Same...but different

A couple of cards today using the October LO from The Sketch File - it's the last week before the new sketch goes live, so not long left to play along.
I wanted to show how the same sketch can be manipulated to create two totally different cards.
For one I replaced the ribbon-stripes in the sketch and shrunk it down to make a row of tiny plants in pots, and in the other I replaced them with trees to make a Christmas card.

 I dug some old and very neglected Quickutz dies out to make this one

 Materials and Tools

Papers are MMT 6x6 Indie Chic "Ginger"

EK Success border punch, Spellbinders Nesties Labels 1

Quickutz Dies; 3x Small Flowers, Small Flower Pots

Hand cut paper "Bow", Imaginisce hot fix pink gems

 Materials and Tools

All papers Funky Hand "Winter Wonderland" download - printed onto card

Silver Glitter card (Best Creations), Silver crochet thread

Craft Robo to cut the five trees, EK Success small stars punch

This is the sketch I was using - you can find it HERE and see more projects made by the DT using it by scrolling through the last few posts on The Sketch File

Thanks for visiting

 

Join in with "a Card a Day Blogging" by leaving a message in the comments on this blog, or by linking up with our Facebook group

Merry and Bright

Well that;s annoying isn't it.  I started writing my post and somehow manages to delete it.  Well, please just pretend that it was here and you read it - just imagine what it could have said, ok?

This is probably the nearest I get to "production line" Cword card making - but despite cutting the whole word in various different papers (which should have resulted in at least 6 cards) I still only managed these three before I'd had enough of that caper.

Materials and Tools:

Papers "Make a List" from Funky Hand

Card Candy "brads", Narrow ribbon, Stickles glitter glue

Craft Robo for cutting the letters

Wording for tags is pc generated

How do you make your Cword cards?  
Do you choose one or two designs and set up a production line from which you don't waver?
Do you make them steadily throughout the year?
Do you use a fairly simple design that you can vary from card to card and still make a lt in a short time?
Is every card you make the sort that is individual and completely unique - and takes ages to make?

Looking forward to feedback on this - it's always interesting to hear how other crafters work, isn't it?

Thanks for visiting today - see you tomorrow - thanks to "a Card a Day Blogging" which is keeping me on the straight and narrow!


 
Join in with "a Card a Day Blogging" by leaving a message on here, or by linking up with our Facebook group 

Better not Pout!

I've not made one of these cards in a while, and they are great fun to make.  They don't have to have little miniature springs, but I just can't resist making them this way as the images look so cute wobbling away whenever you touch the!
These cards squash realively flat for getting into an envelope, but pulling the rectangular section pulls the whole thing out and forms the box shape for the base.

 Materials and Tools:

14x14 card blank to make the "box" base

Funky Hand paper designs ("Christmas Tree" download) and digi images printed onto card

All Funky Hand info is HERE

Computer generated wording

Stickles glitter glue in various colours

Green Wire to make springs

Hope you like it!

Join in with our "a Card a Day Blogging" via Facebook Group HERE, or by adding a message on my blog to let us know you are taking part

Thanks for visiting

Hello Sunshine

So far I'm managing to keep up with the "a Card a Day Blogging" - it's much easier to keep it going when there's a lovely supportive group leaving you messages, I can tell you that!  If you want to join in visit out Facebook group - or if you're not on FB just join in by leaving a message on here.

Today's card is the third of those I made for the Crafty Templates September Kit

I used:

Cloud and Sun template, all papers and ribbon from Crafty Templates

Tonic punch for Flower, Hand-cut stem and leaf, heart button from stash

Sentiment pc generated and printed directly on the card Font = Troutkings (I think)

Thanks for visiting

Lighting the darkness

Today's card is one of those made for the Crafty Templates September kit - yes, I've just realised that I've only remembered to blog one of them so far - so you can see one HERE and there's one more left for tomorrow....hehe

I was very much in a CAS mood with the last lot of templates - the images, along with the fab papers and other elements from the Quirky Kit (also available from Crafty Templates) just seemed to work really well on a clean white smooth card.

What better for a card with Chinese lanterns on than a Chinese proverb for the sentiment, which I kept simple by printing directly onto the card, roughly in the place I wanted it to be before adding the baker's twine and lanterns

I Used:

Smooth white card blank

All templates and papers from Crafty Templates

Black Bazzill card, black gel pen, Baker's Twine,

pc generated sentiment

That's it for today, I hope you like it

A Little Candle

It's my turn to set the challenge for the Daring Cardmakers this week.
These long hours of darkness really get me down - all my life I've struggled at this time of year especially on the dull, hank and dismal sort of days we've had lately when it never seems to get properly light at al - so I thought we could have our very own Festival of Light and share cards featuring candles, fairy lights and even "lightbulb moments" (not that I ever have one of those, hehe).  I've called it

