Sweet Friendship Card.

This stamp is from Stampin' up it's in the 2018 Spring and Summer Catalogue. It's a sweet set of stamps. This is my favourite image in the set.
I think it's a perfect  image for  those,  less is more type cards.

Get Well Card

I thought this cute Lili of the valley image would make a great Get Well card. 

Another image that  fell into my shopping basket while trying to help a fellow crafter.  Yes,  that's you Josie. ha ha ha.

I couldn't resist the cuteness of this image. 

Besides, I really don't have that much in the way of stamps for Get Well cards.

It's a digital stamp  so this image can be resized to fit your project.

I enjoyed colouring this image so much,  I had to do it again,  but changing the colours.

Sticky Situation Remedy

My ever thoughtful hubby brought me home some wipes to clean my sticky scissors.

 OMG!  these are brilliant at removing adhesive.  

My guillotine blade was so clogged up with glue it was making an awful grinding noise as it cut, it now slices though card with ease and a lot less noise.

They removed the stickiness so easily, I got a little carried away and cleaned all my scissors and a few other sticky gadgets.

 Thanks Hubby,  it's lovely to have glue free gadgets again.

80th Birthday Card, Masculine

I received lovely email from an amazing lady called Josie, (in the USA) she was asking about an image I'd used on one of my cards.  I thought it would be helpful to send Josie a link to the website and the image.
While I was  on the Lili of the valley website a few digital stamps,.. kind of fell into my basket.
Here is one of the images I purchased that day.
This image is called put your feet up. I thought it would be perfect for my Dad's 80th Birthday on Saturday.
It's also reminiscent of a cake,  I made for his 65th birthday party, but that's another story.

The background paper was a sheet of  beige scrapbook paper with a linen texture printed on it.

I stamped over it with time related stamps and Early Espresso ink.

I cut a circular  aperture in the  bottom half of the background paper,   then  I cut a second slightly smaller aperture  in black card and stuck it  behind the background paper to give a very thin black frame.

The next bit was the trickiest bit for me.  I am not brilliant with  computers,  so trying to work out how to write in a circle, with the word at the bottom the right way up took me  hours. If that wasn't bad enough,  I also had to make sure it fitted in the aperture.

Once that was sorted out the rest was  pretty easy.

It was just a case of colouring the image, adding some photo corners and mounting it onto several layers of suitable card and paper.

I added some die cut cogs for  balance,  it looked a little top heavy without them.

I used Almost Navy card stock as a base, before mounting it onto a white  8x6 inch  card base.

The  last thing to do was the insert.

I printed off the greeting on A4 paper folded it in half and trimmed it to fit.

I stamped the clock face and quote on the left side of the insert to add  some interest.
With Versamark Ink... (a clean pad) I stamped  cogs all over the insert to give a watermark effect before sticking the insert in.

Thanks to Josie for the email that sent me back to lotv website.  I would have been struggling for an idea for my Dad's card if I hadn't visited the site.

And Josie
I will be answering your most recent email  soon.

We must celebrate stamp set.

I haven't done a huge amount of crafting of late for a few reasons I'd rather not go into too much here.  But the last few months haven't been easy after a sudden death in the family. 

I am now slowly getting back into crafting with a few simple cards to start with.

For this card I have used  the  "We must celebrate" stamp set from the  new Spring  and Summer Catalogue. 

Here I  have only used greys to colour the animals. 

I refrained from adding a sentiment to this card. I will add one when I've decided on who the card will go to and the occasion.

Baby Card

Another Lili of the valley image for this simple card.   I have purchased quite  a few digital images from LOTV.  Their images are so sweet and I love to colour them .

 My preferred markers are Copics.

  I am undecided on the sentiment for this one, I'll add when a suitable occasion arises.

Masculine card for the DIY guy.

I didn't intend for this card to look like this when I started it. After I had coloured this gorgeous Lily of the Valley  digital image,  I spilled coffee on the top half of the image. 

 I didn't notice the coffee stain until long after it had dried, so there was no way I could mop up the coffee before it stained .

The only way I could save  my coloured image was to cut away the stained section and mount  it on to a new piece of card. I chose black card  so this little guy would stand out.

