Summer Breeze

Hello
How the heck did it get to be June already?  
The weather here has been lovely for the last couple of weeks and I think Shabneez was very influenced by all the sunshine when she chose this month's Elemental Inspiration Picture for The Daring Cardmakers - I absolutely love the beautiful soft sunset shades of the colour palette!
You need to choose a minimum of 3 'elements' from the inspiration picture to use on your own project - it could be the colours, the Layout, the textures, even just some small detail you spot in there, Anything you see counts!  Almost every time we do these challenges someone on the team uses something I hadn't even noticed!

Anyway, what I did notice this time was a close up of beautiful peonies  and as it's definitely peony season, and I love making them that was definitely going to be one of my chosen elements for this card

I also decided on the pattern of 6 rectangles, and the gorgeous sunset in the centre picture on the bottom row.  I've used the same colours too, though mine are rather stronger shades!
And here is Shabneez's beautiful Inspiration picture

For me, the hardest, and most time-consuming part of this whole card was making that darned 6-rectangle pattern as I thought it would be a good idea to use it like a window frame over the sunset background - cutting those rectangles was a nightmare as I could only die-cut one rectangle at a time.  Even though I measured, and thought I'd lined each one up carefully it still went a bit wrong - so some disguising was necessary 😉

 Info

Background sunset piece made using various inks and blending them

 all with a wet wipe

'Window' frame made by die-cutting the rectangles (Tonic die set)

For the peony flowers I used a couple of different dies (Spellbinders and Crafter's Companion).  They were cut in a couple of shades of Bazzill card, damped with water and inked before shaping with a ball tool

The flags for the bunting were hand cut from scraps left over from the background piece 

Bakers Twine and ribbon from my stash

This was a lovely Inspiration piece to work with, and the team have made some beautiful cards using their chosen elements.  We are a very varied bunch in our tastes and styles and these challenges make our team think so creatively - I always love to see what everyone makes!
You can check them all out HERE

That's it for now, thank you for visiting, I hope you have a great weekend!

 

Oodles of Ice Cream (Spellbinders Spellbloggers)

Hello there!

Thank you for joining me for another Weekend Spellblogging post for Spellbinders

Here in England we're enjoying somewhat of a heatwave - shockingly it's a Holiday weekend too"  Anyway, the weather is perfect for ice cream, and lots of it, so that's the theme I've gone with for this week's  Spellblogging project

Info
I've used a smooth white cardstock for the card base, and Bazzill Bling Diamond White and a blue-grey shade for the other pieces of card.
I smooshed various ice cream shades of ink over some scraps of the Diamond White card to cut the scoops of ice cream.  The spoon - which i completely forgot to add to the card, and the bowl were cut in un-coloured card,  All pieces were then put through the machine again to emboss, then I stencilled through the shapes on the dies with more ink

The die set I used is: 'Chill' Die D-Lites Etched Dies

As I was planning how to use the bowl of ice cream I'd created on a card, the nice UPS man arrived with another package from
Spellbinders. Those who know me know that stamping isn't a 'love' of mine by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd been quite brave and ordered up a set of sentiment stamps, and their arrival in this delivery seemed opportune, with the "Oodles" fitting quite nicely for a great big bowl of  ice cream.

The 'Oodles' sentiment is from: Special Birthday Sentiments Stamps(Classic Spellbinders) click on the picture for a larger version

 

I stamped the sentiment, cut it out with a circle punch and matted it on to a
 Lacey Circles (Nestabilities Etched Dies) 

I made a box hinge to fix the bowl to the card, allowing it to stand out for display but fold flat to mail.  To decorate I used a few pastel-coloured seed beads, and punched some small circles for the corner

I love this little die set and I'm sure it will be seen a lot over the summer.  The lovely bowl would make a fab cake stand too, and I think those scoops could be used for the top part of cupcakes.....
I'm really pleased with the lovely stamp set - the size of the sentiments and the words themselves are perfect for cards. They are just the sort of thing I've been looking out for as an extra way to add messages to my cards.

