Simple floral card

 A vey simple card using the Flowers for all Seasons DSP.  Not a lot to say about this  card it's that simple. 

Beautiful Blizzard

I think I bought this stamp set for this sentiment alone,
I have had a little time to play and  I've discovered the  snowflake stamp in the set is pretty useful too.
The set is called Beautiful Blizzard.

Here I have heat embossed both the background snowflakes and the sentiment with detail silver embossing powder.

Cambridge Carols again.

 A few days ago I posted a card using  this stamp  from the Cambridge Carols  on  the Demonstrator Facebook page.   Another Demo left comment on how she loved it done in black and white.

I was a little confused at first as the card was the navy and white card in post below this one.
It turned out that she was looking at the post on her phone and it did look black and white on the small screen.  Her comment gave me the idea of colouring the image in black an white...well that's not strictly true. I used lot of shades of grey, (not quite 50 shades  of  grey though,   ( lol.)

The result isn't as bad as I thought it would be.
I wanted to keep the whole card black and white but I wasn't keen any on any of  my black and white papers , so I decided to add colour to make the card a little more cheerful.
I die cut some sprigs of berries from red and white card. The looked too flat and dull for my likings.
 The red berries  I pressed them into a Versmark ink pad and heat embossed them with clear embossing powder.
The white berries I covered with glue using the two way glue pen and dusted them with  ultra fine white glitter for a frosty appearance.

I  die cut some pine needles and arranged the branches and berries in a variety of ways before settling on this arrangement. I'm not entirely happy with this arrange and can't help feeling it needs something else, but I am not too sure what to add. Maybe a small  pine cone or two?

Accented Blooms

I've been playing with the Accented Blooms set from S.U. a lot  as I needed a bunch of  Thank you cards to send out to thank family for my birthday presents.

Hubby did a wonderful job in  organizing  and ordering almost all my pressies this year, just to be sure I got,  just what I wanted.  YAY!! More refills.
Thank you Hubby.xx

I have  well over  two  hundred Copic Markers, which I use for all my colouring projects.  
Copics are not cheap but they are

Lovely to work with and they are refillable.  So Hubby  got most people to buy inks refills for my birthday.                                             I hate throwing away markers with perfectly good tips just because they have run out of ink and  in  turn adding to the  plastic  waste problem we have caused this planet.I realized  that the refills also come in plastic bottles, but to my mind the buying the refills reduces the amount of plastic I  personally throw away.

One refill will refill my pen approximately  10 -15  times.

So that's a lot of plastic  pens I am not adding to the plastic waste problem.  

I tend to do all my colouring at night and there is very little that is more frustrating than colouring a project and having the pen run out of ink. 

Especially if you don't have a refill to hand and  have to wait days for the postman to deliver a  new pens or  refill so I can complete my project. (We don't have a Copic stockist anywhere near us.)

Oh dear,  I am starting to sound like an Eco warrior.  I can assure you I am not as good as I could and should be at recycling, but I do try.

If saving the planet is not your concern   (which it should be) 

here is another reason for buying the refills.... it saves you  money and we all like to save money.

Ciao pens retail price is about £3  per pen,  a refill is about £6.50  but you will get at least 10 refills from one bottle.  It makes sense to to buy the refills. 

Personally I think all markers companies should offer refills, but then,  they wouldn't make so much money out of us.

  

Remarkable You stamp set .. Magnolia 3

Another  card using the magnolia stamp from the Remarkable you set. this time I have randomly stamped the bloom over whisper white card stock and coloured the images with Copic markers. I then cut the card down to fit on the front of  two  6x4 inch base cards.

The sentiment is from a retired set called riveting.

Bauble card

Another retired Christmas Stamp  from the Ornament  Keepsake set and die cut with the coordinating die.
The sentiment is from a set called  Greetings of the Season.

Stampin' Up 5 Year Pin

Arrived home for lunch one day last week to find a large letter accompanied by this little pin waiting for me,

 I certainly didn't expect any sort of recognition for  5 years especially as in the same month and week  I had just completed 20 years service  in my main job with no recognition at all. 

 So this was a nice touch from S.U. 

