Ticket to Fun

Here's a quick card that is simple to put together,  You don't need loads of tools, just your guillotine or craft knife, a pair of scissors, a pen and maybe an ink pad to edge the papers with.

And a wonderful Quirky Kit, which is filled with all sorts of goodies to make crafting fun!

I've gone into more detail about how I made this over on the Quirky Kits BLOG

It would be great if you'd pop over there and check out what the team have been making with the kits this time

 

From my Quirky Kit I used:

Simple Stories Charmed Life #7 paper

Websters Pages Ocean Melody ‘Ocean View’ paper

Studio Calico South of the Market ‘Tickets Please’ 12x12 patterned paper.(reverse) 

Carta Bella Ahoy There ‘Seashells’ 12x12 patterned paper. (reverse) 

Ticket  - Fancy Pants Everyday Circus roll tickets

Prima Seashore Metal Clips

the Bakers Twine was from my stash

My Kit Box contained a selection of gorgeousness from all the August/September kits. 
Click HERE to see them all

Thanks for looking

Crepe poppy

This is another project using paint and stamps from the current Quirky Kits.  The background for this one is the second of two water coloured painty pieces I made a couple of weeks ago.  I love this delicate crepe paper flower soooo much!

This photo shows the two pieces of painted paper and some of the bits I used to make the first card, which I shared a few days ago

I knew as soon as I saw the roll of peach coloured crepe paper in my Kit Box that some kind of flower was going to be made with it, and this background seemed perfect for the job.

You can see more about this card and the crepe paper flower over on the 
Quirky Kits blog.

Quirky Kit items used:

Acrylic Paints

Foam Brush

Lawn Fawn stamps
Crepe Paper

Other stash
Card in toning shades, plus a scrap of black, Black Card Candy circle
Marion Smith petal dies, Swirl dies, Large ball embossing tool, Brilliance Rocket red ink pad

I used one of two new ball tools I bought recently for this, they are much larger ball tools than those in the set I already had.  These are really for  sugarcraft or cake decorating but are absolutely fantastic for making flowers. Mine are double ended and solid stainless steel so can take a bit of pressure!  If you like making flowers, then they are definitely worth looking out for

That's all for this time  - thanks for looking

Stencil Revolution

My card for Zuzana's Stencil Revolution on today's new Daring Cardmakers challenge is also shown over on the Quirky Kits blog, where I've gone into more detail about how I made it

I used a stencil cut with my Silhouette Cameo to make this tree.  It's a pretty design with the trunk, branches and leaves which are formed by little hearts and dots. here's my "tool kit" for the painting - you'll see it's a bit basic!

 

I filled in the holes in the stencil by dabbing paint "circles" on with the ends of the cotton buds, then, when the paint was dry I used a sponge with some blue decorating chalks to add some colour around the tree

From my Quirky Kit box:

Acrylic paints

Lawn Fawn stamps

From my stash:

Seam binding, Wired flowers, Wired pearls, flat-backed pearls

There are lots of different ideas on what to use for stencils, and how to use them on your cards this week, so please visit the Daring Cardmakers Blog to see them all

Thanks for looking

City Boy Pinstripes

A couple of weeks ago I made a gift bag to share on the Get Funky and Craft blog using fabulous Funky Hand stash and a wonderful Xcut die.  At the time I said I thought the Winter Wedding papers would work really well to make a more masculine gift bag.
When my nephew's birhday came along I finally got round to trying out the theory - as he's just started working in the City, the pinstripe paper was perfect!

I was quite pleased with the closure for this; I used one of the "waste"pieces left from cutting the inside of the handle - by adhering one end to the back of the bag and punching matching holes in the other end and in the front of the bag a small piece of ribbon or twine can be threaded through to seal the gift bag
The "gift" sentiment piece is made in Paint Shop Pro simply by using the pre-set shapes tool to draw two rectangles filled in (paint can) with colours similar to those on the papers, and then adding the text on top.  I just needed to crop down and resize before printing.  And save to files for future use, of course

The tag comes as part of the Xcut set, I cut it twice in more of the Winter Wedding papers and added a little tab and a chipboard letter to finish it off

To make everything nicely coordinated I printed the spotty design on plain paper to use as gift wrap

Materials and Tools

"Winter Wedding" download from  Funky Hand

White card for printing

Gift Bag and tag; A4 die from Xcut 

Narrow navy blue ribbon, Silver elastic cord
2 gunmetal pearls, Chipboard letter 
Paper for printing gift wrap
Silver crochet thread to tie around

 This is the original feminine version of the gift bag that was on the Get Funky and Craft blog

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

That's all for this time, thanks for visiting

friday Night is......

Another Friday and another challenge from The Daring Cardmakers. 
This week it's Leo's turn and she says:

I'd like you to to think:
Food Glorious Food
Create a card that features some form of food related design. It can be as simple as a foodie image or you could use some kind of food wrapping in your card or make up a cute and punny food related greeting. So long as there's something food related on your card it's all good!

Well, I did have a cupcake card half-made on my desk for this one, but then I changed my mind because, after all, Friday Night is Pizza Night!
I've used a template I made ages ago - it was good to give the Pizza Chef another airing. The tricky bit for this one was making the chequerboard patterned paper the right size for the apron.  I know I didn't have to make it that pattern, but I wanted to.  I like making extra complications for myself......haha
I found the pattern by using a Google image search, but resizing it so it would work on a tiny shape was the tricky bit and as I don't have much idea what I'm doing tbh, it took longer than it probably should.  Anyway, it's a handy size so I've saved it for future reference!

