All Aboard!

Hello

Another week without blogging between Fridays!  It's just not good enough, I shall give myself a stern 'talking to' and try to do better!

It's a lovely sunny morning here, in fact the last few days have been like this - I was beginning to feel the onset of the dreaded Winter Blues, but a couple of sunny days sends those thoughts away, even if you just can't avoid the speed that the nights are drawing in now 😞😞😢

 It's my turn to set the challenge on the Daring Cardmakers this week and I decided to set everyone off on a bit of a jaunt:

"Travelogue"  
This week I'd love to see your cards on a theme of travel.

You could feature transport, places, dream locations, suitcases....the world is your oyster!
Anything to do with travelling is good, so pack your bags and lets go! 

Here are some great ideas from our fab design team to get you in the mood

For my own card I thought I'd get as much stash out as possible, have some fun and make a mess, sorry, I mean a collage card!

Eventually it turned out like this

It started out as a 14cm sq card but it looked squashed so in the end I cut the front of the card off and matted it on to a larger navy blue card blank.

The pile of suitcases are made using one of my old Silhouette templates and I cut all the various pieces from some vintagey flower and wood effect paper from an old MME  paper pad.  Part of the background, and the TRAVEL letters are also cut from pages from the same pad.

There are some old 'real' postage stamps (never throw a postcard away without retrieving the stamp first!), a die cut Eiffel Tower and some tiny reproduction postcards.

Info:

I created an inky background using various Distress Inks, stencilled my favourite "Mini Spinning Tops"over it with a couple of different blue Versamagic inks then inked around the edge with brown and black for a distressed, vintage look.

I cut a corner detail from a page of the paper pad to adhere n the lower left corner, then used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the various pieces for the suitcases from more of the patterned paper.  I also cut a base layer for each suitcase to give stability, then laid them onto my card to work out roughly where I wanted to stick them.

Now I added the die cut Eiffel Tower and the two tiny postcards, then using some small pieces of chipboard to give dimension adhered the three cases in position.

As the chipboard pieces are smaller than the actual suitcase shapes, I was able to slide extra details such as the postage stamps and tiny luggage tad under their edges.  

To complete the card I used a square punch to cut out the letters (paper from the same pad), ink the edges and add dimensional foam pieces to the backs before fixing them in place.

Paper Pad: MME 'Record It' 6x6 

Stencil: "Mini Spinning Tops" (Crafters Workshop)

Eiffel Tower "Ooh La La" die set by Spellbinders

Mini Postcards from The Fruit Pixie

That's it.  There are some wonderful ideas on this week's BLOG, so I hope you'll head over to see them - and we would really love it if you'd join in with us too.

Thank you for coming by

Have a great weekend 

Great Results

Hello!

Happy Friday - I hope you've had a good week.  I'm pleased to say that at last I'm starting to feel better.  Still have no energy, but the cough is gradually receding and things are beginning to return to what passes for normal around here!

Now, if only the mojo would come back.....

It took a fair few tries to make something which didn't look like a 'dog's dinner' to send to my nephew in celebration of his recent wonderful A level results, fortunately I think it tied in quite nicely with  this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge, so my poor be-fuzzled brain could get away with coming up with one idea.  Honestly, making something half-way decent is like getting blood out of a stone just now!

Hello everyone it Dawn here with this weeks challenge.
For this weeks challenge I have picked the theme of
Back to School
I know its a little early but in some parts of the world the children have already gone back.
I would like to see something school related on your cards, books, alphabet, desks, etc... Lets celebrate the children and all those wonderful teachers.
We can't wait to see your creations and have fun.

Follow THIS LINK to see this week's inspiration from the fabulous Design Team.

So Dan will be off to read Maths at Durham Uni in a few weeks time.  The "can do maths" gene in the family completely passed me by so I'm a bit in awe!

I used gold card in a couple of  different finishes to make the rosette, then matted it onto a star embossed piece of white card with a piece of shiny gold behind.

