Friday, August 24, 2012

Life's a Beach

These weeks go by pretty quickly, eh?
Another Friday, and another week without updating my blog since the last one. oops!

Daring Cardmakers Day and it's Gez who is our hostess this week with a lovely challenge just right for this time of year..  We're also trying to get back into the (good) habit of inviting a Guest Designer to join us on the team for a few weeks, and we were delighted when Kate said "yes" when asked if she'd like to come and play. 

"Hi, it's Gez here this week and I've got a brand new dare to share with you.. for this weeks dare.. 
I would love to see the sea included on your card.. think  

sun, sea, sand.... 

the living is easy!
Anything to do with beach life can be included!"

A quick look at the DCM BLOG will show howthe team enjoyed the theme, with a whole boat-ful :) of lovely seaside inspired cards.  Some of the team have just returned from their holidays and have definitely come back full of creativity!
By coincidence I'd been thumbing through a copy of the Papercrafts magazine that I get on subscription from the US recently and the seaside was one of the themes they were covering in that issue - there were some wonderful shaped cards, and that's what inspired me to make my first card

I used a free online colouring page to make a template for cutting on my Craft Robo - but something like this would be easy to make just by printing the picture, cutting it out and using that as a pattern for making the card.
I used:
Smooth white card for wobble card base
Bazzill card (light blue, dark blue, white, red, black
Silver thread to make the chain for the anchor
Red ric-rac braid, Grey pen
Having made this card, I started feeling a bit guilty that I'd not made a beach hut card - well you know how I love them!
So I made this one too:
 The Craft Robo Template I used here is one I made in Paint Shop Pro, just using the pre-set shapes and stretching and welding them together.  The basic hut is a pentagon and the door is a rectangle - to make the top rounded I added an overlapping circle to the rectangle, and to make the roof I used more circles. Even the heart and the sun are pre-sets!
Once the shapes were all in place, it was just a case of erasing the bits I didn't need, then making it into a template to cut on Robo.
The surfboards and dolphins are  made using free clip-art from the web
Materials and Tools
Smooth white card blank, Bazzill card (sand, sun)
Papers: MME 6x6 (sorry, I'll have to add which ones later)
Pink twine, Stickles (Lace)
Craft Robo, Medium Circle Punch, 
Spellbinders: Large Circle Die, Plain Oval Die, Scalloped Circle (sentiment)

That's it for today, I hope you'll be joining in with the Daring Cardmakers this week
Thanks for looking

Friday, August 17, 2012

Caught on Film

 It's been a hectic week in the Waffle Zone.  Hubby had the long-awaited operation on his elbow on Tuesday, so we spent the day at the hospital in Bushey being looked after by the nice people there.  It's hard to know whether it's done the trick until he starts usong it properly, but fingrs crossed it has!
He felt well enough to work on Wednesday, but has been working from home all week - which sort of cramps my crafting as I tend to use a lot of noisy gadgets - not conducive to him talking on the phone!
I do try to be quiet - I'm just not very good at it, hehe!

Over at the Daring Cardmakers, it's Jo's turn this week - and you always know life will be trickier when that's the case hehe!
This week's was no exception - for me, anyway, as it's all about those lines from films which other people remember and quote all the time - but in my case go in one ear and out the other!
Film Quotes
I'd like you to use a line/quotation from the Big Screen as your inspiration and see where that leads your cardmaking.
A great chance for all you Movie-Buffs to use your favourite lines, but If you are in need of some inspiration, this site;
has some fantastic quotes and sayings to inspire!
I did think of some lines - but when it came to using them for a card they were useless!  i thought about Hubby's favourite film "The Italian Job" and that wonderful line "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off" - but how would you use that on a card?
Then I remembered making an  "The Italian Job" themed card for him years ago and hunted out the photos to see what I'd done that time.
So, I pinched the quote, and the cars idea from that one, and made something new.
I've been intending to make a Robo template for a mini for ages, but hadn't found a picture to use till now, but this time I was lucky.  Making templates is a nice quiet crafting task - cutting them on Robo is definitely not, so all the pieces had to be cut when he wasn't on the phone!

Materials and Tools
Bazzill card in various colours, 
Pearlescent silver card for road (hand-cut)
White pen, Silver pen
Orange Stickles
Trees are made with a Punch Bunch leaf punch
Craft Robo to cut the cars
Computer generated sentiment

My second card is probably a bit of a cheat really as it's a "word" from a song which is in a film, rather than a line from a film.  Actually, a lovely forum friend (thank you, Karen) gave me a great idea that I'd have loved to have used, but it was a bit too late for me to get it done in time - I might just make that card anyway, so I'll not tell you what it was atm ;)
It took a while to make the sentiment, getting the fonts, sizes and colours right, but now it's done it's been saved so I can use it again. I didn't want to push my luck and use Robo to cut the birthday cake shape I'd planned to use on the rest of the card, so I just hand-cut a bunch of candles to use instead - I think they work pretty well, considering they took about five minutes to do!

Materials and Tools
Bazzill card in various colours,
Ice Stickles (gold)
Computer generated sentiments

Right, that's me done for now.  I completely failed to update the blog as promised last week, didn't I?  Oh well, tomorrow is another day..........
hahahahaha
Thanks for dropping by, don't forget to visit the DCM BLOG - we'd love it if you'd join in with us this week
Have a great weekend

Friday, August 10, 2012

Tied Up in Knots

This week it's Lythan's turn to set the challenge over on the Daring Cardmakers
"Get Knotted!
You can use bows, knots, ties, knotted bow ties - anyway the
words take you is fine!
And once more the team have come up trumps - even with the holidays and the Olympics and everything
So come and be inspired and then play along by linking up
 and leaving a message."
I've made a couple of cards again this week, though one of them is not quite finished!

