Mother's Day Part One

I was inspired by a card in a recent Cards magazine which showed a white embossed damask print which I thought looked so pretty. I decided to give it a go myself but I'm not thrilled with the end result. I think it is missing some stamping at the top and the embossing powder I managed to find didn't give a nice thick white finish like I wanted. I like the flower decoration and my Martha Stewart punched edge but it just doesn't 'do it' for me, however I hope my MIL likes it.


I hope to be back with a part 2 with the card I am making for my mum. Do you have a card you have made that you can share? I'd love to see it!

Easter-y Goodness - Crafty Templates

I love Easter, it's always the sign that spring is here, even though the weather at the moment has hampered the spring flowers, I can't wait for them to come in to bloom. Also, Easter = chocolate, yum yum yum :)

I loved the cute bunny from Crafty Templates this month. I paired him with the adorable Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety papers, carrot themed paper? it was begging to be used with a bunny!

I used him, or should I say her this time on a little mini egg gift bag for a special little girl I know, I just love these Making Memories Cosmopolitan papers, I've had them for a while and love to dig them out now and again for a project, they are just so pretty.

Lastly this little chickadee from the templates, he also worked perfectly with the CC papers! Now I need to get cracking on a Mother's Day card, I made one for my MIL which I'll share tomorrow, I've been pondering on what to do for my mum's card, I think I just need to pull out all my favourite pretty bits and pieces and see what happens :)

Market Fresh!

I was excited to receive my latest parcel of goodies that I had recently ordered, some lovely American Crafts cardstock and stickers, Cosmo Cricket Material Girl and Garden Variety Mini Deck, Elements and Stickers. I set them all out on my desk and decided to work with Garden Variety. They are really lovely papers but as I looked through them I was increasingly perplexed as to how I was going to use them. Carrots? Pea Pods? how would they work? what occasions could I use them for? Fortunately I found inspiration from the elements paper sheet and it kinda went from there, I made the following cards from it and some others which I can share next week but it wasn't the easiest task I've come up against but that's what it's all about isn't it? Trying new things :)

I loved the cheeky little smiley strawberry so pulled out some felt and made this little guy, if I had the patience I would make more as he is so cute!

I loved the little 'flash card' type of cards included on the elements paper and used them on this one with that cute little berry again. I made an aperture and glued acetate inside with some ki memories die cut paper behind, I liked this technique so expect to be bored with more cards featuring the same technique!

Next up is another of the little cards with adorable little pea pods. I am still learning how to stitch on paper and found curved edges a bit of a challenge but I will persevere! I'm loving the Prima lace at the moment, so very pretty.

Now this last one was a bit tricky, a tomato, on a card? Well, I just sat and merrily cut the veggie paper up and stuck it all together and I like him, he's such a jolly little guy!

If you have made any cards using this line I would love to see them! I'm going to try Material Girl next :)

I love it when a plan comes together!

And this is the result of my 'plan'. It doesn't happen that often to me, I envision it in my head and then proceed to become extremely frustrated when I can't translate the idea from my head to the paper! I had been asked to create a card with the specification that it should be for 'A Special Friend' and this is the result.

I had been playing with acetate earlier in the week and liked the idea of the window revealing a tone on tone stamped image background, in this case butterflies using a Stamposaurus stamp. I made a 5x7 card blank from Americam Crafts paper, cut an aperture and adhered the acetate, I then lined the inside with bazzill and decorated the outside with gems, pearls, glitter flourishes and thickers.

Products used - Paper: American Crafts, Bazzill. Stamp: Stamposaurus. Flourish: Sizzix, Pearls: Queen & Co. Gems: Swarovski. Ribbon and Flowers: Etsy. Ink: Versamark. Acetate: Papermania.

I must admit that it will be hard to part with it but I hope the recipient likes it! It's been a strange day here today, sunshine, rain, thunder then sunshine, I did enjoy this view from my craft room today -

I'm so fed up of all this bad weather, I can't wait for spring to arrive! Lots more to share this week, hope you are all enjoying the weekend!

Wedding Day - Caardvarks Challenge

I've decided to enter the Caardvarks challenge this month, and the prize? have your card featured in Cards magazine. I love Cards magazine, beautiful cards, pictures and inspiration.

The theme was 'Wedding'. I used a romantic feeling victorian 'With Love and Devotion' heart, my favourite K&Co buttons paper, MS punches, pearls, gems, tulle and ribbon. I really like it, it's a bit different from what I would normally have designed for a wedding, it did start out in varying shades of cream and white but needed the colour to avoid it looking washed out. I also used german glitter glass which gives a fabulous patina as it ages.

Hey, you never know what will happen but it doesn't hurt to try ;)

Fresh as a Daisy - Crafty Templates

Loving this month's Crafty Templates Fresh as a Daisy card kit. Such lovely spring-y colours using yummy papers from Basic Grey Origins collection among other lovely bits and pieces. Leo creates such lovely kits and some great templates, I really look forward to them dropping on my doormat each month!