 Well, I'm really lusting after a scoop of ice cream now....I wonder what flavours we have in the freezer....I do know there's a tub of Cafe Latte in there...........swoon

  Well, thanks for visiting, if you click on This Link  you'll find yourself at the Spellbinders store and you can get your hands on this beautiful die set too!

Happy Crafting

 

Happy Days

Hello!
How are you?  Enjoying the lovely warm sunshine I hope. I wonder if will stay like this for the whole of Bank Holiday weekend?  The first of our giant poppies opened this morning - they were all still closed last night when I was out watering the various stuff in pots and the veggies.  The peonies shouldn't be far behind now.

As usual Friday means Daring Cardmakers Day and a new challenge to play with and this time it's Leo here with a quirky little challenge called 

In a Teacup 

We'd like you to create a card that features a teacup with something in it.
It doesn't have to be a drink so feel free to think outside
the box, (or the cup I guess!). Pop over to the blog to see what we have in our teacups!

I was so stumped!
As usual when I'm stuck I checked through my cutting files and found a couple of templates that I might be able to use.  In the end I went for some stacked teacups, so what you get in my teacup is another teacup, then another and another and finally some balloons escaping from the top one

I've used some gorgeous download papers from Pininkie via Etsy.  They are from two paper sets with a Coral and Mint colour palette.

One of the things I love about download papers is the flexibility you have to resize, to print just a little bit, or even the exact shape and size you need.  Absolutely perfect for a project when you need the designs to be in the right proportion.  These little teacups are only about 4cms across, but by resizing the papers before printing, the patterns are just right.

I printed them onto Bazzill Bling Diamond White card.

The cups were matted up with small pieces of cereal packet chipboard between them, then the whole piece was raised on a box hinge - these fold (relatively) flat for putting in an envelope, but then fold out and stand away from the page.

The balloons are cut with Celebrate Die D-Lites  Etched Dies (Spellbinders) 

The upper three balloons were attached with thin wire to the back of the cups so that they stand out and can be rearranged.

HAPPY is a Memory Box die

'days' is a a bit of a hybrid - I used the day bit from a Happy Birthday die, and the 's' is cut from the word 'special' in another die set of the same font and size which was a bit lucky, as I'd tried cutting the word with the Silhouette and it was a bit of a mess!

That's it for this time, thank you for popping by - please leave a message, I do love to hear what you think!
Have a great weekend


 

Dutch Flowers are Fab

Hello there, I hope you are having a good day.  Thank you for visiting my blog today.

I've a new card using the May LO from The Sketch File to share today. I had a lot of fun, and a bit of an aghhh, its a disaster! moment making this - par for the course really, I suppose.

The frame came about as a disguise for the 'disaster moment', but you know, as so often is the case, it actually improved the finished project.  I'd initially planned for the background to be just the one layer.  I made a mask to create the shape, added inks, Alchemy Wax and Glitter Paste - then I made the error of trying to doodle a border with black gel pen around it - I'd used a fancy Nesties square shaped die to make the mask.  Well, that didn't work, did it - what a mess I made!
A moment of banging head on desk.
It was either start over, or hide the nasty bit somehow.  I ditched the pretty fancy edge, and created a wide border with a couple of square dies to frame the stencilled area. Actually, it looked better that way anyway!

Info

Smooth white card blank, extra for frame, and for inking for the flowers etc.

Green and Gold card for parts of the flowers and butterfly

Various Versamagic inks in sunset shades

Gold Alchemy Wax

Copper Glitter Paste (it's more pink than copper) 

Die Set: Dutch Flowers Die D-Lites Etched Dies (Spellbinders)

May Sketch

The Sketch File May 2017

I love this little die set, the flowers are so quirky and fun and the butterfly is very cute.

To make my extra tall flowers, I cut the stem twice for each flower, then added the leaves to where the two parts joined.  I also realised that the leaf shapes are the perfect size to add extra interest to the butterfly's wings, so I added a thin layer of Glitter Paste over some of the leftover inked card, left it overnioght to dry, then cut the leaf shapes, and a few circles using a hilly (or mistletoe) die, just to add a little extra interest to the frame

The sentiment is a decal sticker.  I'm beginning to run out of these so need to make another sheet

You can see the shimmer of the Alchemy Wax better on this angle:

That's it for this time - I'd love it if you'd leave a comment, maybe you could tell me what your own most recent "aghhh, its a disaster! moment" was - and how/if you rectified it!

