Strings Attached!

Morning Friends!
Thanks for coming by,  Here's another Friday that's rolled around at double quick speed!  
I've loads to do today, so straight down to the crafting and no waffling for once
The Daring Cardmakers is the opposite of "No Strings Attached", and it's me to blame this week

String Theory
Don't worry, this week's challenge has absolutely nothing to do with physics!
All I'd like you to do this time, is to use string, twine, thread, fibres or that sort of thing when you make you card. 
You could use a little or a lot, I really don't mind.

Here's my card.

Info

The background is stencilled with a Hessian pattern (Prima) 

I wound some hairy twine around a piece of card, adding in some 'loose' ends and some knots for extra texture then matted it onto dark brown card before adhering over the stencilled pattern.

The gorgeous leafy swirls are all cut with Victorian Garden Romantic Vines  (Spellbinders)

The flowers are all made from Foamiran, and I used various flower dies and punches to make them.  Once cut I coloured the petals with artists pastels before using heat to create the shapes, and adding some stamens to finish.

Finally I added a twine loopy bow and some glitter dots in pink and orange.

This week I've been trying to get to grips with using pastels for colouring Foamiran, a heat gun to curl the petals and the glue gun I bought years ago and have finally unearthed this week.

I think I have over-tasked myself though.  I still prefer colouring the petals with ink.  I think I will go back to using my little craft iron for the petals (heat gun is too fierce!) and I now remember why the glue gun was so scary and got put away soon after I bought it!  It is better for sticking Foamiran, but how do you stop getting the glue globs and all those glue strings?
And we won't count how many times I said "ouch" while using it!

Thank you so much for visiting, I hope you'll join in with us this week at The Daring Cardmakers, it would be great to see your creations! 
See you soon

  

Summer Rose

 Hello
Are you having the same muggy weather as us?  We had a terrific thunderstorm a couple of nights ago and it rumbled on for ages. I had such a headache that afternoon, so I should gave been warned there was thunder on the way.

Anyway, on to things crafty.  It wasn't until I'd finished this and taken the photos that I realised I'd gone and chosen the same colour palette that I've used a few times recently.  I hadn't realised before because this time I just picked out colours of Bazzill card to go with the rose I'd already coloured with artist's pastels, rather than the Versamagic Ink Set I used the other week.
 

The layout is the July sketch from The Sketch File, and the rose is one of the flowers I made to show the versatility of the newest flower die acquisition. 

Her is the sketch - I twiddled it around a bit for my card

The Sketch File, July 2017

 Here's the rose I'd already made using Cinch and Go Flowers Two  Shapeabilities Etched Dies (Spellbinders)

I coloured it using 3 shades of artists pastels and some bits of old baby wipe to get a pretty buttery yellow colour, then chose some Bazzill card scraps to build the LO

 

Info

 Dies

Cinch and Go Flowers Two  (Spellbinders)

Die D-Lites Medallion Two  (Spellbinders)

leaves are from Victorian Garden Romantic Vines  (Spellbinders)

'Enjoy' (Creative Expressions)

Embossing Folder: Swiss Dots (Cuttlebug)

Top fold 15cm square card with a small strip cut off the side

Other card, Bazzill

Zutter corner rounder used on Lower mat

Banners are hand cut

Circle clip form my stash

That's it for this time, I hope you like it.
Thank you for popping by

 

Cinch Flowers - Spellblogging for Spellbinders

Hello there!

Thank you for joining me for another Spellblogging post for Spellbinders

I find it soooo hard to resist flower dies, and when I saw the Cinch Flower set in  the Spellbinders store it just had to join my collection.  You get four sizes of the flower and a set of pretty, decorative leaves too

The die set is called 
Cinch and Go Flowers Two and is from the Venise Lace collection by Becca Feeken (Shapeabilities Etched Dies)
I've had a ball playing with these dies over the last few days, and will show you the flowers I've made later in this post. 
 First though, here's the card I actually managed to finish!
This one is made in Foamiran, coloured with a pink artists pastel.  You use a little bit of heat to make the foam curl - you can touch the petals onto a craft iron or use your heat gun very carefully!