I am really sucking at photos just lately, my craft room (or should I be posh and say 'studio') gets some great light but with the crappy weather we have been having they look a little washed out. I promise they are zingy and fresh in real life!

I have some time off over the next couple of weeks so I am looking forward to relaxing and getting plenty of crafting done, I may scrapbook some more, I haven't done that in a little while!

Sweet Baby

I love making baby cards as I always have to try and include a little ducky as often as I can! My husband's friends wife is currently in labour so this card will be winging it's way to them as soon as the little one arrives.

I started playing with scallop cards last week, I'm not keen on the edge at the fold, I think I should be attaching a scallop onto a card blank instead of making a scalloped blank. I've typed scallop so many times now the word has lost all meaning :)

I had to squeeze in a baby girl one, always good to keep a spare handy just in case! Be back later this week to share this month's Crafty Templates kit, it's yummy!

Hi, Hello, Howdy

I love making little notecards. They are a great way to use up scraps of card and also a fun way to try new things. I am addicted to making cards in 2.5"x4", mainly becuase I have a stash of envelopes in that size!

I wanted something bright and cheery that would allow me to use my newly amassed stash of Accessorize/Paperchase stickers which are just too, too cute! I also tried magic mesh which I have had kicking around for a few years and have never thought to use before.

This one came about when I was making the get well soon card and had the stripy paper leftover. The papers are K&Co Greenhouse as is the journalling spot and some die cuts. The pretty felt flower is from crafty templates sugar, sugar kit. Hopefully it's cheerful colours will brighten someones day!

Valentine Presents

My best friend moved overseas a couple of years ago taking my adorable niece and nephew with her :) I try to send cards as often as I can and created these for my niece, nephew and BF's husband (BF gets an extra special card!) The stamp images were all cut using decorative scissors from K&Co paper, along with some embossed Doodlebug card and some paperchase stickers, I love how they turned out!

I'm also sending a ton of valentine and easter chocolates, a pack of notecards and these babies...

I've been working on this flower hairclip for a while, I had the outer petals and ribbon ruffle finished a couple of months ago but didn't know how to finish the centre. I found these pretty diamante flower buttons on eBay and they were just what I was looking for and add a nice little sparkle. My niece has the most beautiful, romantic looking curly hair and I hope this will look so pretty in her blonde curls.

I really like making handbag keychains out of pretty beads so I made this one for my best friend. The beads were an absolute steal from Accessorize, in my local store they have a section for broken jewellery and I picked up some beautiful necklaces, brooches and bracelets for 10p-50p each. I was able to fix 2 and they would have cost me over £25 to buy! Anyway, I digress, one of the beads on a bracelet was covered in thread which had frayed so it was reduced to 10p, I simply removed the beads from the elastic and rewired them onto a length or keychain with a lobster clasp. The finished keychain is in shades of taupe, mushroom and soft rose, sounds a bit blah but looks really expensive, I'd like to keep it but every time I would see it on my bag I would feel guilty :)

Get Well Soon

There are so many people around me at the moment who are poorly and whilst I might not be able to visit I can make them a card to let them know I am thinking of them. I had a good day of crafting today and was pleased to get a couple of projects finished in time for posting, I'll pop a couple of pictures up later.

I love the green get well card, it's much more vivid IRL but the light was v. sucky today and I am still learning how to use my camera. It felt a bit different from the usual cards I make, I'm still experimenting with colour which you can see here

Okay, not ground breaking, but very, very bright for me! I think I like it, I also made a similar card with a different sentiment which I also post soon.

I don't have any specific rhyme or reason to my cardmaking, apart from specific occasions, I like to pull out different bits and pieces, see what works and generally have a 'play'. I have noticed that I tend to make the same birthday/hello cards so I am trying to cover some different occasions to plump out my card box in case I need a one in an emergency or if I don't have the time. I do need to make a baby card so I think that will be my next project and I'll make some extras for my box!

PS. Have you tried these?? I am convinced that they are the work of the devil because they are so delicious, you must try them, no, resist, run, save yourself!!

One for the boys!

It was my darling husband's birthday on Saturday and I had been stressing about making him a card and having enough time to get it done. I had purchased him some XB360 live points for his birthday and decided to use the box as a card to go with the points.

I made a template for the 360 itself, cut out the various buttons and doo-dads and embellished them with metallic pencils, krylon silver pen and dimensional adhesive before attaching them to the template. I wanted it to 'pop' out a little when opened so I mounted it on a strip of card with a couple of creases so it would lay flat when closed. I added on some decorated die cut circles (although one dropped off leaving that little blank of white card to the template!) some stickers and finished it off by mounting the points card on with repositionable adhesive.