I have to add this pin is actually much shinier and more gold in colour than in this photo,

 It was sent to mark 5 years with Stampin' Up

Box Card Tutorial.

Box Card Tutorial .
Here's quick tutorial on making the Box Card.My measurements may vary  slightly from other tutorials.

Start by cutting an A4 sheet of cardstock in half as if to make two 4x6 cards.

Place your card on your scoreboard and score  at  2"  4"    6"  and  8" inches.
You will notice there will be a narrow strip left at the end of the card. this is where your adhesive will go when you come to stick the box together.






Turn the card around on the scoreboard so that the narrow strip is at the bottom of the scoreboard. Then score a line across three the top three panels ONLY. Then mark the narrow strip at the 2" inch point.

The unscored panel is the back of the card where you will place your sentiment panel  and a space for the card to be signed.



Using a knife or scissors cut down the  three score lines to the the score lines cross over.





Cut away the top section ONLY  of the narrow strip. 

Your box should look like this  when the cutting is finished.


DO NOT stick your box together yet.











Cut three side panels in either white card stock or a decorative cardstock that coordinates with you base card.

I have decided to decorate the panels myself using rubber stamps rather than my usual  patterned papers.

I have chosen this colour because  I was asked to making a card for a Sapphire Wedding Anniversary.
So I thought I would experiment first.

Your panels need to be half and inch smaller than the side panels of the box.
You will also need to cut 4 smaller panels to decorate the top flaps of the box.   Again these need to be about  half and inch smaller than the box flaps.

The last panel is  going to be  half an inch smaller than the full length  back panel .





Here I have use a  Night of Navy ink pad from SU and stamped the images from the flower shop  stamp set and the petite petals stamp set.
Using the Aqua painter I picked up a  little ink from the lid of the ink pad and brushed in a little more colour to the flowers. the I sponged the edges of the card stock with the same ink. I repeated this on all the panels.

 Now you can stick stick your panels onto your box  sides and flaps.





You can also join the sides of the box together now with a strong double sided tape or glue.

Allow to dry if using wet adhesive.







Next step,  the  mechanics of this card. 

Cut two strips of card about half an inch wide.


Then cut the strips into  lengths of  3" you'll need three in total and  score a line  half an inch in at both ends  of each strip.
These are the bridges  which you will be sticking all your decorative piece to and they so it is important they are stuck in to position firmly.



Fold the ends so they are going in  opposite directions, so they look rather like a stretched Z.

Open up your box and stand it on a firm surface.

Place a small amount of glue onto the end tabs of one of  the bridges and gently place the bridge inside the top opening of the box and as bring it as far forward as it will go and then squeeze those glue tabs  against the side walls of the box, then lay the box  on it's side and  gently squish it flat, this is to make sure it will fold flat when it's  finished so that it will fit into an envelope.   You really don't want any nasty surprises later on.


Repeat this until all three bridges  stuck in. 


Do remember to  fold it flat after adding each bridge. If you do something wrong at this point you will be able to correct it easier  at this point  rather than after you've added        all  your bit's and bobs.



Now comes the fun bit.
Cut  some thin strips of fairly thick acetate around 1/8" wide  and  in varying lengths. You'll need quite a few.

Then stick each of your decorations on to an acetate stem. 

Starting with the larger items begin sticking them to the Bridges. Then  add the smaller items.


I love to use small glittery hearts  and  shiny gem stones mixed in with the flowers to give a little sparkle and to lift.

Here is the box with all the strips of acetate stuck to the bridges. This card was made for a Sapphire Wedding Anniversary hence the 45.

I Love Lace Birthday Card.

I have been dying to get my hands on this lace background stamp. 

The moment I saw it in the new catalogue I said to myself  I'm having that. 

It is such a beautiful design and so delicate, how could I resist it.

I love it. I have so many  things I want to try doing with it, when I get a bit more time to play. 

It's a stamp that is going to be very versatile. I can see this being 

great for wedding cards , Valentine's , anniversaries, birthdays and vintage cards.

 It's a large background stamp called "I love lace"  and it's in the new stampin up catalogue.

