Krafty Cardmaking

Do you ever have a period when getting to sleep at night isn't a problem, but staying asleep is? All week I've been waking way too early, I reckon I must have lost out on at least a couple of hours sleep every day this week - and believe me, that's not a good thing. I need my sleep! So if I'm grouchy - that's why, ok? lol

It's Jo setting the challenge on the Daring Cardmakers this week and this has been a tricky one for me. Ahhhhh, maybe that's what was waking me up - stressing over what to do.
Nope, I can't blame Jo, because I was awake before any hint of daytime this morning too and yesterday I made two cards for the dare.

I thought that it would be fun to use a product that seems to be 'Bang on Trend' so this week my dare is....

Using Kraft cardstock :) Either as a card base or somewhere on the card - if you don't have any you could use some card board such as corrugated or even a brown kraft envelope...

You know, I'm not convinced by this whole "Kraft" thing (why do they spell it that way, does anyone know? It bugs me in the same way as using a 'z' instead of an 's' at the end of a word, makes me grind my teeth it doez!) - I love the things other people make with the stuff, but when I try to use it myself it just looks dreary and dull. I made a card for my uncle's birthday in September and it was sooooo dreary I was embarrassed to send it - but obviously I'd left it too late to make something else, you know how it is!
So anyway, this is the card I finally came up with yesterday morning
I thought I'd try to brighten the "Kraft Kuts" paper (Fancy Pants) up a bit with some white doodling - but I think I overdid it rather. lol lol
I don't know why the sight of a paper or chipboard owl makes me absolutely have to use a pun, but it happens - you can see one of my favourites HERE - I've not been able to send this one and it makes me chuckle every time I come across it - it's sooooo sad laughing at your own jokes though, isn't it?
Little owls cut from one of the paper designs holding flowers from another on spirals of pink wire. A line from the Beatles song with a couple of extra owls as the beribboned backing vocals, some small Prima flowers and a few blobs of glitter.
Inside, another of the papers for the background, then an offcut turned the other way over with the MS Hearts border bunch used on the long edges/
It looked ok in my head, and not too bad in the real, but on the photos it looks a right dog's dinner.
After lunch I took more photos using different backgrounds - the dark blue was the best of the bunch but by then I'd gone right off the card!

So I started over and made this one

Took about half the time of the first and I'm much happier, the colours are stronger and I think that looks much better against the Kraft background
Background paper is from Bo Bunny's Kitchen Spice range, inked up and distressed with the Tim Holtz distresser tool. As it's Jo's dare I "made a nod" in her direction with the corrugated card from a cardboard box and the big button.

My current favourite design of lace, the vibrant red apple charm and the sweet filigree "cup" that the little orange rose sits in are all from the lovely Tracy at Creative Treasures - you can find all sorts of interesting and unusual things for you projects over there - definitely worth taking a look.

I hand-cut scalloped edges on a strip of black Bazzill to go behind the lace and card - it helps pull it all together. Small brads in Autumn shades for the centres of the lace flowers
The large flowers are a mix of Bo Bunny and Primas and there's some heavy patterned twill ribbon and a scrap of raffia in there too.

We'd love it if you'd join in with this week's dare - there are some wonderfully inspiring ways to use the Kraft papers and cardstock on the DCM BLOG this week, so please check it out.
We waved a fond farewell to our lovely October Guest Designer, Janice (thanks for working so hard this last month, Janice, it's been great) during this week and today we welcome Vicky (aka Dolly) who's not only going to be our November Girl, but our December Girl too - you'll find her first card, and the link for her fabulous blog on the DCM blog too.
That's it for today.

I'm determined to have a good blog-hopping session this weekend - I do miss it when I can't get around to see what my crafty blog-mates are up to, but this week has been busy - and in the evenings I've been taking my lenses out early because by then I'm too tired to cope with them!