I didn't have as much time as I would have liked and there are some changes I would have made but I was happy with the finished card and fortunately for me he loved it and it now sits proudly in his office. Phew!

Lovely Letters - Crafty Templates

I was excited to find my Crafty Templates Love Letters kit in my letter box last week and couldn't wait to get started. Full of lovely red and kraft papers with splashes of cream and black, you can pick one up here

I loved the shape of the tree template and paired it with some accessorize stickers from my own stash.

I liked the look of the plain kraft hearts in the background as it doesn't overwhelm. I just added MM sticker sentiment from my own stash.

This is a combination of two templates, the button heart and banner birds. As soon as I saw the birds I knew that I wanted to colour them in a 'tattoo style', I don't have the fancy markers so I used my good old watercolour pencils and was happy how it turned out but would have liked them to be a bit more vibrant!

I used the mug template and added tabs on the side to make a little pouch and added a sachet of hot chocolate and a chocolate covered spoon as a sweet treat for the recipient :)

This one was made using some scraps from the kit, ribbon and chipboard button from previous kits, a sweet little gold birdie from a MM Vintage Findings kit (oh how I love MM vintage stuff) and a stamp from my dad's old stamp collection!

Till next time, I've been scrapping a bit over the past few days hence the lack of cards and I am seriously stressing over hubbies birthday card, I hope my idea translates but even if not I know he will appreciate the effort!

Just a quickie

It's my husband's birthday next week and I am stuck for ideas on what to make for him, I don't tend to lean towards themed cards but I have a feeling it's the only way I am going to be able to come up with something. Dang it, I'm rubbish at creating male cards! It's also his Nanna's birthday the day after so this is what I whipped up for her using my new Sizzix lilac die, a Brenda Walton butterfly and lots of brads and i-dots.

Hope to share more later in the week using the yummy January Crafty Templates card kit!

Thank you very much, thank you very, very, very much!

The thank you very much ditty from the Roses chocolate advert has been running through my brain whilst making these cards. I love giving cards and thank you cards are no exception, we received some lovely christmas gifts so these cards were a must-make.

The peach and green card is for my mum and dad who spoilt me rotten and I knew they (ok, my mum) would appreciate something frilly and girly! It looks a bit squiffy in the picture but I promise it's not!

These were made from some paper I have had for a while but it felt christmassy yet not which suited the purpose perfectly!

Shield your eyes!!

I decided to try and make some cards outside my comfort zone but didn't really succeed as well as I would have hoped as they still were too comfortable to make, I thought using brighter colours and colours I wouldn't normally use would be a challenge, turns out not so much.

I think I need to frequent some 'challenge blogs' to really get me thinking differently, if you know of a good one please leave me a comment and let me know!

Ushering in the new year.

Happy new year! I'm a few days late but I am back nonetheless. I moved house in early December, I knew that I would rather move before christmas than straight after but forgot what an upheaval it can be (seriously, who forgets that?) but I am now all moved in and settled and everything is where it should be and all I can say is thank goodness!

The biggest revelation was how much craft stuff I have, and it appears that I have enough to last until the end of this decade. I hope to give a few bits and pieces away on here then donate the rest to the local arts and crafts for seniors group.

I haven't had many opprtunities for crafting since I have moved and all hopes of making my own christmas cards were dashed due to work commitments and not being able to find anything! However, this week I was able to sit down and (semi) relax and create a few bits and pieces which I'll post over the next couple of days.

As I was organising my bits and pieces I found that I had quite a bit of K&Co Madeline papers and embellishments so decided to use some on a couple of cards but have hardly made a dent! I used some die cuts, seam binding ribbon and some hand tinted paper roses all finished off with some sparklies and pearls on the card at the top.

This one felt a little more out of my comfort zone, a little shabbier than usual. I used the aforementioned papers, some die cuts, gathered tulle, velvet ribbon and some sizzix die cut swirls painted with crackle paint and alcohol inks.

I hope you have all had a wonderful christmas and I wish you all a very happy new year and I am looking forward to sharing more craftiness during 2010!

By Request

A lovely lady emailed me asking how I made my Butterfly Birthday Wishes card, so I thought I would share it here. For me, this card was all about texture, it is a little time consuming but gives you a very stroke-able card in return!

To make the card
1. Cut a piece of thick card half the size of your card blank, cover with wet glue, apply a layer of batting and allow to dry
2. Cover the top half of your card with patterned paper, I used flocked paper by Making Memories. Cut a frame from Bazzill, stamp with the stamp of your choice and apply perfect pearls. Mount the frame over the flocked paper.
3. Cover the batting with fabric, pull the fabric taut and glue in place. Evenly stitch over the top of the fabric and pull tight, tie ends in a knot and fluff the end of the thread.
4. I sewed small seed pearls along the bottom edge of my lace, then glued the top edge of the lace on the back of the fabric covered board then flipped it over to make a seamless finish. Glue the board and slip it under the edge of the frame so it slightly overlaps then stick in place.
5. Add your sentiment.

