Gone Crackers

 

 I hope you've had a good week.  
I'm afraid that once again its been one of those weeks of many projects started but very few getting completed.  I really need to pull my finger out and get on with my crafty to-do list,  At least the Christmas shopping is well on its way - when the crafty muse fails to show up, there's always retail therapy - even if is for things for other people!

Anyway.... I did manage to get my DCM project completed and photographed ahead of Friday morning for a change so that was good.  The fact that its now Saturday and I've just started writing my blog post, we won't mention, eh?!

Countdown to Christmas Week 4 for the Daring Cardmakers has us moving right away from cards for our projects

This time we're not making cards at all!

Boxes and Bags

A handmade box or bag can make even the
smallest gift special and they are fun to make.
We'd love to see what you can make
to present a gift in

 

I made a cracker, using an old DoCrafts Xcut die which I've had for years and really love. Sometimes, if I want to put something inside which is too long for the central portion of the cracker, I cut the whole thing in half and add an extra length of card between the cut ends - its easy to disguise the alteration, or just use a toning or contrasting strip and it looks like a design element!

This one doesn't have any alteration though

 

Info  

The paper design is from a digi set called Cute Christmas II by MaishopDigitalArt 

The die does all the hard work, so all you have to do is roll the card a little to give it some shape, pop the tabs into the slits and squish the ends in at the cleverly cut 'hinges' (sorry, I'm sure there's a proper word but I can't think what it is!)

To decorate I tied the gold and turquoise ribbons to rubber bands, which I added to those 'hingey' places to keep it all in shape. 

Next I printed off a couple of A5 pieces of 2 more of the paper set designs. From the striped one I made a band to go around the middle of the cracker and used an EK Success border punch along each edge, then added a narrow strip of the dotty paper on top.  Once this was secured, I made the rosette (Spellbinders) from more of the dotty paper and added a couple of glittery die-cut snowflakes on top.

To finish I glued a gold gem to the centre of the snowflake

The rubber band means they are easy enough to fill, and the cracker is big enough for a couple of chocolates or a mini shower gel type bottle. They would make great place settings for your table.  To give a small sized gift in, you might want to add that extra strip to the centre. I'd say the tube is about 4-5cms in diameter

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

All Dressed Up (Countdown to Christmas 3)

 

 I hope you've had a good week.  
Its been a week of many crafty 'starts', but few projects reaching the 

finishing line for me!

Countdown to Christmas Week 3 for the Daring Cardmakers is a Card Challenge:

This week please share your cards on a theme of
All Dressed Up
We'd like to see your Christmas Jumpers, or Mittens, boots, hat or scarf.... or if you'll be somewhere warm this Christmastime maybe you'll be thinking Christmas T-shirts, flip-flops and beachwear instead - its up to you

 

 
Info

I used a stencil and a few shades of blue embellishing Mousse, plus silver (Tonic Studios) to make the off-the-edge circle, then a Memory Box Snowy skies stencil and Stamperia Silver Glitter paste over the top

The snow family are made using 3 x punches and white glitter card/

The scarves and the top hat are cut using a very very old QuicKutz die. the other hats are hand cut.  

The various sizes of circles are holly or mistletoe berry dies and the moustache is made using waste from a scallop edging punch!

I added some shiny red thread, a pc generated sentiment and some punched red glitter stars to finish

   

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

 

 

Gorgeous Gifts - A Gift Card Holder

 

Hello

Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

The news that a Covid19 vaccine might finally be within touching distance at last gives us all some hope for feeling more confident about the future

 and a 'normal'  life.

I'm not sure how soon it'll be before I'm happy to sit in a busy restaurant or get on an aeroplane for a 'Greek-fix', though - I'm rather risk-averse!

Week 2 of the Daring Cardmakers Countdown to Christmas series is an 'Anything Crafty' Challenge with a Gifts theme

Gorgeous Gifts

It simply means that we'd love to see anything on a theme of Gifts this week.
So it could be a card featuring parcels all wrapped up, a gift you've made for a friend, or how about a card and gift combined? This could be a bookmark, gift card or a little chocolatey treat as an added extra on your card.

 I made a Gift Card Holder, as I often buy those kind for things for our various nephews and nieces and its so much nicer to put them in something other than an envelope

Info

I cut the card base from double sided gold card, then used some fabulous digital papers from MayTreeDesignStore which I resized and printed onto white Bazzill card.  I love the versatility of Digital papers!

I used one design for the front and back of the card. These were adhered in place with one end of my pieces of ribbon stuck between the layers.

