Where is the time going?

I simply can't believe how fast this year is going! At the moment it's the best I can do to keep up with my own cards let alone think of anything else - hay ho! Stampin Up send out a monthly Ispirations newsletter and this idea landed in May - I was dying to try it out for myself!

Here you use the Tag punch and the 1-3/8" Circle punch.
Use one punched circle as your base (the back of your flower) and one as the centre, using 8 punched tags as your petals.

To make the petals, position the tag shoulders uppermost, fold in half vertically. Then with the fold on your right, fold the top half back from bottom-left corner to top of the first vertical fold (making a diagonal fold, and the rounded petal).

To complete your flower, adhere 8 petals around the base circle - I then printed the petal stamp before I stamped out the top circle (so it was central) - simply securing the whole thing with a central brad. For papers I used the free hostess patterns pack in my last order and then the So Saffron Striped Grosgrain Ribbon from the Mini Catalogue :-) I have to admit that I ordered all my wish list for the Mini Catalogue as it only runs to the end of September, and I'm bound to forget otherwise ;-) The new 2009/2010 Ideas Book will also come out in October so if there is anything you need to order from the current Ideas Book just email it through. Will try to put up my other cards so that you can see what I've been up to!

My final addition - for today!

I simply can't get enough of these Fresh-Cut Notes - they are so simple yet stunning! Here I have used some blue hand made paper as I really like the effect that the backgroung stamp gives on rougher paper. Using Not Quite Navy ink, I then stamped the small flower securing with an earth elements brad, contrasting cameo coral and stamped the greeting on the bottom right hand corner and couldn't resist the envelope to cheer the posties day - hoorah! Back to work for a rest now!

Anniversarys too!

And so the month of Weddings too - thought I had rescued myself by remembering an anniversary tomorrow and now it turns out I've forgotten that it's their Silver Anniversary! Alas this is the card they'll recieve - the gorgeous Baroque Border standard wheel at the side in Chocolate Chip, and my favorite swirl from Season of Joy set (nope doesn't say Christmas to me either). With a central simple embellishment of the Flower Heart and surrounding edge in More Mustard and Really Rust card using the stampin dimensionals to raise the heart from the card. Hope you can see the detail of the writing as I think this stamp set is so wonderful for celebrations of love. The stamping of the same colour onto the ink also allows a subtle elegance - although in this case it should of been a screamingly silver affair - hay ho!

Dad's Birthday!

As you can see the July celebrations are fairly un-ending! My star fasination continues with a card for my Dad, and as he's usually in the garden Green was the theme - here it was of course Garden Green and Old Olive. The only variation here was to use my star punch and silver emboss the cake and greeting :-) Then of course get completely carried away by envelope embellishment and make a matching tag - hee hee!

Shhh.....It's a Surprise!

Secert Seventieth Celebrations for Tara's Dad! Glad to say I was in on the act and helped with the secret invitations and party room prep! Here's the card I made for him - as you can see I'm having a serious starry thing going on and simply love the embossing powder and heat tool as the image springs up and shines away :-) It's also very easy to use the Not Quite Navy to create a seriously male card - I used the jumbo wheel Swirling Stars as a top frieze, the scallop punch and Just for You scallop stamp from the Mini cat, the silver embossed stars are from In the Stars - and how can have a Birthday without cake from Fun & Fast notes. The ribbon here was actually around a card bundle I bought at a craft exhibition - nothing wasted ;-)

Joyful July!

Welcome to the World little baby Yasmin!

A great excuse for me to send gorgeous girlie things with a matching pink card :-) Here I used my scalloped circle punch on some delicate baby pink hand made paper as the background for a silver embossed Baby star - reading Twinkle twinkle, little star.... do you know how loved you are around the outside! Punched out from a circle of Cameo Coral card from the In the Stars set. Baby pink organza ribbon at the side with tiny silver outline sticker stars and edging, then a couple of baby pink scrapbook buttons in the bottom right hand corner.

Week off - where did that go?

And I had such plans of things I wanted to get finished and am now yearning to go back to work to have some structure back in my day! I thought the lease I could do was update my blog with a few of my recent SU efforts :-)

Here are the first Birthday cards I did for June - I wanted them to be the same but in their different colours! I used Cameo Coral and Not Quite Navy card and silver embossing powder with the teddy from Bundle of Joy set and a polka dot star from In the Stars. Still fending off temptation from the outline stickers as you can see :-)