Roll with the Punches

On the Daring Cardmakers this week it's Kiwi Keryn's turn to set the dare.

I love punches and use them on almost every card I make. This week I want you to join with me and make a card, any type, any theme but it needs to use your latest craft punch purchase. If you haven't bought any punches for a while or don't own any at all your latest craft purchase will be quite acceptable.

I think Keryn has an ulterior motive with this one - I think she's not only wanting to have a look around to see what we've all been buying lately but also thinking ahead a bit and figuring out what to add to her Christmas Wish List. Actually that's such a good idea - I might just do the same!

The last punch I bought was the MS snowflake one - which is lovely, I also bought the snowflake embossing border punch just before that, but I'm not really getting on with it so I'm going to put it up for sale on ebay and let someone else enjoy it, it seems silly to keep it when I'm not going to use it.

Anyway, to get back to the DCM....

My card has several layers and a bit of dimension, though that doesn't really show up in the photo.
There's a square of silver card on the card-blank, then a smaller square of very heavily glittered paper on top of that.
I then punched snowflake "holes" around a square of textured card and used foam tape to adhere this piece over the glittery square so that the punched snowflakes are like little windows.

Sometimes I have a plan for a card and sometimes I don't. My plan for this one stopped there and I faffed about for a bit trying to decide what to put in the middle.
In the end I used a Spellbinders Small Pinking Circles die to cut a circle of black glitter paper , and used some of the white and silver snowflakes (Spellbinders) that were lying about on my desk, plus a couple of new ones with the MS punch.
The lovely Kath was kind enough to send me some punched ovals this week - some plain and some scalloped , which she'd cut with her SU punches - although they are my most recent acquisitions, it wasn't my punch so I didn't think they could count for this dare!
I used one of the scalloped ovals, painted with the Silver Acrylic Paint Dabber as a backing for the cute little sentiment oval, the gorgeous little snowflake charm swings free on shiny red thread - I really love these, they are so pretty and have lots of detail.

Dark Red ribbon and metallic brad from my stash
Silver, Red and Black Glitter handmade papers a Craftime pad (they are gorgeous)
Sentiment Oval and Snowflake charm from Creative Treasures

Punches are such useful, but often underrated little tools and I definitely need to up my collection - I never seem to have the shape I need to make something I've seen in a magazine, book or on a tutorial. I think I'll be having a very good look around the blogs of the Darers this week and maybe some punches will be on my Christmas Wish List too.
You can see what the DT have been buying recently on the DCM BLOG and we'd love it if you'd join in and show off your newest punches this week.

Now on to my little "what's in the box" puzzle from yesterday. Well let's face it, it wasn't much of a puzzle with all that branding on the box, was it? lol
Still, finding a courier clutching a big box with that pink doggie standing on the doorstep was quite exciting - when I opened the box I found Radley spotty tissue paper too (now, what crafty purpose can I save that for?), and then nestling inside it all was my lovely new no1 handbag for this winter
No black for me this year, I toyed with the idea of the purple one, but in the end I went for lovely bright red


There you go then - were you right? hehehe

Today's task is to make my cousin's birthday card. I have an idea which is based around a Doc martin boot. If it works I'll be back to share it. If it doesn't, then I don't actually have a Plan B so I'll be panicking!

Thanks for popping by, catch you all again soon

The Pudding Club

One of the Add-Ons for the October Bubbly Funk Kit is a pack of 10 Christmas themed templates. I've used one of the "word" ones and the cute little sleigh template already and this time it's the turn of the Christmas Pudding template.

First I used it full size to make a shaped card

Then I converted my scanned copy of the original template to allow me to cut it with Mr Robo. That done I cut six mini versions of the pudding and made four cards with them.


Today's project can be found by clicking HERE

I think I'll do more like these, the mini pudding is quick to make and I can use them in the same way as I've been doing with the snowflake cards over the last few weeks - nice and easy to turn out a batch of cards fairly quickly.

Sorry about the rubbish photos, I seem to have lost the knack (that's if I ever had it) of taking a decent photo - I'm putting it down to yet another set of bulbs for the lights for the mini studio. We got some energy saving ones but they took about ten minutes to warm up enough to do the photos - which is a bit rubbish, so we bought a new set of daylight bulbs p they are supposed to be the same as the original ones, but they don't seem to be. Whinge over.

