Take a Flying Leap!

Hello

I hope you've hjad a good week.  We had ourselves a lovely few days away
last weekend.  We stayed in the grounds of Audley End House which is less than an hour's drive from us because you don't really want to make long car journeys in February, do you? We've visited Audley End many times, but this time we booked the English Heritage holiday cottage, which is one of the Lodges, or Gatehouses for the 'Big House'! We love staying with EH, we've stayed in 'cottages' in Walmer and Carisbrooke castles, in the grounds of Reivaulx Abbey, Mount Grace Priory, a gatehouse of Old Hardwick Hall and a cottage in the grounds of Battle Abbey, site of the Battle of Hastings.
Anyway, we had a lovely stay, and it was a joy to spend some time just chilling out and enjoying the scenery - we even saw some sunshine (though it was still cold and windy) and it didn't even rain till Monday when we were on our way home!

But now, back to some crafting and I have a list as long as my 

arm of things I need to make!
First a quick blog post!
This week's host at The Daring Cardmakers is Svenja and her challenge is very timely!

I would like you to
Take a Flying Leap!

2020 is a leap year - use this extra day to show us things(or people) that leap - frogs, bunnies,
squirrels, or maybe a sportsman like Bob Beamon.....

You can see what our fab Design Team made by clicking HERE

  I have the cutest little Bunny Spellbinders die set from my much-missed Spellblogger days and I couldn't resist using it to make another 'wiper' card as they are just the perfect combination!

When the card is pulled out of the envelope it looks like this

 It's called a 'Wiper' card - because there's a moving part that when you pull on the sides of the card pops up in a 'swishing' way like a car's windscreen wiper.
It doesn't open out like a regular card, but once the mechanism is activated it will stand upon it's own and here's how it looks

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White card for the two main panels

Patterned papers are from a lovely old set Bloom and Grow by MME

Rabbit die set Spellbinders

Alphabet die set also SpellbindersFlower decorations are cut from the patterned paper
White on black 'birthday' in pc generated

That's all for today, I hope you like it. Ince again, I did make a little video of the card in action, but I've still not worked out how to load it (I need to get the resident Help Desk Chap to show me 😉), I'll add it later if I get that far.  However, if you're interested in seeing it I'll be adding it to my Instagram (@kathybcrafting) later today.

Thank You so much for visiting,
please leave a comment, I really love seeing your messages! 

Happy Crafting!

All Tied Up

Hello

It's been one of those weeks when I feel as if I've not stopped for a minute, but that I've very little to show for it.  I think I need a holiday!
It's my turn to set the challenge at The Daring Cardmakers this eek, and I chose quite a simple idea - and then proceeded to make it really hard for myself!

This week it's Kathy here, and my challenge is called
 All Tied Up

 I'd love to see you using some kind of thread, wool, fibres, 
twine, string etc on your cards. You can use a little, maybe just a small twine bow,  or make it more of a feature and wind lots of fibre or string around to make a background.

You can see what our fab Design Team made by clicking HERE

  
I needed to make a birthday card for my OH, and tbh, I was all out of ideas for making something linked to his interests as I usually do, so I thought I'd try making a type of card I've only come across recently.  It's called a 'Wiper' card - because there's a moving part that when you pull on the sides of the card  appears in a 'swishing' way like a car's windscreen wiper.
The card I ended up making should have been about 8" square, but I got a bit carried away, so in the end I had to make an envelope for it too.  
I should have heeded the "Measure twice, cut once" mantra, shouldn't I?

The photos above show the closed card, and then wiper section just appearing as I pull on the sides.  Cute, eh?
There are loads of tutorials on the web for making these cards, it's worth looking at a few of them, and then having a 'dry run' to see how it all works and what is possible.  I know this because I tired to be too much of a cleverclogs and ended up with a pile of scrap for my first effort!

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A couple of sheets A4 Dark blue card for the main pieces
Blue and White digital papers printed onto white Bazzill (they are actually Christmas papers!)
I used dies (balloons, small stars, twirly flourishes, hearts) and ready-made die cut elements (set of balloons, champagne bittle, 'surprise' word) elements  from February's Papercraft Society Box. 
Letters are die cut (Altenew alphabet set) and layered 
Twine from my stash


That's all for today, I hope you like it. I did make a little video of the card in action, but I've not worked out how to load it yet, so if I do, I'll add it later!

