Jubilee

 

A few week's ago we celebrated the Queen's Platinum Jubilee with our neighbours by way of a street party.  Obviously some kind of decoration for the house was needed!

I made two lots of bunting, one set it the platinum and purple colours and the second in red, white and blue.  I was a bit disappointed in the pack of papers I’d bought from an online craft shop so I found a couple of digital sets of Jubilee themed papers to download and also set about altering some of my own basic designs to use. Once resized, printed and cut to shape I laminated them (well, this is Britain and we do have ‘weather’) and strung them together 

I also decided to do something a bit different and have a go at making a wreath for our front door. 

 I don’t have a wreath base so had to start by making one. I just used sheets of card that I’d hoarded (as you do). I drew round plates to get the circles, cut them out with scissors and glued a few layers together. Once dried I cut 4cm wide strips of green paper and wound them around to cover the card wreath.

 I made enough roses from card and paper to fill the wreath.  I used several shades of red and purple plus some silver paper I bought in error a while back (good when things like that find a purpose) and used different dies and punches as well as making them in different sizes

Once I’d arranged and glued the roses down I hand cut leaf shapes from green card and tucked them under the petals to fill out the wreath.

Next I tied a few ribbon bows to add extra interest, made a rosette from wired ribbon and glued a silver ribbon bow to the centre. 

To complete the wreath I fixed some glittery diamanté ’tails’ to the bottom and made a silver card crown for the top. 

You can see my tutorial for making the roses here:

 instructions for how to make paper roses 

 

 

Thank you so much for coming by, hope you liked what you saw!

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 

 

 

 

Standing with Ukraine

Midsummer

 

Hello

I hope you’ve had a good week 

Today I’m sharing the card I’ve made for this week's Daring Cardmakers Challenge. When I first saw Jenny’s challenge I was reminded of a book I listened to a while back which was set around the Midsommar celebrations in Sweden. Among the traditions of the festivities is the making and wearing of flower headdresses, and I thought this was something  I could use as a starting point for a card., 

 Hi, Jenny here to host this week's challenge!  

 Midsummer

As today is Midsummer's day - a day to appreciate all the gifts that nature provides.  

This week I dare you to make a card inspired by Midsummer. 

 Share your appreciation of nature and maybe even include some natural elements e.g. pressed flowers, leaf prints.

whatever you associate with life at the beach or by the water.

Here is where you can see the Design Team: inspiration

In the end my idea for some kind of ‘circlet’ of flowers morphed into more of a bunch of flowers but I added twigs and plenty of leaves to echo the beautiful flower crowns of Swedish Midsommer 

I stencilled pale blow stripes with a pretty Nuvo Embellishing Mousse, then glued a blue skeleton leaf over it  next I adhered a strip of corrugated card from some packaging for the background 

 Using some old Spellbinders dies I cut some twiggy shapes, then different shaped petals from pink and white card and arranged them on top.  I added a sentiment, the wooden circle with a cut out heart and a twine bow  next I die cut lots of leaves to tuck amongst the flowers - I almost always add leaves and swirls last!

Thank you so much for coming by

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 

 

Standing with Ukraine

Sandy Toes and Salty Kisses

Hello

I hope you’ve had a good week 

Today I’m sharing the card I’ve made for this week's Daring Cardmakers Challenge.  I managed to avoid using the beach huts featured on the mood-board for our June picture challenge a couple of weeks back but there was no way I could resist the opportunity twice! 

 

Miri has chosen this week's challenge. 

 

Vamos a la Playa... Life`s a Beach!

Summer's here and I hope we all have some time at the beach or pool or other kind of water planned for this summer. 

I'd like you to use a "beach element" on your card this week: 

sea shells, sand, a parasol, a beach chair, flip flops ... 

whatever you associate with life at the beach or by the water.

Here is where you can see the Design Team: inspiration, 

 

We’re extremely fortunate to own a flat in Southwold, Suffolk which is usually rented out for holidays, but obviously we get to use it too.  One of the things I love about Southwold and it’s  known for is it’s long promenade lined with a row of colourful (and extremely expensive) beach huts. They are so pretty!

 

I started by using the pc and Paint Shop Pro to make a striped design in various colours plus squares of matching plains. I resized them, then copied and pasted  them so they’d fit on a sheet of A4 card. I wasn’t sure which colours I wanted to use so I think my sheet had 8 striped and plain blocks of about 6cms on it in the end. 

I chose 3 colours and cut t he all the shapes (apart from the punched tiny hearts and circle) for the beach hut just using  scissors or guillotine. 

The sentiment is one of my home-made decal ones, it’s from a digital set I bought via Etsy. (I’ll add the designer and link later). I made a twine square knot to add more interest and tiny flags and bunting to complete the card. 

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 

 

Standing with Ukraine

June Elemental Inspiration

 

   Hello! 

As usual I'm trying to get caught up with my blog.

I was so busy in the week leading up to the Queen's Platinum Jubilee that although I made a card for the Daring Cardmakers' June Elemental Inspiration challenge, I didn't get around to blogging it, so that's my catch-up post for today!

