Mintay Paper Blossom Serenity

Today, with the beautiful Blossom Serenity collection from Mintay Papers, I've created two birthday cards using papers from the collection and the coordinating paper die-cut pack. I really enjoy making cards with scrapbooking papers and embelishments - it's like designing a tiny, photo-free scrapbook page!

As well as papers and die cuts, I also used some pink cardstock, white glitter cardstock and some ribbon and sequins from my stash.

I die cut, using a manual die cutting machine, some glittery doilies from the glitter cardstock to add some sparkle to the cards and also layered more glitter cardstock beneath the paper and cardstock layers.

The die cuts in this collection are so pretty and for these cards I chose to use the girly die cuts as well as some birds and butterflies.



Some sheer ribbon was attached horizontally to the cards and a die cut pink cardstock sentiment was added.



Finally I added some pink sequins for even more sparkle.

Mintay Papers - Christmas Blessings - Pop-up Gift Card Holder

Today I have one last project using Mintay's Christmas Blessings collection. Today I am sharing a Pop-up Gift Card Holder. Whilst I have made this using a Christmassy collection, it could be made with any papers and cardstock to suit any occasion.

Full instructions for making this gift card holder can be found here at simplysimplestamping.com. The instructions are for a card holder with stamped images but as I am not really a stamper, I used patterned papers and some die cuts instead and I think it turned out great.



For my card holder I used papers from the 6x8 Paper Pad, die cuts from the Paper Elements pack and co-ordinating cardstock.

I also added some cotton lace and a wood veneer star from my stash.



Whilst this project uses the beautiful Christmas Blessings collection from Mintay I would love to make another using one of their other collections.

Photoplay Notting Hill - A Few Cards

Today I have a set of cards to share that I made using the scraps of paper and cut-apart sheets left over from my previous projects using the Notting Hill collection from Photoplay.

The eight cards are all made using 6x6 card blanks and are all a variation of the same design.

The first card is designed to hold a gift of a book token in a pocket inside and I used two of the tags from the My Library sheet of paper on the front.

All papers used on the cards were matted with black cardstock to make the colours pop.

With the addition of the word 'thanks' the typewriter journalling card from the One More Chapter paper was perfect for a thank you card. 

Die cut sentiments cut from cardstock were added to some of the cards.

Card Candi (from my stash) were used to embelish the cards.

Where tags were added to the front of the cards, I added bakers twine to the tag holes.

All the cards were Tent Fold Cards - my preferred style of card.

The position of the the journalling card or tag on the card front varied depending on how it looked best against the background.

Echo Park Coffee & Friends - Cards from Scraps

Recently I've posted scrapbook layouts I've created using the Coffee and Friends collection from Echo Park. After creating three layouts with my DT kit I was left with a few random sized scraps of patterned paper and some of the die cut Ephemera Frames and Tags.

None of the scraps were bigger than about 6" square so rather than try and make another scrapbook layout I decided to challenge myself to make as many cards from the scraps as I could. On YouTube I follow American cardmaker Kristie Marcotte. Kristie has a series of videos where she takes a 6x6 paper pad and turns the entire paper pad (plus cardstock and minimal embelishments) into a set of cards. I love Kristie's style which uses a lot of black cardstock and took inspiration for my cards from her. By coincidence, Kristie has recently used the 6x6 Coffee & Friends paper pad to make cards. Unlike Kristie I didn't have a full 6x6 paper pad so didn't have as many papers or patterns to choose from but double sided papers help.

I managed to make 9 cards.

Four of the cards were just under 6" square and five were 4.5" square.

I used a lot of black cardstock to mat the patterned papers and die cuts. This made the colours pop.

The die cuts were mounted on 3D foam to add some dimension to the cards.

I used some cardstock in colours picked out from the patterned papers and die cuts on some of the cards.

Embelishments were minimal - sequins, ribbon and card candy.

Because I didn't have much patterned paper left I had to be creative on some of the cards. Some of the papers were joined and the join hidden behind another element.

For this card I was able to add blue cardstock to emphasis the blue cups on this paper and the die cut.

Some of the sentiments were printed onto white cardstock.

Quick Cards using Simple Stories Hey Crafty Girl collection

Today I have some quick cards on the Papermaze blog using the Simple Stories Hey Crafty Girl collection. Simple Stories always include in their collections a paper with 2x2 elements and often other 'grid type' papers too. These are perfect for making quick greetings cards.

The cards I made were all based on a sheet of the Happy Place paper.

I loved this sheet of paper but was struggling to figure out how to use it on a scrapbook page so I decided to cut it into squares of four images and make some cards from it.

The squares were mounted on 6" square white card blanks with foam underneath to give some dimension.

I added some stickers from the Combo Sticker Sheet, fussy cut some images from the rest of the Happy Place paper and the 2x2 Elements paper, punched a heart from a scrap of paper and made some tiny bunting for one of the cards.

These cards are very simple but I think they would be fun to send to crafty friends.

Pebbles Cozy & Bright - A Few Cards

Many themed collections will include patterned papers which can be used for non-themed projects and Cozy & Bright is no exception. Many of the B sides would be perfect to use at any time of the year, not just at Christmas, but I decided to challenge myself to make some non-Christmas cards using the A side of the Christmas Magic sheet of paper.

Although the sheet of paper has images of holly leaves and poinsettia flowers on it, by focusing on the pale blue colour in the paper and teaming this with blue cardstock and embelishments I think it's possible to draw the attention away from the Christmassy images.

I matted squares of the patterned paper into blue 'Ocean Breeze' Bazzill cardstock. 

My sentiments were printed onto acetate and then put onto squares of the Merry Little Christmas paper which were also matted on the blue cardstock.

 

 

The cards were embellished with blue ribbon and some hand made flowers using this tutorial . I've made many of these flowers in the past using flowers punched from scraps of paper. Sometimes I've used brads for the flower centres and sometimes artificial flower stamens. For these cards I used some of each.

A Few Cards

After creating two layouts for the Papermaze (Scrap Paper Scissors) blog using the Carta Bella Spring Market collection, I decided to make a few cards with the leftovers. I've recently go into the habit of making a few cards each month with leftovers. It's a good way to increase my stock of hand made cards for when I need one and is the perfect way of using up those scraps.

I used a cut file from the Silhouette studio to cut  6" x 6" hexagon backgrounds from white cardstock.

I filled the open spaces with scraps of the patterned papers and mounted these onto 6" x 6" square card blanks.

I used some of the die cuts, journaling cards and stickers (matted on cardstock or patterned paper) to decorate the cards as well as some Studio Calico Wood veneer Butterflies,  Freckled Fawn Wood Chips - Words, bakers twine , enamel dots and stamped sentiments.