Thank You so much for visiting,
please leave a comment, I really love seeing your messages! 

Happy Crafting!

It's All About Love

Hello
Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you've had a good week, and stayed safe and dry during nasty Storm Ciara's visit.  We escaped the worst of it here, but it was still extremely windy last weekend and stayed blustery all week. 
My crafting was as unsettled as the weather this week and making a Valentine's card for my hubby took forever!
Thankfully, after a few false starts, I got there eventually, and was actually quite pleased with it in the end.

As this week's challenge at The Daring Cardmakers is all about everything we love and he's the one I love the most, I really wanted to make OH's Valentine's card for this challenge, but I also wanted to include some of the bits and bobs I love to craft with..

Its Dawn here to host this week's challenge and as its 
Valentines Day I have picked a theme called

Someone or Something You Love
 

I want you to feature something on your creations that  you Love.  This could be a person, food, an object, your  favourite craft product etc....

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Large red square card blank with smooth white square panel
I made the heart first, inking up some card in my favourite shades of aqua and turquoise, then die-cutting the largest heart from a Tonic Studios nested set.

Over the top I used my favourite stencil with some silver paint and some glitter paste.

I do love my new Tonic Scribble die sets, so used a couple of the largest circles cut in silver and entwined together for the heart to sit on

LOVE was created by fixing 4 layers of the white letters together and gluing them to a piece of black card, with a little tab on black and white printed card, and loop of red ribbon tucked beneath.

'you' was die cut in dark red glitter card (saved from a Christmas cracker!) and I made the 'always'  piece using PSP on the computer.  This was matted onto a strip of dotty paper from an old MME paper pad

To finish, I added a ribbon tied in a bow around the entwined circles, and a few gems of differenttypes, sizes and colours

That's all for today, I hope you like it.  I'd spent most of my crafting time this week making and rejecting all sorts of ideas, backgrounds and heart shapes and was beginning to feel totally at a loss.  
At that point I cleared my craft mat, and decided to change the scribbled heart die set I wanted to use for the plainer, larger heart die cut and then my card came together in about half an hour! 

Thank You so much for visiting,
please leave a comment, I really love seeing your messages! 

Happy Crafting!

February's Elemental Inspiration

  

Hello

I hope you've had a good week. It's been quite frosty most mornings this week, so a bit of windscreen-scraping for OH, but also very bright and sunny, so he says he ate his sandwich sitting out on a sunny bench in the park a couple of times instead of in the office kitchen.  
I decided I needed a treat, so popped onto the Radley website. I just might have bougt 2 bags rather than the one.  
Well there was a sale on, wasn't there? 😁😁


So, time to see what Ruth has come up with to challenge The Daring Cardmakers this week.

 It's the first Friday of the month so that can only mean time for 

February's Elemental Inspiration picture  
Don't forget that you need to include at least 3 elements in 
your creation, and the colour palette counts as one.  
Let us know which ones you've used! 
Click HERE to meet our lovely new Guest Designer, and
 to see what elements the DT chose to use

From Tuth's board I chose the cacti/succulents, hearts, circles (the shape of the biscuit plate) and the twine/bow

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The large circle is stencilled in a soft green-grey shade of ink, then I fixed another stencil over the top to add the hearts.
The little plants are cut using a die set by Spellbinders that I've used soooo many times!
The Scribbled Circles are by Tonic and were cut in an embossed silver card
For the tiny hearts and dots I used the 'waste' from an old border punch
The sentiment is another of my own 'white on black' set that I made last week
The twine is from my stash

That's all for today, Thank You so much for visiting,
please leave a comment, I really love seeing your messages! 

Happy Crafting!

Love Layering it Up!

Hello

How is your week going?  Mine is proving to be on a bit of a go-slow!  At least I've made a start on my card for Friday's new Daring Cardmakers' challenge, but a start is all....
When Shabneez came up with her 'Layer It Up' challenge last Friday I had no bother getting stuck in, and I had two cards made in no time.  
The first one I blogged on Friday, but I've been a bit tardy (remember that 'go-slow' I mentioned....) in getting the 2nd up on here.  
Anyhoo, it's about 11.35 and I'm determined to get this published before I allow myself to go for lunch!