To decorate I made a parcel shape from some spare digi paper and topped it with a glitter card 'lid' before gluing it onto a recycled clothing tag.

The tag was adhered to the card, and embellished with another piece of ribbon and some tiny stars cut from the gold and blue papers. The letters were cut from a shinier gold card using an alphabet die set 

For the inside of the card I used 2 of the paper designs. Two equal pieces to got on the left and right, and a design with wording on to make the holder section. The gift card tucks inside the folded holder piece

I'll probably add a panel to the inside for writing my message inside

 

   

These are quite easy to make, especially if you use digital paper as you aren't constrained by how much of a design you've got left ;) and if it all goes wrong, you can just print some more!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

 

 

DCM Countdown to Christmas wk1: November Inspiration

 

Hello

I do hope you are keeping safe and well and getting to grips with the Lockdown 2. To be honest,  I don’t hold out much hope that all those selfish people who’ve ignored all the advice and carried on socialising in large groups because they don’t give a toss about anyone but themselves will behave any differently. At least a lockdown means that those of us who are trying to keep those we care about safe can do so. 

This week on the  Daring Cardmakers  we're kicking off our Countdown to Christmas series and over the next few weeks we hope to inspire you to get crafty with a variety of projects and themes.

Some will be cards,Some other papercraft projects, and some will be for absolutely anything you want to make and share.
Although the themes will be Christmassy, that doesn't mean you can't 'think outside the box' and make non-Christmas projects too!

We'll stick to cards this week, and as usual our first challenge of the month is our
 Elemental Inspiration Challenge.  
 For November we're kicking off our Countdown to Christmas with a mood-board stuffed with loads of ideas for you to choose from.
 Remember, you just need to pick a minimum 3 elements from the picture to use when making your card, The colour palette counts as one element

 

 From the picture I chose the colours, the squares and the tree and made this card

 

Info

Starting with a white card blank, I used washi tape to mask off the borders and filled the centre area with a turquoise shade of Tonic Studio’s Embellishment Mousse. Next I used a stencil to add gold stars over one corner. 

The overlapping squares we’re cut in different types of gold card using two sizes of Scribbled Squares dies - also Tonic Studios. 
The trees are all unbranded dies that I saw on Amazon and couldn’t resist as they looked so cute. I cut them in various card types in gold, white and turquoise 

 

 

I added a few punched gold stars and tiny red gems to the trees, then a pc generated sentiment with a gold thread faux loopy bow

   

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

 

 

 

Fireworks!

    Hello....

What? Two posts in one week? I'll keep this one short, I promise!

So. just a quick post for this week's Daring Cardmakers project. 

Jenny is in the Challenge Setter's Chair for the very first time this week and once again, we have a topical challenge for everyone  to have some fun with!

"I'm so happy to be setting your challenge this week for the first time! 

Next week in the UK it's Guy Fawkes day or Bonfire Night on the 5th of November so in honour of this I would love to see your

 Fireworks 

themed projects this time round.

  In case you haven't heard of Guy Fawkes, he was part of the Gunpowder plot in 1605 which attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament .  The plot failed as someone warned the government and they caught them in the act and executed them for their crimes.  Traditionally we would celebrate by going to a firework display where we would burn a "guy" on a bonfire.  For those outwith the UK don't panic, nobody is actually harmed, it's just a fake!  When I was a kid we used to get an old shirt and pair of trousers and tie the ankles and wrists with string before stuffing him with scrunched up newspapers and adding a balloon head.  So every year we remember poor Guy and his friends and their failed plot to bring down the government!"

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

 

 It's ages since I made a pyramid (aka Tepee)card, but I do remember there being a pyramid shaped firework in the firework selection boxes we had when we were small, so I thought I could probably alter one of those card folds to fit in with the theme.  It does fold relatively flat so could go in a DL envelope

Info

 

My Pyramid Card and printing Tutorial is Here

Following the tutorial, I printed out 3 pieces of star design digital paper (from an old Funky Hand collection) and glued the pieces together as shown on the link.

Once I'd put the pyramid together, I cut off the 'legs' you get when you make this card shape, to leave just the triangular pyramid. 

So that you can fold the pyramid into an envelope you need to fold two edges together and make a crease down the entre of one 'face' of the pyramid, its easier to do this before you start decorating!

I cut a small piece off the tip so that I could glue the 'fountains' of 

 paper and wire inside. 

These were made bu fringing silver paper and twirling it tightly around the ends of the lengths of wire before poking through and gluing it into the hole at the top of the pyramid.  

