A Glimmer of Sunshine

Here in the UK the weather has been appalling - so much rain, so much flooding, so much suffering - it seems like it's been raining for ever. My heart goes out to those people, particularly in the west country who are really up against it, with homes flooded out and villages cut off because of all the water. 
When will common sense prevail and they'll stop building on flood plains and they'll realise that there was a good reason that  rivers and streams were regularly dredged in the past?  That old saying "A stitch in time saves nine" springs to mind, eh?
It might not solve the problem entirely, but surely it would help. We seem to lurch between deluges like this and water shortages like a couple of years back atm
Kathy climbs off her soapbox.



Over on The Daring Cardmakers today  Leo has chosen the February colour combo - and it's a bit like when the rain stops and the sun comes out with a grey, yellow and orange palette that we've all enjoyed using this week.  The blog looks gorgeous and definitely worth a look.

The Sketch File

My card is very simple and Kaz and Joanne will be amazed to see so much white space!  I didn't even do my usual trick of "lifting" the white space by sneaking in a bit of embossing.

I've used the February LO from The Sketch File for my card, I've just moved the feature area down to the bottom corner. 

 I couldn't decide on the "where to put the sentiment?" question - so I left it off. 
Still not sure that it doesn't need something else though...

Materials and Tools

2 x Grey-green papers from MME "Miss Caroline

Ribbon and Twill tape

Lokta paper for flower

Grey flat backed pearls

SU Blossom punch

2 x plain circle Nesties 

I love using the handmade Lokta paper for flowers, this peachy-orange stuff I bought in France a few years ago and is a bit tricky to cut because the thickness varies so much between tissue-thin and bulky bumpy bits but I think it's worth preserving as the end result is so soft and pretty

Here's a quick peek at Leo's inspiration photo for this challenge

Image source: Pinterest

That's it for this time.
Thanks for visiting

Take It Away!

it's my turn to share something Funky on the Get Funky and Craft Inspiration blog.

I'm hoping these will "whet" your appetite for some new image downloads coming soon to the Funky Hand shop.

There's a new range of takeaway coffee cup images due out in the next few days - they are so cute, and it doesn't take long to put together something with the perfect message already incorporated. 

T made this one using the  papers from the "Tea's Up!" collection which costs just £3.49.  I did most of the work on the pc, choosing the papers to use then adding the image over the papers I wanted to use, then resizing and cropping off any spare "paper" so that I only printed exactly what I needed.  Believe it or not, I was able to fit all these, including some paper for the background on to one sheet of A4

I shared another of these cards a couple of weeks back for a Daring Cardmakers challenge,

For this one I used papers from the "I Love You Sew" download collection priced at £3.19

The coffee cups on these cards are fixed to the card base with "box hinges" - I've explained a bit more about them on the GFandC BLOG so please pop over and have a look - it would be great if you'd leave a message to say you were there, too ;)

That's it for this time, I need to get back to my craft desk....

Long Time, No Sketch

Back after a bit of a lengthy Winter Break, there's a new LO idea on The Sketch File today.  I'm quite pleased with this one as I think it can be used in different ways - one of my plans is to use it just for the sentiment or title on something, but for this week I've kept it pretty simple and made a card using the sketch pretty much as it is on the blog.

I actually just used some scrap card I'd been doing some Gelatos "experiments" with to make this!  They were just lying on my desk - I thought the shades of blue water-coloured card would make a pretty background so cut a large scalloped circle from it, stuck it on the card then looked around for what to do next! 
Yes - I really am THAT good at planning ahead!  not!
I spotted another piece of card, this time I'd used the Gelatos just swept across straight from the crayon, quite firmly for that deep colour - no water, but a bit of blending with my finger to merge the purple and 2 shades of blue together.  I just hand cut a few shapes to make some bunting for the horizontal lines on the sketch. 
Now with some bunting on a blue sky background the obvious thing to add for the top (heart) element of the sketch was a fluffy cloud.
I was just going to put a piece of ribbon as the vertical stroke, but then had a bit of a lightbulb moment and added the kite instead. 
I just love it when it works Like that!
Here's the sketch

If you pop over to The Sketch File you can see Brenda's fab card too - and find the InLinkx gadget to add your own projects if you join in and make something

Thanks for visiting, please leave a comment....

Girls have hammers too!