Airbrush mishaps... Background paper.

You may remember this background paper,  It was created a couple of years ago, when Hubby bought me an airbrush and compressor.   I was practicing using the airbrush when I discovered,  I could create these spidery looking daisies by holding the airbrush close to the paper.
I think  this  technique would be classed as a No no  by professional airbrush users, but I rather liked the look of the technique so continued to cover the page with these flowers.
Here is one of the cards I have created with some of the sheet. I think it's quite effective.

Sale A Bration set Panda Party.

This playful Panda is part of a set in  this years  Sale a Bration  brochure.

For anyone that doesn't know,  Sale a bration  is a Stampin' Up promotion  that runs from January to the end of March each year.

During this time Stampin' Up bring out a range of products that are free of charge when you spend  £45. 

You  are not limited to one free gift either.  You can choose one free item from the Sale a bration  brochure for every £45 you spend. 




This panda is from a set of 3  Pandas and 3 sentiments called  Panda Party  available from this years  Sale a bration promotion.

The Balloon panda is my favourite from this set.





I haven't had much time to play with this set yet,  so I am looking forward to getting some playtime with this set soon.

TNT's wedding scrapbook

This project was over a year in the making.  Although I have to say  much of that time was  spent  hunting for suitable materials in the colours of the wedding.
Somethings I had to buy from the USA and China as I couldn't find them here in the UK or they were ridiculously over priced here.
The frame I used on the cover of this album  was from the USA.  I couldn't find anything the right size, thickness and weight for this project in the uk.
It's a Designs by Shellie  frame. When it arrived it was plain white plastic, I painted it black and applied gold wax lightly over the raised areas.
 I cut a piece of acetate slightly larger than the aperture
 and glued it to the back of the frame. Then cut the photo to fit the frame and glued into position behind the acetate.



The flowers I made using selection of flower dies by Heartfelt Creations , Delicate Asters, Classic Rose, Ariana Blooms and the few mini rose were made by cutting a circle into a spiral inking the edges and rolling it up to form a rose.

I am not going to do a tutorial on this project, firstly because there are some fantastic videos on Youtube on making these books from scratch. Secondly it would take far too long to describe every step and product used.

The spine of the book is covered  in a gorgeous glossy green crocodile skin card.
I used a Tim Holtz frame on the spine of this scrapbook.

The next photo is of the inside cover of the book.  Open the  magnetic strap by lifting the tassel upwards and fold out  two half pages.

One of which is a pocket page which holds  the lists of guests. The second  half page has photos of the invitations and flowers.
The first full page are all the details of the wedding, which I hot foiled in gold.

The second full page is a pocket page and  contains  two photo boards with photos of the bride and her father.


The Grooms page I kept quite simple, just a title and  some captions.

The die cut flap opens to reveal a full page pocket that contains more photo boards  with photos of the Grooms family.

I used Rare Earth magnets  in the flap  to keep this from flapping around when the pages are turned.

When we gave this book to the couple we didn't show them any of the hidden pockets.
We just let them go through the book and when they'd finished we went through it again pointing out all the hidden places they had missed.



The next page  holds the first of two  flip up books.

The pages on this book  are held down with a magnetic strap.

Each  book holds approximately ten to twelve photos. 

Because this page is quite bulky the facing page had to be quite flat.



So I created a flip up page to provide a little more space.
The top photo flips up to reveal a beautiful portrait of the bride on the page underneath, with the title "Simply Stunning."

There is so a poem on love and marriage, which I hot foiled in gold.



The second of the flip up books has cotton twill tied in a bow to keep the pages from flapping around.

This book holds another 11 photos.

The decorative belly band page holds three photo boards in varying sizes.

I didn't think the belly band would hold the photo boards securely when making this page.

 It was a pleasant surprise to find it did the job well. 

The next page holds a waterfall book.

 Pull the orange tassel and the pages roll up revealing a photo or  a quote on each page.

Any books added to a page creates bulk so the following page has to be quite flat in the middle.








