3 Little Birds

Just a quick post today, to share I've a couple of cards  made for the September LO on The Sketch File Blog.
I made the first one because the sketch this time is called "3 Little Birds! and it seemed a shame not to have a project matching the title! 

This is the sketch;

http://kathyswafflesketchfile.blogspot.co.uk/

It's perfectly ok to twist, turn, stretch or shrink it the LO, which is what I did for the second card I want to show. This is one I made for my uncle's birthday last week.  It celebrates his knowledge of the North East and how when I ring them up I love to hear where they've been gadding about to this time!

I promised "short" and I'll keep to my word!

That's it, thanks for looking

With Kids in Mind

It's Zuzana's turn to set the challenge over on the Daring Cardmakers Blog and she's asking us to create  for, or with children.  
When I was teaching Nursery and Primary school children, i was always on the lookout for arty, crafty projects I could do with them but now I don't need to do that, and all the nieces and nephews are getting past the "kids cards" age so Zuz's challenge has a bit of shock to the system!

In the end I made a couple of cards; the first one is made with a little girl in mind, though sadly I've no-one to send it to atm (so if anyone wants it, just shout!)

Materials and Tools

White 14x14cm smooth white card blank, plus extra for embossed panel

Various shades of Bazzill card

Dotty embossing folder

Big Gingham Check Ribbon 

Star and Round shaped gems; Silver and Pink

Tiny Star Punch (EK Success)

Rocking Horse template created from a colouring page and cut with Silhouette Cameo

Sentiment created in Paint Shop Pro, also for Silhouette Cameo cutting

For the 2nd card I had to take a brief step back in time and look for something that would be make-able with a group of youngsters - and hopefully have a bit of extra educational merit - though I really do think creativity is very much underrated in school these days - one of my bugbears, that is!
I came up with this. basically made with different sized strips of paper, some punches, scissors and a bit of wool

Materials and Info

Large circle for Rocker base, folded in half  (I used a die from the Xcut Large Nested Circles die set)

Strip of yellow card for minion,

 I used another die from the same set to draw the domed shape for his head, then cut with scissors

 Black and White card; thin strip, 3 sizes circle punch

Mouth is also cut with circle punch 

Square and strips of blue card for dungarees

Once the minion was all stuck together I glued it in place on the rocker base, overhanging the edge and at an angle, then turned over to trim off the excess using the rocker shape as the guide.

I used wool scraps for the hair, and added a pocket, some doodling and tiny buttons to the dungarees 

Lots of maths involved if you are looking for that sort of thing, plus of course the whole concept of balance comes in to this - you need to work out where to place the weight so that it rocks when you want it to, b
ut doesn't end up sitting on the point of the fold.

There are some cute, clever and very sweet cards over on the BLOG this week, so I hope you'll check them out

Thanks for popping by today, hope you like my "makes"

 

Bubbly Funky

A few years ago I was lucky enough to be part of the design team for Bubbly Funk and had a ball working with the wonderful kits and other goodies that Caroline sold in her fab shop.  The Bubbly Funk shop has now been trading for 10 whole years and Caroline decided it was time for a revamp and a slight change in direction.  Now the shop is specialising in Stencils. Masks and all things connected with using them - not just for crafting, but for home décor too.  You can see the gorgeous, stylish, new-look Bubbly Funk Shop HERE

For me, the best part is that I'm back on the DT, working alongside Caroline and fellow teamie Joanne (aka Angelnorth) to show how versatile, and how much fun these thin bits of plastic can be! I'm definitely a novice when it comes to using them but I'm learning all the time and also finding my own way to make them work for me.  Hopefully my very amateur style will encourage other "newbies" to see that you don't have to be an expert with paints and inks etc to use them and to have a go themselves.

Anyway, I thought it was about time I had a bit of a catch up on things I've been showing over on the Bubbly Blog, so here are the three things I've made so far - working backwards from this week's post.

Poppy Seed Heads

For this week's project I've made a card using a simple layered LO to show off a pretty Seed Heads stencil.  This stencil has the lovely design for adding all your colour through (the pale blue panel), plus a version which you can lay over that to just add the outline as used on the darker pane

Stencil Used: Poppies – Crafters Workshop – 6×6 

I've also used various inks available from the shop including VersaCraft  ones

 More info and pictures HERE, including my High-Tech ink application system!

One Evening in Paris

Last week's project was a mini album page - in my first DT goodie box I found a Paris-themed 6x6 stencil which would work perfectly with photos from our Paris holiday back in March.  

Stencils Used

 Paris Holiday 6×6  (Claudine Hellmuth) 

I experimented with using a layer of (PVA) glue through the stencil over the black inked Eiffel Tower, which I then covered with Glamour Dust to get the sparkling effect of the lights just being switched on that we were there at the right time to see.