Thanks for visiting and for your lovely comments - they really are appreciated

Pigs Might Fly

My project on Bubbly Scrumptious today is the first stage of a new mini album.
Basically it's formed from a series of pockets held together on an accordion strip. I saw a little book which was made from those small brown "wage" envelopes a while back and made a "Kathy" version from scrapbook paper (I didn't have the envelopes and had to improvise) for the recent Bubbly Funk cyber crop.
Mind you I'm not sure anyone actually went ahead and made one..... tut tut!
They were easy too!

The envelope version doesn't open up fully as the pockets are glued together - so you only get to play with the tags inside the pockets - great for making shopping lists and keeping in your bag, but I thought that the idea could be adapted to make a book that would open fully and therefore give loads more scope to use as a mini album.

So, I've designed this next version. It's a bit bigger and now there's two sides of each pocket to decorate as well as the pockets themselves to fill with pull-out pages or whatever else you can think of.


I know it looks a bit boring atm, but my plan is to journal the run-up to Christmas in here, so hopefully I'll remember to do photos at various times and add them as I go. My track record for actually managing more than a page to two in things like this isn't great (I managed about 5 of the Emily Falconbridge 52Q tags that I started back in January....) - hence the title of this post.

I don't respond well to nagging either......gentle weedling sometimes works, but it's not guaranteed. lol
We'll just have to see what happens, I think!

Here's a memo block I made the other week. I had an apology to make for a late birthday card - I got the dates completely wrong and was sooooo cross with myself, so I made this to say "I'm sorry"
That's it for now. I still have my DCM card to make for tomorrow - you'll realise I'm procrastinating yet again.
I've fallen behind with my blog hopping again too. I've not even had time to check out the craft desks from WOYWW yet. boohoo

Ah well, maybe if I get all the relevant DCM dare bits and pieces out onto my desk inspiration will strike - I'm certainly not getting anywhere just thinking about it. All that's doing is making my head ache.

catch you soon

WOYWW and a Glittery Forres

Thanks for all the lovely messages that have been left over the last few days - I'm really glad you liked my Doc Martin card especially - I had great fun making it so it's good to know other people like it too

Finally getting around to loading photos of Sunday's C-word card making session. It was back to a Trees theme this week and I've used a couple of Cuttlebug Christmas Tree dies and also the smallest of the Spellbinders Nesting Trees set to make this little forest.
I had the idea in my head of using a Nesties circle in the corner of the card with a glittery tree on top. I thought it would be easy to make quite a big batch of cards like that, but I soon got diverted.
The first photo shows the first card I made with that idea in mind. Black glitter card and silver glitter tree, some doodling around the edge. I'm never happy with my doodling. The other card on this photo I really like - the dark panel is a really deep blue and the silver trees look fab on it

I thought I'd do something similar but with gold trees on a dark red background
These four are the ones I'm most pleased with from Sunday's session.

It's fumy how changing the colour scheme makes such a difference. I had some scraps of turquoise, purple and blue paper and glitter card lying around my desk so I used them aong the same lines - but I'm really not so keen on the next four

So, another 8 cards done and that means I've got 80 in my box. I think I need to up the workrate a bit now though as suddenl;y December isn't so far away!

On to that time of the week when we all get to satisfy our inquisitive streak and have a good old nose around fellow crafter's craft spaces. This is WOYWW - or "What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday! If you head over to Julia's BLOG you'll find out all about it and find lots of links to those of us brave enough to participate!
There's not much actual crafting going on on my craftdesk today - doesn't prevent it being a right old mess though

I've been writing up a project today, and after I'd finished I had some Robo cutting to do - I took this next photo while Mr Robo was busy doing his stuff. I thought I'd show you that not only do I have one messy desk - I have two messy desks!

Mr Robo on the right, My Cuttlebug on the bookcase at the left and Mr Bind-it-All lurking under the desk. There's a plastic crate full of stuff I don't use very often under there too - that's mainly to rest my feet on though!

I wonder what's on your workdesk today? Are you brave enough to share?
Oh go on!
It's fun,
honest!

Thanks for visiting

Wassup Doc?

