Word Art

 

 Hello

As I write this, we have bright sunshine and pouring rain - yes, both at the same time!  The thing about English weather is that you can always relay on it to be unreliable 😂

 No more waffle, lets get straight to this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge, as I'm late again!

I had a pretty good idea how my card would look, which is often the hard bit - but this time it was the background that caused the trouble for me - thanl heavens I decided to do that bit on pieces of plain card rather than straight onto a card blank as there would have been an awful lot of wastage.  As it is, hopefully I can reclaim some of this little lot to use in some way!

 Anyway, It's Nat who brought such torture to my craft table, but as she's so lovely, I'll forgive her!☺️

Nat says:

For this week's dare, I want you to focus on words.

The sentiment for your card needs to be the star of the show and feature prominently as the main element.

It can be oversized, it can be created with negative die-cutting, it can be a mix of font styles (stamped/die cut). Whatever you choose the sentiment shouldn't be overshadowed by other elements in your design.

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

  

So, having failed to make anything usable, I gave up and decided to start again on another day. This time I thought it best to go back to some current favourite things, stencils and Nuvo
Embellishment mousse

 

 

 Info

Smooth white square card blank, with the lower section inked using  teal and deep blue ink pads.  I inked another piece for cutting the sentiment and coloured a second piece using gold Nuvo Mousse

For the background panel I used a Musical symbols stencil by Apple Blossom and various different shades of Nuvo Mousse. 

I can't remember where the sentiment die came from (might be Polkadoodles) - I cut it twice, once blue, once gold and matted the layers together before adhering to the card.  To finish I swiped some gold mousse along the lower edges of the card and added a few die cut music notes to pull all the colours together.

I have several male birthdays coming up and my master plan was to make something that would tick at least one of them off the list, but  I'm hoping that some of the Discard Pile might be salvageable for some more of them.

Finishing today with a photo of the first camellia to open up in our garden.  There are other buds, but usually the first opening flower is immediately followed by a spate of freezing cold, wet weather which means none of those other buds ever opens!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Spring Things

 

Hello

 

Hope your week has gone well - its been typical Spring weather where I am, quite breezy at times with lots of showers and some very bright sunshine - and sometimes all at the same time.

Which ties in nicely with this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge, and its my turn to set the theme;

Spring Things

I'd love to see your cards filled with anything Spring related:
baby animals, daffodils and tulips, seasonal celebrations -blossom, warmer temperatures (or cooler if you're 'down under') or other Spring weather!
Or think a little out of the box and feature things with springs like a jack in the box, or make a card with a hidden spring mechanism

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

  

Well, as it happens I'd had my eye on a cute Spellbinders greenhouse die set which was out of stock when I first saw it, so I grabbed it quick when it became available and it arrived on my doormat at the end of last week. Perfect timing really 

 Info

Smooth white square card blank

I used washi tape to mask off the border, then filled in the remaining area with Tonic Nuvo Embellishment mousse in Baby Blue mixed with some white for a paler shade. The greenhouse was cut a couple of times in dark green card, then the layers glued together. I used the little plants from the set, plus some from other sets of suitable sized plants in various shades of green card gleaned from my scraps box. I made the 'floor' of the greenhouse by using the dies as a template to cut the shape and colouring with inks. Now it was time to have some fun building up the contents of the greenhouse using the plant cut outs. Some were glued onto the blue background, others were glued toi the reverse of the greenhouse shape.  When I was happy I fixed the greenhouse to the card, using very thin strips of card to make it stand out slightly.

For the plant pots and seedlings I used mainly dies from a Sizzix set of tiny garden images.

To complete the card I added a couple of tiny flower shapes to give small pops of red, then created the black and white sentiment on the pc.

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Plant a Flower Day

 

Hello

 

Hope your week has gone well and you're managing not to get too blown away!  Its been really blustery here for the last few days and a mixture of rain and the kind of bright sunshine that makes you squint!

Getting straight to this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge as I'm late with my blog post again. Its our lovely Jenny in the challenge-setters chair this time;

🌻🌼 "Plant a Flower Day" 🌼🌻so

and so to honour this I would love to see project showing your favourite flowers.  

I find it difficult to pick just one but as spring is just around the corner in Scotland we have lots of snowdrops popping up and they are definitely one of my favourites.  

Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

Well. my favourite flower changes almost as often as I change my socks so I thought I'd tweak the challenge slightly and use my favourite set of flower dies and some lovely Spring colours with them to make my card 

 

 Info

I started by trimming the edge from a plain square card blank

Next I created a striped design for the digital paper using Paint Shop Pro, and chose a nice Spring green for the stripes. 

Once it had been resized and printed out (I printed a whole square so that I had some left for another project) I cut a wavy line using a Spellbinders edging die and adhered it to the lower half of the card.

For the flowers I inked up some very thin white card on both sides then cut the various petals using my lovely Hunkydory flower die set.

The petals were shaped with a ball tool, then the layers glued together and arranged along the curve.  I added flower centres from various die sets in black, and inked more card to a toning green shade for cutting the leaves (Spellbinders die).

 I added one of the white on black sentiments I made a couple of weeks ago, and some natural twine to complete the card

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Tiny Handmade Roses

 

 Hello, Happy Friday!

I hope you've had a good week,hopefully all the steps we've taken and the roll out of the vaccines will mean a gradual return to what used to be normal.  Call me pessimistic, but there's a part of me that still can't help worrying that a lot of people will think "Great, its all over" and stop taking precautions and it'll be back to rising death rates and overcrowded hospitals.  

Its getting better, but we're not out of the woods yet.

March Elemental Inspiration 

 

Just pick a minimum of 3 elements from Nat's beautiful moodboard to use when making your card. 

The Colour palette counts as 1 element. 

we can't wait to see what you choose, and what you make!

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

 

 There are so many ideas on this board - you need to zoom right in to check them all out!  I wanted to use this challenge to make a card for MiL for Mothering Sunday, and eventually chose the flowery background designs,the colours, a pop of gold and some thread

Info

Smooth white card blank

Digital papers from Alphabet Store (via Etsy), resized and printed onto textured Bazzill white card. I chose 2 designs to use for the centre panel, then cut the Tonic Scribbled Diamond frame from a gold card with a fine ribbed texture. The frame was adhered in place using a few pieces of chipboard, which were later hidden with the flowers and leaves.

For the roses I inked both sides of a piece of very thin card and used a set of Marianne petal dies in different sizes to cut the layers and shaped them with a ball tool before gluing the various components together.  The leaves are cut from green card using my favourite Spellbinders Leafy Swirl die; I just separate the little bunches of leaves, dip the ends in glue and tuck them in wherever I want them. I also die cut the leafy areas of the frame again and added those for an extra pop of gold.

The sentiment pieces were created on the pc using Paint Shop Pro.  I just use the 'negative image' command to change to black ground with white writing, then resize and print.  You just have to remember to give the black ink plenty of time to dry though!

Finally I added a bow made with gold thread

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, its really appreciatedHappy Crafting, and please Stay Safe