Patterned Paper Mania

For the Daring Cardmakers this week Leo has issued a killer challenge!

 'Patterned Paper Mania'

This week your mission if you choose to accept it is to create a card using

 a minimum of SIX different patterned papers. 

You can use more if you want to but you must use at least six different ones.

After a little bit of a panic at the thought of this one I realised that the current sketch on my other blog The Sketch File would be a great way to get all those patterned papers onto my card.  Here's what I made:

 I had some new papers arrive this week, so obviously felt compelled to use them!  I've taken to buying a few 12x12 papers along with a 6x6 pad whenever possible - its a great way to get an extra dimension to the designs as you get the same pattern in two sizes.  It also means I don't buy large scale designs that aren't much use for making cards.

These papers come from Carta Bella - a new company to me, but I'm so impressed with the quality - both 6x6 and 12x12 papers are lovely.  The 12x12 have a texture like the Crate Paper ones.

I used:

Sketch File June sketch:

http://kathyswafflesketchfile.blogspot.co.uk/

 All papers Carta Bella "Beautiful Moments" 6x6 and 12x12, the little birds are cut from one of the papers too

Peachy-pink dewdrops, button, narrow ribbon

Punches: circles, Tonic flower punch,  EK Success border punch

Dies: Die-namics Dainty Doily Duo (small size used), Perfect Petal Trio (largest shape used)

Craft Robo to cut the words

 I'm happy to share most of my Craft Robo templates - just drop me an email via the Contact Me box on the right and I'll get back to you.

A few more photos from Cornwall.  These were all taken at St Agnes on a rather dull day - but it was still giving some photo opportunities!

Thank you for visiting, please come again soon!

Hugs, Muffins and Flora Doodles!

Two posts in one week - whatever is the world coming to. hehe....

First up my DT cards made using the latest set from Crafty Templates.   This first one was my favourite - and I could just eat a chocolate chip muffin right now!

I've used 12x12 and 6x6 papers from Simple Stories "Documented" range for this one. 

 The cake part of the muffin is three layers of the template interspersed with some cereal packet chipboard so there's lots of dimension. 

The little letters are from the sheet you'll get if you invest in the "Crafty Goodies Kit"

I've used a Nesties labels die to cut the aperture, pleated a strip of paper for the cupcake case and used Glossy Accents to highlight the choccy chips - which are raised from the surface with tiny pieces of chipboard.

When I saw the Octopus template in this month's kit I thought initially of using some shirring elastic to have my octopus bouncing about in an "aquarium" aperture - but in the end, hearing of several friends having rough times at the moment I made a super-full-of-hugs card instead!

All of these papers, along with the tiny letters are from the Crafty Templates shop.  Among the papers I had to play with this time were some lovely Kesi'Art designs - I love the quality of these papers.

I made little box hinges to put on the backs of the octopuses (or should that be octopi? hehe), This means they fold almost flat for posting, but can be pushed out again so the images stand off the card.

As well as letters from the kit, I used some pc geneerated ones too - mainly because I realised that there wasn't room for the whole phrase to be added using the stick on letters.  

Ah! the virtue of forward planning - if only I had it!

Last up is one of Leo's lovely floral doodle designs

More papers and letters from Crafty Templates shop along with some seam binding, a Die-namics die, a Spellbinders die and lots of Glamour Dust glitter and Glossy Accents

I do love this flowery doodle template and it won't be long till it gts another "airing"

And now more photos from our recent trip down to Cornwall:

The old mines right on the coast were on Hubby's photo wish list, these are taken at the Levant Mines

St Michael's Mount was also on his go-to wish list.  The first photo was a stroke of luck - the view spotted while driving from the north coast, over the hills on the way back to Falmouth. Taken from high up and at a distance you get fields in the foreground - plus blue skies as it was a beautiful day!

Next day we went back to visit the island "properly".  The tide was out so we joined the tourist "ant" procession and walked along the causeway.  We weren't particularly interested in going into the castle itself, we just wandered around the grounds - I was a bit disappointed in the lack of flowers in the gardens, especially after seeing the gorgeous planting at Minnack. 

 This last one is looking back along the causeway to the mainland.  When the tide is in, little boats ferry visitors back and forth to the island.  It was pretty busy on the day we were there and the queues ro pay were horrendous.  I wish the NT would sort themselves out about getting people through their ticket offices, because it really doesn't help the enjoyment of lovely places when you have to stand for half an hour just to pay for a ticket. grrr.

Thanks for popping in, I hope you like the cards I've made and also seeing some more holiday photos  I'll add some more next time - you've been warned!