You seemed interested in the contents of my boxes yesterday lol. Well the big one wasn't very exciting, just some stuff from M&S, but as I'm feeling generous today, I'll give you a teeny glimpse of what was in the other one.

Earlier this week another big box arrived.
This one
Now, what do you think could be hiding in there then?

hehehehe
Right, it's Thursday, so that means I need to clear a space on my craft desk and come up with something for tomorrow's DCM. If I get that done, I'm off over to Julia's blog to catch up on the WOYWW links from yesterday and a catch up with all my other favourite blogs
Right, I wonder if I can find some inspiration in the bottom of a mug of coffee?

Thanks for dropping by

WOYWW + a couple of cards

So, another Wednesday and another WOYW photo coming up soon. Or should that be a WOMWW?

First though, the cards I forgot to load here yesterday - (yet) another batch of turquoise/silver/white snowflake cards. I've plonked these together because I've not decided whether to add a greeting somehow - I thought if I looked at them on the screen it might help me decide. It's funny how doing that often helps me spot what's wrong/what needs moving, what needs adding etc, when I've looked at it irl for ages and been unable to decide.

I'm thinking they do need a message added to them, what about you?

Next another card using the most recent sketch on my Sketch File BLOG. This one is actually the first of the two I've done so far, but I needed to make sure it had arrived before I added it here. I've got another plan for using this sketch - well, it's half a plan really - more to follow if I can fighre out the other half of the plan!
Lovely MME papers (I know Kaz loves them too), a chippie scalloped frame with my own rub-ons added onto a piece of acetate which was left lying about after Lythan's DCM dare the other week, the other rub-ons are Doodlebug I think. I raised two of the square on foam pads and cut some of the flowers from one of the papers to decorate. The pink pearls are from the stash I bought on my birthday treat Crafty Day Out back in September.
I'd love to see more people having a go with the sketches on my other blog. I know there's loads of sketch challenges out there and you're spoiled for choice, but if you do get a minute, it would be fab to have you give them a try - it's not a challenge blog, and I'm notoriously bad at leaving long gaps between new sketches - but I will add a link to your card on there if you let me know where I can see it.

And now, it's Nosey-Time again. Is this the most fun you can have on a Wednesday? Possibly. It's definitely a great way to mooch around other people's craft spaces and see what they've got and what they are up to. Click HERE to find out all about it and find the links to all those brave souls participating this week (well, once Julia's updated her blog, that is!).

Not much crafting getting done on mine - though that IS a box of crafty goodies - still unopened - on the top. I'm not allowing myself to open either of these boxes until I've finished my assigned "task of the day" - gosh, aren't I good? hehehe

Last week one of the WOYWWers commented on the number of punches that were lying around my desk. So I counted them and found NINE. I put them away in the drawer, but I suspect they've all jumped out again, though I can only actually see two in the photo.
Right, procrastination break over. I want to open my parcels so I need to finish that task of mine.

Catch you all again soon.

Little Treasures!

I've been making more C-word cards this weekend, and yes, they've got snowflakes on...again!
I've used the Cuttlebug snowflakes embossing folder on all of these, and they're all embellished with lovely bits and pieces from Crafty Treasures

I've used a couple of different ribbons here to tie the aqua and turquoise colours together.
Snowflakes are Spellbinders "Create a Flake 2" cut in two shades of glitter card, plus one cut with a punch - I can't remember who makes it, I'll edit if I do!
The oval sentiment, and the fabulous little snowflake charm on here are from Crafty Treasures/

For this card I've used my own sketch - you can find it HERE - please pop over and have a look, you might find some new inspiration for your card-making - I hope so, anyway!
This one is a gatefold card, I've embossed the four squares, then made a layered snowflake (Spellbinders flakes 1 & 2) to sit across the opening.
Flat backed pearls, oval sentiment from Creative Treasures

And then I got a little bit carried away! I think the whole C-word card making is starting to get to me, but I enjoyed making this so much! I try to keep my Christmas cards fairly flat so that I don't get clobbered for going over the miserly 0.5cm thickness the RM allows for regular postage prices, but this one won't fit the slot, that's for sure. I don't really care, because once in a while I have to make a C-word card just for the fun of it or I'd lose the will to live - or at least the love of making cards!

