May's Elemental Inspiration challenge - more hot foiling

 

  Hello

  Happy Friday, I hope you've had a lovely week, its been very windy here at times and not very warm. The wind plays havoc with my hay fever, so its been a very 'drippy' week for me,

This week over at The Daring Cardmakers Miri has chosen the board for our monthly Elemental Inspiration challenge

Welcome to May!

I picked this picture for our monthly inspiration:

 Choose at least three elements (colour scheme counts as one element) from the picture to kick start your project.

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

Having been quite pleased with my hot-foiling exploits last week, I thought I'd use the same hot foiling plate again - after all it looked to be a perfect match for the various dotty patterned squares on Miri's mood-board.

So, my chosen elements were; Squares, Dotty pattern, Blue flower and the heart

 

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My base card is a smooth white square card blank

The blue paper is a gorgeous heavily textured paper from Tonic Studios.  I glued some onto scrap cardstock before hot-foiling with the Spellbinders dots Glimmer plate then cutting into squares. 

The flower is made using the same paper and one of those fab die sets from Spellbinders which have several dies of varying sizes  . 

The heart is also from a multi-sized pack, cut in Tonic mirror finish card, 

For the flower centre I used a blob of Glossy Accents, added some shiny gems, then filled any gaps with those teeny weeny gold micro beads that manage to go everywhere you don't want them, and just occasionally in the place you do want them.

To pull all the components together I added a tiny sentiment, and a gold thread bow, plus some of the blue and gold jewels around the flower

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please take care of yourself.

Anniversary Hearts

Hello!

Today I'm heading back to March for this Anniversary card - yes, I am that far behind on my blogging!

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I started with a smooth white card blank and masked off a wide border using torn Washi tape as I wanted an unstructured square background.

 Using ink and Nuvo mousse I filled in the square quite roughly to get a random colour coverage

The hearts pattern was cut in silver using a Studio Light die, then I used the same die to cut extra hearts in black, silver and pink glitter card.

To finish I added some silver thread and a white on black sentiment created on the pc

 

 That's all for today, thank you so much for visiting, I hope you'll leave a comment, I do love to read them!
 

Happy Crafting, Stay Safe,

Hot Foiling on Vellum

 

 Hello

  Hope you had a lovely week - didn't April go quickly?  It's been so dry that the ground is already cracking around our 'lawn'. Seems mad to get the sprinkler out already, but I think we may have to.  And if saying that isn't tantamount to making it rain ceaselessly for the next two months I don't know what is.  Sorry!

Its Dawn here with this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge.  

There is one product that I am not a big fan of and find it very difficult to use and that is  

VELLUM

So we would like you to use a little or a lot of vellum on your cards this week.

We can't wait to see what you create and it may inspire me to use it more often.

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

I gave my hot-foiling gadget an outing (after so long I had to look up the instructions!) to foil the vellum panel with gold foil - I was very pleased at how well the foiling worked on Vellum.

 

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My base card is a smooth white square card blank

The aqua card is pearlescent embossed card from Tonic Studios. 

The Vellum panel is hot-foiled in gold using a Spellbinders dots hot foil stamp, then secured to the card with tape - which is concealed by the aqua panels.

The fancy gold swirl was cut in gold card with an old Memory Box die. it was marred onto another strip of the aqua card, on which I'd used an

 EK Success border punch.

I wound some gold thread around the upper panel and made a couple of tassels to dangle from it.

Next I used a Spellbinders die set to make the flowers, adding a couple of punched circles from the gold card as the centres.  The petals and circles were shaped with a ball tool before adhering in place.

I added a home-made decal sticker sentiment on 

white then gold card to finish

 

So, confession time: 

I spent Wednesday searching for the plates for my old Cuttlebug as you need to roll the hot-foiling gadget through a die-cutting machine and I've never had much luck getting the 'sandwich' right with my eBosser.  Anyway, I failed to find them and was not happy.  

Next morning I found them straight away, set everything up to do the foiling......only to find that the foiling platform itself was all that needed to go through the Cuttlebug and I'd spent an entire day searching for plates I didn't need.

I told you it was a long time since I'd done any foiling didn't i!  What an idiot, though

 

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please take care of yourself.

Shop Window

 

 Hello

I'm extra late with my card for the Daring Cardmakers this week. I started last week with a few really bad nights, and when I don't get enough sleep I'm totally useless!  Everything was a struggle last week and I don't think I managed to tick anything off my list.

By Thursday I'd realised that I wasn't going to get my card done in time to post Svenja's fab challenge on Friday morning. 

celebrating books - and their heroes

So, make a book related card: celebrate books themselves, getting lost in a good book or some classic book heroes - and heroines. Or maybe you even want to create a book?

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

 Now, I hate to miss a challenge, and I's had an idea I wanted to use for this one but although I made a start, I couldn't seem to pull it together in time on fact its taken till today to get it finished and in all honesty its not as I envisaged!  Oh well, at least I tried

My little 'shop window' card is inspired by a book I listened to on Audible recently.  I found it one of those books I have to be strict with myself and not just have plugged into my ear all day long - a paper book is sometimes hard to put down, but its harder still with an audio book - with your phone in your pocket and your earphones in your ears, you have your hands free to type, to cook, to take the bins out......

