Two Sketch File Cards

Hi there

Bit of a dull and drizzly one here - of course it always seems to be that way when its the day for putting out all the recycling bins and boxes!

Shrove Tuesday today, so I've just been making the batter for our pancakes, I've  got the lemon and sugar ready, and I may even have some maple syrup too.  What about you?

It's also Sketch File Update Day,  and as I never did get round to blogging last week's card I've two to share today.

First up is the one for this week

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The card blank was embossed with a Cuttlebug Swirls folder - to emboss this top fold card down the side, I slit the top of the folder where the fold is and used tape to fix it together on the left side instead.  

The narrow ribbon was adhered down the 'line' between the embossed and non-embossed sections

I used a hot Foil 'stamp' from CraftStashUK and gold foil on red card to make the heart, then cut it out freehand

I added Prima flowers (I have zillions and rarely use them tut-tut), with enamel and glitter dots for the centres

The red ribbons ( from  the "Love Is.." box) and the gold glitter washi tape (from the "Seeing Stars" box) from Bubbly Funk Through the Letterbox craft boxes

The loopy "with" is part of a "with love" die by Spellbinders

Here's the February sketch I'm using for both of these cards

The Sketch File - February 2018

Now my other card - I was able to use this one for The Sketch File Blog last week, and also for a post on the Bubbly Funk blog too

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Plain white card blank

Pale aqua panel from pearlescent card

Darker green-aqua card for tiny stars, sentiments and backing pieces

Matching organza ribbon

From the "Seeing Stars" craft box by Bubbly Funk Through the Letterbox

I used the Silver and White stars and the beautiful silver star charm

That's all for today, I hope you enjoy your pancakes if you're indulging 😉

See you again soon

Happy Crafting

Snowflakes in a Flurry - Spellblogging for Spellbinders

Hello! 

I've a new Spellblogger post for Spellbinders today and it's another card using dies from Lene Lok's Four Seasons range. These snowflakes come from the Winter Canopy and Elements set, but as the name suggests there are dies to go with every season in this lovely collection

I managed to squeeze a couple of the snowflakes in to the last Spellbloggers post, which you can see HERE, but I am such a sucker for snowflake dies that I just couldn't resist letting them take the main role on this one.  
 I really love the extra elements that come with the various seasonal canopies, they really make the sets so versatile. 

 
Snowflake Flurry
I've used just the snowflakes from the Winter Canopy and Elements 
set for this card and cut them in plain white card  

The striped paper is digitally produced to match the red of the curved section - I then printed it to the size I needed onto some plain white Bazzill card

The fancy curved piece is cut from red card using a die 
from A2 Curved Borders set 1

I used lengths of red and white bakers twine around the curved red piece, which is matted onto scrap chipboard for some extra dimension
The knotted red satin ribbon came from a Christmas Cracker (I always keep those pretty bits and bobs!) 
I strung some tiny gold bells and a red bead on gold thread and attached them under the ribbon, then added a tiny red gem to each snowflake
"joy" is from Ho Ho Ho Holiday 2017  Die D Lites Etched Dies  matted it onto a Nesties oval 

Here are the Spellbinders die sets used this time


Winter Canopy and Elements 
Four Seasons by Lene Lok 
Shapeabilities Etched Dies

 A2 Curved Borders One Card Creator Etched Dies

 
 Ho Ho Ho Holiday 2017  Die D Lites Etched Dies  

Platinum Die Cutting and Embossing Machine

That's it for this time,

Thank you for visiting, if you click on This Link  you'll find yourself at the Spellbinders store where you will be tempted by lots of lovely dies, stamps and much much more!

Happy Crafting

Cosy at Home

Hello there!

I hope you've had a good week.  It was pretty chilly here with a few very frosty mornings - but you can definitely see a lightening in the sky by 7am now, can't you?  The birds certainly think so if the racket they've been making the last few mornings is anything to go by!

Have you been to any of the cinema-theatre live stream performances?  We went to our local cinema to see the live stream from the Royal Opera House of Puccini's "Tosca" during the week.  After ages sating "We must do that" we finally got round to booking some tickets.  The first thing we went to see was "La Traviata", streamed live from the Metropolitan in New York - oh, but we were so disappointed.  The sound quality was rubbish and the camera work really poor - it wasn't just us, I checked the feedback the next day and everyone was saying the same sort of thing - so we've avoided productions from the Met since then.  
A few weeks before Christmas we went to see the streaming of the new Royal Opera House production of La Bohème  and it was fantastic -
I loved every minute and every single thing about it.  Tosca this week was pretty good, but La Bohème was better.

Anyway, if you've not been to any of these events check out your local cinema and see if they do them - there's ballet, theatre plays, opera and even museum exhibitions so loads to choose from

Enough of the waffle, lets get down to some craft stuff.  

I think Miri must have had a premonition about how the weather would be this week when she put her challenge into the Daring Cardmakers' calendar!

"Deep into cold and gloomy February, let’s celebrate our homes

 a home, a house or a building

Feel free to think outside the box. 

You could use pieces of furniture, wall paper or the home of an animal (cave, tree trunk etc.)...

Happy crafting -  hopefully in a warm and cosy home!
Click on this LINK to see the great ideas from our design team."

I went off on a bit of a tangent and instead of a building I used the actual word HOME.  Our homes are generally a big part of our lives, so I thought I'd make some extra=large letters and some hearts and keep the LO simple.

