Watercolor Wings meets English Garden DSP

I know that 'technically' the English Garden DSP was made to match the Garden in Bloom stamp set perfectly... but it looks awesome with these watercolored butterflies as well! Just check it out!

What a beautiful combo right?! And here is a little trick for this card- the green butterfly is made using only one shade of ink. First I did the more solid layer and I stamped it off once on scrap paper before adding it to my label. Then the design layer was added over that at full ink strength. Pretty cool right? And it can be achieved with pretty much any color butterfly to give it the tone on tone appearance :)

Flutterby again soon!

Watercolor Wings Class

My first 'have to have it' item out of this year's annual catalog was the beautiful, gorgeous Watercolor Wings bundle. I mean, what isn't there to like? It is BUTTERFLIES after all... and I don't have to fussy cut anything cause the dies will cut it out for me. YAY! :)

This month's class featured this great set. We made 3 cards and a cute little gift box. Here is the first of our cards.

The colors used here are Old Olive, Hello Honey, and Soft Suede. I just love them together. So natural looking.

I found that the striped/dotted stamp wasn't quite long enough to stick out both sides of the butterfly, so I stamped it towards the one side, and then the other, letting it overlap in the middle. The 'messy' area won't show since it is covered by the butterfly :)

One tip I have when working with this stamp set- stamp the wing design first, then cut it out with the framelits and THEN stamp the body. I learned this the hard way... don't look to closely at this butterfly's head... it may or may not be all there :O

The little details on this card are what really make it pop. I added one of the lacy looking butterfly cutouts made from vellum to the middle, with a twist of the silver thread between the two layers. I'm really loving the shine that this string gives my projects and have been using it ALOT!

Hope you enjoy this fluttery inspiration!

Flutterby again soon!

Ever get so busy that...

you feel you don't have enough hours in your day? That has been my summer! Add to it a month long head cold, hubby working long hours, and the stomach flu in one of my littles and you pretty much have summed up my past two months.

Not that it is any excuse not to craft. I still have been creating things! I just haven't had time to post all the goodies on here for you to enjoy :( Hopefully now that summer is winding down I can remedy that.

I did have a wonderful vacation at our family lake cabin a week ago. It was SO HOT- which is pretty much perfect lake weather. I don't think we could have picked a better week from the summer to be there if we tried. Along with lots of swimming I also got a lot of card making done with my mom. We had a blast playing with all our new toys from the holiday catalog. So Much Fun! I can't wait to share them with you!

For a sneak peak- hop on over to my classes tab. Most of what I created I've formed into a class for this fall/winter. I can't believe how far ahead I am in that department! Usually a month is as good as it gets for me. So I'm trilled to have all my prep done- and hopefully that will free me up some time to spend with all of you here at SwiftThinkin!

Also, don't forget about the incredible Paper Pumpkin deal going on right now until September 10th. Two months at 50% off!!! The stamp sets alone are worth that cost- so sign up today and don't miss another month of the fun! Just click on my Paper Pumpkin link on the right →→→

Flutterby again soon- I mean really soon. Like I hope to have real pictures up within the week ;)

Creative Inking Blog Hop: Happy Birthday to You!

Welcome to the Creative Inking Blog Hop! Come hop with us as we inspire you in all things Birthday related :)

For my project I wanted to make a little gift bag to fill with treats for a friend's birthday. So I grabbed my Mini Treat Bag Thinlits and here is what I came up with:

I just love how bright and cheery this bag turned out! I used the Cherry on Top DSP stack and matching cardstock for the base colors. This paper is just perfect with the bag die because it sized at 6x6, which is the perfect size for the larger of the two dies in the kit. And you have so many fun choices of patterns in this back that you could make bags for all ages and occasions!

See the fun little star cutout in the bag? That die even comes with the Mini Bag Thinlits and you can cut it out the same time you cut out the bag shape. Isn't that fun! The 'Happy' cutout and 'Birthday' sentiment come from the Crazy About You Bundle. I got this last spring when it was in the Occasions catalog and I am SO EXCITED that it carried over into the main catalog this year. There are so very many fun combinations of greetings you can do with this set. It is one of my 'must have' items :)

Of course this bag is originally flat... but that wouldn't work so well for putting treats in (unless they two were flat). So I added gussets! And it is so easy to do- the Stampin' Up! home office demonstrated this technique for the treat bags from the catalog at convention... and I thought, why not do it for the mini bags as well :) I will hopefully have a tutorial on how to do this soon- so stay tuned!

Now hop on over to Lisa's blog to see what she is up to this month

Or if you are doing the backwards hop then head over to B.J.'s site

Flutterby again soon!

Endless Alphabet Gift Card Holder

Sorry about all the radio silence lately. I feel like breaking out in song... "This is the cold that never ends. Yes it goes on and on my friends..." Well, you get the idea. It has pretty much been a month now and I'm just starting to feel normal. So fingers crossed that it finally goes away soon!

This past weekend we went to a birthday party for my nephew. He is a big fan of the Endless Alphabet game but was getting to old for it and was ready for the next game- Endless Reader. So we got him some iTunes gift cards to buy it with, and of course we had to present them in style ;)

The image on the card is actually a screenshot from the Endless Alphabet game. It was printed out multiple times (4 to a sheet of paper- and we had 2 sheets!) and then mom and I set about fussy cutting out various areas to pop-up on dimensionals. It actually didn't take to long at all, and the results were so worth it. Look at all those layers of character!

And of course, inside we had to have the monster again, except this time he was holding the gift cards in his mouth. Just the perfect presentation for his gift. He was pretty excited to have a new game to play. Success!

Flutterby again soon!

P.S. This post was in no way sponsored by Endless Alphabet game series. However, if you have kiddos (toddler thru grade schooler) in your life I HIGHLY recommend that you check them out in the iTunes Store. You can try all the games for free, and the part you pay for is additional word bundles. They are a little more pricy than some kids apps, but I promise you they are totally worth the cost. My barely 2yr old knows a bunch of his letters and letter sounds already- and I credit this totally to the game. The older kid games help with sight words, rhyming, numbers, and there is even a new spanish one. They are an excellent education tool, and the kids don't even know they are learning. They just think they are having fun ;)