I added silver and red glitter stars along the pieces of wire. 

The words were created on the pc and printed out onto card before 

adding to the card front.

 The phot below shows the card when its folded down for mailing.  You might find a paper-clip helps to hold it flatter

We'd love to see your firework inspired creations, so please join in and share them with us!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Where the Heart Is

 

Hello!

I hope your week is going well, things are better here now because our heating is fixed at last! It seems that several things went wrong at around the same time, not just the boiler but the thermostat and other electrical things. We ended up getting the boiler fixed and then replacing everything else with a 'Hive'.  Once Hubby read that you could self-install the Hive, there was no way he'd miss out on that new challenge so Saturday saw him drawing wiring plans and reading up or wathcing videos on how to do it and by Saturday afternoon we were all set up again and the frequent trips into the loft to manually turn the heating on andoff were over.

He checked on his phone when he'd finished and found he'd done 22
'flights of stairs' while doing the job - but worth the effort as it cost a lot less than the £300+ that the electrician quoted

When the Lockdown first happened the people on our street made a big effort to connect with each other and its continued ever since, with regular Sunday chats in the street. So we were really sad when some of our lovely Neighbours moved to a new house.  We hoped to see them at our Sunday chats once they'd settled in, but the Rule of Six has made it more difficult for everyone to get together, even with our careful social distancing.

Anyway, I made this card to wish them well in their new home:

Info

White card blank stencilled with aqua inks.  I used the stripey stencil horizontally, then turned it vertically to get the criss-cross pattern

Die cut letters cut once in aqua, and 4 times in red, then glued together in stacks

Tonic Studios Scribbled Circles were die cut in silver, red hearts from various sets were added, then the little house matted on top.  I added some foil elements behid the windows and fanlight, and used an inked piece of card to make the door.

The sentiment was printed from the pc

 That's all for today, thank you so much for visiting, I hope you'll leave a comment, ots always lovely to know you're not talking to yourself

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Ghoullies and Ghosties

   Hello....

Just a quick post for this week's Daring Cardmakers project.  Better than my usual moaning, I hear you say....

Rizwana is this week's challenge setter and has a topical challenge for everyone this week:

  'Spooktacular Makes'

Show us your spooky cards or other spooky makes for Halloween. 

You can have scary pumpkins, ghosts, witches, bats,
spiders, skeletons...
 the spookier the better.

 

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

 

 When it comes to Halloween I'm the miserable old bag who locks up early, closes the blinds, draws the curtains and doesn't open the door to anyone. It's not so much having fun at Halloween parties (when such things were possible!), with all the traditional 'bobbing for apples type games etc, its the way the "Trick or Treat" thing has obliterated all the local traditions of different countries. 

I think its a real shame when that happens - I'm sorry, but there it is!

Anyway, a challenge is a challenge so I made a little ghostie

Info

I'm useless at drawing, but managed to come up with this simple ghost shape.  I copied it onto the it on the reverse of a piece of white card before cutting out as Purple card blank with piece of black card the same width, but shorter, to leave upper and lower border.  Before adhering it to the card, some silver thread was  wound randomly around it for a spider's web kind of effect. 

I die cut circles i the ghost large enough for these bigger than usual googly eyes to pop through.  The ghost was adhered to the card using foam pads and the eyes slid under and into place.  

The mouth is a hand cut shape added on top

The die cut letters are cut using a Lawn Fawn alpha set.

 

Do pop over and see what the team have been making this week - and we would love to see your spooky creations!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

What is a Snowflake?

 

 Hello....

 I'm late with my  Daring Cardmakers post this week.  Still struggling with with my Autumn Blues, feeling 'bleurgh' and everything being so much harder to do.  The heating is still not fixed, but at least we can turn it on manually now - even if it does mean OH climbing up into the loft to switch it on and off. It seems that its not only the boiler, but all the various electrical 'bits' too.  The electrician is due early next week so fingers are crossed for that.

  Anyway, Joanne is this week's challenge setter for the Daring Cardmakers

Did you know it's 

World Dictionary Day? 

I need very little persuasion to celebrate words - celebrate with us by using a dictionary definition, dictionary or book page or make words the focal point of your creation this week.

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

 

 Info

I started by stencilling a silver snowflake in the top left and lower right corners of the card blank

2 x Tonic Studios Scribbled Circle die cuts were glued onto the card (one glitter card, 1 pearl card) using foam tape.

A selection of medium and small snowflake dies were cut in a
variety of silver, white and turquoise card types and layered around the circles.

