Happy Birthday from the penguins

Hello everyone ;o)

Today I am back with a new card for Papercraft Challenges. This time we want to see the sentiment as the focus piece of your card. I chose to use this huge die from Honey Bee Stamps and love the result:

I started by creating this fun background in pink, red and a very pale pink as well and placed the birthday sentiment on top right in the center. 

Because of all the die cut pieces I feel like the card has a lot of dimension without being bulky though. After adhering the sentiment I placed the two cute penguins around it and stuck the "Happy"-piece to one of the penguin's wings, so that it looks like it is holding it while flying by holding a balloon. 

I decorated the inside as well and added some star sequins to the front and my card was done. I really love the look of this huge sentiment on the front. I hope I could inspire you to create a card with the sentiment as your focus as well and hope you are going to share it with us in our gallery! Have a fabulous day and happy crafting ;o) Yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Valentine Penguins" by Gerda Steiner Designs

Dies: "Birthday Honey Cuts" by Honey Bee Stamps

         "Sweet Stacks Rectangles Honey Cuts" by Honey Bee Stamps

Herzlichen GLÜCK-wunsch

Hello my dear crafty friends,

I don't know about you, but life has gotten way more hectic over the last two months in my little corner of the world. That is why you haven't seen a lot of new cards lately and I am afraid more than two or so a month won't be managable for me right now. However I do hope you still come by every now and then. Today's card is for the "Fortune, Good Luck, Mushrooms" challenge over at Challenge Up Your Life. In German the theme of the challenge is simply called "Glückspilz", which is the name of a person who has a lot of good luck and "Pilz" is the word for mushroom, so that is why you will see a giant mushroom on my card:

With the wonderful stamp set "Always bring a smile" by MFT I created this little scene. My idea was that it is the foxes birthday and the turtle is about to bring a flower as a gift. The sentiment "Herzlichen Glückwunsch" means congratulations and is used to wish someone a happy brithday over here. 

The whole scene was coloured with Copic markers and when everything was completely dry I added the sentiment. The word "Glück" is stamped in "Lime Green" ink by MFT and then covered with a clear embossing powder. 

Wonder what the foy will think about that sweet gesture ;o) I hope you like the card and I wish you the happiest of days and happy crafting of course! Maybe you like to create something that fits our theme?! It would be wonderful to see your creation in our gallery! Yours Maike

Supplies:
Stamps: "SY Always Bring A Smile" by My Favourite Things 

              "Glückwunsch" von Create A Smile

Dies: "All Prettied Up" by Mama Elephant

I would like to share my card here:

Herzlichen Glückwunsch - Wedding card

Heya everyone ;o)

I hope you are all doing well and that maybe life has returned to a somewhat-normal for you. I am so happy you found your way to my blog and would like to share this simple wedding card with you. It was made for the newest challenge over at Papercraft Challenges, so if you have any weddings coming up we would love it if you could share your creation with us in our gallery:

I chose to go with a square card base, because for some reason that is my preferred format for a wedding card. No idea why, but let's roll with it for now ;o) I die the heart frame and the heart from some pearl cardstock which gives just a tiny bit of shine when you tilt it in the light. I glued both to a die cut banner cut from vellum and added the sentiment with stickers and another die cut. By the way for all the intricate die cut pieces like the frame and the word I always use "Stick it" on the back to make life easier for myself and also so that it is completely adhered and won't lift in odd places. I adhered the banner on the decorated card front and my card was almost done.

Because it was rather plain on the outside, I decorated the inside a little bit as well. It is all stamped, but makes it a proper wedding card as the outside could be a birthday card as well. I would love it if you would join us in this month challenge and am looking forward to seeing you again soon - somewhere in Blogland ;o) Have a fantastic day and happy crafting! Yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Hochzeit Glückwunsch" by Klartext Stempel
Dies: "Heart Frame" by Avery Elle
         "Traditional Tag STAX" by My Favorite Things

         "Cool Cuts - Kleine Worte" by Create a Smile Stamps

Challenges:
Alphabet Challenge "E is for easy simple card"
Lil Red Wagon "Make it CAS"
Happy Little Stampers: Anything Goes with Dies

I sea it`s your special day - dimensional underwater card

Hello everyone ;o)
As cardmakers most of us - I'd daresay - we all love cards that are different from the cards you can buy in the store, right? For me it is cards with a lot of dimension like the one I am sharing with you today. I created it as a birthday card for a dear friend who loves diving, but the inspiration came from this month' inspiration "Under Water" over at Challenge Up Your Life. I wanted the feeling of the card to be a little like diving deep in the sea. What do you think? Did I nail it?

I created the box card by preparing two strips of paper and scoring them each 2 times. The deeper you want the box to be, the smaller the front piece needs to be in order to fit into a standard envelope. I wanted to cut this window with a die so I added a half inch to each side as a frame and defined the depth of the box accordingly. Then I added in some layers of water in a sense ;o) I needed those to add some fish that I glued to a piece of clear plastic in order to make it look like they are actually swimming. I also added the whale (because my friend likes whales very much) and also made the scene look more alive using some coral die cuts. I had cut these from a paper I had covered in nuvo shimmer paste. I love how they change colour just a little bit when you tilt them in the light. 