Here I have stamped just half of the stamp on to Cherry cobbler cardstock using

 Memento black ink. 

I also added some crumb cake ribbon  and a bow.

 I punched out  some flowers  using the Boho three flower punch and shaped them with a large ball tool.

I added some rhinestones and pearls to the centre of the flowers . 

The birthday sentiment is from a stamp set called "Perfectly penned" again from SU.

Petite Petals Birthday Card.

Today's post is a card I have CASE'd from another SU demonstrator from Germany.

 I saw  this card on her blog and thought it was beautiful so I  just had to CASE it.

  I think what drew me to this card was her use of the Gorgeous Grunge splatter stamp.

She has stamped the splatters and heat embossed them in silver.

 The card looks a bit flat and uninspiring without this addition.

My card is not exactly the same  but its as close as I could get it without actually copying it stamp for stamp.   I will post the link to her blog

 at the end so you can pop over and see the original versions.  

You will notice  a few more changes that I haven't mentioned.

I am not sure what colours Annmarie used on her card as she doesn't list her colours on the first version of this card. She does list her colours for the second version.

I can tell you the colours I used. 

They were Blushing bride, Night of navy, and Raspberry  ripple.

Stamp set used were  Gorgeous grunge, Petite petal and Flower shop.

 The paler images in the top and bottom corners I inked up the small flower with Blushing bride ink and stamped it off once onto scrap paper before applying the stamp to the corners for a softer image.  Then inked up the stamp with the same ink and applied it directly to the card, which gave the stronger image.

Then I stamped the flower again in Night of navy directly onto the card and I stamped two images onto scrap card and punched them out with the corresponding punch for layering up. 

Using Versamark ink I inked up the splatter stamp, wiped down my card with an embossing buddy ( anti static pad) and stamped the image in the top left corner and the bottom right corner, covered the splatters in embossing powder and heated until shiny. 

The sentiment was also heat embossed in silver before punching it out with the word window punch and mounting it on to Blushing bride cardstock.

The central flower is a stamp from the Flower shop stamp set. I used Raspberry ripple ink to stamp this image on to scrap card. Then used the same ink along with a water filled paintbrush to colour in the image.  Once the  ink was dry I punched out the large flower with the corresponding  punch and  added the smaller flower to the center with a small, thin sticky foam pad placed a sparkly in the  center of the flower and adhered it in place on the front of my stamped background. 

The final steps were to add the rhinestones and  mount my finished work onto a piece of Blushing bride cardstock, then onto  Night of navy cardstock and finally onto the 7x5 white base card.  

All that's left for me to do now is create the insert and get this in the post to a special lady for her birthday.

But before I go here is the link to Annmarie and Andrea's  post for this beautiful and  inspiring  card.

http://firsthandemotion.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/petite-petals-in-pastell.html

Fuzzy Felted Fairies

I had the urge to try something new a few weeks ago as 

I had seen a tutorial on the internet on making needle felted fairies. I thought the looked pretty and  simple enough to do. 

So off we went to the craft shop to buy the  wool roving and needles, not a huge amount  just a few bits to see if I was capable of producing something worth having and to see if I enjoyed doing it.

It would also be the perfect thing to do in our caravan in the evenings or on wet days. 

We have to take something to do as we do not have a tv or internet while away in caravan.

 Hubby likes to do  his sudoku puzzles  and we both love scrabble.

This activity  does not require much in the way of tools and materials just needles, pipe cleaners, foam pad and roving, so it doesn't take up too much space in the caravan, unlike the Bigshot.

  As you can see,  I have enjoy this pastime.                      I have made quite a few of these over the last week or so.   I have to say, I didn't follow the tutorial complete exactly and I really wasn't too keen on the wool roving wings on the original tutorial.                                                                                                                            I tried several different options for the wings , skeletonized leaves, vellum, Embossed vellum, card and I finally decided I like the mulberry paper best.

I also played around with  the shapes and sizes of the wings.   Settling  on  these butterfly wings.               They were cut using the  Large Butterflies  die from Stampin' up. (now retired)                                                 I think they work quite well.     

