Unnatural selection, and reinvention

I have had this colour scheme in my head for a few days. I wanted a limited but punchy palette, so coloured this daisy stamp in shades unnatural to its species and selectively, so petals only. The centres remain deliberately monochrome (in case anyone thinks I just gave up!), along with the rest of the card.

The bottom section is just random stamping of Altenew Freeform Greenery in black. It reminded me a bit of that 1950s black and white Homemaker china that everybody seemed to have a plate of lurking in the back of the cupboard and threw out the week before it got fashionable again.

Recently I rediscovered my Label Love stamps – hurrah! They had been missing for months but resurfaced inside (I know, don’t judge me) an embossing folder. So they get to be used again to add a bit more inky darkness.

Basically, what I have done is just repeated the design of my old faithful Peony Bouquet card (the one I use for my Gravatar) in different colours. But ‘reinvention’ sounds so much more complimentary.

Supplies: stamps are all from Altenew – Spring Daisy, Freeform Greenery and Label Love.

 

 

Getting some zzzzzs

I was going to title this post ‘Time for Z’ but I realised that would make very little sense to ‘across the pond-ers’, as you pronounce it ‘zee’ but we Brits go for ‘zed’. I’m fairly confident ‘time for zee’ would just leave a quizzical look or two (probably not the first time I have done this to you, to be fair!) whereas in the UK we would find ‘time for zed’ as slightly humorous. Hopefully. Then, you see, years ago we had a kids programme called The Magic Roundabout, featuring a moustachioed creature on a spring, whose name was Zebedee (see, see? See all the Z-based fun?) and who always said ‘time for bed’ at the end of each episode…it would have been a great joke …ok, mildly amusing…anyone fallen asleep reading this yet?! No? Good. Let’s crack on.

How come I have never made this z-fold shape before? I think I first saw it with a super card made by fellow blogger Myra, some months back: loved it, resolved to try it, forgot all about it. Then I saw one somewhere else recently and was hooked again, and remembered Myra’s post.

They are easy and although you get a substantially sized open card, it still folds down flat and (this one I made) fits into a standard C6 (UK) envelope, meaning no extra postage charges. Hurrah!

There are all sorts of variations on the theme out there, but I just went with the simplest option. If you want to have a go, here is how to make the basic shape:

Either use a square card blank or fold your own.

Fold the card front in half, back on itself, so what was the opening edge is now parallel with the spine.

Open up the card shape and chop off enough from the bottom to give you the size you want your finished card to be. So, I wanted an 14.5 x 10.5cm (almost UK A6) size card, which meant I took a blank card of 14.5cm sq and then cut off 4cm.

This thin piece then forms your horizontal ‘bar’. It is already folded in the right places, you will just flip it once you have decorated it so the long panel goes across the front of the card and the short section is adhered to the back panel of the card, as in the photos. You can of course trim it down to be a bit thinner if you want, or add backing layers to increase the size. But you know this already….

Now you get to gussy it up in whatever way you fancy. Just check that your embellishments won’t overlap the right hand side of the card when it is closed. The UK has been grey and threatening (or delivering) snow recently so I cheered myself up with some daisies and some gingham. Then threw a load of black in to match the sky….

The flowers are Altenew layering stamps (Spring Daisy), but I stamped just the middle layer using Versamark ink and white embossing powder onto vellum for (ahem) an ‘informal’ look!! The leaves were made in the same way. I used two shades of yellow ink for the flower centres, some embossed panels and job done.

This was a fun make, and I will definitely be z-folding again. Thanks Myra!!