Info

White square card blank

Shiny and matt gold card

White Bazzill Bling card

Stars embossing folder (Teresa Collins)

The tails of the rosette were hand cut

Rosette and Alphabet both from Spellbinders

 Tiered Rosettes 

 Elegant 3D Vignettes by Becca Feeken Shapeabilities Etched Dies

Alphabet Die Set - Small Die of the Month Club April 2017

That's all for this time, hopefully I'll get back to more crafting and blogging soon,

Thanks for popping by today, don't forget to check out the Daring Cardmakers HERE

Happy Crafting

Strawberry Fayre

Hello

Welcome to the sick bay - don't come too close!  Yes I'm still hacking away and the tissue box is never far from my elbow, but I think things are gradually improving.  Poor old OH didn't stay far enough away from me though and has also been suffering.  Whatever this bug is, it's a real horror, it's really pole-axed us both.   Never mind eh, as I said, I think we're both on the mend now.

I've not really felt like doing much this week, and all my good intentions for my Daring Cardmakers card ended up in the bin, along with various attempts at making something halfway decent.  Which was a shame, because its a fun challenge, set by our lovely Joanne and it has a bit of an extra twist, should you be big enough to accept it!

It's Joanne here this week and I'd like to know "What's cooking?" - it's a challenge with options! You could choose to use an item from your kitchen to help you make your project (think cling film backgrounds, spices in a shaker card, paint with coffee, stamp on a teabag, use cupcake cases to make a flower etc). Or if you don’t fancy raiding the kitchen you could feature an image of food. Extra brownie points if you manage to do both!

I had a couple of ideas to try, one being to finally give Dawn's method of making a shaker card a try, using sugar strands in the shaker.  I made a cupcake using a real cupcake case.....and that was as far as I got with that plan, it just looked a right dog's dinner!  Then I tied using it in a different way and it looked worse.  So I went and had some lunch!

In the end, I turned back to a favourite Spellbinders die set and a favourite way of using it to make a 3D element.  I added a little bit of red food colouring to the ink I used to colour the card base.  I admit it was a very little amount as I didn't want to have to start all over again!

Info

Card blank inked to make the inner area paler than the outer edge

I cut a circle aperture in the upper card layer, then embossed it with a woodgrain folder from SU.  I added colour to the embossing by just swiping a few different shades of ink over it. It was then adhered in place using some pieces of chipboard between that and the base card.

Strawberries, flowers and leaves created using dies from Aren't You Sweet  by Debi Adams from the Market Fresh collection 

Aren't You Sweet 

 To finish I added some tiny yellow gems to the flowers and tied some Baker's Twine around the top, adding a triple bow to complete

I don't actually like strawberries, but my OH does, so we have a couple of plants in the greenhouse, here's a photo from earlier in the summer with a few ready for picking

For some great ideas and inspiration from the team click HERE and see if you can spot the kitchen items in use! A visit to the various personal blogs will clear up any mysteries!

Thank you for taking the time to visit

Happy crafting

From Flat to Flouncy!

Hello

Today I've a Bubbly Funk project to share with you

A few weeks ago, I posted a paper rose tutorial and it got me thinking about all those lovely 'flat' mulberry paper petals you can get.  I have a load of lovely ones from Bubbly Funk, they come in packs of the same shape, colour and size and I was interested in finding out whether I could use the  technique as in the tutorial to make some mulberry roses with them.

It turns out it works just fine, though I did need to use an extra set of petals to get a nice 'full' rose

.I chose petals in brown, cream and a lovely bluey-turquoise colour to make the roses.  As mentioned I used an extra flower shape to fill out the rose - to do this I separated the flowers into single petals and trimmed off the inner point from each.  Next I just dipped the now straight end into some glue and tucked them into the rose wherever they seemed to be needed to make a good, full shape.