The tutorial didn't give instructions for making miniature flowers.  It was a case of playing around with the needle and  just a few strands of roving and hoping for the best.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Warning: before embarking on this  pastime,   I have to say,  I have found  this hobby to be  very addictive,  a lot  like Pringles, once you start you just can't stop.                                                                                                 So much so that my sleep pattern has been wrecked.   I am finding myself picking up the needle and roving in the evening and not putting it down until I have finished the project. Which has been around 4 am  lately. I really must start going to bed at a reasonable time from now on. 

Of course Fairies are not the only thing you make, I  have just finished doing a witch holding a pumpkin.

 Unfortunately she  is proving to be a nightmare to photograph. Which is a shame as I really wanted to show that you can also sculpt the faces. 
My witches face is really scary. 

My goal with this hobby  is to get good enough to be able to needle felt realistic looking animals. 
So I'll keep practising  with these simple things until I feel confident enough to attempt an animal.

Simple Christmas Card

Here's a quick and simple Christmas card using the bigz Snow Flurry die from SU , which sadly retired before I had chance to spot it in the catalogue  and purchase it.  
It took me months to find somebody that was selling one, eventually I did find a lady in Shetland that was willing to part with hers. 

Here I have just cut out the snow flake in silver foiled card and SU's glimmer paper and layered the flakes with some sticky foam pads. I added a few sparkles in the tips and centre of the centre flake but to be honest I really don't think the ones on the tips do anything for the card so I won't be adding them to the tips of any future snowflakes I make.
The background paper I embossed using an A4 Embossing folder called Starburst by Teresa Collins.  I love this starburst design infact I love most of the designs in the range  and the fact they are A4 size means they'll be great for larger projects.

Hubby's Birthday Card.

It was  Hubby's birthday last week and I had left his card to the last possible minute.  Not through lack of time, I had plenty of time for a change. 
I just didn't have  any idea's at all that would fit him.

The night before I suddenly  remembered he used to have a thing about watches. Arh!!!! I have the Dapper dad stamp set and the Well Worn DSP which is a lovely masculine paper.....but what on earth am I going to do with them.


I tried several things but didn't like the results.
 At around midnight on the eve of his birthday I finally came up with this  7 X 5  card.

I stamped and heat embossed the watch in gold embossing powder.
 Stamped it a gain in black craft ink and allowed the craft ink to dry thoroughly then punched out the clock face with the 1" circle punch and stuck it onto of the gold clock face.




I added a  1" resin  bubble/ domed circle thingy... ( what are these things called?????)over the clock face then set about cutting my layers.

Using  oval dies I cut out some layers to mount the watch on. 
I used some thin sticky  foam pads in between the scalloped layer and the card to bring the watch forward a little.











I love this  sheet of designer series paper it's my favourite in  the Well Worn pack.
But it was  to plain for this card.  

 So I dragged out the  retired,  Sense of Time stamp set and used the cog stamp and black ink pad  to add a little more interest to the background.
Besides I really like over stamping on printed paper, heat embossing is even better.


I stamped, punched and sponged  my greeting and glued it in place.

For the inside   I made up an A4 sheet of paper  on the PC  with quotes and sayings that all related to time .  I printed it off then over stamped with the large clock faces  from the Sense of Time  stamp set.
It was then cut to size and stuck into the card with some narrow DS tape ..... All ready for the morning.

Stippled Blossom Cards

You  could say I had a Stippled Blossom day when I made these.
I made the red one because I love  deep red,  then I started to wonder if the same card would work in other colours so I tried purple and then I tried  the dreaded Orange.
I really loathe the colour orange and the fruit as it happens. 






For these 6x6 cards.....
I used the retired DSP from SU . The colours were Cherry cobbler, wonderful wisteria and pumpkin pie. I  also used the same colour inks  plus pretty in pink, concord crush, apricot appeal, for the flowers.
Old olive and lucky limeade for the foliage.
The Stamp Stippled Blossoms from Stampin up. ( still available) This is still my favourite stamp set. It's a two step stamp set.
If you have never come across these sets you won't know how they work.

