Oh Man!

Hello!

The old blogging has slid again this week, but its been a busy one and I#ve failed to catch my tail so far.  So a quick post today and then I have other cards to make - and quickly if they're not going to arrive late!

It's my turn to set the challenge for the Daring Cardmakers and with the first of the 'men' cards of the year needed this week there was no option really!

  

Like a lot of cardmakers I find men's cards a bit of a trial - and as all the boys in the family are getting too old for the kids' cards I used to make for them I need lots of new ideas for cards for men. 

So my challenge is called;

Oh Man!

and I would love you to make and share cards made with men in mind.

As always the design team have come up with some great ideas and you can see them HERE

I made my card with my Hubby's birthday in mind, and went with a cycling theme.  He's longing to get out of commuting to work by car as the traffic is driving him nuts.  His cycle route is off-road, around fields and on unlit tracks so impossible to use in the Winter.  So with the days getting temptingly longer he's

itching to get his bike out and cycle there and back at least a couple of days each week.

The card has a box fold on the lower front so the bike stands out from the background,  It's a bit like the cover of a matchbox, so it folds float to go into an envelope.

I created the mountain bike template using clipart and cut all the pieces with my Silhouette Cameo.  There are several layers to the frame and also the tyres - I wanted to make the spokes from thin wire, and this way I could 'sandwich' the ends of the wire between a couple of tyre shapes.

Materials and Tools

One piece of A4 card wasn't big enough to make the whole card so I made it in two sections; one piece folded to create the front of the card with the stand-out box section, then another piece of card used to make the back.

Black and silver card for the bike

Digital designs from PixelPineClipart resized and printed onto white Bazzill card

Thin wire for the spokes

black and white card for the banner

green card, for the grass, some is hand cut, some fie cut with a Spellbinders die set

Silhouette Cameo and my own mountain bike template

Small gems, a black brad and some Black and white Bakers' Twine

You can see the 'box' fold better on this next photo

That's it for this time, I hope you'll come over and play along with us this time - I definitely need to see what cards you make for all the men in your life!

Thank you for visting, hope you have a wonderful weekend

Happy Crafting

WordArt

Hello

Hope you are well and have had a great week

We have sunshine here today, but chilly - it's been frosty nearly every morning this week.

I'd been thinking about what to do for Sylvia's Daring Cardmakers challenge for a food few days when I suddenly remembered a website I'd come across before Christmas and hadn't had time to check out during the busy Christmas period. This was the perfect opportunity  to try it out!

Hello Sylvia here, 

This week I am hosting the challenge which is

 "ALPHABET SOUP"

I would like to see letters, words or numbers as the main feature of your cards.  You can see the Design Team's ideas HERE

 I decided to combine my WordArt effort with making my Valentine's card for my lovely Other Half:

Once I'd got the layout I was happy with in the WordArt program I  downloaded 

 resized and printed it out onto some card.   

That done, there wasn't much more I needed to do.  I decided to print it a second time and cut out an extra set of the LOVE letters which I then glued over the lower ones with some chipboard between to add some dimension.  I matted this piece onto silver then onto red. A length of red satin ribbon was added to the lower edge of the card and a knotted piece on top. The only other embellishing was a small red heart gem to tidy up the point of the heart

The actual WordArt piece isn't perfect, but it's not bad for a first try.

I do love the whole WordArt 'thing' - in fact, for our Silver Wedding Anniversary last July, I had a large piece made as a gift for Hubby.  I love how personal it is, with words and phrases that mean something to us but seem nonsense to everyone else.  A really special and unique piece of art.  If you are interested, check out Cherry Pete 

. they made and framed mine and I was thrilled with the finished artwork and their service was brilliant.

This is not ours, but one from their website to give an idea what I mean

Anyway, that's all from me for this time.  Please do pop across to see what the rest of the team have been creating this week {HERE}- and of course, we'd love you to give it a whirl and share your own 'Alphabet Soup' with us!

Have a great weekend

Happy Crafting!

Three Candles

Hello

Gosh Friday has come around quickly this week and I haven't got half the things ticked off my to-do list. So a quick post from me today and then off to my craft desk as I have a sympathy card to make, important, but never easy.

This week on the Daring Cardmakers we have a challenge set by Miri:

SO MANY CANDLES!

Use one or more candles on your card.

Maybe you can use a birthday cake with candles on top? Or a very early Christmas or advent card? Or even use a real candle on your card?

We would love to see your creations!

Click HERE to visit the blog and see some fab ideas from our

 great design team:

I printed some digital papers to use on my card so that I could use pretty designs, but reduce them in size for the rolled paper candles, and in larger sizes for other parts of the card

The 'candles' were rolled around a bamboo skewer to shape them.

I threaded through some lengths of ordinary string to make the wicks then glued the 3 candles onto a strip of scrap paper to hold them together.

