Fifteen Minute Cards

Hello everyone, and welcome to our monthly offering of  quick makes, brought to you by the Design Team and the Guest Design Team members. We aim to bring you speedy ideas that take no more than fifteen minutes to put together, using tips and techniques to produce cards that can be made as batch cards, or simply cards in a hurry for many different occasions. You can make your cards to sell at fairs and charity sales, as long as you hand stamp each item, there is no limit on how many cards you can make.

This month, we are bringing you a kaleidoscope of butterflies, as each of our cards are based on a butterfly theme.

I have made a clean and simple card, using a circular gelli plate. I inked the gelli plate using green and purple ink, applying the ink with a brayer. I then stamped onto the gelli plate with the flourish stamp several times. I pressed the gelli plate onto the card blank to obtain a print. The two butterflies were stamped and embossed onto coloured vellum, using white embossing powder. Finally, I added a sentiment onto the card using Versafine Onyx Black Ink.

Magda has created two pretty cards on a black and white theme for us this month. The first uses the pretty floral panel from the Patchwork Butterfly stamp set, with just a pop of orange:

The second card has a border of fluttering butterflies, again with just a hint of colour:

Rachel has created two cards, stamping with Archival Ink, and adding Brushos for a dramatic burst of colour:

Anne has used a gelli plate for the background of her card, stamping onto the plate using a Big Bold Background stamp to create a pattern. This has lifted some of the colour away in a faux resist effect. She has added the large flourish and minimal colouring to the beautiful butterfly. She has edged the panel with pen to save the need of a matting layer.

We have some fabulous cards from Brenda again this month. The first card was created by using a stencil and white paste on an offcut coloured with Distress Inks. She sprinkled mica powder onto the wet paste and heated it with a heat gun until it bubbled, then squished the bubbles.

For her next card, she stamped the butterfly and coloured it with Distress Inks. She fixed it onto a piece of hessian, stamped a sentiment, and covered the butterfly with Glossy Accents.

For her third card, she created a quick Pan Pastel background, then stamped the flowers, leaves, dragonfly and butterflies with Distress Inks.

For her final card, she placed the mask onto the card and sprayed the background with Dylusion sprays. She randomly stamped some butterflies, and then stamped the larger butterfly, painting it with the same Dylusion colour.

Penny created her beautiful card by stamping the large butterfly in black and then masking it. She stamped the Big Bold Background in grey, removed the mask, and painted the whole panel with inks.

Last but certainly not least, we have a beautiful selection of cards from Zoe. Her first card was coloured using Inktense pencils.

For her second card, she masked the edges of the card, stamped with Versamark, and added Pan Pastels over the top. The little butterfly was heat embossed, and she used a decorative bookmark die for the verse.

For her third card, she stamped and embossed the butterfly, before masking the image. She stamped the flourish twice, and added a stencil in the background. The butterfly was coloured with Inktense pencils.

For her fourth card, she used the butterfly mask and Distress Inks. She overstamped and kiss stamped the two smaller butterflies, using grey Versafine Ink for a more subtle effect.

For her fifth card, she taped across the centre, and kiss stamped at the bottom of the card with 'no ink', then used what was on the outline stamp to stamp at the top of the card.

Finally, she used bubble wrap to pick up left over Distress Ink from her craft mat to create the background for this card.

We hope that you have enjoyed this month's selection of cards, and that the ideas that we have shared will inspire you to make some of these cards, or to use some of the other stamps that you have to create some quick cards of your own. We will be back next month with another bumper post for you. In the meantime, do keep visiting the blog for a daily dose of inspiration from our regular Design Team posts.