To make the butterflies
I used some K&Co chipboard butterflies which I traced onto grungeboard and then cut out. There are lots of digital templates or dingbats that you could use to create yours, or run it through a die cutter with your favourite die to make it even easier!
1. Cut out your butterflies, sandwich in your chosen embossing folder and run through your die cutting machine. I used Cuttlebug D'vine Swirl.
2. I painted mine white with acrylic paint, you could paint a coloured layer of base coat, then paint over with white paint and lightly sand to reveal the colour underneath.
3. Once dry, lightly smooth versamark ink over the top, don't press too hard as you only want to ink the raised detail. Dust over the top with perfect pearls, I used interference blue for a nice lustre.
4. Lightly ink the edges, then apply small blobs of distress stickles around the edge (a little goes a long way!) and smooth around the edge with your finger.
5. Gently pull the wings together to create a more 3D effect. Embellish with sequins and gems to create the body.
6. Flip the butterfly over and glue ribbon 'tails' on the back and top with a tuille bow. Take a length of wire, fold in half, curl the ends and glue for the antennae.
7. Adhere butterflies to card.

I have also added a list of the supplies I used, it does seem quite long but most things you should have in your stash already, all of my cardstock, fabric and ribbons were offcuts so it's great to use up all those bits and pieces you have lying around.

If you do make your own, please post a link to yours in the comments section, I'd love to see it!

Until December!
p&r

Supplies needed:
Card blank
Patterned paper
Bazzill
Card
Fabric/lace/batting/needle and thread
Ribbon and Tuille
Grungeboard
Glitter/gems/sequins/beads
Embossing folder
Distress stickles/Distress Ink
Perfect Pearls

Drought

A bit of a drought at the moment, i'm in the process of moving house and unfortunately all my crafty stash is the first casualty when packing!

Hope to be back mid-december with some new bits and pieces!

Spooktastic

I am rather accident prone at the moment, from hurting my back, tripping over my own feet and now I have 2 fingers strapped together which makes typing and crafting a rather slow process!

I have been working with the latest Crafty Templates kit Autumnal Treats and it is scrummy. Filled with papers and embellishments that work for both Autumn cards and Halloween Treats . As soon as it landed I had so many ideas and the templates that come with it are adorable, unfortunately I have been hampered somewhat by my unbendy fingers so I only managed a couple of cards and a mini book by deadline, but I'm hoping to work on some more cards later this week!

Apologies for the small pictures, they are clickable for a large size, Blogger seems to be stretching out my pictures if I make them any bigger!

How cute are the halloween characters? I added the apple, candy and the letters which die cut from sizzix Wingo Zingo alphabet.

The front of the mini book. The wrap is made from Bazzill Just the Edge wavy cardstock strip with a velcro closure topped with Elle's Studio Halloween Mini Paper.

The pages were die cut with Spellbinders Labels One then backed onto black card. Each page was set with eyelets and threaded with ribbon, I added Elle's Studio Vintage Label cut outs then miniature halloween characters from the templates provided.

Cute little Halloween treat bags. I folded the bag into 3 and stapled the back to make a smaller bag, die cut a label and added a pumpkin from the template and more Elle's Studio paper. I made a few of these to give to my friends kids. I tried making little bags for any trick or treaters that knocked on my door last year, but because we live on a dark, country road no-one dared venture out of the village to us!

Finally, an autunal card using the template for the trees, yummy Bo Bunny Kitchen Spice papers, handstitching on the leaves and as a border and Hero Arts sentiment.

I'm off to rest the fingers after the epic post and look forward to posting some more during the week after I get the splint off. Happy Crafting :)

Christmas is a-coming!

I used to be very bah humbug when it came to christmas but last year felt a resurgance of christmas spirit and threw myself into decorating and baking and loved it (could have also been because I didn't work over the christmas period for the first time in 7 years!)

I've noticed some changes around me recently, mince pies, stollen and family tins of sweets in the supermarkets, plans at work for the all important 4th quarter and finally the christmasalicious September Crafty Templates kit that arrived the other week! What's a girl to do but try to embrace the season so I popped on a christmassy movie and here is what I came up with.

I loved the little stockings, especially coupled with the sweet little bells, made me think of elves which in turn prompted me to watch Elf while making these!

The house template was so cute, I liked the idea of opening the windows like you would with an advent calendar.

I cut the jumper template from felt and embroidered. It's perfect to send to my friend in Canada where it's so very cold.

This is not a template card, but I liked how it turned out. I love using my cuttlebug embossing folders and this one is a firm favourite, it adds just the right wintery touch.

Hope this week has been kind to you all, have fun :)