You Hum it and I'll Play it

I'm blogging on the Quirky Blog today and my card uses one of the latest set of
Crafty Templates.  As soon as I saw this one I knew it would make a beautiful silhouette placed on a sunset background.

 

As well as using the beautiful template, I used a few bits from my Quirky Kit, including the gorgeous  Kesi-art colour mist you'll find in the main 'Candy Floss Cart' kit - its the lovely aqua shade on the inky layers of my card. 

Clicking HERE will take you to a fab post Leo made recently on how to the best from this product :)

I used:

From Crafty Templates; Hummingbird and Flower

From the Quirky Kit;  Kesi-art colour mist, Feather stickers (matted first onto card and cut out), Tiny Star sequins, Round Sequins*

From my stash; Black card, White card, Clear Dewdrops, Distress Inks

* I glued a couple of clear dewdrop "stones" on top of the coloured sequins as an experiment, I'm really happy at how it worked and the way the colour of the sequins shows through the clear plastic

 This is such a lovely template - probably my favourite from this set, but there's another bird template too and I can't make up my mind whether to use that or the gorgeous bows one for my next project :)

Anyway, that's all for now -I  hope you like this card and that you'll head over and investigate the lovely Quriky Blog with all its card and scrapbook inspiration

Thanks for looking

At the Back of the Cupboard

Do you ever buy stash that for some reason stays unopened at the bottom of the drawer or back of the cupboard?  Well, over on the Daring Cardmakers this week, Miri has set a challenge to actually find and USE those.....

Forgotten Treasures

.....Craft items (stamps, paper, embossing folders etc.) that you bought or got as a present … that are still waiting to be used because you completely forgot about them or never found the time to use them.

As soon as I saw this one I knew that it was the push I needed to use a set of Carta Bella papers I bought a couple of months back and then couldn't think what to do with. I love Carta Bella papers, but I struggled with this set - I think mainly because there weren't any of the plainer designs that are so useful for pulling a project together.  Some of the images were a bit too US-centric but you can usually get round this by using the less highly-patterned ones. It's unusual to buy a pack of papers and find no contrasting plains to help balance the patterns.

I also opened the set of "Perfect Layers" ruler things that have also lurked quietly on the shelf for a good few weeks.  I'd not used the "Vintage Hot Air Balloon"  die set since we (Daring Cardmakers) were doing a sponsored challenge  for XCut to launch their Build a Scene die sets, so it seemed a good opportunity to use that too.

Smooth Cream 14cm square card blank

Papers and Sticker accents; Carta Bella "Well Travelled" 

Bazzill Black card, Small blue gems (Anita's)

Homemade decal rub-on sentiment, Black Ink 

Dies: Balloon and tiny birds all from the XCut "Vintage Hot Air Balloon" set

The balloon has a "box hinge" behind it so that it stands out from the card, but folds flat for posting.
 

 

That's all for this time, I hope you'll be joining in with us this week - you can see what other hidden and forgotten treasures the  team found to use by visiting our BLOG - and then pop over to the personal blogs to read their confessions ;)

Thanks for looking, it would be great if you'd leave a message

 

Window Boxes

It's update day on The Sketch File and there are lovely new ideas from Jackie and Brenda, plus one from me over there today

I was trying to think of different ways to use the circle and squares that the sketch features and suddenly thought "aperture"!  I don't know why it took so long to come up with, because it's something I often do! 
Next it was a case of deciding how to use the squares on the design in a more inventive way.  I made them into plant pots- well you can't go too far wrong with a few flowers, can you?
 

 Materials and Tools:

All papers Dear Lizzy 6x6

Wired roses*

Tag is cut down from one in my current Quirky Kit

Flat-backed pearl 

Sketch from HERE

Spellbinders Dies: plain circle and Pinked Circles

Square punch, trimmed to make the pots

Star punch for supporting the roses

" the roses are glued onto punched stars and cunningly overlapped just slightly with other parts of the card or stems so that they remain stable (otherwise they'd be too heavy and flop down)

 This is the sketch:

While writing this I thought "hmm, I could have reversed the square and circle elements...."  Maybe I'll have a go at that and see what I come up with....

It would be great to have you join in with us - there's a week left on the Inlinkz gadget over there, so if you're feeling inspired, please get crafty with us.
Thanks for visiting today

Monday is Washi(ng) Day

Today I'm blogging over on the Quirky Kits Ideas Blog, which is where you'll find loads of ideas using Crafty Templates and Quirky Kits, plus lots of general tips and techniques too

This card uses the Faux Washi Tape template - a great idea for avoiding the Washi Tape Buying Stress that goes something like; "agghhh there are so many designs I like but I can't buy them ALL" 

Use Leo's template and scraps of your favourite paper and all is calm again hehe

For this card all I've done is adhered the cut out Faux Washi Tape strips onto the card base.  I've cut one of the wider "tapes" on plain white card to make into a banner for the sentiment and used off-cuts to make some bunting.