 However the  bulk in the centre does create a void around the edges of the page,  which means bulky embellishments like the large 3D flower can be placed in the voids and they don't get crushed when the book is closed.

 I love the heart border punch by Martha Stewart so I had to include it somewhere in this book.

 I made a lace border and wove some ribbon through the centre and trimmed with faux diamante.

A very simple page.

 Just  a few layers and two strips or cotton ribbon threaded through a diamante heart slider.  I needed this page to be flat  as the facing page was quite bulky.

 Another pocket page with photo boards.
Decorated with faux diamante and a handmade rose.

 The little envelopes on this half page  were filled with messages from parents and step parents of the  happy couple.
I made the envelopes using  Stampin' up's envelope punch board.




In the photo  below the half page opens out revealing another pocket page and a flip up page or two.  By creating these half pages  I am also creating a void between the pages where I can place the bulky 3D embellishments.


Technically this is a 6 page scrapbook, but as you can see with all the flip ups,  flip outs and pockets this scrapbook holds a hell of a lot of photos quotes and embellishments.

Now I promised you a link to  a video on making these scrap books.  Well here are the links for the step by step tutorial.  They are long  video so make sure you have lots of time to watch them, Shelley makes the most amazing books and her instructions are so easy to follow. She tends to decorate most of her  books using heartfelt creations paper stacks. Which have pretty much everything you need.
Unlike mine that was made from a variety of papers and card from wherever  I could find paper in the right colours.
I want to make another using a a heartfelt creation paper stack now.

Shelley Geigle is the name of this very talented lady.

 Part  1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcUQckhm1Tg

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eXwSJv6VjQ&t=1691s

Diet /allergy card

When I saw this in the new  S.U. spring/summer catalogue,  I just had to have it.
This almost sums up our new diet.
 Since  I was diagnosed as being pre diabetic three months ago, we have made some major changes to our diet to avoid me becoming diabetic and needing medication.
I have to say the Keto diet does actually work.  The result of my last blood test proved this.
I've also managed to lose some weight, not as much as Hubby who has lost 2 stone,  but every lost pound is a bonus.

It's not an easy diet  to follow when you' ve been  a carb junkie for many years.
Checking the carb content on everything we buy, making every meal from scratch and finding keto recipes that we will all like is a bit of a bind, but worth it for the end results.

Sorry for your loss.

I always find this type of card difficult to do.

I used the Birthday Blooms Stamp set with Night of Navy ink pad to stamp the image.   Using an aqua painter brush filled with water and  brushed over the stamped image to pull some of the colour from the outline onto the petals to give the petals some colour.

I embossed a piece of Night of Navy card to give this card some texture.

I was happy with the way this turned out.

New Years Card.

 This was an idea for a New Years card, but I wasn't too sure about it, so it never got sent.  I used the large number dies  by S.U.

Snow Scene Cards.

 I bought some stamps from a craft show last year and finally got round to use them just before Christmas.

As you can see,  I experimented with colours.
Blue , pink and lilac.

I have to say the pink one is not as vibrant as it appears here.

 The following cards were inked using  lilac ink after I had stamped the images using Memento Tuxedo Black

After the inks were dry I used a white gel pen to add some snow flakes.

The mirrored snow flake  I purchased from  Hobbycraft 10 for £1.
I don't usually  add embellishment  to  my Christmas cards, as most of the people I send cards to thrown them away, so I try to keep the costs down,  but these  snowflakes were so cheap  and they added a little more interest, so why not.                                                                                                                       

8th Anniversary with Stampin' up

I received this Card from my upline Amanda  last week to mark my 8th anniversary with S.U. 

The rose stamp Amanda has

 used for this card is from  a new stamp set called Petal Palette.

Feeling of Christmas.

A simple card using a new stamp set from S.U for this Christmas called  

 Feeling of Christmas.

Tom's card.

The recipient of this card loves sausage dogs, so when I saw this image  I thought of him and purchased this image as a digital stamp from  lili of the valley.

Eclipse card.

Stippled Blossoms stamp set used to create the decorative paper before die cutting out the letters for this eclipse card.

I wasn't sure about the colours on the first card I made, so I did it again in pink and Purple.