a bit of bling

Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 My card today is for Shabneez's Daring Cardmakers Challenge this week.   

It's Shabneez here and I love

 a bit of bling

 on a card so now’s your chance to get out those shimmer pastes, glitter glues, mirri card and those glorious gems!

 Click Here for some ideas from the design team

I'd planned to make something other than a Christmas card but being deep into making those, I'm struggling to make anything else right now.  Even though I have a few birthdays coming in the next couple of months that I need to come up with non-festive ideas for!

I think I might have to clear the glitter and shiny card and all the Christmas sies off the desk and focus my mind on other things next week!

 

I did make two cards though - I made the black one first, but then the Sealed Squiggles set arrived and I couldn't resist trying them out! 

Black and Silver card

I made the starry background piece using black card. silver foil  and the

 Celestial Star Background Glimmer plate

You've seen those trees before and you'll see them again - the brilliant tree dies from Spellbinders' Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle Etched Dies,  cut in different finsihes of silver card.

Finally a hot foiled sentiment from Waffle Flower. 

 

White, Silver and Red card

I die cut 2 of the lovely dies from the Sealed Squiggles set plus the longstemmed tree from Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle all from the same silver glitter card - this card is a much more subtle pale silver than I usually use.

The NOEL die is an old favourite, also by Spellbinders but not available any more, sorry!

I added a bow o metallic red thread, and a few stars and circles in white, silver and red, then finished it off witg a bit of extra bling in the by way of some tiny silver and red gems

 HERE is my Affiliate Link, to the Spellbinders store - you can use it to access the store any time, and I'd really appreciate it if you did, don't worry, it doesn't cost you anything!

There's a UK based shop now, so you can use the 'Visit Our UK Store' button at the top right of any page on the Spellbinders site 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

Christmas 2

Hello!

 

Thanks for coming by.

Here is a round up of some of the Christmas cards I've been making

 

Card 1

 

Outline is created by hot foiling the holly die onto the background.  Then the die is cut in gold card and other items added. All dies by Spellbinders except the hot foiled sentiment which is by Waffle Flower. 

Card 2

Glimmering Snowflakes Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Bibi's Snowflakes Collection by Bibi Cameron   

 

Christmas Die & Glimmer Sentiments Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Classic Christmas Collection

Poinsettia and all other dies are by Spellbinders

Card 3

Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle Etched Dies from Sealed for the Holidays Collection

Hot Foil sentiment All is Bright by Waffle Flower

Card 4

   All cutting dies by Spellbinders 

 

Christmas Die & Glimmer Sentiments Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Classic Christmas Collection 

 

 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

 

Alphabet Soup

Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 My card today is for Nat's Daring Cardmakers Challenge this week

Alphabet Soup

I don't know about you, but I have a slight problem when it comes to alphabet dies and stamps... I love the look of them, I buy them, but I rarely take the time to use them for anything other than personalising the odd card here and there.

So this week I'm challenging myself and you to grab those alphabet stamps or dies and use them to create the sentiment* for your card!

* Hint, short words could be your friend, especially for the upcoming festive season!

 Click Here for some ideas from the design team

Recently I've been trying to make more use of my hot foiling machine and this challenge reminded me of a Hot Foiling alphabet I must have bought about 3 years ago and have never actually used  (but don't you pretend you haven't stash sitting there unused for just as long!)

So I used silver foil to create the HAPPY letters for my sentiment and die cut them with the smallest circle from a nested set.  I was actually going to cut 'Christmas' from silver card using a set of handwriting dies but they are small and fiddly and I ran out of time.

I absolutely love the brilliant tree dies from Spellbinders' Sealed Christmas Tree Squiggle Etched Dies,  so I used them in two different ways.

First I hot foiled them using different finishes of turquoise and silver foils.  I really like seeing which of my regular dies work well with the hot foiling technique

Secondly I die cut the trees in the regular way from matching cardstock and adhered them over and among the foiled trees

I glued the letters onto a strip of silver glitter washi tape before fixing them in place then added the die cut 'Christmas' to the lower edge

 Since making this card I've been trying the same kind of technique using different colours so I'll be sharing them soon!

 HERE is my Affiliate Link, to the Spellbinders store - you can use it to access the store any time, and I'd really appreciate it if you did, don't worry, it doesn't cpst you anything!

There's a UK based shop now, so you can use the 'Visit Our UK Store' button at the top right of any page on the Spellbinders site 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

Fun and Games

  Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 My card today is for Joanne's Daring Cardmakers Challenge this week

 Fun and Games

It's Joanne here this week and I'd like to challenge you to a game of something!