This week Lythan's challenge for the Daring Cardmakers is all about

 Belts and Braces 

apparently in honour of the 31st anniversary of the wearing of car seat belts being made compulsory here in the UK.

hmmm, so what to do with that one then?
After a lot of umming and ahhing and generally "not a clues" I thought I could make a Tool Belt - maybe it was something to do with the extension being built at the house across the street and the seemingly endless number of white builders vans this seems to necessitate! 
It would be good to give Mr Craft Robo a workout - it might be the last time as one day soon I'm going to have to get that new Silhouette out of the box and learn how to use it.

I did plan to make this a regular sort of "masculine" tool belt but then I changed my mind and made a girlie version instead.  After all girls wield hammers and spanners too - and I thought I'd make it a New Home card, because  if you're moving to a new house chances are you're going to be needing a tool kit.

Materials and Tools

Various shades of card from my scrap box

Bakers Twine

Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes embossing folder - used twice to make the background piece wide enough

 The tool belt template was created from a colouring page image and cut using Craft Robo

The sentiment was pc generated and printed direct to the card

The bunting was hand cut from scraps

It was the background that was the most difficult part of this card - how often does that happen?   That irritating thing when You've got an embellishment or focus piece made and ready to use then you can't work out how to display it....but if you start with the the background, then it's the top bit that causes the difficulties.  Or maybe it's just me.

Anyway, you can see some great ideas for "belting up" (so to speak) over on the DCM BLOG
That's it for now - and yes, another single post blogging week - I am crafting, I promise, but just can't share yet.

Please come and visit again soon - it would be great if you'd leave a message before you head off again....
Bye for now.

Stripes and a bit of upcycling!

This week's challenge  on the Daring Cardmakers is set by Zuzana and is nice and simple - Zuz just wants to see lots of stripes on our cards.
No problem, I thought - I have masses of striped papers I could use.
But then a little parcel of new paints and some new masks/stencils turned up and the idea of using papers was forgotten
In the end, I didn't use  my new paints, but I did use one of the new stencils, a Stampers Anonymous one by Tim Holtz
The "upcycling" bit in the title refers to the flower....can you guess why?

 Materials and Tools

Striped background made using "Burlap" layering stencil from Stampers Anonymous

Various DewDrop, Versamagic and Cats Eye  ink pads

Horizontal piece and twirly bits made from extra card strips coloured with some of the inks

Velvet ricrac braid

Doily die and flower petals die by MFT - Die'Namics

So what is the flower made from?
Well, the other day I was doing a bit of ink-resist embossing so used a couple of baby wipes to clean the ink from the embossing folder- being a messy moo I'd just left the damp and inky wipes lying on the desk.  Going to actually clear myself some working space I thought how pretty the wipes were....and surely I could do something with them.... So I put them aside to dry properly, thinking maybe they would make pretty coiled roses. 
 In the end though I decided to try die-cutting them.  The die I chose is quite a simple shape and this was a good thing because the wipes do "pull" at the edges when you cut them and I did need to trim a few stray strands off with scissors.  

Next time I'll try them with a sheet of paper over the dies to see if that improves the cut
I used two sizes of the dies in the set for this flower and there are a few layers of each size.  I really like the softness of the baby-wipe and especially the variegated shading of the pink - you end up with quite a nice carnation effect, I think.
So there you go - look at those inky, painty baby wipes as a potential embellishment from now on.  I'm not sure it would work for most of the ones I use as they tend to be a revolting mess of colours!

Thanks for looking
Please join in with us over at the DCM BLOG this week

Coffee, Anyone?

After  last week's blog-fest, I'm back to being rubbish at updating my blog.  Must try harder....

This week it's my turn in the Daring Cardmakers challenge-setting hot-seat:

"What's Your Tipple?"
 or alternatively, "I'll Drink to That!"

- it's all about the things we like to drink;  Tea, Coffee, Wine, Beer, Drinking Chocolate.....and the bottles, cups, glasses and mugs we use for them too

I love my cappuccinos, but at this time of year it's often a big mug of thick, rich, hot chocolate that hits the spot.  I like to heat the milk using the steamer bit of my cappuccino machine so I can top the mug off with some milky froth... mmmm I think I'll go and make one NOW!

So to recap (and get myself back on-topic) this week I'd like to see lots of drinks and drinking vessels on your card.

Cheers!

For my card I've used something from Funky Hand that fitted the bill perfectly.  I had to get Anice's go-ahead to show this one as this fab image is so new it's not even available to buy yet - but it will be soon - so check out the shop at the end of January!