 

Pretty Peonies - Spellblogging for Spellbinders

Hello there!

Thank you for joining me for another Weekend Spellblogging post for Spellbinders

This week it's all about flowers and one of my favourite flowers at that!  When I saw the Create a Peony set in the
Spellbinders shop, it just had to come and live with me 😉

Info
I used a white pearl card that has a hint of silver in it to make the card base and the various other white parts. 
There's also cream, peachy pink, dark peachy pink and some scraps of green card 
The sentiment is pc generated and the banner shape hand-cut
The bow is a triple looped bow made from seam binding
The beautiful filigree square is from an old Spellbinders
Shapeabilities set called Lace Doily Motifs 
The peony flowers were made using
the Create a Peony set

A good quality ball tool (check out sugarcraft equipment stockists for these) and foam shaping mat are pretty much essential for making flowers - you can manage without, but it's trickier.
 This die set makes it easy to create different sizes, you just change which and how many of each petal size to use - make one following the diagram on the packet and you'll soon get the idea
My three flowers are all different sizes and for the smallest one, I cut some of the petal shapes in green to make it look more like a bud that is just opening

Mu flower-making kit includes different sizes of bottle lids - they are very handy to leave part made and just finished flowers in while the glue sticks - things like the lid of a Pritt Stick (cleaned of sticky gunge), other smaller and larger lids of this kind are just great for helping to shape the flowers in their various sizes or stages - then you just need to spend a few minutes tweaking the petals using a bamboo skewer, or Pointy Tool for smaller ones.

I really love how the flowers turned out - I hope you are inspired to have a go, making flowers is such a lovely thing to do!

 Thanks for visiting, if you click on This Link  you'll find yourself at the Spellbinders store and you can get your hands on this beautiful die set too!

Happy Crafting

 

Strictly Two's Company!

Hello there
Thank you so much for coming by
It's a bit on the damp side here today, though not actually raining.  A few weeks ago the ground was dry and hard as rock.  Well it certainly won't be now!
On the plus side it dampens down and stops the pollen blowing about all over the place - see? it's true about clouds and silver linings! haha
It was such a good thing I went back and checked the list of up-coming Daring Cardmaker challenges - especially after getting in a bit of a pickle with last week's.....
What I discovered was that the one I thought was today's is actually next week's and I'd given no thought at all to what I should be making for this time.  To be fair, I didn't actually have a clue about the other one either, but now I have a week's grace to come up with a plan.
Anyway. It's Sharon who's challenging us this time....and being soooooo mean!

"I want to see cards using only Two Colours - and your background or card base counts as one colour, so you need to think creatively." 

You can see what the Design Team came up with HERE. It is MUCH harder than you think, and everyone has done an amazing job.



I think it's easy enough to make a card using 2 basic colours, but actually having the base card as one of them is torture!  All those pretty things wanting to get in on the action with their 'extra' colours! 

 .  
As you can see, in the end I decided to use Black and Cream as my colours.  I love using black and white, but there's always the temptation of a quick pop of just one other colour to draw the eye and I hoped that using cream would help me keep to the theme!

Info

Textured cream card for base

Black Bazzill for the upper layer; embossed with   'Horsehair' Embossing Folder Tammy Tutterow Designs (Spellbinders)

I don't have a die to cut a curve like the one I wanted, so made a template on a scrap piece of card - I just traced around part of a circle die for the 'hemp' part, then inverted it and traced again for the 'dipped' section.

I used the template to cut the curve, then sliced a few cms off the bottom section so that it would fit onto the card leaving a gap for the lettering

'Happy Birthday' is part of a die cut - I chose the skinniest of those I have to make it easier to curve into the space and cut it in black glitter card

I used the same card to cut the leaf springs for the flower 

(from Spellbinders Aren't You Sweet set)

The flower is made using a Blossom punch and Cream coloured Foamiran.  I added black stamens and some black Stickles glitter glue

The twirly trims are just skinny strips of card shaped around a bamboo skewer.