Info
Cinch and Go Flowers Two and is from the Venise Lace collection by Becca Feeken (Shapeabilities Etched Dies)

Petals and leaves are cut in white Foamiran then coloured with artists pastels.  I used each size of petal twice for this flower
 
'Untamed Tags' Rebel Rose collection by Stacey Caron 
(Shapeabilities  Etched Dies) coloured with
artists pastels

Stamped sentiment 

from Tiny Sentiments (Happy Grams #3) by Tammy Tutterow 

Other items:
White card blank
White and deep pink card
 White cotton lace, Wine coloured velvet ric-rac braid, pearls and punched circles shaped with ball tool

 Okay.  So that was one of the flowers I made with the Cinch Flowers 2 die, and there are four more, all made with the same die set

Don't they all look different?  It just shows how creative you can be even when all the flower shapes start of the same.
Here's a quick run through on how they were made

1. If you just cut the various sizes of petal from some card, colour them in with ink, then stack them up and use some pretty bling in the middle you'll get something like this

2. Here the largest two sizes of petals are cut in white card to make a rose

  3. I used the 3 smaller sizes and white card for this one.  each petal is curled around a bamboo skewer to get the shapes, then all the sizes glued 'inside' each other together to get something like a dahlia

4. The last one uses the four sizes of petal cut in thin white card then coloured with pink pastel.  I then damped each one and rolled up tightly, letting them dry before carefully opening them up, gluing together and adding some stamens. I think this one could do with another of the large sized petals to give it more fullness.

Well, that's all for today, so thanks for visiting, if you click on This Link  you'll find yourself at the Spellbinders store and explore the huge array of dies, stamps, machines and so much more!

Happy Crafting

 

The Birds in the Trees

Morning All!
Hope you are doing ok this Friday morning,  Got to love OH's Work at Home days - especially when it's his turn to make the tea and coffee and it arrives with a chocolate covered ginger biscuit alongside!

Friday means another Daring Cardmakers challenge, and this time is our lovely Enfys who's in charge!

Hi, it's Enfys here with this week's dare.
As it's the start of the Summer holidays, I thought a theme of

If you go down to the woods today...... 
 
would fit the bill. Think of country walks, picnics, rope swings, nature trails, camping......all those things that make Summer such a joy

 I was very stuck for an idea for this one.  I didn't have anything much in my die collection (hard to believe, I know!).   I have a few templates I could have cut with my silhouette, but the Lazy gene was evident this week.....
In the end I headed over to Etsy to see if there were any digital papers around that would help me out.

Info

Smooth white rectangular card with a top fold

These papers from The Digital Finch, via Etsy.  Resized and printed onto white Bazzill card

Various scraps of brown card for the trunks

Toning Green card

Memory Box Winter Tree die (branches trimmed to fit)

I printed my chosen bird design in two sizes, the second version was cropped then printed so that I could cut a few larger birds out.

From the two-tone green bird aper I cut plain and scalloped circls and ovals for the tree shapes

Printed sentiment created in Paint Shop Pro

I used some old cereal packet chipboard to add some dimension behind the trees and birdy circle

That's it for this time.  Now I'm off to play - I have new Spellbinders dies that arrived earlier in the week but I've not had the chance to open yet!

Do visit Visit the Daring Cardmakers blog to see this week's ideas from the team - and of course we'd love you to join in with us
Have a great weekend

 

Wimbledon Special (with Strawberry tutorial)

Hellooo!

Well after so much sunshine and baking hot weather, I guess we were in for some rain at some point during the Wimbledon fortnight.  Looks like today is the day - though they are playing again now.  Mind you I expect the rain delay will have sent everyone scooting for cover.....and while waiting for play to begin again there's always the temptation of that good old Wimbledon culinary tradition of Strawberries and Cream, possibly with a Pimms to wash it down?

Actually I had some raspberries with natural yoghurt and a drizzle of local honey at lunch-time today.  I don't like strawberries!

A couple of weeks ago I made a box which was shaped and decorated like a strawberry gateau.  I mentioned that I'd do a little tutorial on making the 3D strawberries, and as I wanted to make a card featuring them, you'll find photos and instructions below on how they are made.

I made this card following the latest LO sketch from The Sketch File Blog

 Info:

Smooth white card blank plus extra of the same for matting

Coloured card; Red and 2x Green, Yellow Glitter card

This Sketch

Dies and Stamps are all from Spellbinders
Stamp:
from Tiny Sentiments (Happy Grams #3) by Tammy Tutterow 

 Dies:
Strawberry from Aren't You Sweet Etched Dies set

 

Tiny Strawbs made using the hearts and stars from
 Let's Party Sweet Wish Die D-Lites Etched Dies

How to make a 3D Strawberry

These are the instructions for a 'flat-backed' strawberry that you can add to cards etc.  If you want to make one that is more like a 'ball' then just add in more shapes and when you are happy with the fullness, glue the final two faces together to complete.  Add a loop of thread into the spine before the last step if you want something you can hang up

For these photos I used a one-sided patterned paper, just for clarity - click on the images for the larger version of each

 

Here's what you'll end up with, and the two red ones I made for the card.