I had the idea of having a go at making some knots of the sort that used to be done by fisherman - the sort of thing you see displayed in frames in seaside pubs.  However while doing a bit of a google search I was diverted by Celtic Knots, and then by some that had been copied from stones in Alnmouth, Northumberland.  As Alnmouth is just along the coast from my home village I just had to see if I could do anything with these patterns.
It didn't take long for me to give up trying to do anything with a piece of string...hehe!
So I turned next to good old Craft Robo, and cut the design three times.  To be honest, it's not as "tidat" as I'd have liked, it's better to begin with a bigger image and clean up the edges.  This one is quite small and it would have taken way too long to tidy it up, but by now I was determined to use it so there you go.
I actually cut it six times, planning to do two rows of the knot design - but it took ages to poke out all the waste bits so I decided 3 would be so much better ;)
I like the idea and maybe I'll even go back and see if I can improve on the template, and look for some others too.
Materials and Tools
Smooth White 14cm sq  card blank
black Bazzill card
Pink satin ribbon
Black Prima flower, Pink flat-back pearl, Tiny black gems
Home-made decal rub-on sentiment
Craft Robo

I've seen a lot of the lovely shambala bracelets around lately and thought I'd try using the idea on a card.  You use a simple flat knot at either end of the bracelet and between the beads so it definitely counts for the challenge!
While I was poking around among my beads looking for some that weren't too big and bulky to use on a card, I came across a tin of alphabet beads that I bought years ago from Eclipse in the US and a plan to get ahead with a commissioned card presented itself.  Now all I need to do is work out the best way to add the baby's info when she arrives!  Apparently the scan say's its a girl, so fingers crossed it's tight!
 Materials and Tools
 Smooth White 15cm sq card blank
Papers "Beautiful Moments"  6x6 from Carta Bella
 Silver crochet thread, alphabet beads
Yellow flat-back gems
EK Success border punch, and small daisy punch

 
There are some fab ideas for Lythan's challenge to see over on the Daring BLOG, so please head over and take a look.  I hope you'll give the challenge a try and share your own ideas with us.
That's it for today, thanks for visiting, please come back soon

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Olympic Inspiration

The inspiration for the new August sketch from The Sketch File comes from the Olympic rings.
I don't know about anyone else but I'm hugely enjoying watching the action - what with all the extra TV channels dedicated to specific events, the BBC website with lots of live coverage and the fab BBC App on my phone it's so easy to find interesting things to watch and so much more fun than it's ever been before.
I'm not and never have been any sort of sportsperson, but I just love watching loads of the different sports you get to see in an Olympic year.

This is my first project using  the Olympic tribute sketch:
It's really simple - I wanted to pare down the sketch to a small section of my card and keep the colours nice and crisp.
This is the sketch - I hope it inspires lots of people to join in with us this month

I cut the circles in the blue card using the smallest of the circles in my Spellbinders set, added the "circles" ribbon then used foam tape to fix the rectangle to the corner of the white card blank.

The letters were cut with Craft Robo and I couldn't resist adding a few black flowers and a big white pearl.  
You've got to admit though that this is pretty minimalist for me!

I've been pretty rubbish with blogging my stuff lately so I have a few things I've not shared yet - I'll try to catch up with blogging those soon.

Thanks for visiting today, I hope you like the sketch and will click HERE to find more ideas for using it - it would be fab if you'd have a go at making something using it.

Friday, August 03, 2012

August Colour Combo

This week on the Daring Cardmakers it's time for the next in our Colour Combo sequence of challenges:

Gosh!  It's August already and the holiday season is in full swing, so if you notice a few gaps over the next few weeks - that's why!  As this is the first Friday of the month it's time for August's Colour Combination Challenge. 
"A Mediterranean Corner"
features whitewashed walls, fresh green and hot pink,
 a dash of powder blue and a smidgeon of purple

Once again we have a photo which we hope will inspire you to join in and get creative with us this week.
This is actually one of our photos from the Eden Project down in Cornwall - it may well be my favourite corner of the Temperate Biome, maybe even in the whole place.  It reminds me so much of those beautiful Greek villages where you'll come across a scene like this around nearly every corner.
I made a couple of cards for this, the first inspired by the photo as well as the colours
Having decided to make the shutters open, and cut the card accordingly I realised that the aperture was really big and I hadn;t planned what to put inside!  Nothing new there then.
The 6x6 MME papers I'd decided to use for the flowers came to the rescue with the birdcage design which fitted into the theme nicely.
Materials and Tools
Papers MME 6x6 
Nazzill card blue, green and purple
Small mulberry paper flowers
Pink flowers cut with Craft Robo, Pots and hinges are hand cut
EK Success border punch (inside card), Punch Bunch Leaf punch
Memory Box swirly border die
On one of the cards I made last week the text was used more as a feature than as an afterthought, so I thought I'd do that again this time  too by again using colours and fonts to focus more on the words.
Materials and Tools
Bazzill card; green, powder blue,  Papers MME 6x6
Lokta paper for purple tassels cooked flowers and pinked edge circle, others are same MME as the large fancy circle
Blue Polka dot satin ribbon for tie and also twisted ribbon rose
Medium pearl brad
Sentiment created in Word
Spellbinders dies, Punch Bunch Leaf punch
 This has taken me ages to write - I kept getting diverted by the Olympics - not to mention the Everest-sized mountain of ironing.
I hope you'll join in with us this week - there's lots of insporing ideas from the DT HERE - even though so many of the team have beetled off on their jollies - not jealous at all ....she lied :)
Thanks for visiting, hope you like what you see here.