The basic Rose Tutorial is Here

From the Bubbly Funk shop I used

Brown Primula

French Vanilla Primula

Whirlpool Primula

From my stash; Kraft Card blank, Pearls,

The die cut sentiment is by Spellbinders and comes from

 the May Die of the Month set

Why not have ago at making some flowers yourself - I bet you've got loads of flat paper petals to practise with, and if you don't, well Bubbly Funk can help you there!

Happy Crafting

Through the Porthole

Yohoho and a bottle of rum.  I hope you're feeling better than I am this morning, Me Hearties!

I think its very unfair to come home from a lovely holiday and immediately fall foul to some very nasty flu-like thing, complete with aches everywhere, and sore ribs from the hacking cough and vicious sneezing fits.  

So yes, I am feeling sorry for myself and not really up to doing very much other than that!  It was a bit of a battle to sit down and make my card for the Daring Cardmakers this week, but I got there in the end, with this card for my lovely friend Shabneez's challenge

Shabneez said:

"I can't believe it's the second week of August already!  I've decided to keep with the summer theme and would love to see your NAUTICAL creations - anything to do with the sea really."

I had a quick look through my various nautically-inspired treasures, but my mojo was not to be found there. Then I remembered a pirate ship template I made years ago for cutting on the Silhouette.  I've used this one quite a few times since then, and it came to the rescue again now.

Making the pirate ship was the easy bit, and viewing it's sinister presence through a porthole amused me, but I wish I'd come up with a better plan for the rest of the card.

Info:

Die cut circle cut in Kraft paper and adhered to the white card blank.  Then a smaller circle die used to create an aperture through both layere.

I used a larger circle stencil to ink the 'sea' on the inside of the card and glued the pirate ship in place.

The ship is made using my own template and cut on the Silhouette machine.  It has three main layers, with pieces of cereal packet chipboard between them.  The sails are layered up on more chipboard so there is a lot of dimension in there.

I added silver gems to the porthole to look like the screws/rivets or whatever they are called.

The outer card looked too bare, but all I could think of doing was add some wavy ric-rac braid.  I don't like it, but even looking at it again while I write this I'm at a loss as to a better plan. {shrugs shoulders}

  The Design Team have made a wonderful variety of nautically inspired cards this week so I hope you'll pop over {HERE} and check them out.

Thank you for coming by today.  

Sorry for being such a Moaning Minnie!

Glass of Red?

Hello there

How are you enjoying August?

The new month means that over on the Daring Cardmakers blog its time for an Elemental Inspiration Challenge and this time it's Joanne who's chosen a lovely Summery photo,...with a twist (of lemon!

You need to choose a minimum of three elements from the photo to use when you make your card.  If you choose the colour palette, then that counts as one element)

From Joanne's photo I chose the bottle, glass and greenery to make a birthday card for one of the men in the family.  Here's the picture

 The dies are from one of the lovely Wine Country sets by Spellbinders, as well as the onbes I used on the card, you also get a wine barrel and some cheese! I think it's a set that will get a lot of use.

I inked some card with a couple of shades of blue to make the background and matted it on to pieces of wine red and gold card

For the wine/grapes I used a few shades of red and pinky-purple inks to colour some more white card, adding more ink until I was happy with the colour.  I cut the wine bottle and the grapes from this, cutting lots of the small circles (part of the grapes die) so that I could build up some dimension and colour variation with them.

The wine glass is white card coloured with an Versamagic ink called Aspen Mist, which is a soft pale greyish blue colour and is one of those ink pads that is incredibly useful!

The card for the leaves and fines was also white, coloured with various shades of green.  I like the more natural and shade variation you get this way.  I can't colour in at all, so this is a great work-around for me!

I used some light brown coloured car to vut the other bits of the bottle, then cut the sentiment in gold card to match the mat used earlier

We'd love you to join in with our challenges at The Daring Cardmakers, we try to keep them fun and varied - and yes! some more 'challenging' than others - which means a step out of the comfort zone, and that is good, isn't it?!