Sweet Stuff

There was I thinking I'd be back on track with blogging this week!  I did manage to do a bit of blog-hopping, which is a step in the right direction but not as good as I'd hoped, and I'm still way behind with blogging my own stuff. 

So another Friday has come round and I've been pretty busy with crafting and other thing - I know I keep saying this, but I'm going to try really hard to get some of my new stuff blogged.....

On the Daring Cardmakers this week it's all about the sweet things in life; Sharon has chosen the theme 

"You're So Sweet"  

I'd like to see sweets on your cards - doesn't have to just be sweets, can be sweet things, like cakes, ice-creams etc.

Click HERE to visit the DCM Blog and see so much sweet temptation your tummy will be rumbling and you'll be reaching for the cake tin!

When Lythan and Sue came to visit last week I did a quick run through on how I use clip art to make Craft Robo templates.  The picture I found to use was a birthday cake, so it seemed rude not to make use of it for my card this week

 

Materials and Tools:

All papers: MME 6x6 Howdy Doody

hand made tiny coiled roses

Ice Stickles (gold)

PC generated sentiment

Craft Robo: birthday cake and candles

Spellbinders Dies: Plain Circles, Lacey Circles

Die-namics Die: Dizzy Doily

Border Punch: EK Success

As you can see, I'm still playing around with Samm's dare theme for last week as well as adding in something sweet for this week! 

The doily die arrived this week (along with a few others ;)) so obviously I had to find room for it on my card this week!  Here's the inside of the card

I was going to add some ribbon and pearls, but time wasn't on my side - mainly because making coiled roses as tiny as these is soooo fiddly and time-consuming to make!  So for once I held back on those - pretty extras - still debating whether I should add a nice ribbon bow pn the stripey panel....

Last Sunday it was my turn to share a project on Funky Hand's challenge blog - this month we have one of Anice's lovely sketches to use.  I made a card, then used the leftover scraps to make a gift tag - you can read all about them, and find out how to join in (and maybe win this month's prize) by clicking HERE.  Just remember that you must use a Funky Hand product on whatever you make
 or your entry won't count.  Anice always makes it easy by making a special Funky Freebie each month so that even those who don't have any Funky stash are still able to join in

Right, as promised, here are a few more photos from our Cornwall trip.  These were all taken at the Minack Theatre, somewhere I've wanted to visit ever since I first saw photos of the theatre and it's beautiful location. 

The gardens at the Minack are so beautiful too - if you are ever in the area, I'd really recommend visiting, it is stunning and most definitely my favourite of the places we visited - well worth the years of waiting!:

Thank you for visiting today, I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the things I've been making and some of our holiday photos too.

Please leave a message and this week I'm definitely going to find time to pay more return visits!

The Hole Truth

Well, after missing last week's Daring Cardmakers challenge I'm back to join in with Samm's "Hole in One" dare.  It's all about using the bit that's left (the hole) rather than the punchie itself, iykwim.  So maybe you'd use a punch or die to make an aperture in your card front and then embellish both the inside that shows through the hole,and the outside, which is now a sort of  "frame", or you could use regular punches to make a cute border like Rein did on her DT card. 

As you'll see on the DCM BLOG, some people used punches and others used dies - I guess there's nothing to stop you handcutting your "hole" either if you are a whizz with craft knife or scissors!  Pushing the boundaries a bit, I decided to use my Craft Robo instead of the other options.  It's ages since I used this 2 for 1 technique, and it's a fun way to get the bits for two cards from one template.

I made the template so that the lighter colour would show through the letters cut from the darker shade of card - then used the letters that were left over to make my second card - does that make sense? :o

Before cutting, I "drew" a rounded rectangle around the letters using the Robo's shape options, then mounted the resulting shape with it's letter apertures on to the lighter card

For "happy" I drew an oval around the letters - I used the cut out letters on card 1 and the oval piece on card 2

Here's a close up of card 1 which better shows how the letter apertures work

This is my second card - I cut down the "waste" from the dark card to make a frame using the rounded rectangle shape and adhered it onto more of the light card.  .

I tried to make the 2nd card a more feminine version by using different ribbon and adding a punched flower and some grey pearls instead of the check ribbon and red brads

I'm not sure how we managed it, but we did see quite a bit of sun during our week down in Cornwall - and somehow we managed to avoid most of the rain too.  I thought I'd add a couple of photos of where we stayed, and if I remember (hmmmm) I'll add some over the next few days of places we visited while we were away.

