Talking of the Weather....

Good Morning!

This week's  challenge at The Daring Cardmakers is all about the weather.  How very apt - considering that the weather has been the 'hot' topic of almost every conversation over the last week or so!  Yesterday we were due to have some fence work done, but at about 10.30 in the morning, with the temperature already at 35C the guys gave up and went home.  I really didn't like the idea of anyone collapsing with heatstroke in my garden, so I was happy enough to see them go! The temperature eventually went up to 38C yesterday afternoon, which is ok if you're just sitting on a balcony at the seaside, but otherwise not!

The last few nights we've had the fan going all night and its still been uncomfortably hot, we had quite a lot of thunder overnight, and as I'm writing this I can still hear it rumbling, and its getting closer again.   

So the scene is set for this:

This week the Daring Cardmakers have a sponsored challenge so we hope you will play along, and maybe win one of our fab prizes!

Whatever the Weather
 

Just make any weather-themed card this week, and link it to our blog to be in with a chance of winning a prize.  

We have 2 collections (worth about £12.50 each) of Julia's wonderfully fun images to give away. 

Our 2 prize winners will be drawn at random next Friday after the challenge closes.  

To qualify, Please mention www.jmcdesigns.co.uk in your post and remember we're on UK time!

 

I decided to make a sunshine themed card with a simple design

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White card blank with white and yellow squares matted onto it

I inked some spare card with shades of yellow ink for the circle and the rays. I die cut the circle and just sliced random widths using my guillotine to make the rays.  I added some warm yellow-orange to the circle to heat up the sun even more.

Using the circle as a guide I lightly inked around  the white card where the sun shape would eventually be placed.  Next I adhered the sun rays in position before covering all those ends with the sun shape.

the two words were created in Paint Shop Pro and cut out on the Silhouette Cameo in two shades of grey card.

To complete, I added lots of dewdrops and other jewel embellishments in grey and yellow

 

We'd love to have you join in with us this week, just click on the Daring Cardmakers link to find outall about the challenge and the prizes we have this week


Thanks for looking in today

Happy Crafting!

Another First

Hello

How are you?  It's lovely and sunny here today, I've been down the garden to the veg plot and picked some runner beans and some carrots to have with our dinner later.  Hopefully there will be enough coming in the next few weeks to freeze lots of beans for later in the year.  We've had a couple of courgettes so far too and the tomatoes have 'set' and are coming along nicely.

A few years ago I was thrilled to bits when my nephew Charlie graduated with a First from university.  Well, now it's happened again, this time it's our niece Emily who's taken the honours with her First in Psychology!

I wanted to make the same kind of card for her as I did for Charlie, but when I looked back at my photos I found I didn't really take any that actually showed how I did it!  If only I was organised to note down what I did when I come up with something like this! I had a vague idea about how the folds worked and after a couple of tries just using paper it all clicked into place, thank goodness.  

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Card: Black, Yellow, Pale Blue, White, Gold

White paper and narrow ribbon for the scroll

Black and Gold Twine for the tassel

The sentiment and mat are cut from my own template using my Silhouette Cameo

The base card is folded to provide a hinged section for the mortar board section.  Before adhering the mortar board in place the tassel, made from fringed and tightly rolled card is added; the twisted together twines are threaded through the centre and concealed when the upper square is glued in place.

The mortar board stands up in a similar way to an easel card, whit the scroll acting to keep it in place

It folds down for posting - not exactly 'flat' but okay for sending with a 'large letter' stamp

 

Congratulations Emily, you worked so hard for what you've achieved and your uncle and I are thrilled that it's all come out so well for you.  We're so very proud of you.

That's my lot for today, hopefully I can keep up with this twice a week blogging - I mean this is two weeks running.  Go me!!!!

Happy Crafting!

Stay Sharp

Morning All!

Hope you're feeling well today.  We've had a bit of rain today - the garden will definitely be thankful, I can almost here the grass pleading for more.

As usual, on Fridays it's Daring Cardmakers day and we're in a prickly kind of mood this time!

It’s me, Miri, bringing you a new challenge and I would love to see a cactus or several cacti on your card!
cactus/cacti
Cacti always remind me of summer, sunshine, deserts and holidays… and I just can’t wait for our summer holidays to begin and for the sunshine and heat to come back again.
Luckily cacti are a huge trend at the moment and you can find them on many stamps and patterned papers. 
Click HERE to see what the team made this week
 

I made a window box card this time.  The lower edge of the front of the card blank is folded to make a kind of box shape, which folds flat to go in an envelope but when opened up stands out. The back of the card needs to be trimmed down accordingly.
To make the little plants stand out, I made a separate section for the 'sandy' base with slits cut into it to tuck the plants into.  I added  scrap pieces of card to the lower edges of the little plants and poked these tabs through the slits, then folded and glued the tabs to the underside.  When they were all in place I used double sided tape to secure the whole plant section to the window box/

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White card blank folded to create shape, back section trimmed to match.
The background was inked in blue and the front of the window box was made from a piece of yellow card.  I used an EK Success border punch to create the fancy edge
A strip of sandy coloured card was used to make the base for the plants.
The plants are die cut in various scraps of green card using a Spellbinders die set, some of the flowers are dies from the same set, others are made using a small punch

On this photo you can see the box effect and how the plants are standing 'proud' better.
To finish I tied strands of Bakers Twine around the front section of the box and added a multi loop bow.

