Card Chain Challenge March Reveal

Hello,

Last month I did something new!

With much encouragement from my great friend Joanne, I joined in with the Card Chain Challenge for the first time.  You sign up to send a card to the person befor you in the sign-up list, and then the person who signs up after you sends a card to you.  

It's a worldwide chain so whilst I sent my card to Hilary, a fellow Brit, my card came from Dee, who lives in Kenya  

 

25 card makers took part in March and as it's the 2nd of the month we can see all the cards that were sent over on the Card Chain Challenge blog big reveal. 

 

 Friendship is the perfect theme for meeting new card-making firends!  

 

 

 

For my card I chose to use two of the Theme Options (Gnomes, Friendship), and added in a sprinkling of the colourpalette option

 

I had a phase of making gnome cards a while ago - they were just perfect for my menfolk as I could tailor the cards to their interests! Various sports, and favourite foods were featured on them. 

 This time I decided its just the right time of year for potting up flowers so mixed a couple of die sets to create the picture.

 I stencilled a simple circle to centre him on and added some die-cut grass, adhered Flower Pot Gnome and adde a die-cut 'Hi' sentiment

 

A big thank You to Dee, in Kenya  for this pretty card - it was such a treat to receive a lovely card in the post and a change from just junk mail and bank statements.  I enjoyed it so much that I've already added my name to the Aorul list AND my card is ready to send! 

If you would like to take part in the next card chain challenge, you have until 6th April to sign up here

 

Just a Note

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

 

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

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

 

Happy Easter

Hello,

The whole process of making wax-seals is one of happy concentration and immersion!  It's fun to do and what could be more mindful than losing yourself in creating something so small.  If something doesn't work as you'd hoped it doesn't matter, you just re-heat the wax and try again. 

I shared some tiny tulip seals a few weeks ago and this week I've been using them to make Easter cards. I only send a couple and usually struggle to do even that!  This time the tulip seals made coming up with an idea much easier. Today I'm sharing the first of the cards

 

I printed the striped design directly onto the card.  I resized the design to A5 (horizontal) and set the printer to print it as close to the top and side edges of  a sheet of A4 card as possible.  I folded the sheet along the edge of the stripes and trimmed any plain white off, then cut to make two cards with vertical stripes. I also printed a matching coloured piece of card using the same RGB codes, along with sentiments printed to match perfectly.

The curvy white piece was made using two edger dies from an old Spellbinders set.  I used a punch to cut the pink postage stamp then just trimmed a rectangle to white to fit inside. The wax seal was fixed in place using one of the special sticky circles you get for the job! The last thing was to cut down the sentiment and add to the curved panel

 

The tulips on these seals are only about 1.5cm tall, so the whole seal is only about 2cm diameter. They were made using the Pour and Scrape technique.  They are so cute!

 

If you buy paper craft goodies, such as dies, stencils, stamps etc you may like toi 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

WRMK 3d Printed Tool Holder

  Hello,

 Thank you so much for coming by, I hope you like what you see!

The inspiration for Hubby's birthday card recently shared here came from the 3d printer I got him for Christmas

So this time I thought I'd share something that he's made for me - a bespoke box to hold 3 of my most-used WRMK tools.  If you have the same kind of tools you'll knpw how heavy and awkward to keep handy they are.  Mine just ended up lying on top of other stuff.

 

As well as the 3 main tools and to make best use of the space there are small areas perfect for items like my jewellery pliers and wire cutters, a couple of types of glue and a slit to hold my rulers

Here's how it looks empty.

You can see the curved shape that keeps the multihole punch tidy 

The master plan is to get my craft desk more organised and less of an eyesore using the incredible Gridfinity system of 3d printed solutions. Basically you make a grid of squares that fits your space then add the boxes, containers, trays etc that you need for you 'stuff'.  It allows you to customise to the shapes you need for your items.

He's already sorted his desk drawer - check out the slot for his small screwdriver set, and the very organised battery area!

 

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

Tulip Time!

Hello,

I've loved the whole process of making wax-seals since I first tried it.  Mainly I make them just for the pleasure and maybe the mindfulness this craft brings.  There's something about working on something so small that concentrates the mind and brings peace.  It doesn't really matter if the seal you make isn't perfect, it's more about the act of making it.

Today, I'm sharing some wax seals I made recently - and was really happy with! 

Firstly a set of tiny tulip seals. These seals measure about 2cms in diameter so the tulips are quite tiny! The set were all made using the Pour and Scrape technique.  They are so cute!