So this is the English Heritage cottage in the grounds of Pendennis Castle, Falmouth where we stayed.  The castle sits on a headland, so on one side you get views over to St Mawes and on the other the views are of Falmouth itself.  You can just see the parasol in the little courtyard (it was a casualty of the stormy night - we woke on Thursday to find all the courtyard furniture had over blown - tucked inside the thick walls of the cottage we didn't hear a thing! The views from all the windows on the other side were fabulous - looking over the water to Falmouth.

 This next photo was taken from my most favourite viewpoint, one of the gun bastions that looks over the river mouth towards St Mawes (look closely and you can see St Mawes Castle).  This bastion is now "Kathy's Bastion" as I spent so long sitting there watching the yachts and other boats on the water, and the birds and bunnies on the land and trees going down to the moat (no waster now!).  Pretty, isn't it?

And this one is one of hubby's photos - he's a devil for posing the car in interesting places, and having the run of a castle to use as a backdrop when everyone else had gone home was too much temptation to miss!

Lastly, here's the castle all lit up at night

Thanks for visiting today, hope you liked what you saw!

Don't forget to pop over to the Daring BLOG to see what the team have been up to for Samm's challenge this week.

Please leave a message - it would be lovely to hear from anyone who drops by :)

Crafty Templates

No Daring Cardmakers offering from me this week - naughty me!

It doesn't feel right not to blog on a Friday though, so I thought I'd show the cards I've made with the latest selection of Crafty Templates. In the main  I've used the fab Crafty Goodies Kit to make these - I think it's one of my favourites of the Goodies Kits - so much so that I think I'm going to have to buy myself some of these wonderful papers.

I loved this guitar template, and I used it along with the Records which are another of this month's set - I made the records look more like CDs though.

This made the perfect gift card holder for our nephew.  I just added a pocket inside to take the gift card.

The street party template was a "must use" - with all the festivities going on it was begging to be used.  I used a DL card and lightly inked the back with "Broken China" Distress Ink,  I felt it needed a bit of sunshine so just made a sun with a punched  circle and somethin strips of yellow paper

Mr Robo made the "celebrate" sentiment - you might recognise it's the same one I used on last week's DCM card.

Leo's Crafty Template sets never seem complete without some foodie treats and this set has a rather tasty selection of macaroons on a vintage style tiered cake plate - cute as can me!

You can find out all about Crafty Templates and the Crafty Goodies Kits HERE

Don't forget to pop over and check out the wonderful new Daring Cardmakers challenge from Nat this week.

Thank you for visiting

Colours of June

It's a big weekend here in the UK as we celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II - I was watching a recorded TV programme last night set in Westminster Abbey, they talked about the Abbey, the coronation and how people celebrated back then.  There were interviews with people who'd been involved with the ceremony as choristers, and with people who remembered the street parties and the processions. 

There's an awful lot of Fifties Vintage Memorabilia around at the moment and it's all the lovely bits - as I see it, it's good that we can choose the bits we like and play with those, leaving out the not-so-much-fun bits which some of the people were talking about,

Nat has chosen the colours for this month's Colour Combo Challenge on the Daring Cardmakers and has found this rather gorgeous, vintage-inspired photo to use as inspiration.  Not surprisingly its a Red, White and Blue theme, though not necessarily the colours of the Union Flag.  Nat says:

"I'm  happy for these colours to be used as accent colours or as the sole colour palette of your card. Also any shades of red, white, and blue are fine - so pinks, aquas, creams can all be used"

.I was thinking about what papers I had which would work with these colours and then I realised that the Brand new Funky Hand CD "Wishes and Kisses" had the perfect colour collection for me to use.  It went on sale yesterday and it's a really fabulous set of papers, templates and images.  Honestly - you do need to buy it!

Materials:

All papers: Funky Hand CD "Wishes and Kisses

Templates for the 2 large flowers also from the CD

Craft Robo for sentiment

Cuttlebug die for circles on the bottom panel

Banner is hand-cut

Ice Stickles on flowers

Notes:

Using the workspace software on the Papercraft Factory CD along with the flowers template and the pink design, I printed onto tracing paper.

I cut out and used 3 of the large flowers to make the rose then the remaining large and small flower shapes to make a scrunchie flower.  I had some scraps of the printed tissue left over so I made a coiled flower as well.  There is a much nicer template for making one of these on the CD too!

We'd love to have you celebrate with us this week and share your Red White and Blue creations - there are some lovely cards to help inspire you over on our blog, so please head over HERE for a look!

Thanks for visiting