Ooh it's a bit chilly today, sunny though and thankfully less wet and windy than it was yesterday. It was definitely a day to stay home and warm! A bit of work around the house and then hubby watched the last GP of the season and I got on with making some more C-word cards - my box is looking good and healthy now, I'll have to have another count and see whether there's enough in there yet. I'll put some photos on here tomorrow of the most recent cards - you'll probably be pleased to here that there's not a snowflake in sight!

Today I've got the card I made for my cousin, who's rarely seen in any footwear other than his Doc MartinsI was really chuffed witht he way this went together. I used an image I found on Google to make the template for the boot - it looked a bit trickier than most of those I've made, because it wasn't the sort of image I could reduce to 2 colours and still see the various lines. Still, I realised that there were only three layers to deal with so in the end it wasn't so hard and I didn't have to ask for help from hubby - I always feel extra chuffed when I manage to sort something computerish out for myself! Mind you he'd probably have come up with a better way to do it!
Never mind, eh?
I just used a couple of colours of Bazzill to cut the boot, then added some inking to scuff it up a bit and some white pen for the stitching - it should be black but that wouldn't have shown up. I had some pewter coloured eyelets which were perfect for the lace holes, but I actually had to ink some ribbon with a black stazon for the laces themselves as I didn't have enough really narrow black ribbon or anything else suitable! I also had to alter the ribbon at the top from black and white to black and yellow - honestly, the lengths we go to! lol

Papers are "Father Knows Best" by Dream Street - I love these papers but haven't really used them much. The "Happy Birthday" is one from the home-made sticker sheet I made a couple of weeks back using decal transfer paper from Crafty Computer Paper.

I'm not quite sure when I started making "unusual" cards for my cousin but it's now a bit of a habit, here are some pics of some I've made over the last few years.

They usually take up on something about him - so last years was inspired by his love of Jaffa Cakes!



The pizza box opened on this one - I put a photo of a pizza inside the box













When he first took up archery I made this one, the arrows actually stood out from the target

There have been others, but I think that's quite enough!
I'm not supposed to be on the pc, I have a new project in bits on my desk - I'm really trying to work out what to do next - can you tell that?
Right, back to it
Thanks for visiting

Roll with the Punches

On the Daring Cardmakers this week it's Kiwi Keryn's turn to set the dare.

I love punches and use them on almost every card I make. This week I want you to join with me and make a card, any type, any theme but it needs to use your latest craft punch purchase. If you haven't bought any punches for a while or don't own any at all your latest craft purchase will be quite acceptable.

I think Keryn has an ulterior motive with this one - I think she's not only wanting to have a look around to see what we've all been buying lately but also thinking ahead a bit and figuring out what to add to her Christmas Wish List. Actually that's such a good idea - I might just do the same!

The last punch I bought was the MS snowflake one - which is lovely, I also bought the snowflake embossing border punch just before that, but I'm not really getting on with it so I'm going to put it up for sale on ebay and let someone else enjoy it, it seems silly to keep it when I'm not going to use it.

Anyway, to get back to the DCM....

My card has several layers and a bit of dimension, though that doesn't really show up in the photo.
There's a square of silver card on the card-blank, then a smaller square of very heavily glittered paper on top of that.
I then punched snowflake "holes" around a square of textured card and used foam tape to adhere this piece over the glittery square so that the punched snowflakes are like little windows.

Sometimes I have a plan for a card and sometimes I don't. My plan for this one stopped there and I faffed about for a bit trying to decide what to put in the middle.
In the end I used a Spellbinders Small Pinking Circles die to cut a circle of black glitter paper , and used some of the white and silver snowflakes (Spellbinders) that were lying about on my desk, plus a couple of new ones with the MS punch.
The lovely Kath was kind enough to send me some punched ovals this week - some plain and some scalloped , which she'd cut with her SU punches - although they are my most recent acquisitions, it wasn't my punch so I didn't think they could count for this dare!
I used one of the scalloped ovals, painted with the Silver Acrylic Paint Dabber as a backing for the cute little sentiment oval, the gorgeous little snowflake charm swings free on shiny red thread - I really love these, they are so pretty and have lots of detail.