More string was used for the tie around them, but I separated off a few of the strands to make it a bit less thick

The sentiment was cut in black card using an alphabet set for the HAPPY letters and a script die for 'Birthday'

To finish I used some of the leftovers and punched a few small circles which were them shaped with a ball tool to add more interest and balance.

That's all for this time, I hope you like it. Don't forget to join in with us this week - you can add any kind of candles and however many you like to your cards - we'd love to see them.

Hope you have a great weekend

Happy Crafting

Hot Foil 'Stamps' from Regular dies: Hot Foil Adventures #5

Hello there!

I've been experimenting at making my own stamps/plates to use for hot foiling with my GoPress & Foil machine.

If you've been following this series you'll have seen how regular cutting dies can be used with the hot foiling gadgets, of not, check out the list of Hot Foil Adventures posts in the side bar. 

In my HFA post #2 I shared a couple of cards made using ready cut "SnipArt" as a hot foil stamp and as that worked out pretty well I got to thinking that  if a cardboard cut-out could be used to foil with, then surely I could use a die to make my own. 

After a bit of experimenting I found that by carefully gluing 3 die-cuts (300gsm card) together and burnishing the edges so that they are a bit less 'sharp' I was able to get a workable hot foil stamp.  Obviously, being made from card they won't last as long as metal ones, but it does open up a whole raft of possibilities from your die collections!

I chose a die which isn't too 'fussy' and doesn't very skinny lines to cut, as they can be quite tricky to stick together really accurately.  This one is a lovely Marisa Job die set from Spellbinders.

Step by Step

Click on the photos for a bigger view

1. Cut the die three times in smooth card. Mine is 300gsm, and the colour doesn't matter!  Make sure you pop out every single little bit of card that shouldn't be there

 2. Carefully, and accurately, glue the three layers together, be sure to match them all up on top of each other perfectly.  Leave to dry,

3. Use a ball tool or something similar to burnish all the edges a little on  the top layer, just to stop them being too sharp.  It's a bit tedious, but you'll get a nicer stamped image if you take the time to smooth those edges!

4. Now you can use your stamp.

Start by turning your machine on so that it can be heating up while you prepare your foiling sandwich

Cut a piece of the card you want the image to appear on. 

Add a piece of the foil, shiny side up (sticky side down!)

Position your stamp on top with the burnished side down 

add pieces of washi tape to hold it all in place

5. Place the 'sandwich' onto the hot foil machine's platform as in the photo, then add a card shim before closing the lid. Leave to heat everything up for a couple of minutes

6. Roll the platform through your die-cutting machine slowly a few times as usual.  Remove the sandwich from the platform; I like to let it cool for a minute before removing tape, stamp and foil.

Here's how this one came out - I should have chosen better colours for this, but I hope you can see it okay.  The used foil is on the left, the foiled card in the centre and the home-made stamp on the right

Info

Joyous Celebration die by Marisa Job for Spellbinders cut 3 times

Rose Gold foil by Couture Creations

Scraps of 300gsm card

Bazzill card

Washi tape

GoPress & Foil machine

Card 1

punched heart from peachy pink inked cardstock

2x rose buds with spiralled stems

Coffee coloured organza ribbon

Narrow peachy pink ribbon tied in a three loop bow

Small heart die cut from a spare piece of foiled card 

Card 2;

Same stamp and foil, but onto cream card

Rolled roses from peachy pink shades of card plus green die cut leaves

Same narrow ribbon looped and glued in place

Gems

Just before I go, here's another hot foil stamp made in the same way.  This is a Memory Box Christmas Tree die.

Well done on getting to the end - I hope you think it was worth the effort and that the tutorial will be useful to you.

If you have a go, I would love you to come and tell me how you got on and where I can see what you've made.

Thanks for visiting, please leave a message 😊

Happy Crafting

February's Elemental Inspiration

Hello!

i hope this Friday finds you well!
We have a bit of snow here today.  Snow-covered  gardens look so pretty - I just wish they'd come up with some kind of magic ingredient so that it didn't settle on the roads and footpaths!

Anyway, on to things crafty and over at The Daring Cardmakers we have February's Elemental Inspiration Picture board to work with this time

All you need to remember is to select at least three elements from Joanne's picture and use them when you make your card

Here's what I've made this week 

 I chose the colours, lace and buttons, and one of my favourite go-to layouts for this one. Here's Joanne's picture

I started by making a stencilled background with my most favourite stencil and several shades of blue ink, plus a little silver Starlights paint and a touch of silver Alchemy Wax.  Then added ribbon, lace and some lovely flowers from my large flower stash (its about time I used some!).  To finish I added some tiny buttons, including a heart shapes one to echo the button heart from the picture, and a die cut sentiment.:

I enjoyed making this - probably because I used so many favourite things and techniques!

I hope you'll take a look at the other wonderful cards our fabulous team have made this week - Click HERE to visit the blog - and we'd love you to join in and play along with us too.

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

Happy Crafting