 I added three domed circles cut from cream card and a tiny black gem above the 'i' to complete the card

That's it, all done.  The flower isn't as good as I'd hoped, I need more practise with the foamiran really and I think need to be brave and use my glue gun - which to be quite honest, I'm rather scared of.  Which is why it's been unused in the cupboard for about 5 years....  Come on Kathy, are you a woman or a wuss?

Thanks for popping by, hope you'll come again at the weekend, when I have my next Spellbloggers (Spellbinders) project and more flowers to share

 

Balloons

Hello there, thanks for visiting my blog today.

This time I've another card using the May LO from The Sketch File to share.  I really wanted to use some balloons on this one, and was flicking though my few (hahahahaha) paper pads when I realised that my current favourite paper set had just the thing - a design featuring little bunches of balloons.

Info

Background stencilled with Mini Swiss Dots (The Crafters Workshop)

Die Set Celebrate (Spellbinders) for balloons and sentiment

Papers: Hooray 6x6 (My Mind's Eye) 

Glossy Accents on balloons

White pen for highlights

Yellow Baker's Twine

Scraps of Aqua, Yellow and Peachy-Pink card 

May Sketch

The Sketch File May 2017

 

That's it.  See, I can keep it short when I really try!
Enjoy the rest of your day, and p[lease, don't forget to leave a comment!

 

Swallow and Heart: 2 for 1. Spellblogging for Spellbinders

Hello there!

Welcome to another Weekend Spellblogging post for Spellbinders

This week I've made a couple of cards using the same die set and the  same embossing folder, but each has a quite different 'feel' from the other

This lovely die set is Swallow and Heart Shapeabilities Etched Dies from the Joyous Celebrations Collection by Sharyn Sowell and the embossing folder is
'Blistered' - from the Tammy Tutterow Designs
collection

 

For both cards I started by cutting the white panel to the right size, then using a circle from a Nestabilities (Spellbinders Nestability Dies; Plain Circles) stack to cut an aperture, then emboss with the 'Blistered' folder 

other info for Card 1
Cherry red pearlised card for base, plus extra for die cutting
Soft Gold Glitter card  
Flowers. gold cord, tiny gems from my stash
A few different sizes of punched hearts to decorate.  The sentiment was pc generated to fit one of my heart punches
Leaf sprigs cut with
Spellbinders Die D-Lites Sprigs Etched Dies

For both cards I started by cutting the white panel to the right size, then using a circle from a Nestabilities stack to cut an aperture, then emboss with the 'Blistered' folder 

Spellbinders Nestability Dies; Plain Circles,

Card 2

This card has an aperture cut in the card blank too, with some pale turquoise inks smooshed around on the inside of the card to show through the hole
There's also an extra layer (peach card) to create a border between the base and upper panel.  I used a larger circle die to cut the aperture in the peach layer to make lining it all up easier.

The heart is dangling freely on the silver cord so I cut the heart shape twice, once in reverse, and adhered the two pieces together so that both sides are the same when it twirls around.

The heart is cut from pieces of card inked with several shades of ink, then stencilled with glittery hearts 
The bird is made in a similar way.  The little heart forms part of the embossed image already in the die, I just stencilled through with a deeper colour
I used more of the peach and pink inked card to cut the cute little flowers, adding some tiny stamens from my stash
To finish I tied a seam binding ribbon around the top and made a two-tone multi loop bow to complete

I love that not only do these dies work so well together, but that I know that I can use each one of them in other, separate projects so I'll get great mileage out of them!

 Thanks for visiting, if you click on This Link  you'll find yourself at the Spellbinders store and you can get your hands on this cute little die set too!

Happy Crafting

 

Glittery Hibiscus

Morning All
Friday again!  Bit of a Bleary Bunny this morning - when I put my right contact lens in this morning it decided to go for a little explore.... if you wear lenses you'll know what a pain (literally) that can be!  Always takes ages for eyes to settle down and stop feeling sore and teary when that happens, so I'm even less on-the-ball than usual!