Anyway, I loved this book and all the stories woven through it.  In the book after a traumatic discovery, Nora ends up leaving London and returning to her late grandparents home in Dublin which is filled to the brim with things unique, unusual, bizarre and wonderful collected from all over the world by her Grandfather and all with their stories.  Now though, both grandparents are gone and the house needs to be cleared and sold.  

Nora decides she could set up a shop and use her artistic talents to display and weave wonder and mystery around all these objects, and of course find them new homes.

 Info

Originally it was going to be a shop window on a plain card blank but in the end it became a shaped card instead.

I started by ruling out the lines to make the window pattern then cutting the apertures.  Another piece of card the same size was cut to be the inside of the window.  I coloured both sections appropriately then using some pieces of chipboard between I stuck the layers together.

Next I made the canopy and the windowsill sections.

The really time consuming part was making all the little elements to put into the display - they are a mix of printed elements, die cut bits and bobs and some sticker type things from my stash of things that might come in useful!   I also added in some books to add another link to the challenge theme.

That's it for this time, at lest I got there in the end.  I still like the idea, but with hindsight I'd probably have approached it differently

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please take care of yourself.

All because he Loves ....... Maltesers!

 

   hi there

Yes! Another a midweek blog post - are you shocked?

Once again I'm heading back to February for this birthday card made for my Malteser-loving hubby.  

Honestly the things I let myself in for! Especially as I had to make this with him in the same room as we share the study and he's working from home of course!

 I won't even try to explain how I made this as it was very much a "Let's give it a try and see what happens" kind of thing!

It's got a pop-up 'box' inside it, and although its  not a box but a flat image, I cut the lid shape carefully so that it lifts up to reveal a Maltesers image underneath.

 

 

Basically, its a lot of layers and plenty of printed images.

Hopefully the pictures will give you the idea of how it works.

 

 

Materials:

Glossy photo paper for printing images 

 White, Black and Kraft card

Alphabet die set

 

 That's all for today, thank you so much for visiting, I hope you'll leave a comment, You've no idea how happy it makes me when someone leaves a message, and I'd really love to know what you think of this one!!

Happy Crafting, and Stay Safe,

Black & White + 1

 

Hello

 

Hope you had a lovely week, here its been another sunny, but chilly week with a few frosty mornings.

We're  thinking about colour this week for the Daring Cardmakers challenge, which has been set by Miri

Black & White +1
This week Miri challenges you to use just black, white and 

one other colour on your cards!
That extra colour is up to you and you can use it just as you

 like; a little,  a lot, or add different shades of your chosen colour

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

 Info

My card is a smooth white square card blank

I started with some spare white card and coloured it with orange Tonic Nuvo Embellishment mousse - this mousse colours with a lovely sheen that the light catches, rather than being just a flat colour

 Next I used a Spellbinders die set to cut a whole load of gears from some glossy black card saved from some packaging, plus a few from the orange coloured card. 

The BIRTHDAY letters were die cut from the rest of the orange card and glued onto a piece of dotty card already in my bag of Black and White bits

The 'Happy' is from one of my home-made stickers sheets

I have a load of 'boy' cards to make for family birthdays coming up soon, so this was a great challenge to get another one done and dusted - Thanks, Miri 😀

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please take care of yourself.

Birthday Stars

  hi there

Yet again its been a while since I managed a midweek blog post, and I'm definitely not expecting it to be a regular thing - I know my limitations, but I will try to be better!

heading back to February for this birthday card made form my cousin's teenage son

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I started with a smooth white card blank, 1 square of the same card the same size as the front and another piece to use for extra stars and letters.  Masking the very edges, I coloured the front of the card blank with ink and Nuvo mousse, then die cut the star swirl using a Sizzix die. This piece was adhered onto the card blank so that the colours showed through.

The extra card was coloured in the same way, and I used  a couple of alphabet die sets to cut 'HAPPY' and 'SAM', and an old Tim Holtz sentiment set for the 'birthday' word.  From the remaining card I used various star die sets and punches to cut extra shapes to decorate the card.

 

 

 That's all for today, thank you so much for visiting, I hope you'll leave a comment, You've no idea how happy it makes me when someone leaves a message!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe, especially if you're going out and about now things are opening

Buzz Buzz

Hello

 

Hope you had a lovely Easter, and that the rest of the week was good too.  It's been very sunny most of this week, but chilly and quite blustery - and some frosty mornings too!  Our magnolia tree, which looked beautiful last weekend wasn't very keen on the frost and is looking very sorry for itself now.

We're 'in the garden' for this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge, which has been set by Shabneez

Let's Hear It For The Bees!