Actually it was that snowflake charm that made me do it, I just thought how pretty it would look in a "Shabby Chic" sort of arrangement and the next thing I knew I was making coiled roses from glittery paper and dabbing wired roses in turquoise inks.
Snowflakes, charm, sentiment, flat-backed pearls as before.

I think the wired roses came from Favour Factory a long time ago - I was looking for them on the net the other day, but the link doesn't work so I suppose they are no more.
The wide organza ribbon which I've scrunched into a little bow was part of an old Creative Treasures Flower Kit - it was the one with a turquoise and chocolate colour theme.

I did manage to make a few more yesterday so I'll pop those on tomorrow
That's it for today
Hope you remembered to change the clocks at the weekend - not looking forward to how early it's going to be dark this evening - or should I say this afternoon? Grim, eh?

"Whiskers on Kittens and Warm....

....woollen mittens"
I think that's how the song goes anyway. It's my turn to set the challenge over on The Daring Cardmakers and as we're still celebrating our anniversary - we've been going for a full three years now and today sees the first dare of year 4 - I thought we should just have some fun with a self-indulgent dare called:

"These are a Few of My Favourite Things"

All I asked the team to do was make a card using at least 5 of their favourites - that could mean card shape, techniques, style, tools, papers, embellishments - anything they love to use counted. You can see what they made over on the DCM BLOG, and we're hoping that all this free rein will mean lots of cards for us to see when we go blog-hopping!

I always find my own dares hard to actually do, don't ask me why that is - I know a lot of the other girls say the same thing though. Being let loose just to use favourite things should have been easy - but I have so many favourites and I couldn't squeeze them all on! The first bit was fairly simple - I started with my favourite 14cm sq card blank (1). Then it got harder!

My fave paper manufacturer of the moment is MME, and I love scallops too, so using some of the Penny Lane collections of papers scored 2 hits (3).
Then there's got to be flowers - anyone who follows this blog for more than a couple of days will have guessed there'd be flowers!(4)
Ribbon and Lace get into my cards whenever possible, as do brads, beadies and tiny gems. (9)
No. 10 is the chipboard frame - though perhaps I should count 2 for that, chipboard and frames are high on my faves list....and maybe I could count 2 for that beady swirl too.

I didn't manage to get any of those mosaic style tiny squares I love to fill gaps in with and there are no die cuts or Robo cuts on there either, or Stickles, or eyelets, or, or, or.....

Actually it would be easier to list the things I don't like!

Anyways , here's my supplies list
Papers: MME Penny Lane (I think the two papers are from different sets)
Chipboard frame was in a set of mixed designs/shaped frames
Gems from Anita's 2mm dem wheel
Pearl brads I think are Papermania
Wired tea-rose is from my stash

Pretty much everything else came for Tracy at Creative Treasures - some is from past Flower Kits; the other flowers, the wide green ribbon under the lace, the lace itself and the turquoise organza ribbon all featured in past kits.

I had a bit of luck because a new pack of goodies has just arrived from Tracy and she's generously (well, I suppose I did go on a bit about how much I loved it) sent me some more of this fabulous lace - just what I needed for the card and what perfect timing!

The lace was part of the September Kit and I used every scrap of it on other projects - I absolutely love it, the pretty scalloped edges and those lovely flowers that just shout out to be adorned with a pretty brad or gem!
Also in the bag of goodies she's sent for me to play with were some Prima "Say it with Pearls" - a card filled with 2 sizes of individual flat backed pearls, a long, ready-made swirl and lots of beautiful butterflies.
I couldn't figure out how to get regular beads onto my DCM card so the pearl bead swirl seemed perfect to solve that problem - and I got a lovely swirl in there at the same time. I'm already thinking that these could be among my newer favourite things!
Please head overt to the DCM blog to see the cards the team made this week - and if you visit their personal blogs you'll be able to compare their faves lists with your own! Can't wait to see what the Darers come up with this week, I hope there'll be lots of cards to see when I go blog-hopping.