We'd love to have you join in with us this week, just click on the Daring Cardmakers link to find out more

Thanks for looking in today

Happy Crafting!

The Shape of It

Hello!

I've been a really rubbish blogger in recent weeks so have a few un-blogged cards, so I'm going to try to do some catching up.  If I can grove enough willpower to blog a couple of times a week, I'll be happy!

Today's card is one I made for my maths geek nephew's birthday.  I really wanted to do something with a fancy and meaningful equation on it but I'm too dreadful at maths to work anything like that out, so I went for a bit of a pun with some geometric shapes instead.  
Believe me, creating an equilateral triangle when I couldn't find my set of compasses was enough of a challenge!

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White square card blank with horizontal panels in white, yellow and orange.
Circle and triangle shapes inked on edges, tiny googly eye embellishments with other features drawn in pen.
I used some speech bubbles preset shapes in Paint Shop Pro with the text added inside, then I resized them to fit my card
The Happy Birthday sentiment is from Spellbinders

 

He didn't 'laugh out loud' when he opened it, just gave a nod - which is about as good as it gets for my quiet nephew !

That's my lot for today

Happy Crafting!

The Wedding Season

Morning All!

Hope you're feeling well this sunny Friday morning!

My hayfever has been an absolute mare this week, so if you're a fellow sufferer I feel for you.  Thank Heavens for Kleenex Balsam tissues, I say!

Yet again it's Daring Cardmakers day and I have failed to add another post here since last week's.  I've just been chatting with the lovely Shabneez (she of the Happy Hijabi) and I told her I was planning to write 2 posts today, one to publish now and another to schedule for another day.  
What do you reckon?  Can I do it?

On an aside, I do wonder what her happy hijab looks like....maybe covered with smilies? Or just a fabulous mix of zany patterns and colours? At Portmeirion last year I saw a woman wearing the most beautiful arab dress (abaya?) in peacock colours that shimmered when she moved.  It was stunning.

Anyhoo, as I said it's Daring Cardmakers day and we have Ruth in Romantic Revelry this week

 As we are in the season for Weddings, and plus its always good to have a few Wedding cards in your stash!

So this week's theme is:

 Weddings

CLICK HERE to see what the design team came up with

As our Wedding Anniversary is coming up I had a plan to get ahead and make OH's card for this challenge.  However "plans" don't always come together, do they?  So I thought I'd keep it simple and make a wedding card after all.

I went looking on Etsy for some inspiration by way of digital papers with a wedding-y theme and found a lovely set by CherryWorkshop2 and one design just screamed out to be used for (another) eclipse card:

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I resized one of the designs from the
Cherry and Mint In Bloom Digital paper download set and printed it onto white Bazzill card 
The letters were cut using a Spellbinders Alphabet set.
4 more of each letter cut from mint coloured card, all layers were then glued together. The inner waste bits from the 'D' letters were adhered to small pieces of clear tape then attached to the back of the letters so that they showed through.  

I attached the background paper to my base card, then all the letters were  glued into their correct placesA piece of white satin ribbon, along with some silver twine was wrapped around the top of the card. 
I die cut small hearts from back to back pieces of more of the papers in the set and fixed them together with one end of pieces of silver twine between the layers.  The other ends of the twine were adhered behind the ribbon.
To finish I tied a double bow from the ribbon and glued in place on the ribbon above the dangling hearts 

We'd love to have you join in with us this week, just click on the Daring Cardmakers link to find out more

Thanks for looking in today

Happy Crafting!

July Elemental Inspiration

Hello

How are you?  

 We've been enjoying some lovely sunny and warm weather this week, so I hope you are too, wherever you are!  

Dawn has chosen a fab picture for our Daring Cardmakers challenge this week - its perfect for Wimbledon, who can resist a lovely Cream Tea with jam, cream and scones while watching the tennis?  Sadly, I don't have the cream tea, and I only have the tennis on the telly - but hey, you can't have it all....

Anyway....

It's the first Friday of the month which means its time for 

July's Elemental Inspiration Challenge.

We have a lovely Summery picture for you to be inspired by this week .
Just remember you need to pick at least 3 elements from the picture to be featured on your card. (the colours count as one element)

ideas: Layout, Colours, Fruit, Jar, Tea-set,  Woodgrain, Gingham, Fabric....

I chose the tea-pot (but used a coffee pot instead), Gingham, a Spoon and some Fruit (the very tiny cherries on my cupcake!).  I also kept largely to the colour scheme, though that was more because the first gingham fabric style paper I found in my stash was blue!

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Gingham stylw paper from an old MME 6x6 paper stack

I also used an embellishment piece from another of the papers in the stack to cut the matching cup shape.

Red, White, Silver and Brown cardstock

The cup, coffee pot, spoon and cupcake are all cut using various Spellbinders die sets

The plain circle and the oval for the plate are from Tonic nesting sets and the scalloped circle from a XCut nesting set

I couldn't think what to add for a sentiment, so have left it without one for the moment (because actually I didn't have time to find the perfect one to use because I was so late getting it done!)

We would love you to join in with us.  You can link your creations to our BLOG - HERE. or find us on Instagram - or better still, link to both!

I'm going to try much harder to do a couple of blog posts a week - I've been failing dismally lately.  I have a few things lined up - I just haven't managed to blog them yet.  

Anyway, that's all for this time, thank you so much for visiting, please leave a message...

Happy Crafting