Sunflower Bookmark

Frances, aka StampOwl, is the CCEE hostess with the mostest for the month of September, and does she have some awesome challenges lined up for us.  She took her inspiration from the “September Holidays and Special Days” site. September is “Read A New Book” month. Of course most of us can’t read a whole book in one sitting so we need something to mark our place so we know where we left off. So this week the challenge is to create a bookmark!




For my bookmark, I cut a piece of cardboard to 2" x 6" and glued my 2" x 6" pieces of designer paper to it.  I'm not sure of the maker of this designer paper as I picked it up at a garage sale this summer and there is no marking on the back.  I can't swear to it, but it feels and looks like Basic Grey to me.  I sponged the outer edges of the dp with Always Artichoke, which also helped to color the sides of the cardboard.  I stamped my Serene Sunflowers in SU Summer Sun and Chocolate Chip and Adirondack Butterscotch, sponging Adirondack Ginger on the tips of the flowers after I fussy cut them.  My leaves were stamped in Adirondack Lettuce and sponged with SU Always Artichoke on the edges.  I spritzed the entire bookmark and flowers with gold Shimmer Spritz (Tsukineo) and it shimmers so beautifully.  I only wish I was able to capture it with my photograph.  I used my Cropadile to punch a hole at the top for my gold organdy and spring moss grosgrain ribbons, as well as the gold cord that holds the sunflower charm.  The charm was originally silver, but I touched it up with a gold Zig Painty pen.

I like this sentiment which reads, "True friends grow separately without growing apart."

We hope you'll join us in our challenge.  You can check out the details and see the other spectacular bookmarks my friends Tosha, Joanne, Frances, Shirley, and Cindy made on our CCEE blog.

Love Without End Bookmark Card

I'm working on making cards for a swap I'm participating in next week.  I made my required masculine cards already with my horse post on June 17.  Here's what I came up with for my required feminine cards.

I wasn't able to capture the swirled embossing on the black vase that I made with an octagon Nestability cut in half, and now that I look at my photo here on my blog, the colors look kind of washed out.   I tried indoor shots and outdoor shots and this is just going to have to do because I've spent way too much time on trying to capture a good photo.  The pink on the flower really is quite pretty.  I wish my friend, Sabrina the photographer, lived here, but it'd probably be asking a lot of her to travel all the way from Ireland to take my photos for me, huh?

Well, I'll just try to explain what I did to make my card for those of you who like the details.  The colors are Pink Pirouette and Certainly Celery cardstock accented with black.  The green and white polkadotted designer paper is by American Crafts and does match Certainly Celery quite well in real life.  I heat embossed the Love Without End floral in black on pink designer paper (it's kind of polkadotted), cut it out, and popped up on a dimensional; the flower stem and the word "friend" are also heat embossed to make the black more prominent as opposed to when you just stamp with black ink.  We aren't suppose to use a sentiment on our designs as a part of this swap, so I'll keep this card for a friend and come up with something else to replace it on the bookmark.  The leaf on the right side of the flower stem was punched with the 1" circle punch and punched again by inserting the leaf almost halfway back into the circle punch to shape the leaf.

The corner piece is actually a detachable bookmark, which I made as part of the Our Daily Bread Designs blog challenge.  This was a technique challenge over on Splitcoaststampers all the way back to September of 2008.  Here's a link to TLC187 in case you're interested in making some yourself.  These bookmarks are so easy to make, and would make great little gifts for those who love to read.  Here's a picture of it removed from the greeting card.  Cute idea, huh? 

We're also required to use two embellishments on our swap cards.  For this card, I used a black brad and the pink polkadotted ribbon.  I used my wavy border punch for the black and pink panel behind my main image.  For the center of the flower I used the Boho Blossoms and 1/4" circle punches.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'd love to hear what you think of this card as a card for a swap.