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White square card blank plus extra for the top panel and the letters

2x shades turquoise card for the hearts (die set by Tonic)

3 layers of black letters and one white layer (letters cut with Silhouette)

Wooden heart covered with red glitter heart (both from the “Love is…” Through the Letterbox craft box).

A bit of inking around the big hearts and that was it.  Lots of layers, but a really simple design and it made such a nice change for something to work straight away!

I really LOVE the wooden hearts and other shapes (they come in several different sizes too) from the various Through the Letterbox craft boxes - they are about as thin as chipboard and really take inks, paints etc well.  When I first saw them I thought "what on earth am I supposed to do with these?"  but now I love them!  I think I'll have to try them with my foiling machine next.....

That's it for this time, Thank you so much for coming by.

I hope you'll leave a message - and it would be wonderful if you'd 'follow' me too - there's a link in the sidebar

Have a great weekend, and stay toasty!

Warm Winter Wishes - Spellblogging for Spellbinders

Hello! 

I've a new Spellblogger post for Spellbinders today and as I've watched a few snow flurries drifting past my window this Winter Tree is rather apt!

Spellbinders recently released a lovely range by Lene Lok, and I've received a a few of these lovely dies, so I'll be sharing some of the things made with them over the next few weeks. 
There is a beautiful bare-branch tree which is just lovely on its own, but there are other sets to go with it - one for each of the seasons.  I have the Winter and Spring sets, and I'll be adding the Summer and Autumn ones to my collection soon.  There are other dies too, such as a gorgeous wreath and a set of seasonal decorative dies to use with it - click HERE to visit this collection

Warm Winter Wishes
I've used the Four Seasons Tree die plus the Winter Canopy and Elements set for this card and there are two layers of each with tiny pieces of chipboard between to add dimension  
I gave the top snowy layer a coat of Glossy Accents and Glamour Dust for a glittery finish
For the background I used a black card base and 2 layers of white card cut using dies from A2 Curved Borders set 1
The little red glitter hearts are cut with various dies and punches, some are hung on the branches with the red thread, I added some bows using the same thread for an extra pop of bright red

Here are the Spellbinders die sets used this time

Four Seasons Tree 
 Four Seasons by Lene Lok 
Shapeabilities Etched Dies

Winter Canopy and Elements 
Four Seasons by Lene Lok 
Shapeabilities Etched Dies

 A2 Curved Borders One Card Creator Etched Dies

 
I also used:

Platinum Die Cutting and Embossing Machine

 That's it for this time,but I thought I'd just add a couple of cards I made with these die sets in the run-up to Christmas

  










Thank you for visiting, if you click on This Link  you'll find yourself at the Spellbinders store where you will be tempted by lots of lovely dies, stamps and much much more!

Happy Crafting

KISS!

Hi there

Well, I made it through January!  January and February are my least favourite months - to be honest, all I want to do is hibernate.  Those short, dark, gloomy days do nothing for my mood and everything I try to do seems to take far too much time and effort.  My bin seems to contain soooo many failures at the moment, but we'll not talk about those any more!

....except to say that several of those things that were 'filed' in the bin were attempts at making something for this week's February Elemental Inspiration Picture Challenge, which was set by Dawn.  Along with the failed cards are a good many feathers, a few flamingoes and some inky backgrounds that started out well but go no further!

I ended up going right back to the drawing board and going down the KISS (Keep IT Simple, Stupid!) route, and as by this time I was feeling pretty stupid that was a very apt title!

"It's Dawn here with this week's challenge and I can't believe we are into February.
So this week, we have February's 
Elemental Inspiration picture.
Remember to use at least 3 elements from the image above.
I hope this image kick starts your creativity ready for Valentines Day.
Please click the link to see what the team created this week and we hope it inspires you"

Such a pretty mood board too, why did it cause me so much stress?

As I said, in the end I gave up on the lovely flamingo and feather die cuts I tried, and the real feathers that I found deep in one of my boxes.  Instead I went with the Colours, the Balloons and the chunky letters

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The balloons were die cut using 2x balloon dies and a folksy heart die from Spellbinders, plus one punched heart

The plain circle and the scalloped circle for the sentiment are also Nesties dies from Spellbinders

Tiny punched circles to match

The balloons have little highlights using a white pen and some were given a coat of Glossy Accents

Chipboard letters in a Scrabble style are from my ancient stash - bought years ago and never used until now!

Heart from Prims    Die D-Lites Etched Dies (house with flowers, heart and star)

1x Balloon from Ella-Fant die set   Shapeabilities Etched Dies
1x Balloon from Celebrate Die D-Lites  Etched Dies 

That's it for today, I hope you'll visit the Daring Cardmakers blog - there are some stunning cards to see there - it always amazes me how one picture or mood board inspires in so many different ways,  It really shows off how many styles and skills our fabulous team has! 

Thank you for visiting

 

 

Blog Candy Winner

Blog Candy Winner

I've used a random number generator to pick the winner of the lovely

 Poppy die set from
Spellbinders

Congratulations,

Tracy Welham

Please contact me Tracy (email in sidebar, of via Facebook) with your postal info so I can pop your gorgeous Poppy die set in the post for you

Here's the link for those who weren't lucky this time

Poppies (Shapeabilities Etched Dies)

There'll be another give-away coming soon!