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed seeing some of my "Favourite (crafty) Things".

Sparkle & Bloom

For my Bubbly Funk Kit project this week I've made a couple of cards using the same basic idea to make cards for different occasions. This month's kit is based around the "Indeed" collection of papers from Prima, which although not Christmas themed do have those icy shades that the Snow Queen would love - so perfect for mixing in a bit of Christmas crafting with other projects too.

I've called this Christmas version of the card "Sparkle" because there's so much Glittery bling on there. I used the pretty snowflake swirl chipboard and K&Co layered snowflakes from the October kit to make this one and while I was busy painting the chippie I thought the same plan would work really well with the gorgeous Prima flower that also arrived in my DT goody box. So far I'd not managed to bring myself to use it, but it's so pretty that it really deserves centre stage on a project, and it's selfish to keep such treasures to yourself, isn't it? lol

So I was brave and teamed the flower with some card from the kit, ribbon, a bead spray and tea-roses from my stash and made "Bloom". I quite like the nostalgic chintzy feel the card ended up with.
There's more info and the instructions on how I made these cards on Bubbly Scrumptious emag today, click HERE to see it and check up on all the fab projects that are to be found there.

I had a great time last night wandering around all the WOYWW-ers blogs, still got a few to check out, but it's such fun to get to nose around the desks of other crafters. If you've not joined in yet, there's a linkie thing in my sidebar, or just check out my post from yesterday to find out more!

Hope to get a bit more blog-hopping in today - but that'll depend on how well I get on with my DCM card for tomorrow!
Thank you for visiting, please leave a comment if you can, I do love to read them

Gone Flaky & WOYWW

A couple of weeks ago I showed a batch of cards I made using the Spellbinders Snowflakes 2 die set. Since then I've bought set 1 as well (oops, how did that happen then?)
At the weekend I used both sets to give the C-Word card stock a little boost.

For Christmas cards I don't bother with inserts for my cards, so I try to be organised and remember to print greetings inside them as well as my contact info on the back as usual - that way there's less writing to do when it comes to sending them out, you see lol.

This time, as you can see I've gone for a red, gold, white colour theme with lots of glitter and glimmer - well, if you can't have those at Christmastime, when can you?

Once I've decided which papers/colours I want to use I cut loads of shapes out. With the snowflakes this is easy as there are 5 different designs in each set so I cut the whole lot from each paper to begin with. Then it's just a case of sitting down and sticking them on.
The cards all turn out differently as I think of new ways to use the die-cut pieces This way of making a batch of cards suits me, I'm useless at making two cards the same, but this way I can still make quite a lot of cards in a fairly short time without getting too bored!

As an extra little challenge to myself I tried to use up all the snowflakes I'd cut out. I didn't quite manage, there were a couple of stragglers left at the end. So to make up for my failure, I spied some that were left over from making my DCM card last week and made this one

I do like the way using a Cuttlebug embossing folder takes the edge off all that white space - this one is the snowflakes folder. I think my favourite is the one with the three smallish flakes across it in the first photo.
All the greetings are my home-made Rub-on/stickers - I made another sheet of these the other day - this time I experimented with some in red, and also using some dingbat shapes to use as accents - the little snowflake on the turquoise card is one, as are the "ho ho ho" and little Santa pic on the one below
Phew, that was a bit of a waffle, wasn't it?

I think I'd better shut up and get on with what I should be doing this morning, now - before the morning is all gone!

Oops! forgot to put my WOYWW on here to start with - so a bit of an edit to add my photos of the mess I've got to deal with today - for those who asked about it last week, the tall white "thing" on my desk is my daylight lamp - I usually fold it closed to take the photos but today I've left it open - it comes on automatically when you raise the front bit. I thought it could be the star today (night stop you noticing the chaos) so did a photo from left and right!
Thanks for looking

Two Crafty

More cards made with Leo's lovely Crafty Templates for October.
There's a great mix of spooky halloween, monsters and quirky Autumn designs in the collection this month and they're great for all sorts of cards.

