Cottage Garden Harmony

  Hello, 

welcome to my little crafting place

There is a lovely set of BetterPress sentiments in Susan Tierney-Cockburn's Cottage Garden collection which I think will be beautiful for journal pages, tags and scrapbook pages as well as cards and other projects.

I particularly liked the one about a cottage garden's special beauty being not in a well ordered space but in the harmony of all the plants and colours.  The sort of garden I would love to have - if only I had the energy and the skill to make it!  A few years ago we visited Vita Sackville-West's  fabulous Sissinghurst gardens +and I just adored the way parts of the garden seemed to be so wild, chaotic and free but still completely harmonious 

 

I wondered if I could put this sentiment into action! 

As I don't throw extras away when I make too many for a project I have a box of random flowers, petals and leaves in different styles, colours and sizes, so could I make a card just these?

There's quite the assortment  of flowers here, all Spellbinders, but from different collections, most recent because I've made a lot of flowery cards lately but some that have been waiting in the box for a long time! 

 

I was gong to make them into some kind of bouquet, but as I'd recently got Happy Post Envelope Etched Dies as part of the Dear Santa bundle I thought I'd use that instead.

I've used a digital paper design for the background and to create the envelope.  It was really just a case of arranging all the flowers into a way I liked and adding a few leaves then sticking them all down.

To complete I added a couple of gold thread bows and small pearls to add some extra glimmer and tie in with the gold foiled sentiment 

 I used

from Spellbinders

 

Die sets: 

 

From Susan Tierney Cockburn's

  Cottage Garden collection:

BP-388 The Cottage Garden Sentiments 

Happy Post Envelope Etched Dies 

 

Gold foil

Many different Spellbinders flower dies 

Colourwheel card pack 

  

 Other

Digital paper for background and envelope

black card 

Gold thread

Green pearls 

 

Just a Note

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  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  

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

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

 

 Kathy xx

Helenium and Ladybugs

 Hello, 

welcome to my little crafting place

I've more lovely new goodies from Spellbinders to share with you.  This time its new flowery dies from Susan Tierney-Cockburn's Cottage Garden collection 

This one is called Helenium and Ladybugs

You'll find Susan's video on hoe to make these beauties  here though of course you can use them to make your very own version, its fun to get creative with flower shapes!

For my card I used a digital woodgrain design printed directly onto my card stock. I folded and cut the card down after printing.

I cut the various leaves and flowers from thin (80gsm) white card then inked them with small ink pads or pens

I also used some of the Poetic Foliage elements from Susan's last 'Serenity Garden' collection to add more interest and colour  

 

Finally I hot-foiled one of the sentiments from The Cottage Garden Sentiments BetterPress set that go perfectly with the theme of this collection.

  I used

from Spellbinders

 

Die sets: 

 

From Susan Tierney Cockburn's

  Cottage Garden collection:

S4-1571 Helenium and Ladybugs
BP-388 The Cottage Garden Sentiments 

  

 From her Serenity Garden collection: 

 

 Poetic Foliage  S3-558
 

Gold foil

  

 Other

Wood grain printed card for the card base 

Thin white card

Inks and pens

black card 

 

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, please do leave a message if you can!

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

 

 Kathy xx

CCC August

     

Hello,

Its reveal time for the August Card Chain Challenge. You can see them all HERE. 

This time I've sent my card to Alice in Austria

 

 

 

The beautiful card I received came from Imke in Germany - the photo doesn't really do it justice (sorry Imke)

 

For my card I chose to use the Sketch and the theme.of Friendship 

   

I taped off a rough rectangular shape on my white base card and filled it in with a few shades of light blue and aqua inks to make a blue sky background

The 'round' elements on the sketch were originally going to be flowers but I had a change of direction (I'd cut everything out ready so will have to make something with them eventually!) and decided to make those elements into more of a picture, with the balloon as the large one and the two clouds for the others.

The cute hot air balloon is one of the dies from Spellbinders' 2024 Advent Calendar, the clouds and birds are also from Spellbinders die sets - I just happened to have the dies on my desk from another project

 The Thinking of You sentiment is also from Spellbinders - its from a new Betterpress set, but I hot-foiled it using black foil on white card and cut it out wity the matching die

 

 T

 

o join in the chain for September 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  

 Materials

from Spellbinders;

 

Balloon from Spellbinders 2024 Advent calendar

 

clouds, birds and sentiment from various BP and die sets

 

Various coloured card from

 Full 48 ColorWheel Cardstock Pack 8.5" x 11"

 

 Other

White card

Versa cube ink pads 

Washi tape for masking 

 

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Just a Note

 

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

  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

 

 

Baby Blocks

Hello,  

 welcome to my little crafting place

We had some lovely family news earlier this month when our third Great-niece arrived in the world.  She was a bit late so her mum had all that heat-wave business to deal with while waiting for arrival! Now, I was hot and bothered at that time, and never having had a baby I can only imagine how much worse it was for an expectant mum!

Such a good reason to have some fun with card-making and all the cute and kiddy die sets I've accumulated - see! I knew they were worth buying/keeping!

 

As you can see in the top photo the card is folded to created a 'Baby Blocks' shape when it's opened, though it's fairly flat for putting in an envelope for posting

 

 

 

 

This is the back: 

All the surfaces are decorated with die-cut images or pretty paper from 12x12, or 6x6 paper packs

Most of the dies are by Spellbinders

but there are a few Hunkydory ones and some really old Quickutz ones! 

  

  

 

I dipped into the Spellbinders 2024 Advent Calendar for some of these motifs - like the hot air balloon and the cute bee,  Some Small die of the month dies got an airing, and some I bought because they were cute, but haven't actually used till now - likw the rabbit on a swing and the sweet dinosaur

 

I won't give a list of everything used because it would be too long and a lot of it won't be available any-more! 

 

I started this a few weeks before the baby was due, and kept adding more to it so it took ages to make and wasn't even finished when she arrived! 

 

Anyway. I hope you like it 

 

 

 

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

A Bunch of Poppies

Hello,  

 welcome to my little crafting place

I've another card  using a couple of Spellbinders fantastic new die sets that will always be close at hand. One is a nested set of rectangles (S5-487 Precision Layering A2-A), perfect for quickly cutting backgrounds for your cards and  layers that are always even and neat

The other is the Color Block Accent Rectangles (S5-772) which partners neatly with the Precision Layering set to make a cute colour blocked frame.

Yet again the Just Add Cake Birthday Cardmaking Kit came to hand, for part of this card as the hand holding out this bunch of flowers is from the Birthday Brew die set - last time I used it it was the arm of a chef twirling a pizza

I really fell in love with the Just Add Cake box! 

I've also found this gorgeous little flower set Leaf & Bloom S4-1512 which is perfect for a hand-picked bunch like this.  I chose peachy shades, two shades of green abd mauve for the sleeve from the Colourwheel collection, the blues for the frame and background are also from this card collection 

 

To complete the card I added a bracelet of tiny gems, some glitter glue to give sparkle to the flower centres and a stamped sentiment with its matching die,  

 I used

from Spellbinders

 

Die sets: 

S5-772    Color Block Accent Rectangles
S5-487    Precision Layering A2 (A)

 

or get both as a Bundle 

 

Leaf & Bloom S4-1512  

 

  Full 48 ColorWheel Cardstock Pack 8.5" x 11"  

                  

 Just Add Cake Birthday Cardmaking Kit

Birthday Brew Die set. 

 Just Add Cake Clear Stamp Set and matching Die set 

 

 

 Other

  

Extra white card 

 Ink for colouring the hand 

Black ink for 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, pleas do leave a message if you can!

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

 

 Kathy xx