What you will get when you buy this download is the plain image so that you can print and colour, or paper-piece, or use however you prefer.

For my card I did most of the preparation work on the computer, selecting the parts of the image I wanted to print on the different layers, then layering the image onto the paper designs before printing out all the bits ready to stick together.  The papers I've used are from Funky Hand's "I Love You Sew" download collection, I printed extra designs to use for the background of the card.

Although it took a while to do all the digital prep work, the actual card then took about 5 minutes to cut out the layers and glue together!  I made the coffee mug stand out from the card by adding a box hinge behind it.

Materials

White square card blank

Coffee Take-Out mug Digital Image from Funky Hand (coming end of January)

All papers: "I Love You Sew" Digital  Download, also Funky Hand 

printed onto white Bazzill card
Scrap of card to make the hinge

Well, that's got to be the shortest materials list ever!

Please head over to the DCM BLOG and check out all the fab cards the team have made this week - and of course, it would be great if you'd join in and play along with us this week.

Thanks for visiting

DCM - Back after our Holiday Break

As usual the Daring Cardmakers took a couple of weeks off over Christmas and New Year but we're back this week.  We're having another year of First Friday Colour Combo Challenges, but for this month only it's happening on the 2nd Friday as we weren't here on the fisr one!

Nat has chosen such a pretty colour palette to inspire us to get going with our crafting again.  

 I decided to use plain and textured layers of the warm cream shade as the background for the rest of the colours

The main layer has been embossed with a chevron embossing folder, and the upper panel is plain with 4 heart shaped mini apertures cut from it.  I adhered small pieces of patterned paper to the lower layer so that they would show through the holes, then cut extra hearts from card covered with more scraps of patterned paper.  Most are raised on tiny scraps of card and one has a little "hinge" behind it for even more dimension

I plaited lengths of seam binding to make a curvy ribbon trim to go across the card

Materials and Tools

Smooth Cream card

Various scraps of Funky Hand papers

Paper String, Seam Binding, Flat-backed pearls

6x6 Embossing folder; Crafter's Companion

2x heart punches, MFT Heart die set

Tag die set; Die'sire by Crafter's Companion

 

Please visit The Daring Cardmakers BLOG to see some gorgeous cards from our fab team of designers

As you'll know if you've visited here over th last couple of days, I've been lucky enough to get to play with some of the Teresa Collins A4 embossing folders designed with the eBosser in mind and being released at the CHA over in the USA, well, although there are quite a few more to go, I'm only allowed to share 5 of my sneak peeks at the moment, so here's the last for now.  Hopefully it won't be too long efore we're given the OK to share some more of things we've made with these fab folders

"Sophisticated"

This card has an embossed Vellum wrap and the flower is cut from inked and embossed vellum 

 

Teresa Collins A4 embossing folder; "Sophisticated"
Stamp: Die’Sire Sentimentals "Memories are Made"
Die'sire: Quilling Sunflower – Small
Die'sire: Cameo Stamping Frame

 All these products from Crafter's Companion 

Just another reminder that you can join Crafter's Companion's very own Leann Chivers live from CHA on Create and Craft TV at 4pm (GMT) on Saturday 11th January - tomorrow!  to see some fab new products, including the Teresa Collins Designs Collection of eBosser A4 folders I've shown a couple of here. 

Thanks for visiting, I hope you'll come back again soon

CHA Sneak Peeks 2

 Two more sneak peek at the new A4 embossing folder designs from Teresa Collins which will be released at the CHA exhibition in the USA.  
It's all very exciting to be part of - even if it is only the minutest, teeniest weeniest bit imaginable!

Cabbage Rose

This Cabbage Rose folder has such a glorious, bold design that keeping it all very simple seemed the best way to go.  I used Faded Lipstick (I think) Distress Ink, applied directly to the upper side of the embossing folder.  I quite like the uneven shading you get this way because of the "watered silk fabric" look you get. Peeking in at the corner of the photo you can see a rose made with Crafter's Companion's Die'sire Quilling Rose  (Small) 

Dotted Chevrons
Another flower in the corner of the next sample, this time it's the Die'sire Quilling Lace Flower.
The embossing folder is another gorgeous chevron design (see yesterday's post for the Twill Herringbone chevrons), this one is called Dotted Chevrons and is also by Teresa Collins, and I've embossed some  lovely Centura White with a Hint of Silver card

 

Teresa Collins: Dotted Chevrons
Stamp: Die’Sire Sentimentals: Memories are Made
Dies: Die'sire Quilling Lace Flower, Cameo Stamping Frame and Circle Doilies

 All these products from Crafter's Companion 

Just a reminder that you can join Crafter's Companion's very own Leann Chivers live from CHA on Create and Craft TV at 4pm (GMT) on Saturday 11th January to see some fab new products, including the Teresa Collins Designs Collection of eBosser A4 folders I've shown a couple of here.  