 It might be an indoor one (like Kerplunk, Twister, Snakes and Ladders, Dungeons and Dragons...) or outdoor (football, netball, rugby, hockey...). The best part? You get to be creative, somebody receives a lovely handmade card — nobody loses this game!

 Click Here for some ideas from the design team

 

First of all, appologies for the rubbish photo! I sent this before I'd checked the photos and this is the best I have - if you think this is bad, be glad its the only one I'm sharing!

I found a hockey background paper design on the internet. I resized and printed it on to a textured Bazzill cardstock then adhered it to my base card.  

Next I found a picture of a hockey stick to use as a template. In my graphics program (Paint Shop Pro) I copied and pasted so that I had two, then used the mirror tool to reverse one. I resized and printed them out, but just on copier paper this time. 

I glued the template hockey sticks to the back of some black card to make it easy to cut them out with scissors, then just cut the trimming strips and stuck them on the right sides

The sentiment was cut in matching colours using one of my alphabet die sets and to finish the card I added some hockey balls using some red 'card candy' 

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx

Christmas 1

Hello 

Thanks for visiting.  

I've made a start on my Christmas cards!  Yes I know I've already shared a few of the ones I made for some early Spellbinders Christmas releases but I also need to come up with cards that I can make more quickly  in larger numbers but that I still enjoy making and easy to vary a bit so I don't get bored!  They also need to be flat enough not to cost a fortune to send as our postal rates are
exhorbitant!  It's such a shame that people are sending les and less cards at Christmas - you know, the cards I send to, and recieve from some of those on my Christmas list are the only contact we have from year to year and its so sad to lose those few words of greeting, don't you think?

Anyway, that's my rant for the day over

I wanted to make and share a record of the card styles I'm making this year so I'll do that here on my blog and also on my Instagram dodah.

 

I usually make most of my cards with a smooth white cards, so this year I thought I'd try some coloured backgrounds by adding squares of coloured card to my cards

 

I've used various items from this year's Spellbinders range of goodies.

There are Glimmer hot foiling stamps, cutting dies from several collections, and the blue card has hot foiling done with one of the regular snowflake dies

On the blue card I used:

Snowflake Card Creator Etched Dies

 

Delicate Snowflakes Etched Dies

 

Christmas Die & Glimmer Sentiments Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Classic Christmas Collection

  

 

 

 

 

Here's a list of the sets used for the red cards

 

Glimmering Snowflakes Hot Foil Plate & Die Set (sentiment on red2)

 

 Snowflake Card Creator Etched Dies

 

Sealed Holly Sprigs Etched Dies from Sealed for the Holidays Collection 

 

Christmas Die & Glimmer Sentiments Hot Foil Plate & Die Set from the Classic Christmas Collection   (sentiment on red 1)

 . 

 Please note that as a Spellbinders Affiliate I may receive a small commission - when you use my links - it doesn't cost you anything but it helps me buy more stash so is much appreciated!  HERE is my Affiliate Link, you can use it to access the store any time!

There's a UK based shop now, so you can use the 'Visit Our UK Store' button at the top right of any page on the Spellbinders site 

 

 

- I always print my messages inside because writing them is just a step too far! There's room to add a personal note if I want to!

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, 

 Kathy x

October

 

 Hello

Welcome to my little crafting place! 

 

My card today is for Shabneez's Daring Cardmakers Challenge for 6th October

October Elemental Inspiration Challenge 

Shabneez here to host this week and my mood board has an eclectic mix of elements! 

How about using the layout as one element? Or the geometric shapes? Then there are the colours, a blue sky, flowers, grass, a tortoise, turtle or other animal or the  lovely colours, pattern or texture of that beautiful shell

Pick at least 3 elements from this image to interpret on your card (remember colours count collectively as one element) and enjoy some crafty time!

Click Here for some ideas from the design team

I made 2 cards in the end, and used the same elements for both: the rectangles, the flower and some textyre for the shell of the tortoise

For this one I used bright colours and embossed the whole card front and a Spellbinders (shareasale link) potted cactus for the flower. 

The beautiful embossing folder I use for each of these is called Orange Peel Quilt Embossing Folder

 

I used white card and pastel colours for card 2, which was actually the first I made.  

For this one I paratially embossed the card front and added a strip of caoloured card where the change from embossed to 'flat' card is.

This time the rectangles are cut from card coloured with pearly Nuvo embellisning mousse.  The flowers are from a recent Spellbinders (shareasale link) set and the sentiment I by Creative Expressions

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself,

 

Kathy xx