Bouquet Full of Whimsy

 

  Hello, 

welcome to my little crafting place

This time I've a whimsical bouquet to share with you!  Created using a fabulous new Spellbinders collection designed by Vicky Papaioannou and called Whimsical Village. I really love everything in it and I hope you'll like what I've been making.

I'd already chosen which of the lovely sentiments from the Whimsical Wishes Clear Stamp Set STP-270 and stamped it in blue ink, to echo the 'blue skies' message.

 So next I inked a card front and a second piece of card in a couple of shades of blue ink which came together to make a beautiful colour to build my bouquet on to. I then embossed the second piece of card with the gorgeous swirly Whimsical Skies 3D Embossing Folder and added it to the card front with some thick scrap card between the layers

Next I die cut lots of the flowers and stems from Whimsical Blooms, I chose somenice bright colours from the ColorWheel Cardstock Pack  and assembling them - I made a lot, so I have leftovers for another project.

The flowers were arranged  and glued down, then I added a raffia bow and some deep purple twine before finishing off with the lovely sentiment matted onto some deep blue card. I love the way it came together and how the colours work, surely this would brighten the day of someone in need of a bit of tlc? 

Finally I added the super-cute dog and cat from the Village Companions  die set, which also includes some clouds, a moon and a layered sun

 I used

from Spellbinders

 

Whimsical Village collection by Vicky Papaioannou 

  

Whimsical Blooms Etched Dies S5-742   

Whimsical Skies 3D Embossing Folder E3D-166 

 

Whimsical Wishes Clear Stamp Set STP-270     

 

If like me you love it all maybe this is a better buy:

Whimsical Village I Want It All! Bundle BD-1061    

 

 Full 48 ColorWheel Cardstock Pack 8.5" x 11"

 

 Other

Smooth white card blank and extra for embossing

Raffia

Purple waxed twine 

 

 

Just a Note

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  THIS is my Affiliate link to the Spellbinders store 

-  you can use it to access the store whenever you buy from Spellbinders

It doesn't cost you anything, but I may get a little reward for pointing you there.

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for coming by, pleas do leave a message if you can!

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, and please come back soon!

 

 Kathy xx

Whimsical Village shadow box collage

 

 Hello, 

welcome to my little crafting place

I've had the best time working with a fabulous new Spellbinders collection desighed by Vicky Papaioannou called Whimsical Village. I really love everything in it and I hope you'll like what I've been making.

My first share is this shadow box collage picture 

I started by die cutting all the hous pieces in several shades of aqua and pink, all from the Full 48 ColorWheel Cardstock Pack  then assembling a whole bunch of the houses before choosing which to use and finding an arrangement I liked. This gave me an idea of the size box I needed to make and cut and folded all the edges, but left it flat. 

 I used the gorgeous swirly embossing folder to make the background, trimmed it down to size and glued it in place, then folded up the edges of the shadow box. 

Next I thought about how to build on the basics to give more detail to the picture.  As well as the houses, I'd already cut lots of pieces using the Whimsical Blooms set and had the idea of making funky topiary shapes using the flower elements -they've turned out so cute!  One of the flower pieces leant itself to a kind of garden shrub shape, so I added that too.  The tiny blossoms come from a recent Treat purchase;  Just Add Cake Birthday Cardmaking Kit - it's quite expensive, but I looked at the contents and I think I'll use everything in the box... plus there was something in there I really, really wanted 😉

Finally I added the super-cute dog and cat from the Village Companions  die set, which also includes some clouds, a moon and a layered sun

 I used

from Spellbinders

 

Whimsical Village collection by Vicky Papaioannou 

 

Whimsical Houses Etched Dies S5-746    

 

Whimsical Blooms Etched Dies S5-742   

Whimsical Skies 3D Embossing Folder E3D-166 

 

Village Companions Etched Dies S2-456       
 

Or, if like me you love it maybe this is a better buy:

Whimsical Village I Want It All! Bundle BD-1061    

 

 Full 48 ColorWheel Cardstock Pack 8.5" x 11"

 

 Other

White Linen card for shadow box

WRMK shadow box punch  

 

Just a Note

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  THIS is my Affiliate link to the Spellbinders store 

-  you can use it to access the store whenever you buy from Spellbinders

It doesn't cost you anything, but I may get a little reward for pointing you there.