The Instagram Wax Seal group I'm in has a weekly theme to inspire us, and a recent them was 'Frames'.

Now a lot of people do amazing mini works of art using frame seals, especially when used with clear wax (which is from glue sticks in reality). I do have a glue gun internded to be dedicated to using this technique but so far I've failed to whip up the courage to try it out.  To be honest, glue guns terrify me!

I do also have some frame stamps (you know, for when I pluck up the courage to try the clear seals)  so I decided to use one of these for the base of my seal then see if I could put something inside the frame separately.

Once the base seal was made I used a gold pen to highlight the frams pattern.

For the tulips I used the same stamp as above but made 3 separate ones again using the Pour and Scrape technique. Usually you'd then stamp them into the wax background but I managed to poke the tiny flowers out with a pointy tool. They're a bit fragile, but they were ok

I just used spots of superglue to fix them to the middle of the frame. I used tweezers to get them in place, and as I'm a bit cack-handed with tiny amouts of glue, I sprinkled some ultra fine glitter over the top to disguise any excess glue.

There's usually a way to get round these little problems, don't you find 😉 

I was so chuffed at how this went together! 

I think it may appear on an Easter card soon 

If you buy paper craft goodies, such as dies, stencils, stamps etc you may like toi 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

3d Printer Birthday Card

 

 Hello,

Thank you so much for visiting my crafting place, a warm welcome to you!

It was Hubby's birthday recently, and with only a few days to go I was still stuck for a card idea.  It was my dear friend Joanne  who said "Could you do something with a 3d printer theme?" 

I actually think it was this card that got me out of my card-making funk, so a double thank you Joanne for your help.

My plan was for a pop up card that would go in a regular envelope,  and it was working quite well until I tried to figure out how to make the filament reels on the top become 3d!  There may be a way to do it but it was completly beyond me and my  solution was to give up 

🤣🤣 

 

Instead I made the reels from circles of card with strips of coloured card between and fixed them to the top of the 'printer. 

 Then I made a box to present it in!

Pragmatism rules!

 

 

 As you can see, the door opens to reveal a 3d gift - it has a box hinge behind it so it pops out. The door is silver card and the window is a piece of acetate 

To finish I added a loopy sentiment - I thought that if you used a length of fila ment you could  bend it into a shape like this - like making words from wire

Maybe I should take a photo of the card inside the actual printer but perhaps that's just a bit too 'meta' - what do you think?

 

 

  

Materials

Black card

Various other colours of card, 

Acetate for window

Square die for gift, plus die cut bow

Hand cut tag 

Punched circles for filament reels

Loopy did cut sentiment 

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

Sundae Best

 

Hello

welcome to my little crafting place - today I'm sharing a birthday card made for a March birthday.

As the weather is beginning to improve I thought I'd wheel out a recent Spellbinders set I'd not used yet.  Even though I've not felt much like crafting I've still felt like acquiring new craft stash - funny, that! 

For this one I started by creating the wide striped background paper on the pc and printing to the size I wanted onto White Bazzill cardstock.

The main die set is Fountain Wishes which makes the sundae and the bits to add to the top, plus theres a couple of extra dies in the set which I didn't manage to use here.  I added some flowers from my pot of little flowers left over from a recent project. The 'happy' part of the sentiment is die cut.  you get a batch of message stamps to go with it in the set, but I chose to add a white on black 'birthday' instead.

I added Glossy Accents to the chocolate sauce and cherry, and tiny seed beads for the 'sprinkles' 

 Materials

from Spellbinders;

 

Fountain Wishes die set

'Happy' die & stamp set

 

 

 Other

Striped paper  created on the pc

various colours and types of card 

Glossy Accents

Tiny seed beads 

 

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

Wax Seal Butterflies

 

 Hello

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

Just a quick post to share a couple of wax seals I've made recently, using the pour and scrape 

The white butterfly is a basic Pour and Scrape seal. I pooured the white eax into the seal then scraped away the excess with a warmed metal spatula (see earler pposts for more info). Once that was done I stamped the seal into some blue wax

For the pink and white butterfly I added another stage. This time I stamped my white butterfly into pink wax then cut around the edge of the butterfly with scissors.  As you can see, my cutting out is anything but perfect!

Finally I melted blue wax and with the cut-out placed into the seal head stamped it into the blue wax.

