A Little bit Steam "Funk"

The Get Funky and Craft blog is  stuffed full of inspiration for using the fantastic papers, digital images and all the other lovely things produced by Funky Hand.

Every week there are a couple of new things to see there, and once a month a special showcase where the DT all make something using the same collection. This month the lovely, moody

 "Steam Funk" 

 download  has been chosen as our showcase  collection.

I made this little pillow box

I printed at A5 size on both sides of a sheet of A4 White Bazzill card for the main box, then used the other half of the sheet to print 2 quarter sized designs on the textured side and another A5 sized piece on the back of those smaller sections.  That way I could cut a long enough piece of the text design to go right around the box, and could use the other pieces to decorate. 
I covered a chipboard heart with some of the cogs design paper and matched that up with some inked to match die cut cogs that a friend sent to me a couple of years ago (there were a lot!).
I then just used a leftover scrap from the paper used for the box to make a "ribbon" detail.

If you were wondering why the chipboard heart looks a bit murky it's because there's a fine layer of glitter  on it - an impulse idea that didn't really come off very well.  Although maybe a layer of Glossy Accents would help....

From my one sheet of A4, I still have quite a bit left, so will have to think how to use it up now!

If you head over to the  Get Funky and Craft blog you will see a great range of ideas using this same set of papers - it's always so interesting and inspiring to see the variety of things the team come up with

That's it for this time, thank you for visiting

Clean and Simple?

It may not be obvious, but the CAS style is something I like and try to emulate.  My main problem is that even cards that look fairly clean and simple rarely are.  I think one of the difficulties I have is not with white space, but with white space that is "flat"  - which is why I'll usually end up using an embossing folder to hide that expanse of flatness.

So for Sharon's Daring Cardmakers 

 "Clean and Simple" 

challenge this week, I banned myself from reaching for the embossing folders and made this card.

It was cutting the rectangular frame for the sentiment that was my downfall.  Maybe this really would have been ultra simple to make if all those teeny circles of peach card hadn't dropped from the die on to some white card and caught my eye....."oh, they look pretty all scattered like that, don't they...., I wonder?  No! that's madness, I won't do it"

Materials and Tools

top fold 16cm square card blank, trimmed down at the side to make a fat rectangle

2 shades of peach card, 2 shades and tyes of fibres for bow and strands

Memory Box Butterfly cut in each colour

Crafters Companion "Grace" rectangle frame*

PC generated sentiment

* the die cut frame was deeper than I wanted to use, so I cut across from side to side, then overlapped one of the patterns to make it narrower.  The bow and the butterfly disguise the overlaps

The whole rectangular section is raised on a piece of chipboard

I did finish the card leaving the plain white, smooth background - honestly, I did. 
But it was too hard to resist a bit of extra embellishing so I used a border punch to punch a few tiny dots from each of the peach shades.  I glued them on using a pointy scrap of card as a "sticker-on-er-er" as other tools were too big for the job

You can see how the rest of the team fared with our "pared down" challenge this week by clicking HERE to visit the blog

Thanks for visiting

Xcut September Dies Release

The Daring Cardmakers  design team were recently  asked if we'd like to have some September release Xcut dies to play with and showcase on our blog.  Obviously we said yes...please!  The people at DoCrafts-Xcut have sponsored us several times and they are always generous when they send out goodies  - this time was no different. Each of us were sent a large jiffy bag with one of the new die sets plus a host of other "toys"

Beckie is our hostess this week and came up with a

 "Parties and Festivals"

theme, which we could make to work for the wide variety of dis sets (owl die, garden tools, tea party, gift tags, balloons)  in the release.  I was thrilled to find the Garden Tools set in my bag - but they all look fantastic so I suspect pennies will be spent when they arrive in the shops.

Working them into a "Parties and Festivals" theme wasn't quite as easy as I thought - especially as in this die set there are so many fab shapes and I wanted to use them ALL! 
I have a bit of a problem (to say the least) in situations like this and the resulting "Flower Festival"card proves it - far too busy and stuff-filled, but it was too late to do a pared-down version

Xcut products used:

September Release Garden Tools Die set

Mistletoe Embossing folder

Mini-bow from Christmas pack

I really wanted to use the mistletoe wreath embossing folder - using tiny flowers over the berries to hide it's true identity. As you can see it's actually a full circle, but having embossed and inked the raised areas I thought it would make a lovely flower arch if I cut it out and trim off some of the lower leaves. I think I should have kept it simple with a plain white or pale.blue background, but I'd spotted a wooden fence background for a garden card - a nice idea, but it really doesn't work here, does it? :(

I like this one better, but I'm still not convinced.  I have a better idea (I think), so maybe I'll have another go!

