my stash

A colorful birthday card

I made another birthday card today, inspired by this week mojo monday challenge #299

I looked through my paper stash and found this icecream patterned paper from echo park which I’ve owned for years and never used. It was time!

I wanted the card to look like summer so I went for bright and happy colors, I could have used brighter/lighter colors on the gifts but I wanted it to bring out the blue and green colors from the background since the other details were pink, orange and yellow. I colored the flower with my dylusion spray london blue and added some pearl mist to lighten up the color a bit, and to add some shine of course! I might add some stickles to the stamp, I haven’t really decided yet.

The yellow ribbon is another thing that has been lying in my stash for ages, I’m not really a fan of yellow but I’m working on it on all levels, just got myself a yellow summer dress!

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Another 50th birthday

My mom asked me to make her another card for another friend who just turned 50.
I decided to use this stamp which I haven’t really got to use yet, I’ve just been practicing coloring and waiting for the perfect moment to use it!
The pink paper was one of the first things I decided to use for this card and my plan was to use it as a background or at least use it for a large piece, I wanted it to be a main part of the card. Today when I assembled the card it was just too much with the pattern and all the colors (I decided to go for the I love promarkers challenge this week which is the color combo blue and pink). I wanted more white space. So I decided to just keep a stripe at the bottom and some decorations in blue and pink. All the flowers and the butterfly are sprayed with pearl mist and some color mist or distress stain to make them more interesting, plain colored flowers are often quite boring and the nuance wasn’t what I was looking for either. Luckily my distress stain broken china and spun sugar was just perfect together with the Plain Jane simply sheer spray Rosey. I also added some stickles on the stamp and the butterfly and a few too many rhinestones. These are, however, just taking up space in my stash so I was very happy to use them! And since the theme of the daring cardmakers challenge this week is forgotten treasures, I just had to add a few more and some paper flowers too!
I’m not completely satisfied with the card, I find it a bit too much. I should have left more white space and skipped the tag plus some of the bling, but you live and you learn, next time!
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82nd birthday card

My grandfather turned 82 yesterday and I made a card for his birthday, and some cake.
I chose to use elements that I know he likes, such as raspberries, motorcycles, gold and shooting. He has been shooting in competitions for as long as I can remember and he took me and my brother for practice once a week when we were younger. I loved it and every summer I asked if we could go shooting with air pistols which he always brought with him to our summer house.
First I thought of adding a plain white or kraft tag but then I remembered I had some old paper targets left from my practice so I cut a tag out of one of them. Such a damn good idea I must say!
The raspberries are a few rhinestones glued together on a piece of paper, painted with some stickles to make them more pinkish.

My friend Jennie made the layout for me and the more I look at it, the more I like it. It’s interesting how much positive feedback I’ve gotten from showing the picture of the card. Now I just have to analyze what makes this card so god damn fab!

Since there is a challenge at 2 sisters challenge blog with the theme “just for dad” I decided to enter with this one. Exciting!
I’m also entering the current Alota Rubber stamps challenge (alota109): make a wish. I wished my grandfather a happy birthday (and more to come!) with this card. I think he liked it, he watched all the details for a long time.

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A closeup on the raspberries, so happy to use my bling stash!

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Here’s the cakes I made, roll cake (directly translated from Swedish; rulltårta), it might actually be called Swiss roll when translating it. I prefer to call it roflcaek. Anyway, the red one is filled with mashed fresh raspberries and the brown one is filled with a nut creme! Next time I’ll make one with lemon curd and maybe some strawberries.. *drool*

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This weekend’s crafting

I recently purchased a new cutting tool, a guillotine cutter from Tonic Studios and I haven’t really used it yet until last Friday when I decided to cut my 12×12 papers into 6×6 instead. I never make any layouts, it’s just cards and other smaller projects and I very rarely use 12 inch papers for that, it kind of scares me to cut a tiny piece from one of them.
I started by sorting out all the simple patterned papers and those with smaller images that were meant to be cut out (I suppose?). This pile is like 1/3 of my collection, those I kept are more basic paper, great for card bases and backgrounds. I found no need to cut these too.

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Here’s the pile after my cutting spree (I had a few copies of some of the papers which I kept in original size among a few weird patterned ones)

This almost doubled my existing collection of 6×6 and I realized I need a few projects badly.

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I managed to make two cards this weekend and I got to use a few of my newly cut 12 inch papers and other stuff in my stash, a few new ones I got from a sell out. Awesome!

I made this card inspired by this week’s Mojo Monday challenge #291

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This morning I made another card inspired by one of my cut papers, it’s a transparent/vellum like paper with some flowers and fruit and I got to think of my new magnolia stamps.

I got to use one of my new prima flowers and wooden embellishments. I also used another piece of one of the border stickers I purchased. I’m such a mindless shopper!

I made the card for the current Magnolia challenge which was to use a Magnolia stamp and vellum, perfect for my rediscovered paper!

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Easter celebrations and a birthday

So yesterday we went to our aunt to celebrate Easter with the family and to celebrate her youngest daughter who turns 14 on Tuesday.
My two youngest cousins were there too and I made them Easter bags with some chocolate and soft bubble bottles, I’m trying not to give them too much candy as their parents try to keep them away from sugar. I gave them handmade bags last year too with a small treasure hunting quest for the older boy. This year I made a trail with chocolate eggs for them to follow. They were super happy!

The bags are something I got from some kits and they’ve been lying around for a while now.. happy to get to use them and some other stuff in my stash!
I found some fun challenges to enter with these bags too!

The Ladybug crafts challenge: Anything goes
Alota rubber stamps #103: Springtime
Crafty creations #215: Easter
Magnolialicious challenge: All about spring
I love promarkers: Spring is in the air

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A few of the items from my stash: the shaped buttons (helicopter and police car), bubble stickers and a butterfly sticker I found in Berlin at Karstadt I believe.
The buttons were a part of the Christmas calendar I got from my mother last Christmas, they have this ring on the backside which I cut off and that caused the button to fall apart! Glued it all together again and adhered it with some glue dots.

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A closeup on the bunny, colored with pro- and flexmarkers. I colored the bow with a darker blue first and added a brighter shade on top, gives a nice touch!

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And here is the birthday card for my other cousin who turns 14. Inspired by the Sweet stop sketch #204
So happy I got to use both some alphabet stickers and a few brads from my stash.

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Least but not last I also finished off some cards to go with a few angels my other aunt ordered.

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Pastel flowers

A mid week finished card for once! Just to be able to participate in a few challenges. For this card I had 2 sisters challenge #134: pastels, the crafty bloggers network #9: spring or pastel and a gem of a challenge #70: floral frenzy (I marked those words, he he)  in mind. And a bonus was to use the never ending paper flowers and brads from my stash. One tiny step towards extinction, yay!

I do feel that something is missing in the background but I’ll just leave this as it is, there’s just too much to do both at work and at my spare time this week, that’s life!

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The colors do look slightly darker than they are, me and my crappy photos again! I guess the lightning in my closet is worthless for photos.. Could have figured that one out earlier to be honest! One day I’ll make myself a lightbox or something similar, when I have the time.