If you buy paper craft goodies, such as dies, stencils, stamps etc you may like toi 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

Simple Flower Layout

Hello

welcome to my little crafting place.  You know, I don't think I've never struggled so much with crafting as I have these last couple of months.  The strange thing is that I really want to get creative, but when I sit at my desk nothing happens.  Maybe its the crafting form of Writer's Block!

I'm hoping that my list of up-coming birthdays will get me back into the groove!

First though I thought I'd have a bash at making MiL's Mothers Day card.  She lives on the Isle of Man and with the postal service being abysmal just now (and it seems to be worse over there - if that's even possible!) it would be good to get it on its way

Nothing is easy at the moment, and I had a few false starts with this, but in the end I got it finished, and I'm reasonably happy at how it turned out.

The card blank changed from Spriung Green to Bright Pink, the embossed layer I made was rejected for a white square, and then a gold layer was added.  The flowers weren't going to have leaves - and maybe I shouldn't haver added as many as I ended up doing.  

But hey it only 🙄 took a week so better than the last card I made!

 Materials

All flower and leaf dies from Spellbinders - these are from older sets,. but there are many similar ones still available

 

card for die cutting from 

 Full 48 ColorWheel Cardstock Pack 8.5" x 11"

 

Other:  

Pink card blank from PDA Woodward

White linen card 

Gold and Dark Green card 

pc generated sentiment

 

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

Inspired by Svenja (2)

Hello

welcome to my little crafting place - where crafting has been a struggle so far this year! 

BUT last week I managed to finish a couple of cards inspired by something my lovely, crafty friend Svenja's shared on her instagram (millefeuille.eu) 

I shared the first card last time and now I've got the second, which I like much better to show you.  I'd be interested to know which you like the best!  Towards the end of last year I was finding using white card blanks very difficult for some reason, and it seems that little oddness hasn't gone away!

This time I used the inked blue piece I'd made, plus a small piece which had been left over from something I madae a couple of years ago! 

These are the pieces of inky cardstock inspired by those on Svenja's LO

 

 

 

And her lovely artworks

 

This time I chose a deep blue card blank

Again I used the inky rectangles for the background and the die cut squiggles

This time I wanted to use a flower for the vertical feature element, This one is from a favourite Spellbinders 'Sealed' set, but I replaced the straight stem with a loopy one using a die from the squiggles set.  The flower head is inked in several shades oif red for colour depth, then given a coat of Glossy Accents

To finish I added a tiny pc generated sentiment along with a little gold twine bow 

 Materials

from Spellbinders:

Tangled Threads Etched Dies 

Sealed Wildflowers Etched Dies

now out of stock, sorry!  

 

Other:  

Blue card blank

White card for inking 

Gold, light blue and black card

pc generated sentiment, gold thread 

 

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

Inspired by Svenja (1)

 

Hello

welcome to my little crafting place - where sadly, thanks to my ongoing cold I've had very little to share over the last few weeks. 

However, at last I've managed to finish my first card of the year, in fact I've made 2, but I'll add the second on a separate post!

A few weeks ago I was looking at my lovely friend Svenja's instagram
(millefeuille.eu) and spotted an arty project she'd been making.  I loved the layout and thought it would be great on a card - just having that thought is more 'crafty' than I've felt for ages and I wanted to act on it so checked with Svenja that it would be ok to use her LO. 

I really struggled to finish it and it lay on the desk for ages.  Not sure I'm really happy with it even yet but it seemed important to actually get a crafty project completed

Here's the pieces of Svenja's work that gave me the first inklings of a desire to craft

In Svenja's  honour (she being an Inky princess!) I made a couple of inky pieces to use for my card.  Once the ink was dry I added a bit of sheen by brushing over a coat of PVA

I thought I'd go with the sunset shades for the first card. 

I cut down a piece of the inked card to use, and also a piece of dark red card with a soft sheen effect

In place of the vertical element I decided to use one of the tulip wax seals I shared on a recent post

Instead of Svenja's calligraphy I used some die cut black squiggles

To finish I added a BetterPress sentiment which I hot-foiled in gold, and a few tiny punched circles of red, black and gold

 

 Materials

from Spellbinders:

 Distress Mix 3D Embossing Folder 

Tangled Threads Etched Dies 

Fancy Sentiment Strips Press Plate & Die Set 

card from Ruby Assorted Treasured Cardstock pack

 

Other:  

White card blank

White card for inking and embossing 

Gold and black card 

Handmade Wax Seal - see earlier post

 

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