As always Friday means Daring Cardmakers Day
and this week is special because we have Shabneez setting her very first challenge for us:

"Those of you who know me, know I love a little sparkle and bling in my life and of course I had to incorporate it into the challenge I set. 
So, with the theme of
  All That Glitters Is Not Gold

 I would like to see you use glitter on your cards - the more the better!It can be in loose form, tape, card, washi, whatever you fancy but bring out that sparkle!

 I'm loving all the inspiration the Design Team have provided this week.  Please do check out their blogs for more information on what they used to create their sparkly cards."   

Now, as no-one is reading this, so I can quietly make my confession - I got it wrong.  I didn't read Shabneez's instructions properly.  We were supposed to use lots of glittery things, any colour, any type - just not gold.  hmmm yes, my card was finished and photographed before I noticed that last bit, so I 'persuaded' Shabneez to take  it out - you won't tell anyone, will you?

Info:

I used a couple of Versamagic chalk inks (Tea Leaves and Aloe Vera) on smooth white card, then stencilled over 'Tiny Spinning Tops' (Crafters Workshop) with Gold Sparkle Medium (Imagination Crafts). 

This piece was matted onto a card blank covered with a toning piece of green Bazzill 'Classic' textured card

For the Hibiscus I used a lovely Prima stencil.  Several shades of pink in were used to colour the main flower stencil, then the second part of the stencil was taped in place and darker inks used for the detail areas.  More Sparkle Medium was stencilled over the top - I realised I don't have enough colours of this gorgeous stuff so ended up mixing in some dark pink stencil paint with the shade of pink Sparkle Medium that I did have, to get something dark enough

For the sentiment, I used a couple of pale pink inks on some spare card and pc generated the wording, then die cut (Creative Dies). 

The little butterfly is the smallest from 'Butterfly Trio'  (Memory Box), vut once in Glitter card and once in a pearl card

Wide satin ribbon was knotted around the card, and the hibiscus adhered over using foam tape

Do you remember my card for last week's challenge?
When I'd finished stencilling the background, there was loads of ink left on the actual stencil and on the little pieces of old wet-wipe cloth I'd used to ink it up, so, I taped the stencil onto a fresh piece of card and smooshed the spare ink around over it to make another background piece for another project later
Amazingly I even made something with it.  It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped but I'll share it anyway!

The Daring Cardmakers blog is full of glittery gorgeousness today, and I hope you'll head over to see.  We'd love it if you'd join in this time around too

Thank you for visiting

 

Honeysuckle Vine

Hello there, how are you doing?

I seem to be chasing my tail today and getting nowhere very fast.  No real reason for it either!  One day I will be an organised person, with projects done, photos taken and edited and blog posts scheduled and all ready to look after themselves.  Well, you never know, do you?

I did have the 'making' part of today's Sketch File project done in good time - it was the rest I struggled with, hence the lateness of this post.
I think I was inspired to use the Honeysuckle Vine die for this one by the way the honeysuckle in our garden is flowering like crazy; the pergola is simply covered with it.  

 I tend to use little pieces of old wet-wipe to add the colours to a stencil and after I've done the main stencilling  there's usually lots of ink left on the cloths and on the stencil itself, so it's worth moving the stencil to a spare piece of card and using whatever ink is left to make another background - these tend to end up much softer in colour than the original - which is what happened here.  I'd used greys, browns and blues to make a masculine card (to be shared on a later post), but using up the inky cloths made this soft grey effect which I think is lovely

I used THIS Sketch:

Info:

Smooth White card blank, extra of the same for the stencilling

Grey card and Silver card for matting

Extra silver card for some flowers

Silver Glitter card for Honeysuckle Vine die cut 

A few shades of mauve ink swooshed over a scrap of Bazzill Diamond White card (both sides), for cutting the flowers

Small flat backed pearls

Sentiment panel was pc generated and printed in grey

Die: Honeysuckle Vine (Memory Box). 

 The flowers were also cut using the same die

 

 I love purple shades, but always struggle to use them in my crafting - no idea why that is!  However, just using this small amount with lots of grey and silver really worked well, I think.

Anyway, that's it for this time, Thank you for visiting, 

I hope you'll leave a comment.