Hope you like today's sneak peeks!

Christmas Round Up and a First CHA Sneak peek!

Happy new Year!
Okay, that's a teensy bit late, but sometimes it takes a while to get back into the blogging routine, doesn't it?
("What blogging routine?" I hear you say....)
So before I get on to the exciting Sneak Peek things for CHA here's a quick Round up of some Christmas photos as I've very much neglected my poor old blog over the last few weeks - and not in a small way due to the said CHA things!
Please click on the photos  for larger images

 

We went for a Purple red and Gold theme for our tree and parcel wrapping and I loved the way it worked:

This is the card I made for Hubby - all the while I was making other things I was wanting an excuse  to make these paper baubles!

And just one last photo of Christmas makes - because I forgot to take photos of all the other boxes and gift card wallets etc that I made. oops!
Here are some shallow gift boxes made using the WRMK Envelope Punch Board.  They were a bit of a pain until I found a tutorial even this dumb blonde could make sense of!  Definitely need more practise with this little gadget though.

Okay, so on to the exciting stuff!  Over in the USA it's the time of the year when all the crafting folks get very worked up and excited because its CHA show-time.  This is the exhibition where all the Craft companies show off all their new goodies and announce to the world what they think the trends will be for the coming year.  Eventually it all filters through and we get to buy all those new tools, paper and pretties for ourselves - usually this filtering process takes quite a while - especially for the stuff to arrive in the UK shops....but this time I've been a little bit luckier and thanks to Crafter's Companion I've already had the chance to use some of the Teresa Collins Embossing folders that will be released in the next few days.  We've just been "given the nod" that we can blog some Sneak Peeks" of the things we made with the brand new A4 folders, so here are my first two sneak peeks

First up - and my favourite of the  things I made, this one uses the About Time embossing folder.  I embossed patterned paper, then swept black ink over the embossing to highlight the clocks design. I embossed some cream card and chose one of the larger clock faces to shade with lots of Distress Inks and some Versamagic Gold ink, then again used black to highlight the embossing before cutting it out.. 

 The second sneakie for today is a wall hanging using the gorgeous Twill Herringbone embossing folder.  I created the rainbow stripes using paint Shop Pro and printed it onto Centura Pearl "Hint of Silver" - I used the same card for the embossing and I love how crisply the embossing design works on this gorgeous card.

Sentiments on both of these are from the Crafter's Companion "Memories are made" stamp set.
Now then, that's about it for this time - but you may be interested to know that you can join Crafter's Companion's very own Leann Chivers live from CHA on Create and Craft TV at 4pm (GMT) on Saturday 11th January to see some fab new products, including the Teresa Collins Designs Collection of eBosser A4 folders I've shown a couple of here.  

That's it - well done if you got right to the end ;)  
Back soon with more Sneak peeks
Thanks for looking

 

Christmas Lights

Over on the Daring Cardmakers it's time for our last challenge before we take our Christmas break.

For the last dare of 2013 we have. for you....
'This Little Light of Mine'
 Lights are always associated with Christmas - candles, stars, fairy lights - and those "tiered" candle holders from Scandinavia which I can't remember the name of - I'm sure someone will let us know.....
So please use any sort of light associated with the Christmas Season on your cards - and you have an extra long time to join in with us this time as we won't be back with another challenge until 10th of January

Here's my Fairy Lights card

In my initial DT box from Crafter's Companion I received a number of their lovely flower quilling dies.  Now they do make lovely flowers - but sometimes you've just got to think a bit "out of the box, haven't you?  Just to stretch your imagination a little bit....
The sunflower quilling die has proved the most adaptable so far - the pine cones on a card I shared a few days ago were made using the small sunflower die and the fairy lights on this one are made using the larger version.  
I trimmed a little from the piece that holds all the petals together to make it narrower, then used the die again with coloured card to make the lights. In fact, being mean I used a couple of small pieces of card on the die as I didn't really need a whole length of them.
I glued the "light-bulbs" onto the green base strip, added a touch of white gel pen then coated them with Glossy Accents.
The white card was embossed with the pretty Christmas Patchwork folder,  the sentiment is from one of the Christmas Sentiments sets and the red label is also from Crafter's Companion

 Materials and Tools

Smooth white card, Bazzill Red, Blue, Yello, Green

Glossy Accents, White Gel pen

Die'sire Sunflower Quilling Die (large), Christmas Patchwork Embossing folder, Sentiment stamp, Label die all by Crafter's Companion

Hopefully I'll manage to update the poor neglected blog again soon - I've been woefully bad over the last few weeks!