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, and please come back soon!

 

 Kathy xx

May Card Chain Challenge

 Hello,

Its time for the Card Chain Challenge May cards reveal and the cards that went around the world in May 2026 can all be seen HERE.

To join in the chain add your link to the list - you will send a card to the person who signed up before you. then wait to receive one from the person who signed up after you.  Don't worry, instructions are sent out to everyone who joins the chain 

 It's a worldwide chain and 25 people made up the chain this time.  It turned out that I was the link between two lovely German cardmakers this time; I sent my card to Gundi in Michendorf and received this beautiful flower card from Imke

 

  All the cards exchanged in May used at least one of the following options:

 

Colour Palette Option

(Exact matching is not required.)

Sketch Option

(Orient as desired.)

Theme Options: Floral / Postal / Friendship

Product / Technique Options: Twine or Thread / Spinner Card

 

 

My card for Gundi

I chose the Floral theme and Friendship from the options, as a new link in the chain, I'm sending and receiving from new friends every time!

I'd made a similar card  a week or two earlier, I liked how it worked out so thought I'd make another in the same vein.  I chose a different flower from the same set and went with sunny yellows rather than pinks

 I used a couple of favourite die sets. 

The slatted square set from Craft Addiction uk  

I cut the 2nd largest die directly into the card front  

One of the lovely flowers from a Spellbinders set of a year or so ago - you can still find it, I've given the name and die number below 

I used Susan Tierney's special flower-making cardstock for the flowers and leaves, inked with various shades of green and yellow 

Inside was partially inked in a few shades of blue ink so that the colour would show through the slats and I added an extra leaf inside for interest. 

To finish I made a set of white on green sentiments using my graphics program and used one of them - the rest will come in handy later. I use Paint Shop Pro and we've just bought the latest version and I don't find it nearly as easy to use as our ancient version!

 Materials

from Spellbinders;

 

Susan's Garden Speciality Cardstock SCS-122 

 

 Simon Hurley Floral Stems Etched Dies S6-215

 Other

Slatted Squares die set: Craft Addiction uk 

Inks 

pc generated sentiment

 

 

If you buy paper craft goodies, such as dies, stencils, stamps etc you may like to use my Spellbinders link 

 

Just a Note

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  THIS is my Affiliate link to the Spellbinders store 

-  you can use it to access the store whenever you buy from Spellbinders

It doesn't cost you anything, but I may get a little reward for pointing you there.

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, and please come back soon!

 

 Kathy xx

Make it Shiny! (Wax Seal Group)

 Hello

Wishing you a warm welcome to my little crafting place, thank you so much for coming by!

I've been busy with things I can't share yet so it's been a while since I had some papercrafting to add here. but I did manage to spend some time last weekend with my wax seals and the latest theme for our Wax Seal Social group on Instagram.  This time it's about glitter, glimmer, shiny and all things 'Bling'.  

I thought I'd try using gold leaf on mine. I do love the effect you get with gilding flakes and larger pieces of the leafing stuff on lots of different kinds of crafting projects but its a bit of a mare to work with - it's so fine and breaks at the merest touch and of course will fly all over the place given the chance!

The first stamp I tried was a new one, so obviously had to be tried out. I thought there was a chance that a piece of gold leaf might simply stick itself to the stamp head - after all if you've ever used the stuff you'll know it will stick everywhere you don't want it to stick! But that didn't work at all

So my next method was to get tweezers and a piece of leaf big enough (hopefully) to cober the etching ready  while the wax was melting. Pour the wax and quickly use the tweezers to lay the leaf over the wax, then press the stamp down.

This sort of worked, but the rose image was indistinct and the leaf broke at its edges.  However the leaf on the background area looked great so I made a 'pour and scrape' version of the rosebud to glue over the gold one.  I use Gorilla glue to add things to wax seals which is the most effective I've tried.

