Lili of the Valley: Thomas - Letter for you

Hello!  Happy Monday and welcome to my Blog!   It's the start of Term 2 at school so I was back doing the school-run today and catching up on cleaning the house after a whirlwind seemingly went through it these past two weeks!   

I made this card for my soon-to-be 8 year old niece and thought it would be fun to use some new items the postie brought to my door the other day - which is also the Ways to Use It Challenge #261 (WT261) at Splitcoaststampers from a few weeks back where the theme is "What's new?". See this link for the details on the challenge.

So what's new on my card: the Designer Paper is a digital download I did from a few days ago, the cat is my new stamp from Lili of the Valley (LOTV), the flowers are from my new Cuttlebug flower die set, the bottom punched border is my new Martha Stewart  Floral Lace edge punch and the embossed purple cardstock is my new Cuttlebug Caramello embossing folder.  Sometimes it takes a while before we get the "latest" craft items here in Australia - so some of the items might not seem very new to you if you are in the USA - but they are to me.

I rarely use purples to make a card which is odd because it's my favourite colour, yet I only have about 6 purple ribbons compared to about 100 pink or brown ones.  Anyway, I think I'll use purples more often from now on - they look so pretty and are a very nice change from pink.

Isn't this cat stamp just so adorable?!!  Being a cat-lover, I had to have this cat (along with several other designs) as soon as Lili of the Valley (UK) released them.   I coloured the image with Gamsol and Prismacolor pencils and I added Kindyglitz Crystalina to the cat's cheeks, flowers and around the edges of the envelope.  I wrote the 'for you' on the little card with my Zig black pen.  I lightly chalked around the image with my Kaisercolour chalks.

The image panel was popped up on 1mm mounts (dimensionals).  I also ran my Warm Violet ink around the image panel and Peach Pastel ink around the Buttercream cardstock panel because these panels were handcut using the Nestie as a stencil and it makes them look better because it tends to hide my not-so-perfect cutting!  I wish Spellbinders would bring out the inbetween sizes in the Labels Nesties - it would make things so much easier.

The Designer Paper (floral background and purple gingham) is a from a digital set called "Noah's Too" by NitWit Collections.   I said I would never use digital papers - I'm eating my words since I thought I would give them a chance and try them and oh my gosh - I am such a convert!  They are BIG files to download, but I can print them on my printer using the "Standard" setting which doesn't use too much ink and they just look fantastic.  I love the idea of being able to resize the image, or change the colours - and even with only my Canon Scanner program - I don't have Photoshop.

For the flowers: I attached the different coloured elements of the flowers to white cardstock to give them some stability as the Designer paper was printed on just ordinary printing paper which is thin so I needed some extra thickness to keep all the bits together and so I could bend the petals up a bit without ripping the paper!  The button is sewed on with Anchor stranded cotton using the full 6 threads. Two of the flowers were mounted with glue dots, and the top LH one is on a 2mm mount so it would be slightly higher then the one next to it. 

The ribbon was attached in 2 separate elements and the bow itself was made with my Bow Easy.

Apart from the SCS Challenge, I am also entering this card in one more Challenge:

The Pink Elephant Challenge #62 - which is 1 image, 2 dies and 3 of my favourite embellies:  the 2 dies being the Labels Nesties and the Cuttlebug Flower dies, and 3 of my fav embellies are the flower buttons.

Wish me luck :-)

Thanks for stopping in to have a peek at my card!  

Jocelyn

 

Card Recipe:

Stamps:  Lili of the Valley (LOTV) 'Thomas - Letter for you' S125 (unmounted)

Paper:  NitWit Collections: NitWit Collections Backs "Noah's Too" ©2008 by Mary Fran of www.nitwitcollections.com

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Colorbox Warm Violet & Peach Pastel chalk ink 

Accessories:  Cuttlebug, 3 flower-shaped buttons, 1mm & 2mm mounts (dimensionals), Caramello embossing folder, Swiss dots embossing folder, Spellbinder Labels 2 Nestabilities, Martha Stewart Floral Lace edge punch, Anchor lilac stranded cotton, Gamsol, Prismacolor pencils, Zig Millenium .005 black pen, lilac ribbon 3/8" - 9mm wide, Kindyglitz Crystalina, Bow Easy, Kaisercolour chalks, Cardstock: white, lilac, buttercream