Let There Be Light

and the cards made by our wonderful designers have certainly provided a welcome, friendly light already - you can feel the glow by clicking HERE!
Hopefully we'll all be taken on a lovely light-filled journey around Blogland by those who join in with our challenges every week!
Here's my card:

 

 When I hit upon the title I hadn't realised that this dare would be Dare 52 in Year 6 of Daring Cardmakers challenges - so maybe I should have made a birthday cake card with plenty of candles on instead!  However I already had an idea in my head (for once) and I really wanted to give another of my new Memory Box dies an outing so stuck with Plan A

The candle is a Craft Robo template made from one of those pictures you can find by googling on " free colouring pages". 
 It's a picture I saved a while back and it didn't take long to convert it for cutting on Robo

Materials:

2 shades turquoise glitter card (Best Creations, Red Glitter card - its the stuff where the glittery layer is encased and the card has a gloss finish, Bazzill Bling turquoise, Bazzill scraps in red and green, extra white card for the upper layers, Red Stickles (berried), Ice Stickles in Gold and Silver(candle flame), Glossy Accents (berries), Silver and turquoise tiny gems (Anita's Gem Wheels), Turquoise Organza Ribbon, Decal sticker sentiment

Tools:

Craft Robo to cut:

Candle, holly and berriesUpper white layer and circle aperture

Wavy Square background

Dies: Memory Box Snowflake Wreath, Snowflake border, Cuttlebug snowflake dies

Punch: Tiny Stars

That's it for today.  I now need to come up with a plan for making some simpler, quicker cards using this gorgeous snowflake wreath because while I enjoyed making this it took far too much time and effort for any sort of "mass" production!
I hope you'll pop along to the Daring BLOG and that you'll join in and shine your own little light this week!

Oh and if you feel your blog could use a little boost - both in the number of posts you actually make, and in the number of visits you get, why not join in with my little "a Card a Day Blogging" campaign - we have a Facebook Group set up to let other members know when you've blogged or you can join in by just leaving a message here to say you're taking part - I'll add your link to those on the FB group and hopefully you'll be encourages by lots of visitors to keep up that blogging and sharing.

Thanks for visiting - I'm off to grab a coffee now ;)

TReelly Nice Die

It's Day 2 on "a Card a Day" - we have a Facebook group to keep in touch with what other members are doing, but if you're interested in joining in and don't use FB see the post previous to this one for how to join in

I do love Memory Box dies, but they can be a right faff to use - all those fiddly little bits of "spare" card to get out and then there's the "how to glue 'em on" question.

I bought the Starry Tree  die because it's sooo pretty and because I thought it would be the answer to that annual question "How do I churn out lots of Christmas cards without losing my mind?"

Obviously the prettiness of the die completely overshadowed the "Losing my mind" bit - as I realised on the first attempt at cutting!

I did a bit of research on the web, and asked a few questions of my lovely crafty friends and now, although using these dies is never going to be as speedy as using those lovely, simple Cuttlebug tree dies (I'm running out of ideas on how to get away using them again), I think I can now get a lot more use from them than I thought I would on day 1

.

I did the "use a layer of greaseproof paper between die and cardstock" thing and that helped - I'm not sure whether you only need to do that once - but that's what I did and the dies have been a bit easier since.

Adding a card shim to the base plate of my Cuttlebug before the cutting sandwich is definitely helping - plus it's easy to change the thickness of the card or paper shim to get the best results.

Use scissors to cut close to the diecut shape - this helps prevent those complicated twisty spirally bits from getting tangled up and allows you to get the unwanted sections out in smaller pieces iyswim

The people at Cheery Lynn dies make a metal shim which seems to get brilliant reviews - I ordered one - and when it arrived I realised that I'd ordered a Big Shot one by mistake doh and double doh!  Fortunately the lovely people at Cutting Edge Crafts are happy to exchange it for the right one - but they are awaiting stock of the Cuttlebug Cuttlehug - you see, it was the name that confused me (doesn't take much)

My lovely friend Kath came up with a brilliant, and super speedy idea for gluing these intricate shapes to the card:  Apply glue to the actual CARD, then put the diecut onto the glue and toss Glamour Dust over the whole thing!  Brilliant and perfect for Christmas cards!

 So here's the design I made using Kath's method.

 Cutting all the bits in batches makes it quicker, the oval cut out makes a nice frame and hides the un-glittered areas, and I've used the the left over oval to make a topper for another card - they would also be perfect for gift tags!

Tools and Materials:
Dies: Memory Box Starry Tree, Snowflake border, Spellbinders Sxscalloped Oval
Bazzill card, White card scraps, Glamour Dust glitter, Tiny gems (Anita's gem wheels), Homemade decal sentiment stickers

Thanks for looking

A Card A Day Kick Off

I've just started a Facebook group called "a Card a Day"  and I'm hoping that lots of fellow-cardmakers will use it as a virtual "prod" to get those cards made - it's an "open" group so anyone can join in, and enlist their friends too. 