 Just in case I don't get here before the BIG day, I'd love to wish you a great 

big, wonderful, 

shiny, glittery and very Happy Christmas

Christmas Film Quotes

Oh gosh, I really struggled with Beckie's challenge for the Daring Cardmakers this week! 

    Beckie here today with my dare for you .....

    'The best way to spread Christmas Cheer,
    is singing loud for all to hear.'    I love the movie Elf and this has to be one the best sayings from the movie! So this week I am challenging you to use a quote from your favourite Christmas movie on your card.

Well - I think the last time I watched a "Christmas" film it would have been "The Snowman" as we'd sit the whole school (4-7s) down in front of it as a treat just before the Christmas holidays to give us teachers the chance to do some clearing and sorting!  As you'll undoubtedly know, there's not much in the way of dialogue in that one!
I MUST have seen some of the films that came up in my google search, but obviously they didn't make much impact.  So I cheated and just looked around for a quote that I could use whether or not I'd seen the film.  I found one from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" based on the Dr. Seuss story and I think it sums up what Christmas is all about.
Here's my card

I started by making the text piece on the pc, then printed it twice.  One to use for the card, the other to use as a pattern as I wanted to do a bit of emboss-resist around the text.  This involves cutting around the text, then making a couple of layers of the same patterned "hole" and sticking them together.  It's easy to do using a die-cut shape, but a bit more work when you want a more free-form space like for this.
That done, I placed the other printed piece of card in the embossing folder, then the aperture pattern I'd just made over the top of the folder - I usually use a little bit of Pritt-stick glue to keep it exactly in the right place.  Now it's ready to go through the machine.  If you look closely you can see the "wibbly" outline around the text

The embossing folder I used has different patterns on it as you can see. Usually it's for using with the dots at the top and the snowflakes at the bottom with a space between perfectly made to fit a ribbon.
I cut a layered star in silver and glittered card and added silver ribbon, some extra snowflakes, some glitter and some gems.

Materials and Tools

Navy Blue card Blank, Silver card, White card

Glitter card; Silver and White

Glamour Dust Glitter, Gems

Embossing folder: Christmas Elegance (Crafter's Companion)

Snowflake punches; Martha Stewart, EK Success

Snowflake die; Small snowflakes 4x4 die (Cheery Lynn)

pc generated text

Craft Robo cut layered star 

There was a point when I questioned whether I'd actually come up with anything for this challenge - and I do hate to be beaten by a tricky one! Got there in the end though ;)
Do please visit the DCM BLOG to see all the fun cards made this week.
Back with more of my Darice samples next time so I hope you'll come back soon


 

A Prototype

Well, it's not often I write two blog posts on one day!
A while back I saw an idea for a box which lad space for some sort of little treat plus a space to hold a gift card.  We often give Gift Cards and vouchers as presents, but sometimes they seem a bit dull and "sterile".  I thought it was a lovely idea to idea to have a space for a little treat of some kind, be it sweets, nice soaps or some other little extra gift.

 

Now, I was sure I'd saved the link for the instructions somewhere in my Pinterest galleries, but it seems that I didn't - I probably went off on a tangent, following links )as you do) and then forgot where I started, and forgot the most important thing - saving that link.

Well, I'd already bought some treats to use in the box, so unless I wanted to eat them all myself, I had to figure something out.

 So despite having plenty of other things higher up the to-do list, guess what I've been making today.....a prototype box, with a cute little holder at the back for the gift card. 
This box was made specifically to hold these 3 Marks and Spencer choccies, as I'd already bought them.  A better way round would be to make the box and then find sweeties etc to fit! 
I thought I'd share the pictures of my prototype anyway.

The gift card fits in the holder at the back, I've wrapped a ribbon around it and added a little Pull tab so that it's easy to see that there's something else in the box.

What do you think?  Some feedback would be much appreciated :)