Here's Looking at You!

 Hello

welcome to my little crafting place! 

It's Spellbinders Club time again, and as Christmas in Julyis all over we're heading to the sea for August - or should I say under the sea

August's Small Die of the Month  features the loveliest set of undersea items - there are fish, coral and even a couple of cute divers - because you always have to have a Dive Buddy!

I've also used the beautiful Glimmer of the Month set; the gorgeous background plate, the pretty Speckled Prism foil and one of the two sentiment plates

This is a diorama style card so has an extra hinged layer in the centre to give room for one of the divers and some tiny fish to move inside the card.  However the hinges allow it to be folded flat to fit into an enve;ope

 

The movung elements are attached on silver twine - I cut some of the pieces twice so that if they rotate fully they have a back view too

I started by making the basic pieces of the box card, then added the Glimmer 'bubbles' foiling to the back section. 

For the porthole window I've used Tina Smith's Coastal Escape View Die set

I made lots of little fishies and attached them with foam dots, and a second diver who looks as though he's waving through the porthole 

I kept the fron ot the card plain and just added a Glimmer sentiment and a few dewdrop 'bubbles' 

Materials

 

from Spellbinders;

 

August Small Die of the Month

August Glimmer of the Month

includes Speckled Prism foil  

 

Full 48 ColorWheel Cardstock Pack 8.5" x 11"

Coastal Escape View Dies 
  

 Other

 

White linen cardstock 

Dewdrops

Silver twine

Inks

 

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

Elegant Christmas

  Hello

welcome to my little crafting place! 

It's Spellbinders Club time again, and as it's July it must be Christmas!

This time I'm sharing a stylish card using the July Wax Seal of the Month and the Glimmer of the Month

This seal is a real beauty, and I'm loving using it so much! 

I had a bit of fun turning it into a motif for a fairisle jumper and then making it the central motif for a collage,  and tnow I've a more complicated, 3 layer seal in gold, white and black, which is always a stylish colour palette!

 

This time I made the seal in white, then cut out the central section with scissors.  Step 2 is to use the 'pour and scrape' method, heating the stamp a little, popping the white motif back into it then stamping into gold wax and scraping away the excess with a heated spatula. The 3rd stage is to stamp the whole thing into black wax then remove the spare wax from around the square brass seal.  Sometimes just bending it brings the excess off, but I usually use a craft knife for this bit.  Alternately, I use scissors to cut around the finished item when it comes away from the seal.

 I hot foiled a piece of matte gold card with the Glimmer plate and shiny gold foil, then cut off a strip to use on the card (I can use the rest on more cards)

 

The front of my card blank was embossed with the lovely Lined Corners 3D Folder, then the gold strip adhered in place. I added the wax seal and finished off with a twine bow.

The sentiment is from a new BetterPress set, but I hot-foiled it on a strip of black card with gold foil. BetterPress plates work beautifully with hot foil machines!

I used

 

from Spellbinders;

July Wax Seal of the Month

 

Must-Have Wax Beads Mix (black, gold, ahite, silver)

Glimmer of the Month
 

Gold Foil

Lined Corners 3D Embossing Folder  

 

Country Christmas Banner & Sentiments Press Plate & Die Set
  

 

Other:

Smooth white card blank

Scrap of black card

Gold card for foiling

Waxed Twine; black, white

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

Gingerbread Gift Bag

Hello

welcome to my little crafting place! 

It's Spellbinders Club time again, and we're still having fun with 'Christmas in July' crafting. This time I've made a gift bag, and used the Gingerbread man Deluxe Caboodle club gift to make a tag to decorate it

 

The actual gift bag is made from a sheet of A4 80gsm card printed with one of the designs from my ever-increasing collection of digital downloads. The bag is about 15cms high, 10cms across and about 4cms deep, so a good size for a smallgift, like a bag of nice chocolates or a set of mini toiletries etc

For the tag I cut the middlesized scalloped circle from Scallop Journal Cards and trimmed to leave 5 scallops and a bit of extra card to stick to the back of a simple rectangle. At the lower edge I added a cut-down piece from one of the borders in the  Stitch & Dots Scallop Borders set. I used ribbon to conceal the joins

The gingerbread man is made the same way as on an earlier post, and I added candy canes from the July Small Die of the Monthand the little hat from last month's Walrus set (I punched a circle to use for the bobble)) and added a spring 'wobbler' between him and the tag base

 

 Materials

 

from Spellbinders;

July Deluxe Caboodle club gift

 

July Small Die of the Month

 

Vintage Flower Shoppe collection
  Scallop Journal Cards dies

Stitch & Dots Scallop Borders
   

Full 48 ColorWheel Cardstock Pack 8.5" x 11"

 

June Small Die of the Month

 

Other 

80gsm white card aprinted with digital download design

Spotty ribbon

narrow satin ribbon 

 

Gift Bag tutorial is HERE

  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 Centrepiece

 Hello

welcome to my little crafting place! 