 I'm hoping it will encourage us all to use our own blogs more and to visit and leave a message on each others' blogs too - Just a "hello" to say you were there if time is short.  We all need and appreciate knowing we're not just talking to ourselves, don't we?

 Hopefully this will help with all that Christmas card making - and any other cards too so please come along and join us.  If you're not onb FB you can still join in by leaving a comment here - I'll post a link to your blog on the FB page for you

Of cou7rse, a little bit of cheating is allowed - so making a few cards on one day and then sharing one at a time is perfectly acceptable...;) 

Here's my card for today

well 3 - but as they are all pretty much the same I don't think I can get away with one a day for the next few days hehe

 

Tools and Materials:

Glitter card (Best Creations) - doesn't shed, but is a pain to die-cut as it has a sort of plasticised backing

Tiny gems (Anita's)

red ribbon, silver cord

Memory Box Snowflake border die, various other snowflake dies (cuttlebug) and punches

Thanks for looking

Stylish Tree

I love being a member of the Funky Hand Design Team - and  I'm loving it even more than usual just now because I think that this year's Christmas downloads are just fantastic - they've definitely helped me get into the swing of my Christmas crafting.  My Cword card box is looking a lot more healthy now. Still a long way to go, but at least the cards cover the bottom of the box now, and there may be enough to stand them up in there soon.  Haven't been brave enough to count them yet though as it's always a disappointment when you find you've not made anywhere near as many as you thought you had :)

This year with each of  the Funky Hand downloads under the "Oh Come All Ye Crafters* banner you get a package of:
15 papers,
a page of "ribbons"
the matching Wordbook.

 There are EIGHT colour collections to choose from and there's a collection of cute and funky Digital Images too
Click Here to visit the Funky Hand Shop to see all the Christmas Stash and lots of projects made using it all 

Today I'm sharing a couple of cards and a "magic box" made using the "Stylish Tree" papers
 I love the mix of deep and soft colours in this paper set and thought they'd work well with this flower die - it's not a poinsettiabut it'll do ;)

Papers: All Funky Hand "Stylish Tree" download collection

Marianne flower die set,  Punch; tiny snowflake

Glamour Dust glitter, Various pearls and gems, 

Home-made sentiment sticker

Papers: All Funky Hand "Stylish Tree" download collection

"Snowflake Tree" die; Memory Box,  Punch; tiny snowflake

Glamour Dust glitter,  Tiny silver and red gems; Anita's Gem Wheels, 

Home-made sentiment sticker

I've been meaning to have a go at making one of these boxes for ages and I knew that this particular set of papers would be perfect for the project

 Remove the lid and base and the whole "box" springs open to reveal four smaller boxes which all unflod like this:

 It would have been a shame not to make a spectacular embellishment for the lid - the sort of thing it's a bit harder to add to a card but is such fun to make.  I love the way it turned out!

Papers: All Funky Hand "Stylish Tree" download collection

Dies:  

2x  Spellbinders Snowflakes for flower base.  6x Amana Circles (Memory Box) for main flower - 

Stickles Gold Ice glitter glue, Paper swirls made from scraps

I've got a feeling I'll be using this collection a lot for my cards this year - and as there are several designs that aren't Christmas-specific I'll be using them for other projects too.  

Thanks for looking, I hope you'll come by again soon

If You're HAPPY and you Know it....

Over at the Daring Cardmakers this week Keilly is simply challenging us to

"Be HAPPY"

She's asked us to make a HAPPY card - featuring the word, or just a design that really makes us feel happy.  It made me pretty happy not to have to look at cards with spiders on for another week, tbh hahaha

Lots of us decided to make the actual word the main feature of our card designs and you can see how we did this - and all the other Happy cards too over on our BLOG - so please check them out - hopefully they'll make you feel happy too!

As I'm trying to get going with my Cword cards (and not doing particularly well) I thought I'd take the chance to add another one to the meagre number already in the "finished" box.

 I used the Christmas Tree download from Funky Hand for this one - I printed the designs straight on to my cardstock - I resized a couple to print at half A$ size and then more to print at a quarter of A4 size - don't you just love that sort of flexibility?!
My first piece of A4 was the card base - I rotated and resized the spotty design to print "front" of my card, then I did the same with one of the green designs, turned the card over and printed the "inside" of the card.
The other designs I've used were ll just resized to print 4 on each sheet of card for making the letters, stocking and "Christmas" sentiment piece.
I made the HAPPY template in Paint Shop Pro - making one with the letters joined together to act as a base, then creating each letter as a separate template to cut in different designs

Materials:

All designs Funky Hand "Christmas Tree Download - available NOW from HERE

Green Satin ribbon from Creative Treasures

Stickles Ice glitter glue in Gold Ice

Tools:

Craft Robo: "HAPPY" letters, "Christmas" word

Memory Box Stocking die from "Dies to Die For"

This is quite a 3D card - the stocking and the "Christmas" word are added on box hinges so that they fold relatively flat to fit in an envelope but then fold out for a more interesting pop-out design

I hope you like it
Thanks for visiting

Funky Christmas

This year, instead of a new Christmas CD, Funky Hand are releasing a series of Christmas Download Collections.  Some are already available, others are "waiting in the wings" for release.
All Funky Hand products are available HERE - which is also where you can sign up for the newslettter which will alert you to the new releases as soon as they happen.