 Materials and Tools

from Crafty Templates: Faux Washi Tape strips template

from my Quirky Kit: all papers, "Happy" letters

from stash; Baker's Twine, black card

Hand cut bunting

Tiny Square punch

Craft Robo to cut black lettering 

 It's definitely worth adding the Quirky Kits Ideas Blog to your reading list, there are some truly inspiring ideas on there, and some wonderful tips too.

Right, I'm off to make a coffee and then log on to Wimledon on the BBC iPlayer.  Coffee, Crafting and Wimbledon - it's all good ;)

Thanks for visiting

  

Itty Bitty

Gosh!  Beckie's challenge for the Daring Cardmakers had me flummoxed this week!

This week's theme is ......

Itty Bitty Jar

More than likely you have a jar or container that sits on your craft table where you pop all those little bits that are just left on the desk and don't have a home, or we run out of time to do a proper clear up :)  So the dare this week is to make a card featuring at least 5 items from that jar!

Don't get me wrong - it's not that I don't have loads of bits and bobs left over from projects, or  lots of tiny things like beads and brads that I find after putting their compatriots away, and yes there are extra unused die-cuts and bits of ribbon and laces, offcuts of paper and card, little "found" treasures from heaven knows where that I've kept because "that might come in useful...." - no, the problem is that I don't have just one place to keep all that stuff and I'm now thinking that maybe I should!
The other problem was that all those odds and ends are so itty and bitty that finding stuff that could be made to work together was a toughie!
Anyway, in the end here's what I came up with - if you refer back to earlier posts you'll spot some leftovers actually being used

My itty bitty bits: some each of the Beads, Brads, Gems and Pearls, one layer of the the purple flower, sentiment sticker,  all from the tray on my desk. Turquoise card - printed Bazzill left over from a couple of weeks ago, Contempo circles die-cut which I used as a stencil last week, tiny card die-cut came in a swap I think, large flower was one I made as a try-out and never got round to putting on a project, the Swirl is a chipboard one saved from project I wasn't happy with - it was silver yesterday morning,

 Other Materials and Tools

2 x mauve papers "Winter Wedding" download collection by Funky Hand

Extra beads etc., Metallic thread,  Prima flowers, Stickles, 
Turquoise and mauve ink pads; Versamark and Cats Eyes

Spellbinders Large Oval

Memory Box Contempo Circles border

I had to clear my desk to do this challenge - just to find out what might be usable, so I thought I'd share a picture of all the stuff I "culled" from my desk

I definitely need a proper place to put all that sort of stuff.  Maybe an old-fashioned goldfish bowl would do the trick....
So, will you be joining in with us this week?  Do you dare open your Itty Bitty stash to our prying eyes?  Go on, it'll be fun! ;)
Pop over to our BLOG to see what the rest of the team found when they investigated their leftovers and itty bits....

Thanks for visiting today

It's Only Rock and Roll

It's about time I caught up on blogging more of the cards I made for last month's "boy" birthday frenzy.

This one is for one of our older nephews and I thought a rock and roll theme would be a nice change (for me) from making a seemingly endless stream of football-themed cards.

I think the papers were Bo Bunny, but they might not have been and I'm too lazy to go and look through the boxes to find out ;)

After I'd adhered the chequerboard paper onto the front of the card I die-cut an aperture with a circle Nesties.  
The guitarist is cut on the Craft Robo, I made a template using a silhouette image found on the net.
Some of the stars, and the "Rock On" sentiment are from the die-cut sticker page  in the paper pack - I rarely manage to use them, so this made a change.  I stuck them onto card and cut them out for more dimension
Lots of heavy inking to add to the grungy look, and another piece of paper and more stars for the inside of the card.  I ended up cutting the guitarist twice as the first version was a bit small, so I stuck the little one inside the card too.

That's it, a pretty simple and fairly quick card - all good, eh ;)

Thanks for visiting, please come back again soon xx

Moving to a Bigger Space

Today is Update day over on The Sketch File and this week we have some clever card ideas from Kate and Brenda, and something from me too.
Over the last couple of years I've been using the sketches to do LOs for my 6x6 mini album.  I never thought I'd come to this, but those pages are starting to fell a little cramped so I've decided to venture into a bigger space and start using 8x8 - I'm not ready for the BIG size yet hehe.  Not sure I ever will be tbh. 
8x8 seems quite a friendly size and will hopefully be good for the sort of mini books I like to work on.  I'm thinking it's going to be a bit random as to what will go into the book.  Maybe I'll just make the pages when the mood strikes and sort them later.
Here is my very first attempt - so please be gentle with me!