I also glued down a jellyfish which you can only see when you move the card as an extra surprise ;o) Also it added a pop of colour which I thought had been missing otherwise. The sentiment is a combination of letter stickers and a heat embossed piece. I wanted the "special day" part to stand out the most so I stamped on black cardstock with Versamark ink and heat embossed it. It was such a fun project to make and I love that it totally works as decoration, too. I hope you are going to join us this month at Challenge Up Your Life. We would love to see your projects, layouts and cards in our gallery! Have a fabulous week and happy crafting, everyone ;o) Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "tba" (I cannot find the stamp set so I can't tell you the name.... Sorry - I will continue to search ;o))

Dies: "Build a scene - Underwater" by Taylored Expressions

Challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Anything Goes"

Addicted to Stamps and More "Make your mark"

Surprise - Birthday Cards

Hello everyone,

how are you all doing? I hope you all get to enjoy some sun, great food, a wide smile from someone and some happy time crafting today ;o) Doesn't that sound like a wonderful day?! Here it has been raining all day, but except for the sun I got all of the other things I mentioned above and consider myself blessed! With the pandemic still going on I feel it helps to really think about the things we enjoy. However, enough talking for mow and more sharing... This is the card I'd like to share with you today which I made for the current "Anything Goes" theme at Papercraft Challenges:

I love this "Critter Crew" stamp by Avery Elle. It has the perfect size for a card and there is no need to mask anything yet have an interesting image. Do you like using "pre-arranged" images? For the background I created a quick pattern with some Distress Ink and a stencil and also die cut the oval as a way to anchor the image on the background. 

If you have been on my blog before you might now that I love rainbow coloured images, so with this one I chose to colour the hats in rainbow colours. Because the yellow was the only colour that was only represented once on the card I decided to use a piece of yellow paper for the banner to stamp the sentiment on. That way it all looks balanced I think. I hope you are going to join us for our "Anything Goes" theme at Papercraft Challenges ;o) Have a wonderful weekend and happy crafting everyone, yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Critter Crew" by Avery Elle

Stencil: "Balloons" by Echo Park (right at the bottom of the page)

Challenges:

Seize the Birthday "Make it a Bouquet"

Simon Says Stamp "Stencil It"

AAA Birthday Card Challenge "Birthdays" (Happy 2nd birthday ;o))

Use Your Stuff "Use Stencils"

Happy Birthday, Gnomie!

Hello everyone ;o)

I'd quickly like to share my card for this month' theme over at Challenge Up Your Life with you. The theme is "Under a hat":

I love the "Next Door Gnomes" by Hello Bluebird, so this was a perfect opportunity to break it out. I used polaroid fames to make it look like you were looking through openings to this magical world of little gnowmes when holding the card. Also I liked the white space underneath the opening as the place for my sentiment. For the background I used a card base in purple and a wonderful design paper by Lawn fawn to match the colour and mood. I hope you like the card and I also hope that you will join us in May at Challenge Up Your Life! Have a wonderful day and happy crafting, yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Next Door Gnomes" & "Party on The Farm" by Hello Bluebird Stamps

Dies: "Wonky Stitches Elle-Ments" by Avery Elle

         "Precious Polaroids" by My Favourite Things

Challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Anything Goes"

Seize the Birthday "Anything Birthday Goes"

Aud Sentiments Challenge "Use a Birthday Sentiment"

Have a BERRY sweet birthday (mouse and snail)

Hello everyone,

today I am back with a brand new card for Papercraft Challenges. This time the theme was "Fruits, Food and Vegetables" and this is what I made:

When I was making this card I looked outside the window and saw a rainy grey outside and really craved for some warmth and most of all sunshine and spring. I think you might feel it when you look at the finished project. It is so bright and quirky and so much more "in your face" than my cards usually are... Looking back I would definately have put vellum behind the designer paper and my cover and also switched the papers for the "berry" part of the sentiment. However I still like how it turned out, but thought I should let you know what I would change if I were to make it again. ;o)

To create the card I started by stamping and colouring in a whole bunch of strawberries, because I wasn't sure how many I would need in the end. (Now I have around 10 of them left, so you might see some tiny strawberries again in future projects...) Next I stamped and coloured the cute mouse and the sweet snail and die cut the letters and the front cover. The latter was cut twice: once from white cardstock and another time from the same red cardstock I used as my card base. I adhered them together after I had trimmed of a tiny bit of both one short and one long side from the red cardstock. This way you get the shadowed effect very easily. The assembling of the letters and the straberries took a bit of time, but when I was happy with the placement I stamped the rest of the sentiment and also adhered the two critters. I hope you like the card and even more so that you will play along with us at Papercraft Challenges this time! Have a lovely day and happy crafting my friends! Yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Dotty" & "Garden Bugs" by Purple Onion Designs

              "" by Gummiapan

Dies: "Cool Cuts Cherry lowercase" by Create a Smile 

          "Circle Panel Die" by Your Next Stamp

Challenges:
Sweet Stampers "Lots of Layers"
Addicted to Stamps and More "Birthdays"
Unicorn Challenge "Include an Animal"
Make My Monday "Checks or Plaids"