 There's also the Funky Hand FaceBook page, and of course the challenge blog "Get Funky! - where you can see how our fantastic Design Team use Funky Hand products to create some great projects - and share lots of tips and tricks for using them too - our new challenge "Christmas is All About the Kids" went live yesterday..
I thought I'd do a bit of a Funky Update post today and show some of the things I've been making with just 3 of the Christmas download collections - there are 8 all together and some fun Christmas Digi Images too

Presents Wrapped (out soon)

 Is it Christmas (out soon)

Santa Baby  (available now)

I hope these have whetted your appetite -  I'll be back with more soon so please pop back again to see some more of these fab paper and wordbook collections
Thanks for visiting

Incy Wincy

My heart fell when I saw Leo's Daring Cardmakers' challenge this week!
But I was brave and typed the scary word into Google to do an image search for something suitable to make into a template for cutting with Craft Robo....
I don't mind telling you it was a horrible experience - have you ever tried looking for something with your eyes shut? It's not easy! hehe  I was quickly scrolling past the more realistic images hunting out something a bit more cartoony - and I spent as little time as possible on the task.
All because Leo's challenge is called

 "Spooky Spiders"

Here's my card:

Materials

Black card blank with large aperture cut out

Papers: Bo Bunny's Apple Cider 6x6

Black Stickles on spider, oversize googly eyes, silver thread

Scraps of black and white card

pc generated sentiment

Tools

Craft Robo to cut the spider and web

Medium circle punch for sentiment

There are lots more spidery ideas on the Daring Cardmakers' blog - if you can bear to look!

That's me for today - so back to the Cword card making I suppose....

Thanks for visiting

Sketch File Twosome

It's Update Day on The Sketch File and this week I've added a couple of my own cards to the blog.
The first is for Crafty Templates DT and uses one of the latest templates from Crafty Template - it's really a set of leaves, but I've used them to make trees instead

Materials:

Papers: all from the Crafty Templates Quirky Kit "Tell me More, Tell me More"

hand cut "hill" and bird

pc generated sentiment

Tools:

Crafty Templates September Kit; Autumn Leaves template
find out about Crafty Templates and Quirky Kits HERE

Craft Robo to cut the fence

Punch; Punch punch for small leaves

My second card is one I've made for Funky Hand DT and uses one of the new Christmas download collections - though these are Christmas themes, there are several of the designs which would be fab for non-Christmas projects too!

Materials:

Papers: all from the "Santa Baby" download from Funky Hand

Red and White Baker's Twine

Card Candy

Homemade (decal paper) sentiment sticker

This is the sketch from The Sketch File

That's it for this time, thanks for looking

October Colour Combo

It's Daring Cardmakers Day and as it's the first challenge of the month it's a colour combo this week.
It's hard to believe we're on the 10th of  these already - it doesn't seem long since we announced that this would be our monthly theme for 2012 - where the blazes did the year go?
Sharon has chosen the colour palette this month and it's a beautiful Autumnal mix of shade.
I kept to the Autumn theme and used the lovely Memory Box tree die on my card

Materials:

Brown 14cm sq card blank, Cream ribbed cardstock

Bazzill card in Autumnal shades

Papers all from various MME 6x6 pads

Cream cotton lace and green leaf trim from stash

Sentiment; Melissa Frances sticker

Tools:

Memory Box Tree die

small 1cm square punch

Here is the photo and colour palette Sharon gave us to work with this week:

 You'd think with such a beautiful starting point it would have been easy to make my card, but I really struggled to get something I was happy with.  In fact the only bit of the initial attempt that ended up on the card above is the panel with the various papers on - and even that is about half the size it started out at. I made this wrapped ribbon and seam binding border for that card, but once it was made it didn't look right on the card - but I think it's really pretty and I want to use it - but right now my brain is frazzled and I can't figure out how!

Further to the frazzled brain that's going on around here, this might amuse you....

Thank goodness I noticed the mistake before I sent the card!

That's it for today, thanks for visiting - don't forget to head over to the Daring BLOG to see all the gorgeous cards the team have made this week - and it would be fab if you'd join in....

Have a great weekend