I would like to celebrate bees this week so would love to see anything related to them on your cards.  You could use beehives, honeycomb shapes, honey coloured ink etc - extra points for using a combination of elements

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

 Info

I started with a smooth white card blank and stencilled the background using a Crafter's Workshop Honeycomb stencil with a few shades of yellow ink, plus some a little Indian Gold Tonic Nuvo Embellishment mousse.
 Next I made the bee using a Spellbinders die.  I cut

it once each in yellow, black and twice from vellum. 

The wings were cut away from the black layer and this became the base layer of the bee.

Only the wing sections were kept from the vellum layers, and these were glued in place on the top of the black section

The legs and wings were cut away from the yellow piece and discarded. Black stripes were added to the body and head, then it was adhered on top to complete the bee.

The sunflower was created from inked yellow card using a wonderful Spellbinders sunflower die from the 'Build a Flower' range.

Whenever I need to make a new white on black sentiment, I always do a little batch of the words and phrases I use most.  I do them in different sizes and fonts, to save and use later and make it worth the effort creating them and persuading the printer to play nicely (why are printers always so bolshy?), so these were some from my bag of spares!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please take care of yourself.

Love April

  Hello, Happy Friday!

I hope you've had a good week, it was really warm earlier in the week, but now Easter weekend has arrived its turned a bit chilly - typical!

Hubby and I had our first doses of the Covid vaccine on Monday.  I felt a bit achy and tired for a couple of days, but other wise it was fine, but what with that and hayfever symptoms shooting through the roof its been a tricky kind of week.

The only crafting I managed was my card for this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge, its Jenny's turn to select the moodboard for our monthly Elemental challenge

 

April's Elemental Inspiration 

Just pick a minimum of 3 elements from Jenny's beautiful moodboard to use when making your card. 

The Colour palette counts as 1 element. 

we can't wait to see what you choose, and what you make!

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration 

I loved the subtle book page background, so decided to create something similar, then use a heart and a flower as my other elements - I thought I could use this to trial an idea for a wedding card I need later in the year.

 

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Smooth white card blank

Digital papers from Raspberry Road (via Etsy), resized and printed onto textured Bazzill white card. I covered the card blank with one of the papers, then inked up a fab 'love' words background stamp from Spellbinders in a deeper peach/brick red shade - ,my idea was to only ink parts of it to get a mottled kind of imprint - but I may have got a bit stamp-pad happy!

 Next I printed out another of the paper designs to die cut the glorious Heart (also Spellbinders).  Its quite a large die so doesn't get used as often as I'd like!  This time I also cut a couple of extra hearts from a toning plain pinky-peach shade of card and layered the three together before adhering off-centre to the card.

For the flower I chose another of the digital papers and this time printed on both sides of the white Bazzill.  A large flower punch was used for the petals, my Rose Tutorial is HERE. 

I placed the rose to the side of the heart then cut the 'Love' word it two layers of deep coloured card to match the stamped words and once in an embossed gold card. The coloured layers were matted together, then the gold one added on top, but offset a little

Thank you so much for visiting today.  I'd like to know what you think, so I hope you'll leave a comment - they are really appreciated

 Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe

Word Art

 

 Hello

As I write this, we have bright sunshine and pouring rain - yes, both at the same time!  The thing about English weather is that you can always relay on it to be unreliable 😂

 No more waffle, lets get straight to this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge, as I'm late again!

I had a pretty good idea how my card would look, which is often the hard bit - but this time it was the background that caused the trouble for me - thanl heavens I decided to do that bit on pieces of plain card rather than straight onto a card blank as there would have been an awful lot of wastage.  As it is, hopefully I can reclaim some of this little lot to use in some way!

 Anyway, It's Nat who brought such torture to my craft table, but as she's so lovely, I'll forgive her!☺️

Nat says:

For this week's dare, I want you to focus on words.

The sentiment for your card needs to be the star of the show and feature prominently as the main element.

It can be oversized, it can be created with negative die-cutting, it can be a mix of font styles (stamped/die cut). Whatever you choose the sentiment shouldn't be overshadowed by other elements in your design.

 Click here to see this week's design team inspiration  

  

So, having failed to make anything usable, I gave up and decided to start again on another day. This time I thought it best to go back to some current favourite things, stencils and Nuvo
Embellishment mousse

 

 

 Info

Smooth white square card blank, with the lower section inked using  teal and deep blue ink pads.  I inked another piece for cutting the sentiment and coloured a second piece using gold Nuvo Mousse

For the background panel I used a Musical symbols stencil by Apple Blossom and various different shades of Nuvo Mousse. 

I can't remember where the sentiment die came from (might be Polkadoodles) - I cut it twice, once blue, once gold and matted the layers together before adhering to the card.  To finish I swiped some gold mousse along the lower edges of the card and added a few die cut music notes to pull all the colours together.

I have several male birthdays coming up and my master plan was to make something that would tick at least one of them off the list, but  I'm hoping that some of the Discard Pile might be salvageable for some more of them.

Finishing today with a photo of the first camellia to open up in our garden.  There are other buds, but usually the first opening flower is immediately followed by a spate of freezing cold, wet weather which means none of those other buds ever opens!

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you'll leave a comment, I really appreciate it when you do!

Happy Crafting, and please Stay Safe