It's Spellbinders Club time again, and as it's July it must be Christmas!

The July Wax Seal of the Monthis a real beauty, and I've enjoyed using it so much! I had a bit of fun turning it into a motif for a fairisle jumper and this time I've used it as the centrepiece of a Christmas card and combined it with elements from one of the brand new Christmas releases from Spellbinders

This seal has the same aqua and white colourway as the one I s I used on the jumper, but this time I didn't cut out the square but left it as it was - more like a traditional wax seal.. As before it's made using the 'pour and scrape' method, heating the stamp a little, pouring the white wax and scraping away the excess with a heated spatula, then pouring the aqua wax and placing the stamp (with the white pattern still in it) into it.

This time I made the white a little brighter by adding white glass pen ink to it 

I also made a couple of extras of parts of the seal's pattern, the smaller oneis all white, the other was another of the aqua and white ones, each were trimmed to leave just part of the design 

The sentiment is from a new BetterPress set, but I hot-foiled it on the same teal card with gold foil

 Country Christmas Banner & Sentiments Press Plate & Die Set 

I used

 

from Spellbinders;

July Wax Seal of the Month

 

White Wax Beads

Must-Have Wax Beads Mix Teal 

  

Barn Star Wreath Die set

Country Christmas Banner & Sentiments Press Plate & Die Set
Gold foil

 

Other:

Teal card blank

Red and white spotty ribbon

Scraps of card for die cut elements

  

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

Fairisle Knitting!

 

 

Hello

welcome to my little crafting place! 

It's Spellbinders Club time again, and as it's July it must be Christmas!

I come from a family of women who are/were accomplished knitters. My Grandma was brilliant - she could knit using four needles, circular needles, and all that clever stuff! She could knit socks, Aran patterns, Fishermens 'Ganseys' and Fairisle patterns with their intricate patterns made in lots of coloured wool all at the same time, the ends of which she would into little balls fixed with safety pins and dangling off the back of her work.  I think she was probably the one who taught me to knit - But, I never took to it and was such a disappointement! I can clearly remember her saying "I don't know who you take after" (in a Northumbrian accent, of course), as I loved sewing but loathed knitting.  I think I found out eventually as when I looked into my family history I discovered that my Great Grandmother on the other side of the family had been a seamstress. I actually made contact with a fellow researcher who as a young girl had lived next door to my Great Grandma and told me that the house was full of things she'd made and embroidered, and I also have photos of her daughter wearing dresses her mother would have made

Anyhoo, the July Wax Seal of the Month reminds me so much of those Fairisle pr Scandi knitting patterns I saw my Grandma knitting.  So I just couldn't resist using it to make a Christmas Jumper shaped card!

I started by making a bunch of seals using this stamp, but as I already had this in mind I made several with the same aqua and white colourway.#These are all made using the 'pour and scrape' method, heating the stamp a little, pouring the white wax and scraping away the excess with a heated spatula, then pouring the aqua wax and placing the stamp (with the white pattern still in it) into it.

 Next I made a jumper design on the pc using an old template I alredy had and altering it to get what I wanted. I resized the image so it would fit in an envelope and printed it out on paper.  I used this as a template for cutting the fron of the card in a pale turquoise card stock. The actual folding section of the card is a piece of plain white card glued to the back of the jumper section

I used a blending brush to add 'texture' with a couple of deeper shades of ink, then adhered my wax seals in place.

You'll see that I changed my mind about the style of jumper I was making and just added a freehand cut polo neck

 To finish I used the Let It Snow sentiment from Snowman Scene Etched Dies and holly from Sealed Holly Sprigs which are great dies for using as they are or for separtaing the individual leaves to add to projects

I used

 

from Spellbinders;

July Wax Seal of the Month

 

White Wax Beads

Must-Have Wax Beads Mix Teal 

 

Snowman Scene Etched Dies (Simon Hurley's Snow Globes Collection) 

  

Sealed Holly Sprigs

 

Other:

White card

Turquoise card and inks

Scraps green and red for holly 

  

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