In the Garden Tools die set you get all of these - I know I'm going to be using this set regularly

As well as sending lovely things to the DT, Docrafts have given us some Roald Dahl goodies to give away to one lucky person who joins in with us this week

 That's if for today, thanks for popping by

A Summer Sleigh Ride

Over on the Get Funky and Craft blog it's my turn to share a project made using fabulous Funky Hand stash 

Since becoming the proud owner of an eBosser machine, the world of A4 dies and embossing folders has been opened to me and thanks to some very generous people over at DoCrafts I recently got my hands on some fab new goodies (more about that in the next week or so....), including a die set for making a really neat gift bag, which comes with a tag and a clever bow as well as the gift bag itself.

The finished bag is 12cm wide. 18cm high and  7cm deep - so plenty of room for little gifts in there!

You need 2 sheets of A4 paper/card to make this box as you cut the die twice - so using some Funky Hand papers is a great way to get two identical pieces and some extra, perfectly coordinating designs for the extra declarative bits

I absolutely love making boxes and bags with Funky Hand stash as they make then look good even before you start decorating.

I chose to use "Sleigh Ride" which was one of the 2013 Christmas lines.  A little bit "left field" for crafting in the middle of August, I know, but I love these colours and several of the designs are not really Christmassy at all - it's a shame not to use them for other projects.

 Ingredients

"Sleigh Ride"  download from  Funky Hand

Paper or card for printing

Gift Bag with bow and tag; A4 die form Xcut 

SU Blossom punch, Tiny heart punch

Seam Binding or Ribbon

On Get Funky and Craft blog we post brand new projects using our Funky Hand stash twice a week at least - so there's a regular dose of inspiration and ideas over there- you'll find news and projects using the latest products and lots of projects using the older CDs and Downloads too - its definitely worth opping by often to see what's going on.

That's all for this time, thanks for visiting

A Long Stretch

Here we are at Friday again and no blog posts since this time last week...again!

Oh well never mind, at least the wonderful  Daring Cardmakers means I do actually remember to post at least once a week. Usually.

It's Jo here with this week's dare;

 Fantastic Elastic!

Our house seems to be overloaded with loom bands at the moment so I thought that it would be fun to incorporate a little twang into this week's dare!

Loom bands, plain old rubber bands,  some sewing elastic, or even a hair band; its up to you as long has it has some sort of stretch factor.

There are no Loom Bands in this house, so I had a think about what  stretchy stuff I could lay my hands on and came up with shirring elastic, regular elastic, brown rubber bands and the occasional red one, pony tail bands, stretchy gold and silver "twine" (the stuff you get round plastic display packaging) and some frilled gingham ribbon - frilled by way of elastic along one edge,  I was no more inspired by this little lot than when I'd started looking.
Time for a bit of  a web-wander then

And that's why I ended up getting in a right old inky mess the other day!  First  I tried wrapping rubber bands around an open box, putting ink on them and twanging them to spatter the ink onto sheets of card inside the box - quite a nice result, but you can guess how messy!
Next I wound a few rubber bands around the roller bit of my brayer.  I don't get on well with brayers - I just don't have the knack!  Anyways, I dripped various inks from  reinker bottles to the mat then squidged then around with the brayer, and then rolling the brayer over pieces of card.  
By this time I was fed up of the mess and the desk was full of rubbishy attempts so I decided that one of them at least would make a background I could work with and headed for the sink.

I made the same sort of background in blues and in yellow - red tones, but chose to use the blue one for my card

Materials and Tool

Smooth white card

Coredinations card x2

Scrap of orange card

Cats Eye Chalk and Brilliance re-inkers, Brayer, Rubber bands

Seam Binding,  Dewdrops, Ice Stickles

Silhouette Cameo to cut frame

Spellbinders Daisy and SU punch for flower

I love the way the Brilliance ink adds a slight pearliness to the pattern,  Iwas going to just mount the printed piece on top of the 2 turquoise squares, but thought that cutting a frame that I could raise above it would be more effective, and as I didn't have big enough square dies I cut the frame on the Cameo.

 That's it for now - you can click HERE to visit the blog and see all manner of interesting ways to stretch your creativity with fantastic elastic!
Thanks for visiting

Beautiful Beach Huts

It's my turn to set the challenge over on the Daring Cardmakers this week

".... as we're still enjoying a long, hot Summer (I hope you are too - though maybe if you're in the Southern Hemisphere you're already dreaming of Summer), I thought I'd be a bit self-indulgent and ask to see cards featuring one of my absolute favourite "beachy" things:Beautiful Beach Huts
I love to see these cute and colourful little "houses" - there are loads of them all around the coast here in the UK and I know they are to be found all over the world.