More info and pictures HERE

"Celebrating 10"

My first project for the Bubbly blog was the large, papier mache  numerals decorated to celebrate the shop's tenth birthday

Stencils Used:

 Garden with Watering Can (Tando)

6×6 Mariposas Crafters Workshop

You can see more information and more photos for this project HERE

It would be great if you'd visit us over at Bubbly Funk Blog  to see all our projects - don't miss Joanne's gorgeous makes too - she's the one who's really clever with all things inky and painty, and is always happy to share her know-how.

Bubbly Funk Forum

The Bubbly Funk Forum is also a great group to belong to.  I think it's a shame that more people don't use the craft forums nowadays - FB is OK, but can feel a bit "anonymous" with people coming and going all the time, and it's just so darn difficult to keep up with things on there.  We would welcome you with open arms to our little forum HERE - we talk about craft and just about anything else, so this is a shout out for members to join up (we'd love to meet you) or to come back (we miss you)!

Thanks for visiting and wading through this rather long post!

 

Watercolours

 We have a challenge from Sharon this week on The Daring Cardmakers
 Sharon says:

"I'd like to see a watercolour style to your cards.  It doesn't have to be watercolour paints, you can create the effect with anything you like - papers with a watercolour style, distress inks, watercolour markers, Twinkling H2O's, Gelato's, etc.  The list is endless!"

I made a watercolour background using Gelatos for the colours with a gorgeous stencil inked over the top 

I used:

White card blank

Black Bazzill card

Watercolour card

Gelatos

Stencil Multi Birds of a Feather  Crafter's Workshop 

Colorbox black ink

Turquoise satin ribbon

Silver gems in various sizes

EK Success border punch

 I was really pleased at how the colours in the background worked and how the birdcage silhouettes look as though you're looking out at the sun going down on the sea - it was all a bit of a happy accident to be honest!

Thanks for visiting - please pop over and visit The Daring Cardmakers Blog to see the beautiful cards the DT have made this week

Gridlock

This week's Daring Cardmakers challenge is another in the Elemental Inspiration series, and this time it's Beckie's turn to choose the picture we draw inspiration from - she's chosen a wonderful Autumnal "Mood Board" style photo, full of warm colours and Autumn-themed images.
I loved the actual layout of all the little photos into one sort of frame and thought I'd have a go at using that as one of the (minimum of) three elements I needed to take away to make my own card, I also wanted to use the stars and of course the gorgeous colours.
It didn't all go quite to plan, but in the end I came up with this:

To begin with I used several Distress Inks, and a couple of other ink pads (for the blue shade) and swooshed them over a sheet of card to get an all over background that I liked - I cut down to size and adhered it to my card.
I also used a Prima Stars stencil with silver ink mixed into texture paste on another piece of card, then sprinkled glitter all over , shook off the excess and left it to dry.  As you can see, none of that made it onto the card!
My plan was to make a "printer's tray" style frame, based on Beckie's image to lay over the top of the coloured background, using some of the star piece in some of the holes, and use a sentiment sentiment in one of the holes as in the photo.

I made a template for the frame and cut it on my Cameo.  I sat it over the inky background and it looked awful, I tried adding some starry pieces, but in reality the stars were too far apart  for this and didn't work at all.
I thought maybe there was too much black, so I re-did the template and cut the new one in white to make a double-frame

It still looked wrong, so I ditched them!  Maybe I'll  think of a way to use them, but maybe they'll go in the bin.
So what to do?
In the end I cut down the front of the card, turned it over and drew the LO plan of the grid on the reverse, then cut up into the smaller pieces,  After inking the edges I glued them onto a new card blank - even them in wasn't right as although I'd carefully numbered all the rectangles before cutting them out I must have had a brain-freeze because the panels were all wrong.  Sometimes you just have to go with it, so instead of being in the original inky pattern the design is more random!
Instead of filling the "holes" with stars or whatever as planned - and having no holes now anyway, I made another inky piece using the same colours as before and randomly cut the stars using a Taylored Expressions Nested die set, and arranged them in a sort of star-burst over the edges of the tiles.  I punched a few small stars from the left over inky card, and some glittery gold card for highlights.

So, quite a lengthy process for what is really a simple card - I just don't want you getting the idea that this was as quick and easy as it looks! haha  This one was painful!
Oh, I nearly forgot to show you Beckie's picture:

The BLOG looks amazing with all the Autumnal themes this week, I hope you'll take a look and maybe join in with us - we have a rather nice give-away on offer this time :)
Anyway, thanks for sticking with it and making it through to the end!  Please leave a message....