May Each Treasured Memory

Joy Hauck created this beautiful set of cards for a recent family loss.  We send our condolences to Joy and her family and thank her for sharing these beautiful cards to inspire us!

 

Here is the same card in silver....

 

and in gold....

 

Joy used diecut butterflies from Elizabeth Craft and the Phlox, Ivy Tendrils and Leaves are from Memory Box.  Joy used Spellbinders Matting Basics behind the Filigree Delight which you can find here on our site.

 

 



May Each Treasured Memory Filigree Delight

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Happy Family Days & Memory Box Wreaths

If you're like me, you're charmed by many of the Memory Box Wreath dies.  You will remember Joy Hauck, our February guest designer, made beautiful use of the Starry Wreath with her birthday card.

But a lot of you might not have seen this stunning Mother's Day card Joy made, again using one of the Memory Box wreath dies. For this card Joy used the Catalina Wreath die.
Inspiring, isn't it?!

Check out our new selection of Memory Box dies.  We're pretty sure you'll be charmed, too!

 

 

Here are thumbnail links to some of the items Joy used!
Thanks for dropping by!
Suzanne

Happy Family Days Catalina Wreath Starry Wreath

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Happy Birthday - Cards

Hi again, it’s Joy here with my second post as Guest Designer this month. Today I have some birthday cards to share with you, both using the “Happy Birthday” sentiment from the set: Happy Family Days with Calligraphic Frame (links to products may be found at the bottom of this post).

 

The first card is one that I made for my son for his birthday recently. The patterned papers are from the Bo Bunny Powder Mountain collection, with edges swiped with Distress ink.

 

A circle was cut from the top layer of paper using a Spellbinders Standard circles, and another larger circle to go under the cut out area was cut from plain white cardstock, then stamped with the Happy Birthday sentiment using Versafine Onyx black, and clear embossed.

Distress inks to match the paper colours were added around the stamping with an ink blending tool.

 

Be Creative tape was applied to the back of another piece of white card stock, and the Memory Box die Starry Wreath was run through my Big Shot. I have found that I have to use thinner cardstock or the die cannot cut all the way through the card and tape – I also added a shim to the cutting sandwich and ran it through a few times just to make sure! Once cut out, the release paper from the Be Creative tape was removed, and Glitter Ritz Liberty Blue microfine glitter was applied to the sticky surface, and burnished by using my finger.

 

Various sizes of stars were completed in the same way using the Sizzix Bigz die Stars #2 using other colours of glitter. Then the card was assembled with some layers being popped up for depth. A quick and easy card! This would be very easy to produce several in different colours.

 

The second set of birthday cards are also quick and easy - once I figured out the design for the first one, I decided to make more using different colour schemes, as it never hurts to have extra cards on hand. I also like to see at how cards can appear quite different with varying colours.

 

 

 

 

Various distress inks were applied and blended on a sheet of white cardstock (I used Tumbled Glass, Dusty Concord, Salty Ocean and Broken China). I then sprayed the sheet with Biscotti Perfect Pearls to add shine and let it dry.

 

I stamped the frame from the set Happy Family Days stamps using Memento Grape Jelly ink, and used a die from Spellbinders Labels 26 to cut out the frame. The Quietfire calligraphic frame will actually fit within a number of different Spelllbinders dies that are similar to Labels One. I used a stamp positioner to stamp the Happy Birthday sentiment within the die cut.

 

Two die cuts were made from metallic cardstock using a Spellbinders Fleur de Lis Pendant die, trimming the edge of two of the opposite sides on one die cut in order to fit within the card space. The final piece was the background patterned paper that was run through a Cuttlebug Fleur de Lis Diamonds embossing folder, with the edges swiped with distress ink.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope I have given you some ideas to use in your own projects.

Here is a photo of Joy's card taken outside so you can see the shimmer - so hard to capture with the camera!

Thanks very much to Joy for joining us a Guest Designer for this month!  She's done a awesome job for someone who is new to sharing her work online!

