for dinner on Saturday to celebrate seventeen years! But it did make me question my own thought processes!!

I have to admit, I did consider not showing you the card but I decided against that because I would really like to know what you think. I'll start at the beginning and explain how this card evolved!

This week I've been working with the Cups & Kettle Framelits Dies which includes a knife, fork and spoon. As yet, I haven't seen anyone, including the designers at Stampin' Up! make a project using them and I have to say that I think it's a bit odd for them to be included with cups and a kettle/teapot. So I started to think what/how they could be used.

Naturally my thoughts went to food, eating, plate, meal, why would they be on a card and what does a meal have to do with greeting cards. My conclusion was couples go out to celebrate all kinds of personal anniversaries, therefore the sentiments You & Me as well as Happy Anniversary seemed appropriate. 

All very logical but to have a card with two plates of food/two meals on?? I'm not sure it works which is why I'd really like to hear your thoughts on it. Whether it gets a thumbs up or a thumbs down, I'll still explain how I put it altogether. 

The card is larger than normal at 6" x 6" and started with a Whisper White base, with a layer of Pool Party, followed by a layer of Whisper White. As my theme was a meal, I wanted the top layer to look like a tablecloth. To achieve this I used a sheet of patterned vellum from the Botanical Gardens Designer Vellum Stack (only available as a free product during Sale-A-Bration which ends on 31st March 2016). 

The plate base is Whisper white and I used a sheet of a Pool Party Design from Cherry On Top Designer Series Paper (DSP) Stack to decorate the plate and the handles of the knives and forks. The fish is from the Bear Hugs Stamp set, stamped on Soft Suede Cardstock using Early Espresso ink and die cut using the Bear Hugs Framelits dies.

The lemon is from the A Nice Cuppa Stamp Set, stamped in Daffodil Delight Ink on Daffodil Delight Cardstock and cut out freehand. The green vegetable was a double leaf stamp from the Friends & Flowers Stamp set, stamped in Garden Green Ink on Garden Green Cardstock and punched out with the Festive Flower Builder Punch.

The creamed potato was a cloud from the Sky Is The Limit Stamp Set (only available as a free product during Sale-A-Bration which ends on 31st March 2016). It was
stamped in Smokey Grey Ink onto Whisper White Cardstock and cut out freehand. I die cut the knives and forks using the dies from the Cups & Kettle Framelits Dies. I painted them with Clear Wink of Stella Glue Pen to give them a "metal" look.

I stamped the You & Me sentiment, which is from the Perfect Pennants Stamp Set, and the Happy Anniversary sentiment, which is from the Timeless Love Stamp Set, in Versamark and then heat embossed using Silver Embossing Powder. I punched the banner for the You & Me using the Triple Banner Punch.

My thoughts? I like the plate of food, the layout, the sentiments, etc..............I'm just not convinced two plates of food are right for a greeting card, especially a romantic celebration card. Maybe I should have just omitted the food but kept the plates - now there's a thought, a bit too late for today's blog, though!! Please leave a comment in the box below to let me know what your thoughts are.

Many thanks and until tomorrow, happy crafting.
 
JanB.

Rabbits' Photobomb Easter Card

Hello Crafters.

I'm pleased to say the my accounts were filed yesterday - many thanks, Linda! I have pencilled in a reminder for June so I get this year's accounts sorted in four months and not nine!

After Linda had left, I had a lot of catching up to do so I wasn't able to get into my studio till quite late.

I started working a on card I made a couple of years ago but updating it with today's products.

It took me four cards before I decided the first one and the last one were my favourites - cards numbers two and three were definite rejects! I now know what my project for Sunday's video is going to be!

Then I started to work on Wednesday's project. I had an idea of what I wanted to do and it was based around a Christmas card I'd made. Do you remember the penguin and snowman with antlers peeping through the oval cut-out?

The original idea for this new card was three individual circles with one rabbit looking through each at different angles but I decided they were too big! I could have used a larger card base but I thought I'd finish up with a large area of unused surround.

I started my card with a base of Blushing Bride Cardstock with a layer of Whisper White. The top layer is from the Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper that's in the Spring catalogue.

I die cut the aperture using die number 4 from the Ovals Collection Framelits. I also die cut a frame of Blushing Bride using die numbers 4 and 5.

Using Smokey Slate Ink and Whisper White Cardstock, I stamped three faces and six leaves from the Friends and Flowers Stamp Set, also from the new Spring catalogue.

Then, using my Blushing Bride Marker Pen, I drew lines along the whiskers and coloured in the centre section of the ears.

I added clear Wink of Stella to the facial features and the pink section of the ears and also added googly eyes. Then I glued the ears behind the heads. 

To make sure I had the positioning right, I lined the top layer onto the middle layer and very gently drew a pencil line around the aperture.

This was used as my guide for positioning the first two rabbits which I adhered down using Tombow. After I had erased the pencil line, I adhered the top layer with Dimensionals. I used more Dimensionals on the back of the third rabbit but left the bottom part free to be adhered with Tombow. 

I stamped Happy Easter from the Easter Lamb Stamp. When I first received this stamp, before I adhered it to the wood block, I cut off the sentiment and adhered it to the side of the block.

I felt I'd get more use out of the lamb and the sentiment this way. This was adhered using Dimensionals.

My final touch was to adhere three of the glittery embellishments that are in the Love Blossoms Embellishment Kit. Hopefully the video will be ready for tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, I'm off to wok - first day back since Christmas!

Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.