Materials and Tools

15cm square card folded to make an easel card

Peach, White, Red, Green. Yellow, Brown and Black Bazzill card

Extra white Bazzill to print the check design

Pizza Chef is cut from my template using Silhouette Cameo as are the two background circles, the banner and the "enjoy" lettering

Red border design is cut with an EK Success punch

"Happy Birthday" is pc generated

I hope you'll pay a visit to the DCM Blog to see all the food related cards we've come up with this week - it should be a feast for the eyes if not the tummy!

Thank you for popping by

Behind the Screen

Here's a card made for Quirky Kits blog, using elements found in the latest box of goodies sent by Leo

You get all sorts of interesting bits and pieces in a Quirky Kit box - there will be card and patterned paper of course, and some gorgeous embellishments, but also some things you won't find in other kits - like the strip of 6 cute pots of acrylic paint and a foam brush that came in in this one. 

I'm no artist, so haven't much of a clue what I'm doing, but you know, it's fun to step out of the comfort zone sometimes and I did enjoy plying with these paints.

The info on how I made this card is all on the Quirky Kits Blog HERE

The sentiment is one of the Lawn Fawn stamp set that is also in the kit. 

Quirky Kit items used:

Acrylic Paints

Foam Brush

Lawn Fawn stamps

You can find out more about the fabulously creative Quirky Kits on the website HERE, and  see loads of ideas and inspiration on ways to use the things you find in them on the blog HERE

Thanks for looking

Sharon's Cup of Tea

We start each new month of Fridays off with a colour combo challenge over at the Daring Cardmakers, and this month's colours are definitely  

Sharon's Cup of Tea 

 - she's used her favourite mug as the inspiration photo to show the colours she'd like us to use!

Pale blue works so well with shades of coffee and chocolate and add in some white and it's a very crisp combo

I thought I'd have another play with making partial die cuts, but this time actually cut off part of the card rather than the "half a hole" technique I used the other day. 

Materials and Tools

White card blank, Bazzill card to match paper colour

Papers: Country Boutique  (Fancy Pants), Bella Bella (My Minds Eye)

Dies: Labels 34, Decorative labels 34, Blooms 1 all from Spellbinders 

Seam Binding, Pearls , Card Candy, pc generated sentiment

It was a good chance to dig out some favourite old papers - sadly, there's not much left in the bag of Bella Bella now.

Here's Sharon's inspiration photo: 

To do the cut, this time I adhered the dark brown paper onto the card front first, then carefully taped the die in place near the edge.  I worked out how much of the shape I wanted to stick out and drew a pencil line on the inside of the card. I placed the card with the attached die onto the ebosser stack, to do a partial cut, this probably means most of the card will be overhanging the plates - you then add the (top) cutting plate with its edge lined up with the pencil line so that only the bit at the edge of the card will be cut.
At this point there's the choice of folding inwards along the pencil line for an unusual card when displayed, or cutting those spare bits off like I did here.

The DCM blog looks so pretty and coordinated this week, so please take a look to see how the rest of the team have used these lovely colours

Thanks for visiting, please pop back soon ;)

Trying Something New

I gave myself a bit of a challenge yesterday - to try and make a card with a partial die cut - difficult to explain what I mean, so hope the photos will do better than words!
I'd seen cards like this around the place but couldn't figure how to do it - especially with an ebosser because you can't just stop the machine part way along and wind it back the way you can with a manual die cutting machine

I wanted to make this card because it would work particularly well with new sketch on The Sketch File blog 
Here's my finished card

and the sketch:

This photo of the card lying down shows a little more clearly how the fold works:

The circle shape is cut in the front of the card, but only half way, so that when the card front is folded back on itself, the circle "pops" through the hole.

Materials and Tools

15cm sq card blank

All papers Bo Bunny "Enchanted Garden"

Spellbinders Circle die set

Main sentiment - pc generated

"Celebrate" 

 Websters pages tiny alpha from Quirky Kit box

The trick to getting the partial cut thing to work is in lining up the edge of your upper cutting plate exactly with the where you want the cutting to stop ie in this case the diameter line of the circle.  If you make the fold in the card and open it out, you can tape the die down make sure its correctly placed, then line up the edge of the cutting plate with the fold line and feed through the machine.

If you have a manual die cutter, I've seen examples where people use some sort of "stopper" to indicate when you should stop cutting and start turning the handle backwards to remove the card.

Anyway, that's it, I hope it makes sense!
Thanks for looking
 

A Quirky Kits Couple

Well, a couple of things I've made with the most recent Quirky Kits to be more precise.  The card is on the Quirky Kits Blog today, and the box featured last week.

If you scroll back a bit through Lythan's amazing LOs you'll find this little pillow box

From the Kit:

Carta Bella "Seashells" paper

Shimelle AC "Granville" paper

Turquoise card

Websters pages tiny alpha

Wooden star embellishment

Extras:

Dark Blue paper (Bo Bunny), Raffia,  

Off-White Seam Binding, Stickles Glitter Glue

DoCrafts/Xcut pillow box die

Small tag die from Crafters Companion

Direct Link to Pillow Box

"Feeling Nautical" Card 

Kit stash used:

 "Feeling Nautical" paper - Websters Pages

 "Granville" paper - Shimelle AC

Scraps from various other papers in my box for the bunting

The sentiment "badge" is a a detail from the paper, adhered to card then cut and embossed with a Spellbinders circle die, I inked around the edges and added a smaller card circle on the reverse for extra dimension

The bunting is just hand-cut with scissors from whichever bits of paper in the kit matched the colours in the main design.  

You know those strips you get on the bottom of sheets of paper where the maker's info is?  Well.they often have little colour match strips too, which are just perfect for cutting bunting from and mean you don't need to cut in to the main sheet .)

I didn't have the right colours of twine, so I inked some "natural" coloured stuff to match - my tip for doing this in a clean and easy way is over HERE

That's it for Monday, hope you like my card and box