Dark Red ribbon and metallic brad from my stash
Silver, Red and Black Glitter handmade papers a Craftime pad (they are gorgeous)
Sentiment Oval and Snowflake charm from Creative Treasures

Punches are such useful, but often underrated little tools and I definitely need to up my collection - I never seem to have the shape I need to make something I've seen in a magazine, book or on a tutorial. I think I'll be having a very good look around the blogs of the Darers this week and maybe some punches will be on my Christmas Wish List too.
You can see what the DT have been buying recently on the DCM BLOG and we'd love it if you'd join in and show off your newest punches this week.

Now on to my little "what's in the box" puzzle from yesterday. Well let's face it, it wasn't much of a puzzle with all that branding on the box, was it? lol
Still, finding a courier clutching a big box with that pink doggie standing on the doorstep was quite exciting - when I opened the box I found Radley spotty tissue paper too (now, what crafty purpose can I save that for?), and then nestling inside it all was my lovely new no1 handbag for this winter
No black for me this year, I toyed with the idea of the purple one, but in the end I went for lovely bright red


There you go then - were you right? hehehe

Today's task is to make my cousin's birthday card. I have an idea which is based around a Doc martin boot. If it works I'll be back to share it. If it doesn't, then I don't actually have a Plan B so I'll be panicking!

Thanks for popping by, catch you all again soon

The Pudding Club

One of the Add-Ons for the October Bubbly Funk Kit is a pack of 10 Christmas themed templates. I've used one of the "word" ones and the cute little sleigh template already and this time it's the turn of the Christmas Pudding template.

First I used it full size to make a shaped card

Then I converted my scanned copy of the original template to allow me to cut it with Mr Robo. That done I cut six mini versions of the pudding and made four cards with them.


Today's project can be found by clicking HERE

I think I'll do more like these, the mini pudding is quick to make and I can use them in the same way as I've been doing with the snowflake cards over the last few weeks - nice and easy to turn out a batch of cards fairly quickly.

Sorry about the rubbish photos, I seem to have lost the knack (that's if I ever had it) of taking a decent photo - I'm putting it down to yet another set of bulbs for the lights for the mini studio. We got some energy saving ones but they took about ten minutes to warm up enough to do the photos - which is a bit rubbish, so we bought a new set of daylight bulbs p they are supposed to be the same as the original ones, but they don't seem to be. Whinge over.

You seemed interested in the contents of my boxes yesterday lol. Well the big one wasn't very exciting, just some stuff from M&S, but as I'm feeling generous today, I'll give you a teeny glimpse of what was in the other one.

Earlier this week another big box arrived.
This one
Now, what do you think could be hiding in there then?

hehehehe
Right, it's Thursday, so that means I need to clear a space on my craft desk and come up with something for tomorrow's DCM. If I get that done, I'm off over to Julia's blog to catch up on the WOYWW links from yesterday and a catch up with all my other favourite blogs
Right, I wonder if I can find some inspiration in the bottom of a mug of coffee?

Thanks for dropping by

WOYWW + a couple of cards

So, another Wednesday and another WOYW photo coming up soon. Or should that be a WOMWW?

First though, the cards I forgot to load here yesterday - (yet) another batch of turquoise/silver/white snowflake cards. I've plonked these together because I've not decided whether to add a greeting somehow - I thought if I looked at them on the screen it might help me decide. It's funny how doing that often helps me spot what's wrong/what needs moving, what needs adding etc, when I've looked at it irl for ages and been unable to decide.

I'm thinking they do need a message added to them, what about you?

Next another card using the most recent sketch on my Sketch File BLOG. This one is actually the first of the two I've done so far, but I needed to make sure it had arrived before I added it here. I've got another plan for using this sketch - well, it's half a plan really - more to follow if I can fighre out the other half of the plan!
Lovely MME papers (I know Kaz loves them too), a chippie scalloped frame with my own rub-ons added onto a piece of acetate which was left lying about after Lythan's DCM dare the other week, the other rub-ons are Doodlebug I think. I raised two of the square on foam pads and cut some of the flowers from one of the papers to decorate. The pink pearls are from the stash I bought on my birthday treat Crafty Day Out back in September.
I'd love to see more people having a go with the sketches on my other blog. I know there's loads of sketch challenges out there and you're spoiled for choice, but if you do get a minute, it would be fab to have you give them a try - it's not a challenge blog, and I'm notoriously bad at leaving long gaps between new sketches - but I will add a link to your card on there if you let me know where I can see it.