June Elemental Inspiration Challenge 

 Rizwana's moodboard was a fabulous Summery, Seasidey one which I loved.

 

You can see what my lovely teamies made by clicking HERE 

For my card I chose the Stripes, Triangles of the flags, Big Capital letters and the pink flowers

 

I chose some ocean shades and used them to design a wide striped paper on the pc, then printed to size for my card. 

I used red card for the letters (4 layers glued together), the 2 shapes of bunting and the red domed circle over the string bow.

The flowers were made from different shades of pink card and some bought flower centres, plus some leaf sprigs cut from one of my favourite-ever Spellbinders dies!

For the 'birthday word piece I colour-matched the background with one of the colours in the stripes.  There's always ropes, string and twine at the seaside, so I echoed that with the string on my bunting and the loopy bow of the sentiment.

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 

Standing with Ukraine

Pearls of Wisdom

 

 

This week's Daring Cardmakers Challenge

 

Joanne here to host this week's challenge. 

Pearls of Wisdom

As pearl is one of the birthstones for June let's celebrate by making something inspired by the glowing beauty of the pearl. 

You might embellish your card with flat back pearls or dimensional pearl drops, use pearlescent paints or cardstock, an image of a pearl in its shell or perhaps someone wearing pearl jewellery. We’d love to see how you’re inspired by pearls!

Here's some inspiration from the team:

Here is where you can see the Design Team: inspiration

 

My inspiration for this card came from an episode of The Repair Shop  TV programme, which we watched earlier this week - although we're always behind with the TV we record so this was from a good few weeks back.  Still on the iPlayer though (Series 9 episode 19). In this case a man brought in the Turkish Bath shoes his mother wore as a young girl living in Istanbul. They were inlaid with pieces of Mother of Pearl and the leather strap had a pattern of metal wire embedded in them.

The picture is just a screen-shot from the programme 

I’d been meaning to use this fab Spellbinders die again for ages and this was the perfect opportunity. I cut it in black and gold card and adhered the two pieces onto my card base.

For the inlays I covered a piece of white card with several shades of Nuevo Embellishing mousse, then when dry cut the die twice more, taking care to save every tiny cut out piece!

 

Next I filled in all the holes in the black and gold frames with the pearlescent pieces trying to be as random as possible

To complete the card I die cut the letters and  word from the gol card and a backing piece from the black, the added a few punched circle ‘pearls’ cut from the coloured card

I couldn’t resist using my pearl necklace and Cook Island Black Pearl earrings as photo props 😏

Thank you so much for coming by

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 

 

Standing with Ukraine

Flair Not Square

 

Hello

 

Hope you're keeping well!. 

Not long now till the celebration's for the Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee get started, and here in the UK we're all looking forward to an extra long Public Holiday weekend!

The talk on our bit of the road is all about our Street Party, Barbecue, Balloons and Bunting....

 

But today is Daring Cardmakers Day and for once I'm blogging mine on the right day, even it it's not as early as it should be!

 

It's Rizwana here and for my challenge this week I'd like to see

Flair Not Square

I love my square cards but sometimes you just need a card that stands out and has its own flair.  So I'd like to see anything but square cards.

 

Here is where you can see the Design Team: inspiration

Like Rizwana a square blank is my go-to shape for most cards.  But I also love to make a shaped, interactive or other fun kind of card.

I had a few 'boy' birthday cards to make recently and after making a few sport themed ones I was out of ideas and fed up of sport so decided it was time for something different and made this card based on the shape and design of the lid of a box of Celebrations chocolates!

Thank you so much for coming by

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 

 

Standing with Ukraine

Home Comforts

 

   Hello!

Hope you're keeping well

 I'm late blogging my Daring Cardmakers project this week.  It was a bit of a tough one from Dawn this week and really made me think.  When it comes down to it, the things most of us would miss most if we need to move away would be our family, friends and the familiarity of our surroundings - none of which are easy to put on a card!

Its Dawn here with a lovely new dare for you. 

HOME COMFORTS

As I am an expat living in France there are a lots things I miss for example Cadbury chocolate, Yorkshire tea and oxo cubes.  So I want you to make a card featuring something you would miss if you lived in another country, what reminds you of home, it might not even be food.  I still can't get use to seeing yellow post boxes and vans.

Click here to see the lovely projects the design team made:

So after a good old thin I came up with an idea to feature our distinctive red pillar boxes.  They are so 'British'! I love that while at first glance they all look pretty similar, on closer inspection they often have special characteristics - there are actually different shapes, some very rare and very old, and all will tell you which monarch was on the throne when that box was positioned.

The other reason I chose to add a postbox to my card is that when I'm away from home I can never flipping well find the local equivalent!

Info

White square card blank

Kraft card square

Pillar-box image from the internet, printed onto photo card

Hand-drawn swirly dotted line

Tiny envelopes and hearts from coloured scraps of card 

PC generated sentiment

I meant to add some flowers around the base of the post box but I completely forgot!
 

  Thank you so much for coming by

 

 Happy Crafting, Stay Safe, 

Standing with Ukraine