Baby Bath

I always love to create baby cards. Friends of us just got a little baby boy, so today I made this card for them. It is just stamped and embossed with black powder, then watercolored with metallic watercolors (by Yasutomo). The stamps are by Woodware (Baby in Bathtube) and Heidi Swapp (Baby Writing). I added some dewdrops and stickles. The design paper is by Déjà Views (Sharon Ann Collection).

Nothing sophisticated, but I like clean and easy cards for babies...
Here's a close-up:

No Pink Leaves!

I finally managed to do a Splitcoast challenge again: Friday's Limited Supplies Challenge suggested to create a card with leaves on it (easy thing, I thought, and already had some green-brown colors in mind) and some pink on it (in honor of the breast cancer awareness month). Pink? Piiiink??????? Did they really mean PIIIIINK??? Okay, I use often pink color combos for my cards, no problem with this color, but how to combine leaves with pink????
I decided to use some pink rhinestones - I hope that counts, LOL!



I stamped the image with Versamark onto cream cardstock, then embossed with Autumnal Impressions sparkling embossing powder. I colored the image with metallic watercolors (by Yasutomo) and sponged some tea dye distress ink onto the cardstock. I didn't cut but tear the image. Do you know how you can easily achieve precise tearing? Use a wet brush to draw the wanted tear line onto the cardstock - it then will tear exactly along these wet lines! I edged the torn cardstock with tea dye distress ink, then added the pink rhinestones and attached the whole thing onto some green cuttlebug-embossed and gold-wiped (Brilliance Galaxy Gold) cardstock and then onto a butterscotch card.

What do you think?

And, hey, don't you forget: Tomorrow there will be another Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge!! Get a sneak peek today!

Silver Wedding in No Time...

Thank you all for the overwhelming echo to my turorial! I'll add some more turoials soon - please contact me if you wish some special topics!


A colleague asked for an elegant card for a silver wedding. As I had little time, no, actually I had NO TIME AT ALL, I decided to use a very simple card design and catch the eye with this wonderful stamp by Butterer which symbolizes life-long love in a perfect way, as I think. I stamped it with Versamark onto ivory cardstock, then embossed with silver sparkling embossing powder. I watercolored the image with Twinkling H2Os, Stargazers and PearlEx. As I wanted to give the image a somewhat understated look, I chose very light color hues and blended them all with some silver color to keep in the color palette I chose. I added some green torn cardstock and a cuttlebugged silver piece of cardstock. Between these layers I put a sheer silver ribbon with palettes which I used as closure for the card. As there fell down some palettes when I tied the bow, I collected them and used them as embellishments for my round tag (which I made with the Making Memories Tag Maker). The numbers are hand-written.


I hope this card is elegant enough...

Have a great evening, everybody!

Breakfast at Tiffany's and Lacy Glitter Tutorial

Hi everybody,

I'm on call for this weekend, and as long as there's no patient calling me, I've got some time to play... There's a brandnew Challenge Site by my wonderful blogging friend Sankari and her friend Brooke who both love movies: Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge. You HAVE to check out this challenge! Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to play along with the challenge "Pride and Prejudice" last weekend, but how could I resist today's challenge "Breakfast at Tiffany's"?!?
So... What is my association with Breakfast at Tiffany's? Diamonds, glitter and bling, of course! So I decided to create a REALLY glittery card...and I added a lacy glitter tutorial to let you know how I created the glittery paper I used.
Okay, let's start with the hint that you should close all your windows before working with this technique...otherwise there'll be glitter everywhere in the room, LOL!
This is what you need: a piece of lace, removable labels, two contrasting colors of glitter, and a brush. And something like JudiKin's Snappy Tray can be REALLY helpful to keep all that glitter away from the floor and your clothes...


First, peel off the protecting foil from the label and attach the lace onto the label. It is important to press it firmly down, otherwise glitter will find its way under the lace and you won't get clear lace designs with your glitter.



The next step is to pour glitter over the whole piece of lace. The glitter will stick to the label in the lace pattern's open spaces.


Gently tap off the loose glitter... and don't laugh, cough or sneeze now! LOL!



Now peel off the lace from the label. This is how your piece should look like by now:


Pour glitter in a contrasting color over the label. It will fill in all free spaces - they are still sticky.


Again, gently tap off the glitter excess - you should have a wonderful glittery lace pattern on your label. I usually press the glitter onto the label firmly with the protecting foil I kept from my label and use a fixative, but you don't need to do this necessarily.



Can you imagine how glittery this piece is in real life?!!!