The first one uses the sweet leaf-trees template and I thought it would be just right for a Get Well Soon card. I liked the layout Leo suggested on her notes so kept to that idea to make the card

The brown card was from my stash as were the papers I used to cut the leaf shapes -these papers were from a pad I bought a few years ago and are all beautifully textured and shades of orange red and yellow - I had the blues version in my hand but didn't buy it as they were quite expensive - I've never seen these pads since so maybe I shouldn't have tried to be good that day!
The striped paper, fibres, ribbons and label are all from the Crafty Goodies Kit and are gorgeous - I think it's lovely how the touch of aubergine/purple really lifts the autumnal shades.

The little garden scene template seemed perfect for a New Home card, so that's what I made.

The base card, papers and ribbon are all part of the Goodies Kit, and I sacrificed one of the envelopes that came with the kit to print the sentiment on. Lots of quite heavy inking and some doodling as I wanted to give this one a more masculine feel - if my cousin manages to find the right house to buy, this one will be for him!
The apples on the tree are red sequins, and I made the little sold sign with scraps of card
You can find out all about the Templates and Goodies kits HERE, and there's more info and extra ideas on the Crafty Templates BLOG

I made another batch of Christmas cards yesterday afternoon - I managed 10, which is a pretty good total for a crafter as slow as me. I'll do photos in a minute and share them tomorrow.

I must stop waffling, I have stuff to do and I don't know where to begin so I'm procrastinating again.
Maybe just one more cup of coffee would help...... ;)

Thanks for visiting

.

All Clear

Daring Cardmakers day today and it's Lythan's turn to set the challenge.
Lythan loves acetate and does wonderful things with it - not sure how much the rest of us like the stuff though and there were definite mumbles of panic and stress during the days leading up to today's launch.

This week's dare is
I can see clearly now
and I would love to see something clear on your card. It could be an acetate card, an acetate embellishment, a window cut in the card, clingfilm, OHP sheet, Mirror fragments - anything that shows that your card is clearly one of the best!

I have a love/hate relationship with acetate - I love what other people do with it, and I hate it that I can't get to grips with it!
Consequently I spent the whole week trying to think up an idea. Even when I sat down at my desk yesterday morning (Last Minute Minnie strikes again) with a sheet of acetate in front of me I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I wondered about putting a quotation on the acetate and framing it, but I've been using frames quite a bit recently so that would be boring. - plus I'm not sure about printing onto acetate.
I didn't want to make a Christmas card either, but in the end that's what I did.

I found this piece of turquoise snow mesh stuff when was looking for something else and thought it would look pretty on a clear background. Fixing it on was probably the worst bit - in the end I punched holes and tied it on with ribbon bows.
The snowflakes are mainly cut with the "Snowflakes 1" set from Spellbinders - the smaller plain turquoise one is cut with a Martha Stewart punch.
I've used plain card, glitter card and fancy sliver paper for the snowflakes

Inside there's a card panel for the message, which if I'm careful will be concealed by the quotation and snowflake on the front! I used the spare die cuts to decorate the inside, but I think it could use a few more.

Photographing acetate is a mare - even in the little photo-studio thing I use. The first efforts with a white background were a bit wishy-washy to say the least, so last night I had another go, this time with the blue background and whilst not brilliant, the card does show up a bit better I think
This dare marks a little bit of DCM history - it means we've completed a whole three years of Daring - how the time has flown! If you want to see how we've changed (hopefully we've got better...) head over to the Daring Cardmakers BLOG and check out the Blog Archive to see how it all started.
We're looking forward now to another year's worth of inspiring challenges, we hope all our fellow darers will be too.

Joyful...and a box

For the Bubbly Scrumptious emag this week I've been doing variations on a theme.

I've used one of the word templates that are part of the October Bubbly Funk kit to make 3 cards, each similar, but slightly different. I converted the templates to cut with my Robo, and then tweaked it so that I could cut the individual letters as well as the joined up word. I made three cards because I could then cut the word JOY in three different papers and rearrange them to use a different paper for each letter on my cards.
I like the idea fo cutting a group of things at once then making a few cards instead of just one, it's much quicker than making each fron scratch, even if they do all turn out different in the end.