Here are thumbnail links to some of the products Joy used:

 

Happy Family Days Powder Mountain Distress Inks Versafine Black Clear Embossing Powder Standard Circles Small Ink Blending Tool Double-sided Tape Glitter Ritz Embossing Folder Labels 1 Biscotti

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Once In a While...love gives us a Fairy Tale

Joy here, in my first appearance as Guest Designer of the Month at Quietfire Design. I live in Calgary, Alberta (originally from the UK),  take classes, make cards and dream more than I actually get to make.

Preparing the Frame
For today's project, I started with a inexpensive frame and primed it with a layer of gesso. {ed.note: the frame here is the part of the project which appears as the mat for the photo.}

 I separated out a white napkin into layers.  I spread more gesso over the frame, carefully laid a napkin layer on top of the wet gesso and spread another layer of gesso over that. There are some wrinkles in the napkin layer, which add texture. You can gently pull off any excess paper around the edges of the frame where it is not wet from the gesso. Let it dry well.

 

I painted the frame with red acrylic paint,.  Then I mixed Forever Red perfect pearls with water and brushed this on top of the paint so it would  shine.  I also rubbed some silver Faber Castell gelato into some of the wrinkles. A few Quietfire Flourishes were stamped in various places. 

 

I spread regular Dreamweaver Embossing Paste over the Dreamweaver Flourish stencil and allowed it to dry.

 

When I painted the Dreamweaver flourish with a Perfect Pearls Pewter and water mix, I didn’t like the look so used a Versamark pen over the paste in sections in order to add the Marcasite Embossing Powder. I liked that a lot better!!!

 

I stamped Once in a While with Stazon Black onto  Spellbinders Decorative Labels 8 cut from black aluminum  and sanded well so the stamping would adhere. 

Roses and Heart
The paper roses were painted with Forever Red Perfect Pearls mixed with water (the roses were originally white and pink). The black rhinestone flourishes at the top are by Zva Creative. 

To create the heart, diecut a heart from the T!m Holtz Movers and Shapers mini hearts set, thermal emboss with Versamark ink , sprinkle with Marquisite EP and a touch of Ruby Red embossing powder.

I painted a small red paper flower with some black distress ink (mixed with water on non stick craft sheet). Smeared black gelato onto craft sheet and added a touch of water to rub onto edges of frame with my finger to tone down the red, and also around the edges of the heart.

The pine sprigs were die cut using Tim Holtz Sizzix dies then sponged with Distress Inks.

Adding the frame
My “knight” on shining armour decided I needed a traditional frame around my frame and made one out of MDF! I primed it with gesso, then painted with two layers of black acrylic paint. Wiped very small amounts of red paint to add highlights onto the frame in keeping with the distressed look.

Love how it turned out – this is very much “outside” my box, and I struggled at the beginning to get going and matching my vision for the frame with the reality of how it was looking.  I kept adding bits here and there, and it definitely took a while before things came together in the way that I wanted them to. All part of that creative process sometimes!

 

The Fairytale!
The background behind this piece: My “knight” in/on shining Kevlar is my beloved husband of 20 years, Greg. He has a passion for motorbike riding, and a few years ago, I finally got up the courage to ride with him.  I got a lovely helmet last year that is black, silver with red roses.  Hence, my inspiration for decorating this frame as a Valentine’s gift for Greg.

 He is my fairy tale: a tale that crossed thousands of miles in a trans-Atlantic romance that came out of nowhere during a working holiday in Canada, 22 years ago. We look forward to many more rides together, saving up for “the” trip to Italy for our 25^th wedding anniversary we hope!

Huge thanks to Suzanne for this amazing opportunity to be a Guest Designer.  I have taken this opportunity from Suzanne as a sign to spread my wings a little. I soak in all the inspiration of those talented people that I follow (especially on the QF design team) and observe with wonder, to now actually hope to “do”, as Yoda says, there is no try.