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I started with a stencilled layer as before, this time using my absolute favourite stencil from The Crafters Workshop.  I used regular inks this time, and tiny pieces of rolled up cloth so that I could add the different colours in random fashion.  I then moved the stencil over a little and stencilled again, but with gold paint.
Next I made a double scribbled circle piece in gold card using another of the dies from a recent Tonic bargain bundle, and fixed the two together.
I built up the layers using card from Paula Pasqual's Papercraft Society box.  A EK Success border punch was used on the wider piece.  
The black and white piece and the sentiment were pc generated and printed onto card

 

The flower was one left over from the other card {see HERE for details}
A few leaves were cut in gold and green and tucked under the flower and circles,  I added a deep aqua pearl to the flower centre and it was all done

If I counted all the layers there would be a lot, so I won't 😃

  That's all for today, Thank You so much for visiting,
please leave a comment, I really love seeing your messages!
Happy Crafting!

Lumpy and Bumpy

Hello

I hope you've had a good week. We went to another of the Live Stream performances from the Royal Opera House on Wednesday - apparently these events are shown 'live' via cinema screens in 24 countries, I can't remember how many cinemas screen them altogether, but its a lot!!
A couple of years ago we saw their fabulous production of La Boheme, and when we saw they were doing it again this season, we couldn't resist seeing it again; everything about this production is simply fantastic - you're right there in that garret in Paris and at the end I doubt there's a dry eye in the house - in any of those locations its being streamed to!
I'd go and see it again....Poor Mimi

Shabneez set the challenge this week for the  Daring Cardmakers

and it was right up my street!

This week's challenge is called

 LAYER IT UP

 and is set by me, Shabneez.
 I'd love to see layers on your cards be it using papers, inks,

 decoupage or even paper flowers!

If you need some inspiration click HERE to see the Design Team's creations and get your creative juices going.....

Layer it up, she says....oh well, I don't mind if I do!

There is nothing like being given carte blanche to chuck all your favourite things at a project and make the lumpiest, bumpiest card you can. 

Anyway, here's what I ended up with

 

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I started by using a stencil for the background.  I can't remember the name but its by The Crafter's Workshop and I've had it for ages

A week or so ago I bought a colour coordinated batch of Nuvo drops in different types on one of Tonic Studio's special deals, they were all still sitting on my desk so I thought I'd experiment a bit and see if I could stencil with them.  Probably not the best things to use but I think the end product was quite nice - I liked the mix of matte, smooth, glossy, shiny, glittery I ended up with so decided to stick with it.

I threaded a piece of 1.5 cm satin ribbon through a length of eyelet lace.  The eyelets are much smaller than the ribbon and I liked the way the ribbon bunched up between the holes so I left it like that and just glued it across the card.

Another of the recent Tonic bundles that I succumbed to was 3 sets of scribble frames (square, circle and heart sets).  I used one form the squares set for this card.  I cut it four times and glued them all together and allowed to dry before covering the whole thing with different paints and glitter pastes. Once it was all dry, i used dimensionals to fix it in place over the lace, then added a piece of black and white card with diagonal stripes (I made it on the pc and just printed it out).  I think a bit of black seems to pull everything together and stop it looking too 'sugary' .

For my flowers, I inked some pieces of white card to match the shades on the background and used one of my favourite Spellbinders die sets to cut them out, the flower centres are from a different set.  After shaping the petals I added a sequin in the centre and a blob of a rose gold shimmery Nuvo drop

The flowers were arranged and glued in place, then I added some leafy swirls tucked under the various layers/

 

A few more blobs of various Nuvo drops were added to the white border.

The last thing was the sentiment, which I really wanted to be white lettering on a black background.  I know a lot of people do this by stamping and heat embossing, but I rarely do any stamping so instead I had a go at making some sentiments oin the pc.  I was quite chuffed at how they turned out and admit that I got a bit carried away and ended up making quite a few more than I needed!

 That's all for today, I hope you'll feel inspired to join in with us this week.

Thank you so much for visiting, I really appreciate your messages.  
Hope you have a great weekend

Happy Crafting!