I attached my glittery label to a black card, then just added two curved stripes of black and silver mirror cardstock and some rhinestones to finish my Breakfast at Tiffany's card. Oh, and I couldn't resist to use this little stamp from River City (of course, using silver sparkling embossing powder)... YES, I KNOW I HAVE GLITTER ON MY FACE!




Okay, maybe this sentiment doesn't really catch the emotional part of the movie, but at least I got the glitz!!!

Thanks to Sankari and Brooke for this inspirational challenge!
Have a nice weekend!

Africa - Expect Miracles!

A very close friend of mine goes to Africa as a pastor for a while. I wanted to give her as a farewell present a little book to use to write down her experiences. I chose an African-themed design paper (Bo Bunny Press) for the cover and punched out a square. Then I stamped an African scene (Art Gone Wild, one of my oldest stampes, I'm pretty sure that it is discontinued) with Palette Noir onto butterscotch cardstock, watercolored it and attached it behind the punchout. I added a copper charm from Pixie Press ("expect miracles" - I think one CAN expect miracles when travelling to Africa!) and some fibers.
I hope my friend will like this little book and use it often!

Large Tree? Small Car?

One more for the Cardmaking Day Challenges! I took the the Splitcoast Stampers Ways to Use Challenge "use a tree on your card!" as the perfect opportunity to make a first attempt on this year's Xmas cards. A Christmas Tree IS a tree, isn't it??!? LOL! And this is even a LARGE one!!!
I think this image is so funny - I know scenes like this IRL just too well... With my husband trying to fix a two and a half meters Xmas tree on our car...
I stamped the image with Palette Noir ink onto white cardstock and colored it with watercolors. Hard to see on the photo, but parts of the car and the red clothes are very sparkly IRL, I used a glitter pen on them. The sentiment and snowflakes were stamped with Snowcap White Adirondack pigment ink, but I added some white gelly pen to make it pop out a little bit more. The brads are from Sweden - I think they were originally intended to be used on baby cards, but I think they make the perfect snowflake brads...
The card did not turn out exactly what I wanted it to. I think I have to work some more on the coloring or add more paper piecing. Nevertheless, it's okay for a first attempt - or what do you think?

Wet Leaves

Yippeeee! Creating two cards on one day - what a luxury, LOL! I enjoy a long weekend (yesterday it was the National holiday here in Germany) - so there could be no better date for the World Cardmaking Day!
Here's my card for the Cardmaking Day Insipiration Challenge on the SCS site. I chose the title of the Inspiration catalog as my inspirational piece and created a no-stamps-card (sorry!). The card catches up the wheather we have right at the moment: stormy and rainy!
I sponged my cuttlebug embossing folder with copper Brilliance ink and ran it through my machine with some black cardstock. The leaves are punched with my new Woodware punch (WHAT a tool!!!!) which not only punches the leaf but also embosses the strands. I sponged the leaves with copper, pearlescent ivy and gamma green Brilliance inks. I added some green fibers, green and brown leaves ribbon. The rain drops were created with Diamond glaze.
Wishing you all a great cardmaking night!

A parcel from Kim (SCS Luv Flowers)

Look what I got!!!!
My wonderful SCS friend Kim (aka Luv Flowers) sent me this treasure chest of SU goodies along with a gorgeous card. She is such a talented stamper with always clear and clean designs, and she typically combines a variety of different papers and textures in her cards. Check out her gallery!
I love these blue and green colors she chose for me, but the dp she sent me is just too beautiful to cut into pieces for cardmaking!!!
And - can you believe it - my first SU ink pads!!! After ten years of stamping (or even longer?)! Europe is a SU desert...but now I've got my own SU oasis, so to say, LOL!
Kim, thank you so much, my wonderful and dear friend! I can't wait to use all these things (okay, except of the dp, perhaps, this I would rather keep for a while and just admire its beauty!!!!).

World Cardmakers' Day

I had the chance to play along with the World Cardmaking Day Challenges on the Splitcoaststampers forum today. I wanted to use some Teykol resist again - it's one of my absolute favorite techniques.
I stamped the image with Black StazOn onto glossy cardstock, then brushed some Teykol resist medium a little besides the lines of the image. When it was dry (it takes only a few minutes), I sponged different shades of Adirondack inks over the whole image. Finally, I added some highlights on the flowers with a white gelly pen. I matted the image with some black cardstock onto Basic Grey design paper and added some strips of cuttlebug-embossed cardstock. I sponged some cream and white Prima flowers with Adirondack inks and added brads. The sentiment is stamped onto a punch-out circle, the black border is drawn with a black marker.
Hey, I had fun with this card! I hope you like it!