The Snowflake definition piece was created on the pc, resized and printed onto card. This was then matted onto turquoise mirror card before adhering in place.

To finish I added a few turquoise and silver gems and pearls

 

 

Anyway, do pop over and see what the team have been making this week - and we would love to see your mail-themed creations!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Glittery Stencilled Christmas

 

 hi there

I hope your week is going well so far - I had a really grotty day yesterday - the sort where only the duvet will do! Feeling better today though, so hopefully a duvet day did the trick!

We had another quiet weekend - to be fair, all the weekends are 'quiet' these days!OH was in the garage. tarting up the old cupboards he's bought for his new storage, and I sat at my craft desk and got glittery!

 I had a lot of fun experimenting with glitter paste and stencils and thought I'd share what happened with you today

 

Always on the look out for a short-cut when making Christmas cards I decided to take a risk and try stencilling directly on to some card blanks - these are some I've already run through the printer to add our Christmas message to the insides - again, a short cut!

Having done a few images just using a single colour of glitter paste, I got a bit adventurous and decided to add some more colours to the same images

Info

These are 12x12cm card blanks

Nuvo Glitter Paste by  Tonic Studios

Both stencils by Funky Fossil

I've added guidelines with a Sharpie pen to frame the snowflake design and 

help line it up with the edges of the card/

A strip of washi tape holds the stencil in place, but allows me to lift it up to check the design has stencilled properly

To begin with I used a pink glitter paste

I wiped my spatula and without moving the stencil spread some

 gold glitter gel over some areas. 

Then I removed the stencil to leave this pattern

Once dry I added a gem to the centre and a black and white printed sentiment
 

Here's thee rest of the cards made using a couple of stencils, different colours of glitter paste and some gems, printed sentiments, the odd die cut and some gold thread

 

Rather than clean the stencils between uses, I taped another card in place and spread the remaining glitter paste through to the new card - you can just lift the stencil while its still attached at the top to check how the pattern looks and add more paste if required.

 

That's all for today, thank you so much for visiting, I hope you'll leave a comment, ots always lovely to know you're not talking to yourself

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Vintage Decoupage Postcard

 Hello....

 It's a bright, blue sky kind of day here, but I'm Mrs Grumpy again!  I have good reason to be - we thought the issue with the boiler of a few weeks back had gone, but no its got worse and we've had no heating for the last few days and any hot water that was left in the system is on the cool side of tepid now.  

Have you tried getting a plumber lately?  🙍

So we're going to hang on and keep our fingers well and truly crossed that our regular builder - plumber, who has plenty of experience with the house's weird plumbing  will find a few spare minutes to pop round and try to fix it because I get super-grumpy when I'm cold! Oh, and I have a headache too....

  Anyway, its Daring Cardmakers day Svenja has come up with something a bit different for us this week:

It's just the right time of the year for making cards and writing 

letters. Aaaand October 9th is world post day - so let's see some
Mail Art this week! You could feature letters and envelopes
on your card, decorate a beautiful envelope, make a postcard
 or even create some faux postage.

 

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

 

I decided to make a postcard....but then was stuck for what to put on it (so often the case when I sit down with half an idea in my head!)

I've a 12x12 paper pad by DCWV which has a Paris theme - the papers are fabulous, but a bit too big to be really useful for cards and mini album, but that said they are rarely put away on the shelf because I've used them for so many things- its one of those sets you keep digging into but the stack never seems to get smaller! Anyway, one of the papers has a few vintage postcard type images on it, so I thought one of those would be a good starting point

 Info

I cut the basic postcard shape from one of the DCWV 12x12 papers, then adhered it to some card to make it more mail-able.

Next I tore small pieces from other papers in the set, and a few bits from another Paris set of 8x8 papers, which may also be DCWV but must be at least 8 years old by now! I pasted down the scraps of printed papers, plus a few bits of gold foil biscuit wrapper (just happened to be on my desk...) and used thin coatings of PVA glue in between the paper layers to seal them.  I sprinkled Glimmer Dust over the glue while it was still wet, then when dry carried on adding more scraps of torn paper. more glue etc.  For the upper layers I used pieces cut rather than torn from the paper - the Gold Eiffel Tower, the words, the striped paper, flowers, and arranged them on the card before gluing down.  

The pink poodle is a die cut added for a bit of fun. 

Anyway, do pop over and see what the team have been making this week - and we would love to see your mail-themed creations!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when people take the time to leave a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe, its getting a bit Covid-scary out there