And now, it's Nosey-Time again. Is this the most fun you can have on a Wednesday? Possibly. It's definitely a great way to mooch around other people's craft spaces and see what they've got and what they are up to. Click HERE to find out all about it and find the links to all those brave souls participating this week (well, once Julia's updated her blog, that is!).

Not much crafting getting done on mine - though that IS a box of crafty goodies - still unopened - on the top. I'm not allowing myself to open either of these boxes until I've finished my assigned "task of the day" - gosh, aren't I good? hehehe

Last week one of the WOYWWers commented on the number of punches that were lying around my desk. So I counted them and found NINE. I put them away in the drawer, but I suspect they've all jumped out again, though I can only actually see two in the photo.
Right, procrastination break over. I want to open my parcels so I need to finish that task of mine.

Catch you all again soon.

Little Treasures!

I've been making more C-word cards this weekend, and yes, they've got snowflakes on...again!
I've used the Cuttlebug snowflakes embossing folder on all of these, and they're all embellished with lovely bits and pieces from Crafty Treasures

I've used a couple of different ribbons here to tie the aqua and turquoise colours together.
Snowflakes are Spellbinders "Create a Flake 2" cut in two shades of glitter card, plus one cut with a punch - I can't remember who makes it, I'll edit if I do!
The oval sentiment, and the fabulous little snowflake charm on here are from Crafty Treasures/

For this card I've used my own sketch - you can find it HERE - please pop over and have a look, you might find some new inspiration for your card-making - I hope so, anyway!
This one is a gatefold card, I've embossed the four squares, then made a layered snowflake (Spellbinders flakes 1 & 2) to sit across the opening.
Flat backed pearls, oval sentiment from Creative Treasures

And then I got a little bit carried away! I think the whole C-word card making is starting to get to me, but I enjoyed making this so much! I try to keep my Christmas cards fairly flat so that I don't get clobbered for going over the miserly 0.5cm thickness the RM allows for regular postage prices, but this one won't fit the slot, that's for sure. I don't really care, because once in a while I have to make a C-word card just for the fun of it or I'd lose the will to live - or at least the love of making cards!

Actually it was that snowflake charm that made me do it, I just thought how pretty it would look in a "Shabby Chic" sort of arrangement and the next thing I knew I was making coiled roses from glittery paper and dabbing wired roses in turquoise inks.
Snowflakes, charm, sentiment, flat-backed pearls as before.

I think the wired roses came from Favour Factory a long time ago - I was looking for them on the net the other day, but the link doesn't work so I suppose they are no more.
The wide organza ribbon which I've scrunched into a little bow was part of an old Creative Treasures Flower Kit - it was the one with a turquoise and chocolate colour theme.

I did manage to make a few more yesterday so I'll pop those on tomorrow
That's it for today
Hope you remembered to change the clocks at the weekend - not looking forward to how early it's going to be dark this evening - or should I say this afternoon? Grim, eh?

"Whiskers on Kittens and Warm....

....woollen mittens"
I think that's how the song goes anyway. It's my turn to set the challenge over on The Daring Cardmakers and as we're still celebrating our anniversary - we've been going for a full three years now and today sees the first dare of year 4 - I thought we should just have some fun with a self-indulgent dare called:

"These are a Few of My Favourite Things"

All I asked the team to do was make a card using at least 5 of their favourites - that could mean card shape, techniques, style, tools, papers, embellishments - anything they love to use counted. You can see what they made over on the DCM BLOG, and we're hoping that all this free rein will mean lots of cards for us to see when we go blog-hopping!