For the green bit on the top (sorry, can't remember what its called) it's a good idea to use a ball-tool on the die cut shapes, it will help you to get a nice finish .  I only glued the 'points' at either end of the shape to the back of the strawberry.  This means it will still all fold down flat for posting

If you're making a fully round strawberry, use two of the green die cut pieces and mould them around the top of the fruit

This method works for many other die cut shapes - Christmas baubles and trees, for instance.

Thank you for popping by, I hope you'll leave a message before you leave

Hey Cupcake - Spellbogging for Spellbinders

Hello there!

Thank you for joining me for another Weekend Spellblogging post for Spellbinders

This week I've been making some cupcakes!

I made a couple of cards using the same lovely  Let's Party Sweet Wish Die D-Lites Etched Dies die set.  This is such a great little set - not only do you get the cute cupcake, but you get a candle shape, a cherry for the top, some heart and star shapes which are very useful to have, plus  the word "wish" in a gorgeous loopy font.  
I like to add sentiments to my cards which are mix printed and die cut words and this one will be especially good for that.  

Here's the first of my cards

Info

I stencilled the spotty background using my current fave ink pads, then used them to colour extra pieces of card for cutting the shapes I needed, and for the various backing pieces too.  
The embossing and stencilling options are especially useful in this die set and instead of running them through the machine using the embossing mat, I just used a ball tool on the back while the pieces were still in the die, then flipped it over to stencil through with some ink and an old baby wipe


The cake was assembled on a scrap of chipboard before adhering to the green and white matted section along with the 'wish' sentiment
To finish I used the hearts and stars from the die set to decorate the cake and cut some triangles for the bunting from the scraps I had left over

Here's the die set I used this time:
 Let's Party Sweet Wish Die D-Lites Etched Dies

card 2

Info
This time I chose coloured card in pinks and red, adding the stencilled highlights either in ink or glitter gel 
(just be sure to clean those dies thoroughly before that stuff dries!)
I cut a couple of the cherries for this one, giving them a layer of clear dimensional glaze to make them shine.
This time the cake has a 'box hinge' behind it - rather like the cover part of a match box - it means the cake folds flat against the card for posting, but then pops up, away from the background for display

 It makes me happy when I get a new die set that immediately makes me see that the included pieces are versatile and will find their way onto other projects.  They are the sets you get your moneysworth out of, rather than the ones that are only useful for one thing.

  Anyway, that's enough rambling for one day!  Thanks for visiting, if you click on This Link  you'll find yourself at the Spellbinders store where you will be tempted by lots of lovely dies, stamps and all manner of other loveliness!

Happy Crafting

Citrus Sorbet

Morning Friends!

Hope you are enjoying the sunshine and not feeling too 'hot and bothered'!  If only we got the heat without the humidity, eh?  My lovely Dyson fan goes walkabout all around the house with me when the weather is like this, and its especially welcome when I'm in the study and at my craft desk; I always manage ti be working hunched up in a tiny space and wondering why I'm feeling so hot!

Over the last couple of days I've had a lovely time making something for The Daring Cardmakers' July Inspiration challenge, and I even managed to steer myself away for the gorgeous colour palette this time.

 I hadn't really decided what colours to use until the new "Fruit Cocktail" set of Versamagic Dew Drop Inks that were sitting on my desk caught my eye.  What a perfect confection of Summer shades!  

Anyway, here's our July Inspiration piece, which was chosen this time by Dawn.

From this pretty mood board I chose to use candles, flowers (of course!) and a sprinkling of little stars. Here's my card

 Info

I started by inking a few pieces of card to cut the shapes for the background

These layers were cut using Nestabilities Label 56 (Renaissance Jubilee by Stacey Caron for Spellbinders)

I stamped the sentiment on white card, and made a frame using two of the above die set.  The sentiment is from Special Birthday Sentiments Stamp set
(also Spellbinders)

I used the inks to created a striped piece of card, then cut into pieces and rolled to make the little candles.  I hand cut the flame shapes and added some glitter glue swirls to them.

Now came the fun of making all the flowers.  More inked pieces of card and lots of different dies and punches were used for this bit and I'm not going to list them all!

To finish I cut various leaves to tuck behind the flowers and fill out and help highlight the flowers. 

Various pucnes were used to make the gold stars, some from glitter card, others from plain gold card

Some pearls and gems were used to finish off the flowers

I had such a lovely time making this!  There is nothing quite like spending a while making little flowers.  The photo above shows the sort of mess I can make when I get the 'flower-making bits' out!

I do hope you'll pop over to the DCM BLOG to see what the others have made - it all looks soooo pretty!  We would love you to join in with us too

That's all for this time, thank you so much for popping by