The bow on this seal is just part of the seal - I had a failure with getting the whole of the poured wax covered with leaf quick enough and missed the horizontal and vertical ribbon sections! But the bow looked fine and remonded me of those big crikly gold foil bows you see at Christmas so I cut it out with scissors, poured more wax and popped it on top - I used a round blank stamp to press it down.

I have a couple more to share but I'll save them for another post!

Do you buy paper craft goodies, such as dies, stencils, stamps etc?    It would be wonderful if you'd click through to the store using my Spellbinders link.

 There's also all you need to start making wax seals!

 

Just a Note

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  THIS is my Affiliate link to the Spellbinders store 

-  you can use it to access the store whenever you buy from Spellbinders

It doesn't cost you anything, but I may get a little reward for pointing you there.

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, and please come back soon!

 

 Kathy xx

Wine Bar Birthday

 

 Hello, 

welcome to my little crafting place - today I'm sharing a shaped card, made with a new die set which is going to get loads of use - it's got me thinking about so many cards I can use it for! 

I've used the Pink Lemonade Die Bundle from Spellbinders which includes S4-1532 and S6-269

This time I've onl;y used the chalkboard dies to make a birthday card with a Wine Bar theme.  I knew I had the perfect set to make this card.  Its also by  but its a really old die set, but you can still find it if you do a bit of searching! The sentiment is also an old Spellbinders loopy text one split into the two words

I made the basic shaped card by folding my card in half then lining up the fold with where the lower edge of  hand hold gap in the wooden frame would be.  I found that a couple of passes through my electric cutting machine cut through both layers of card.

That gives a card with a folded straight top edge and the shaped 'feet' at the bottom.  Youcould cut the base in black but I went with white and added a black rectangle before positioning the wood border sections - I love the woodgrain effect - I didn't even need to use an embossing mat!

The sentiment was cut in gold card and adhered in place, then there was lots of inklng to colour the leaves etc. 

 The grapes and bottle were cut from wine-coloured card.

I do love combining old and new die sets and it's pretty easy to do with Spellbinders, because the sizes tend to work and I do have quite a lot!  

 Materials

from Spellbinders;

 

Pink Lemonade Die Bundle  

 

Wine Coloured card from

 Full 48 ColorWheel Cardstock Pack 8.5" x 11"

 

Wine Charms from Wine Country by Stacey Caron

(do a search, it's still around in some places) 

 Other

White card for base and for inking

Black, brown, gold card (for sentiment and bottle top)

 

Just a Note

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  THIS is my Affiliate link to the Spellbinders store 

-  you can use it to access the store whenever you buy from Spellbinders

It doesn't cost you anything, but I may get a little reward for pointing you there.

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, and please come back soon!

 

 Kathy xx

'Food' Wax Seal theme

 Hello

Wishing you a warm welcome to my little crafting place, thank you so much for coming by!

Our Wax Seal Social group on Instagram is a great place to chat and get advice, but as well as that, every week or so we choose a new seal-making theme then make and share our creations.

Today I've some of the seals I made recently during our 'Food' themed week 

Tiny Cupcakes 

 

Grapes and Strawberries

 

 

A set of ice lolly and cones from earlier in the year - inspired by the first warm days of the year.

These last ones are some I made a year or so ago

 

Ice Cream Cones

 

 

Fried Egg on Toast

This wasn't made using a stamp, I just mixed and poured wax freehand! 

Do you buy paper craft goodies, such as dies, stencils, stamps etc?    It would be wonderful if you'd click through to the store using my Spellbinders link.

 There's also all you need to start making wax seals!

 

Just a Note

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  THIS is my Affiliate link to the Spellbinders store 

-  you can use it to access the store whenever you buy from Spellbinders

It doesn't cost you anything, but I may get a little reward for pointing you there.

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for coming by

 Happy Crafting, Take care of yourself, and please come back soon!

 

 Kathy xx