I always find my own dares hard to actually do, don't ask me why that is - I know a lot of the other girls say the same thing though. Being let loose just to use favourite things should have been easy - but I have so many favourites and I couldn't squeeze them all on! The first bit was fairly simple - I started with my favourite 14cm sq card blank (1). Then it got harder!

My fave paper manufacturer of the moment is MME, and I love scallops too, so using some of the Penny Lane collections of papers scored 2 hits (3).
Then there's got to be flowers - anyone who follows this blog for more than a couple of days will have guessed there'd be flowers!(4)
Ribbon and Lace get into my cards whenever possible, as do brads, beadies and tiny gems. (9)
No. 10 is the chipboard frame - though perhaps I should count 2 for that, chipboard and frames are high on my faves list....and maybe I could count 2 for that beady swirl too.

I didn't manage to get any of those mosaic style tiny squares I love to fill gaps in with and there are no die cuts or Robo cuts on there either, or Stickles, or eyelets, or, or, or.....

Actually it would be easier to list the things I don't like!

Anyways , here's my supplies list
Papers: MME Penny Lane (I think the two papers are from different sets)
Chipboard frame was in a set of mixed designs/shaped frames
Gems from Anita's 2mm dem wheel
Pearl brads I think are Papermania
Wired tea-rose is from my stash

Pretty much everything else came for Tracy at Creative Treasures - some is from past Flower Kits; the other flowers, the wide green ribbon under the lace, the lace itself and the turquoise organza ribbon all featured in past kits.

I had a bit of luck because a new pack of goodies has just arrived from Tracy and she's generously (well, I suppose I did go on a bit about how much I loved it) sent me some more of this fabulous lace - just what I needed for the card and what perfect timing!

The lace was part of the September Kit and I used every scrap of it on other projects - I absolutely love it, the pretty scalloped edges and those lovely flowers that just shout out to be adorned with a pretty brad or gem!
Also in the bag of goodies she's sent for me to play with were some Prima "Say it with Pearls" - a card filled with 2 sizes of individual flat backed pearls, a long, ready-made swirl and lots of beautiful butterflies.
I couldn't figure out how to get regular beads onto my DCM card so the pearl bead swirl seemed perfect to solve that problem - and I got a lovely swirl in there at the same time. I'm already thinking that these could be among my newer favourite things!
Please head overt to the DCM blog to see the cards the team made this week - and if you visit their personal blogs you'll be able to compare their faves lists with your own! Can't wait to see what the Darers come up with this week, I hope there'll be lots of cards to see when I go blog-hopping.

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed seeing some of my "Favourite (crafty) Things".

Sparkle & Bloom

For my Bubbly Funk Kit project this week I've made a couple of cards using the same basic idea to make cards for different occasions. This month's kit is based around the "Indeed" collection of papers from Prima, which although not Christmas themed do have those icy shades that the Snow Queen would love - so perfect for mixing in a bit of Christmas crafting with other projects too.

I've called this Christmas version of the card "Sparkle" because there's so much Glittery bling on there. I used the pretty snowflake swirl chipboard and K&Co layered snowflakes from the October kit to make this one and while I was busy painting the chippie I thought the same plan would work really well with the gorgeous Prima flower that also arrived in my DT goody box. So far I'd not managed to bring myself to use it, but it's so pretty that it really deserves centre stage on a project, and it's selfish to keep such treasures to yourself, isn't it? lol

So I was brave and teamed the flower with some card from the kit, ribbon, a bead spray and tea-roses from my stash and made "Bloom". I quite like the nostalgic chintzy feel the card ended up with.
There's more info and the instructions on how I made these cards on Bubbly Scrumptious emag today, click HERE to see it and check up on all the fab projects that are to be found there.

I had a great time last night wandering around all the WOYWW-ers blogs, still got a few to check out, but it's such fun to get to nose around the desks of other crafters. If you've not joined in yet, there's a linkie thing in my sidebar, or just check out my post from yesterday to find out more!

Hope to get a bit more blog-hopping in today - but that'll depend on how well I get on with my DCM card for tomorrow!
Thank you for visiting, please leave a comment if you can, I do love to read them