 Basically they are sets where you have a solid image stamp and a detail stamp to create one image.  You stamp your solid image in a light colour ink. Then ink up the detail stamp with a darker ink and stamp over the solid image. 
In the above card  I stamped the solid image in lilac ink.
 Then I stamped over the solid lilac image with  the detail stamp and dark purple ink. 

As you can see these stamps give a very detailed gorgeous image without having to colour a thing.    My kind of stamps.



The paper lace was punched using two punches from Martha Stewart's range of punches.


White paper lace didn't look quite right  on the orange so I opted to use Black . 

 I don't think I would like to receive this card if I were ill, being orange it would probably make me sicker.                   

Sew Lovely meets Vintage Vogue Wheel Stamp

I was looking for some inspiration on the internet the other night when I came across card I fell in love with. It was created by an Australian lady called Narelle. 

Narelle makes beautiful cards, they are not five minute wonder cards, she puts a lot of time and effort into her cards and it shows, they keep your interest for ages.

Here I have CASE'd one of her cards, I have not copied it exactly but I probably would have done had I had all  the materials she used. 

Narelle's  card  is just so beautiful it  shouted at me CASE ME, CASE ME...... So I did. 

 I have an Aunt who's birthday is this week and she is a serious sewing lady. 

(I  wrote serious sew er first  but then realized you may confuse it with waste water and it's by products, yuck! .) 

Anyway this card will be perfect for her.

I will leave you Narelle's website  link at the end of my post so you can visit her website and all her wonderful creations.

Here's a list of  the items  I used to create this card.

Vintage vogue wheel stamp ,

 Button button stamp set,

 Sew Lovely

 Established Elegance,

Always artichoke dsp,

Always artichoke card stock,

Always artichoke ink pad,

Very vanilla seam binding,

Large green pearl brad

Very Vanilla card stock,

Circle die,  and circle punch slightly different sizes,

Boho punch  I used the smallest of the three flowers on this punch. 

Three self adhesive flat back pearls.

Sponge dauber for edges,

Victoria lace from SU

Tiny bronze safety  pin.

 As promised here's the  link to Narelle's website  and the original version and inspiration for this card. While there take a look at all her other creations..... Just be warned,  you'll be there for hours, she has so many wonderful cards to look at.

http://narellefarrugia.com/2012/06/26/the-paper-players-101-dynamic-duos-8/

Sharon's Santa Suit card

This Santa's belly card was made and  sent to me by Sharon a Stampin' up demo in the Berkshire area.
Sharon has used  an assortment of dies and punches to create this card.

I love how she has used the square scallop punch and the stamp punch to create the buckle and a  label die to create the beard.

I am ashamed to say I didn't send Sharon a card this year, for two reasons  one being I only made a few cards  and two being  I couldn't find her address. I hope she will forgive me.

stampin' up clear box labels, quick tip.

I think I spend more time looking the stamp set I want to use than actually using it. 
This is partly because I find it very difficult to read the labels on the side of the old style  boxes. Of course you won't need to do this with the new video style boxes the stamps come in now as the names are much clearer.

As you can see in this photo the stamp set labels are not easy to read so I tend to pull each set out to see if it's the one I want.

Then I had an idea that I think is worth sharing. 
I was intending to stick white sticky labels on the inside of the boxes  to make the names stand out a little more,  I couldn't find the labels  but I did find a reel of white electrical tape.

It occurred to me that this was just the right width, so I wouldn't have to cut the sticky labels down to the right width and I could cut lengths the width of the boxes, By doing this it meant the tape  also highlights  the quantity of stamps in the set too.

Being pvc tape it shouldn't absorb as much ink as the paper labels , which means it should stay cleaner longer.
When it does become ink stained it  will  be easier to remove than paper labels.
 So I set about sticking strips on the inside  edge of all my stamp sets.  

You have to agree these are so much easier to read than in the first photo and all for just a few pence and quite a bit of time, but hopefully this will save me time and eye strain  in the long run.
If I want even bigger  labels  I could  hand write the names on the box with a Sharpie  pen and stick the tape behind the name.
Hope you find this a useful tip.
Click on the photos for larger image.