 The photos I've used are some of hubby's and there's a little bit of journalling under the small flap on the lower left side - I didn't want to break up the black background with anything else

Materials and Tools

Bazzill card; Black, various shades of green, red for title

Pearls and gems in red and amber shades

Die; Memory Box Swirl

Punch; Punch Bunch

Craft Robo; title (cut 3 times and glued on top of each other)

June Sketch

We're trying to find the right photo or photos for the empty white wall in the kitchen that you can see on the photo below. You can also tell why all the photos taken so far have had a "red" theme!
   

 I love the gerbera photos that OH did, but we also have some with an amaryllis, some cupcakes, some tomatoes and peppers.  I think foodie ones are probably a bit too "cafe" and obvious though.  One day we'll decide what to do, the kitchen is only a year old, after all.....

Thats all for today, thanks for looking

Funky Box

This weekend it's my turn to post on the Get Funky and Craft Ideas and Inspiration blog and as I've recently found a "new favourite" qay to use my Funky Hand downloads that's what I'm talking about and using for my project over there.

I love the textures of the various kinds of Bazzill card so I thought I'd see what happened when I used some white Bazzill cardstock to print some of the new - and absolutely gorgeous "Summer Wedding" designs onto.

I absolutely love the results - and OK it may sound a bit costlier than printing out on regular card or paper, but if you are printing with a purpose in mind then it's fine.  

I used my "Funky Hand Bazzill" to make this cute little gift box

I used the spare strips of card cut from the 12x12 sheet of Bazzill to print all the designs I wanted to use for the decorative panel.  the small flowered design in the middle, and the big cut out flowers on the side are all the same design.  This is one of the brilliant things about using printable designs - a bit of cropping and resizing and you have perfectly matched embellishments ready to cut and stick!

Materials and Tools

Funky Hand Summer Wedding Download, available HERE

Instructions for the gift box are HERE

Ribbon,  Cropadile. Tiny Font sticker letters, Flat-backed pearls, 
Card Candy, Stickles

There are more photos and more waffle over on the GFandC BLOG, plus the link for where to find the instructions for making this cute box.  

Please do me a favour and leave a comment over there - it would be much appreciated ;)

Thanks for popping in here today, hope you like what I'm sharing today and you'll come back soon to see more.

Have a fab weekend

 

A Flower Festival

Well, you know me - it doesn't take much of an excuse for me to add flowers to my cards and projects - so Lythan#s Daring Cardmakers theme for this week made me a very happy bunny :)

   

The theme is

flower festival

 There is going to be a flower festival at Lythan's church next week and everyone is working hard on their arrangements. 

So I would love to see a festival of flowers on your card - or if you have hay fever perhaps just one!

Have a look at the beauties the team have come up with this week HERE

 I knew exactly what sort of flower I was going to use on my card because I found THIS lovely video tutorial a couple of weeks back and have been saving it for the right occasion.  Lyth's challenge was just the job! Actually the difficult part was deciding what to do with it once it was made.

I don't have the punch used in the video but I do have a Punch Bunch one that also has 4 different sizes of petals.  To make my flower more peony-like I trimmed the pointy ends of the petals down with scissors.  Just out of interest (and because I had quite a lot of unused punchies, I made a second version without cutting the pointy ends off - you can see the difference on the close-up photo above

I made the flower with no thought as to what to do with it (nothing new there), and having sat looking at it for a while waiting for inspiration, in the end I fell back on a few current favourites: Stencilling with a Mmeory Box die, the gorgeous Memory Box swirl and the beautiful velvet  ric-rac that was part of a Christmas swap on the Charmed Cards and Craft forum
A couple of weeks ago I gave into temptation (thanks for that, Kaz) and bought a few Paper Artsy "Fresco Finish" paints, two of which I've used to stencil the background.  I know the stencilling is a bit "splodgy" and imperfect but I like the effect and the texture.  So there.  I painted the swirls and the tiny sentiment background too

 Materials and Tools

Smooth White 15cm sq card, with about 1.5cm removed from one side

Flower: pale pink Bazzill card, Versamagic Muted Mauve Chalk ink pad,

this VIDEO Tutorial

Paper Artsy "Fresco Finish" paints: Mermaid and Rose

Velvet ric-rac braid, Flat-backed Pearls, Decal sentiment

Punch Bunch 4-petal punch: Azalea Petals

Memory BoxDies: Elegant Scrollwork, Contempo Circles Border

Spellbinders Nesties: Labels 9

I've set the flower a little off the edge of the card, and left the swirls unglued at their larger ends to make them a bit more "fluid"

Somehow I don't think this will fit in an envelope though :).  Might be needing to make a box.  Or maybe I'll just keep it for my shelf.
The team have made some beautiful bloomers ;) this week, and I'm hoping there will be loads of lovely floral fancies linked up to our blog.