I hope you'll join in and make lots of lovely Beach Hut cards for me to swoon over this week"

My favourite beach huts are along the wide prom in Southwold, Suffolk- I spotted one of these for sale a few weeks ago priced at an unbelievable  £100,000.  I did suggest it would make a wonderful anniversary present for me, but I guess I wasn't really surprised when I didn't get it.  hey ho.  hehehe

I've made a couple of cards this week, the first was made using tightly rolled strips of paper, it's a bit of a faff, but I love the result you get from this technique

I inked the background using "dry" DI pads and tool - as you can see, there was still plenty of ink on the pads and as both had been used with a several colours, I got a nice variegated effect.  I added a few random streaks of Ice Stickles (crystal) and left it to dry while I made the beach hut

Papers for the Beach Hut are from various MME 6x6 pads - I think mostly from the "Find Your Wings" range.   I cut strips then rolled the paper first using a bamboo (no, not "mambo" you naughty spellchecker) skewer, this makes it easier to roll again making the tubes a bit tighter. I added glue to the edges then rolled the tube between my hands to help it to stick. 

It's a bit of a gooey, messy way to make a house, but sort of fun too!
The Life Belt was cut on the Silhouette Cameo - mainly because I didn't have exactly the size punches or dies for the circles - typical!
Ball is 2 punched circles amalgamated to make the pattern.
Seagulls are hand cut and dabbed with ink
Flagpoles are handcut, Red flag is a piece of ribbon
Sentiment is pc generated then handcut to shape

My second card is a shaped card.  The fold is on the left diagonal section of the roof.  I just made a simple template from a spare piece of card to check that I'd got it right, then drew around it on some folded card before cutting it out,
 I used more MME papers - I think these are from the "Miss Caroline"  pad - but  I now wish I'd kept to a more simple palette of 2 colours rather than use patterned papers

I folded strips of paper and overlapped them to make the house. The idea was that it would look like weatherboarding,but it doesn't really show up so that may have been a waste of time.  You can't win 'em all.
I used punches for the heart and the square window in the door but the rest was just hand cut. It's supposed to look rustic, don't you know!

Maybe I'll have another go at this one - you can't have too many beach huts after all!
The Daring Cardmakers team have really come up trumps this week with some fantastic beach huts so I hope you've been to have a look!

Thanks for popping in, please leave me a message - if only to tell me where your favourite beach huts are!

Sketch for August

The new LO on The Sketch File is called Bouncing Circles - my first card using the sketch doesn't have circles (unless you count the flower centres), but that's the whole point of the sketches really - they are not prescriptive, its all about seeing the pattern and then having fun with it in your own way - check our how cleverly Brenda has done this over on the BLOG

The "Bouncing Circles" Sketch:

  

Materials and Tools

All papers: Funky Hand CD "Colour Me Happy", this colour collection
 is "Glad Rags"

Paper designs are all printed onto white Bazzill cardstock

The flowers are cut from one of the papers and adhered to the wiggly line "stems"  of another of them.  The leaves are hand-cut from scraps

Xcut tiny circle punch used to punch the little flowers from another of the paper designs and make the "brads"

Flower shaped button, Gingham ribbon

EK Success Border punch

Memory Box Flourish die

That's it for this time, Thank you for visiting

Hello August

All those months of dismal; Winter we yearn for the better weather and then before we've had time to blink, May, June and July are over and the realisation dawns that the Summer is whizzing past far too quickly! It's been a great summer so far and hopefully the good weather will last a couple of months more, at least!
Over at the Daring Cardmakers Blog, the first challenge of the month is always to create with a Colour Palette - hence my awareness of the months passing by.  This time it's Svenja, one of our wonderful, talented German teamies choosing the colours and her selection of the Turquoise/Blue/Purple sphere is one of my most favourite colour combos ever - these are the colours of my teenage bedroom decor and I loved that room soooo much!
The problem is though, that much as I love purple I always find it difficult to craft with - now why is that?

So it took a few false starts, and a lot of paring down before I got something I was happy-ish with.

 Materials and Tools:

Smooth White card blank part embossed with "Petite Dots" embossing folder (Crafters Companion)

Bo Bunny papers (Charmed Cards and Craft)

Ribbon, Turquoise Organza fabric, Purple mesh fabric, Turquoise seam binding, Purple twine, Purple button, Pearls and Enamel Dots

Silhouette Cameo cut sentiment

This is the inspiration photo provided by Svenja:

 

We are very happy to introduce a new Guest Designer this month - click here to visit our BLOG, find out who it is, and see the other cards created by our fab team.

This week was the last week for the current sketch on The Sketch File. All month long I'd been planning to try to use the sketch for the basis of am 8x8 layout - if you are a regular visitor here you'll know that I very rarely venture down the scrapbooking path, but I thought this sketch would work really well to accentuate a photo.  I chose to use a photo taken from Southwold beach showing the beautiful beach huts along the prom and the pier heading out over the sea......
Here's how it turned out

July's Summer Streamers LO from The Sketch File:

So that's it for today, I hope you like the projects I've shared today and will join in with both of the challenges!
Thanks for visiting, please leave a message