Also this week I've made a matching presentation box for the card I made for the emag last week
Incredibly, and probably for the first time ever, I made the box correctly first time. Usually I end up finding the two bits don't fit and have to make either the base or lid again.
Despite how it looks in the photo, the colour of the Lokta paper on the box does actually match the mauve of the papers on the card.

Please pop along to BUBSCRUMP to see more photos, info etc - there's loads more wonderful stuff on there, you'll ne amazed by the variety of crafty projects and ideas.

That's all from me for this time - I'm chasing my tail today so keeping this short.
Thanks for visiting, please leave a comment if you've a spare minute!

WOYWW, Crafty Templates and an Anniversary

I'll be brave and show the state of my desk in a minute but first up is the wedding anniversary card I made to send to Hubby's Bro and SiL.
It's really simple because things are hectic (again) The glittery heart is hand cut then topped with burgundy Stickles and Glossy Accents, The fancy heart is a Rub-On from Cosmo Cricket and they are then mounted onto squares of embossed (Cuttlebug tiny hearts) burgundy and dull silver cardstock. The greeting is also matted on silver then fixed to the burgundy grosgrain ribbon.

Do you think I'm getting better at white space? lol lol
The October Crafty Templates have a Autumn-meets-Monsters theme.For those who are into all the Hallowe'en stuff there's plenty to inspire, but those same templates would be fab for kid's cards - and I'm sure I'll be bringing them out again when I need cards for my younger nephews. The other templates in the set are lovely Autumnal ones, and I'll show what I made with those next time, but here's my Spooky Stuff card for starters:
The card blank is shimmery midnight blue stardream card from PDA Woodward - lovely stuff.
I've used lots of things from Leo's wonderful Goodies Kit on my cards this time - I must say that this kit is fab - the papers are wonderful and I need to source more of them to add to my shopping list!
I cut a big aperture in the front of my card so that I could use the owl paper behind it and have one of the spiders hanging on a thread in the aperture (it was going to be on shirring elastic but I couldn't find any). I used more of the templates for the ghosties and the pumpkins, and added some googly eyes for the spiders.
If you'd like to know more about Crafty Templates and the Crafty Goodies click HERE

Now on to What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday and I'm being very brave here as there are TWO pictures for you to say "Oh my goodness, how can anyone work in THAT mess" about! I don't mind - it's something I say to myself too, every time I look at it!
If you want to find out more about WOYWW, click HERE - you'll find lots of links to other crafters' work areas and it's always fun to have a good mooch about in there!

Okay, take a deep breath!

If you're wondering what I'm busy working on, it's one of the display albums that I've had orders for - they are for Christmas presents and I'm trying to get them made nice and early so I can send them to my customer and cross that item off my "to-do" list. I have a very bad, lifelong habit of leaving everything to the last minute......

Anyway, I need to get on with something else I've left to the last minute now, so must get on with that and catch up with the blog-hopping and general "nosey-parkering" later! lol

Thanks for popping in to the Waffle-zone

Variations on a Theme

My C-word card making went better this Sunday and I managed to make this little batch yesterday afternoon. A pretty good haul for me - I'm not the quickest crafter in the world!

I used the Cuttlebug mini Christmas motifs die and leftovers from the BG Wassail paper pad of last year.
To try and speed myself up I stuck full die-sized squares or the papers onto cereal packet squares then cut a full set of shapes from each. There are some motifs I'm not so keen on, but I was strict with myself and didn't go messing about only cutting the ones I wanted!
Yes, I really am that sad and would normally do that, just to save those teeny tiny pieces of paper!


On Saturday we drove up to the NEC in Birmingham to visit the "Grand Designs Live" exhibition. It was ok, but considerably less impressive than we'd thought it would be - it was smaller than expected and the things we'd really wanted to see were in short supply. We were really after some ideas for when we do our kitchen and there wasn't much of interest - and the stuff that was there wasn't very innovative/high tech/exciting at all, nothing like you see on the Grand Designs TV programme.

Still, it made a change, eh?

Hope you had a good weekend
Thanks for visiting