Thanks for looking, hope you like my card today

Quote This

On the Bubbly Funk Craft forum we recently did a "Secret Crafter" swap - it was a bit like a Secret Santa, but in May!
Those participating each made something special for someone else in the group.  Names were kept secret till after the gifts were received so that we could then all share in the fun of trying to guess who had sent each item.  I made a little book of quotations for Wendy - it's a concertina-window album  filled with some of my favourite quotations.

The concertina bit means that it "stretches" open from both ends and doesn't have a spine like a regular book.  When you turn it over there are more pages to see on the other side. 

I used a Nesties die to cut the "windows" that frame the quotations beneath and then embellished the window pages - they are only fixed at the short ends so pop out to frame the words.
As this post is so photo-heavy I'll post them in small size, but you can click on them all for a closer look. They are in no particular order - because I can't remember what order they were in the book!

This last one just shows the back and the front of the book - the ribbon ties right around to keep it all closed

The gift I received came from Tracy, who seems able to turn her hand to anything.  She makes beautiful cards and jewellery and sews too.  She made these tiny, intricate little Fairy Shoes - I think they must be for the Bad Fairy of Procrastination, but surely they are far too pretty for such a bad fairy?
The ink-pad in the photo will mean that fellow crafters will know just how dainty and delicate these are.
Thank you Tracy :)

The swap went really well and it was fun to be part of.  The plan is to do it all again in a few months time

Rightio, time I got on with something new.  Hope you enjoyed your visit and liked what you saw here
 I'm trying to catch up with my blogging (as usual), so I'll be back soon with more craftiness

Sketch File Squares

I've used the current LO over on The Sketch File to make this card for my nephew's birthday. 

The squares and letters are all cut using my Craft Robo.  I cut most of the stars using Robo too - there are various different shapes and sizes and to make sure I got an accurate circle shape I just marked a few of the placements using a Nesties die as a template and covered the pen marks with some of the stars. 

 I added some star eyelets and brads, then filled any gaps with more card stars. 

The greeting is also Robo-cut. I made the template using Paint Shop Pro and the "Cheddar Salad" font

If my dad were still here, this would have been altered just slightly to make the perfect Father's Day card for him - because he was such a star!

Here's the sketch, and if you pop over to our BLOG you'll find more ideas using this sketch on the last couple of posts.

Hope you'll join in this month, it would be great to see what you make

Thanks for visiting, please leave a comment

New Stash Alert

 If you've visited here in the last few weeks you may have spotted some of the lovely new stash that I've been using.  Well now everyone can get their hands on Funky Hand's 4 wonderful Wedding collections and also the fab and fun Doodlewords images

Here's a quick look at some of the projects I've made using them,  Some of them I've blogged already, but I'll get to the others soon

 

Click here to visit the Funky Hand Website 

and find out more :)

Raspberry Sundae

It's the first Friday of the month and that means its a Colour Combo week on the Daring Cardmakers.  It's Jo's turn to choose the palette this time and the colours are just beautiful.
Once again the main problem lies in finding just the "right" shades for the job.  Yes, I could have gone through all my papers and card stash - and that is a great way to find forgotten treasures after all, but I went a different route.

This week I've been playing with some of Funky Hand's new DoodleWords collection of image downloads - I don't "do" colouring in - I'm useless tbh, so when it comes to using images I paint on the computer with  Paint Shop Pro. It's quite time-consuming and I'm not very good at it, but the results are a whole lot better than I could ever achieve with pens and pencils!

Sooooo, I used one of the DoodleWords images, and picked out the colour-codes from the palette on Jo's Inspiration photo and got to work.  As well as colouring the "Hello" I used shades of the same colours with the Airbrush tool to make some pieces of paper to make the mats and embellishments 

Materials and Tools

Smooth White 15cm sqare card, edge cut off so that I could go "off-piste" with the embellishments

All other card is pc generated colours, printed on White Bazzill

"Hello" Funky Hand DoodleWords image download (coming soon...)

Organza and Satin Ribbons

MFT Die-Namics "Botanical Beauty" Die set

Memory Box Swirl

Ball tool to shape the petals

Extra ink for edging the petals

These are such pretty colours and I love the way they look on the smooth white background.  Once I'd made the coloured card and coloured/resized and printed the image this card went together so quickly.....probably because I'd made this one the day before and liked the LO so much I tweaked it and used it again hehe

All papers are from the Funky Hand Summer Wedding 
collection (coming soon...)

Flower is made using petals cut from one of the paper designs

Memory Box Swirl die

Large white flat-backed pearl

Sneaky, eh?  I should have saved this LO for the Sketch File! Talking of which, a new sketch went live on Tuesday, do please pop over there and have a look at the sketch and the first of our DT ideas for using it.
That's all for this time
Thanks for visiting