A nice anniversary card..... I think

This is a fairly quick and easy one to make.  It would have been quicker if I hadn't over inked my "craft" ink pad   (which Is a Slow drying ink) I had to wait for ages for the ink to dry, but it took so long I resorted to using the heat gun to finish it off.

This is a 6x4 inch card. I started by brushing ink in a  semi random way over the card stock. I brushed in a couple hills in the distance then  splattered some water over the card and waited for a about 30 seconds before blotting  off the excess water and the ink it lifted.

 I wanted the splatter marks to be a little brighter, so with an aqua painter  filled with bleach I added  tiny drops of bleach to each splatter and let it sit until the splatters where almost white then blotted off the excess.

  I stamped the silhouettes,  sponged  in the foreground and left it to dry.

  It was essential the ink was completely dry before I did the gold heating embossing.

 The  couple  are from the retired  stamps set Silhouette Scenes . The floral silhouette wild flowers  and willow are from Lavinia stamps.

 This is a long skinny card  at  3x7  inches.

 The stamps used on this are Pocket silhouettes, 

Silhouette scenes.

 and the over hanging willow stamp is from Lavinia stamps.

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

By the Tide

This card  turned out a little darker than I wanted . I think I was expecting the inks to lighten up a little when it dried, but it didn't, So I am a little disappointed with the final result.

To create this card  I cut a 3 1/2 inch  square of whisper white car stock.
 I took two wide post it notes and stuck them  across the top and bottom of the card, leaving a gap of  about 2 inches between the post it notes.








I use the lines on my cutting mat when adhering the the post it notes to ensure they are straight, thus ensuring my art work will be straight.



See the photo below for the three colours I chose for this card.

 I started by applying Marina Mist ink with a sponge dauber.  I always start  sponging on the post it note to remove the excess ink before I start working on the card stock. It doesn't need to be even coverage, In fact patchy is better.           Repeat with the Coastal Cabana  leaving some patches of  the M.M showing through.




Finally I sponged some Night of Navy around the edges and overlapping the other colours slightly.

 I began stamping over the sponged background using Night of Navy ink.
The stamp set I used is called  "By the Tide," It's a retired set now.



Once I had filled the area with stamped images,  I removed  the Post it notes.

I stamped the sentiment and rounded off the corners with a corner punch. After adding some twine round the top layer, I mounted the piece on to  a piece of  Night of Navy card stock.










For the second layer I stamped around the edged of the card stock then sponged over the edges i the same colours.  Obviously  I didn't need to stamp and sponge the middle of the card stock  as it will be covered by the top layer.
Then mounted onto a white  5x5 base card.

I added a metal fish charm
before sticking all the layers together and mounting onto the base card.














To go with this card I made an envelope with the Envelope punch board. I  decorated the back flap of the envelope to co ordinate the two.

Another version of this card is the Father's day card below.  This time I have not used a second layer of background paper  and I only used Night of Navy ink.

A Couple of Baby Cards

I found some time to play this week and created this card for a  pregnant friend.
Her new baby is due any day now, so I thought I'd be prepared for the arrival.

I used the  retired "Two by Two" stamp for the image and coloured it with Copic markers.

I used S.U s  Blushing Bride DSP for the background.

I enjoyed making this card, so I made it again. This time I made my own background paper for this one.It turned out a little darker than I wanted, but it still works.

If you want to know how I made my background paper, take a look at the tutorial a 8 posts below.
The ink colours  I used this time are, Pool Party and Lost Lagoon.

Vintage Mother's Day Card

Okay, this was a last minute card and it 's still waiting for it's insert  which needs to be done as soon as I have finished writing up this post. So I'll make this a quick one.

I don't usually use ribbon flowers for my cards but as I left it so late to make this card I had to cheat a little.

I chose to do a vintage style Mother's day card for my Mother in Law,  she is 93 years old, so I'd say she is vintage too. 

I know she won't mind me saying that,  she has an amazing sense of humour. Probably due to raising my husband, who is very much the comic.
I love making cards for her, she appreciates them and work that has gone into them so much. It makes it all worth while. I do hope  she likes this one.

I used the Spellbinder Envelope  corner die  to  cut two corners  in cream card and glued them onto a cream card square, then I lightly sponged over the entire background using soft suede ink from Stampin' up . 
The sentiment is from the  stamp set "Occasional Greetings"  I think. 
It's a retired stamp set but it still comes in very handy.

 I die cut the circles for the sentiment/ layers  and cut the butterflies,   inked the edges with soft suede ink and a  sponge,   stamped the greeting and assembled all the layers. 
Lastly I added the  flower and butterfly.

Heat and stick with gilding sheets.

Last week was a bit of a downer for us to put it mildly. 
Not only was my dad was in hospital having two operations.

We travelled the 200 miles to visit him and get his  little bungalow adapted and cleaned ready for his arrival home.

Not long before we left home Hubby received news that the mother of one of his close friends had died.

 I also received news that one of our friends/neighbours had also died that day.

Which left me wondering and worrying as to who the third would be as these thing tend to come in three's  I didn't have to wait long  to find out .   Just a day or two  after arriving home from dad's,  I received a telephone call  from my foster mother to tell me,  my foster brother Tony had died the same day as our neighbour.

So my next cards are sympathy cards, This is the first one. 
Tony was not a religious man and he doesn't want a religious funeral, So it doesn't seem right to send a religious card.

So I thought I'd try something different.


Here I used the Hello doily background stamp from Stampin' up.
I inked it up with versamark ink and stamped it onto black card. Instead of using  embossing powder,  I  chose to use Heat and stick powder.
You use it the same way as embossing powder ( but don't heat it for as long )

Once the  heat and stick powder had melted I covered it with an Abalone gilding sheet and pressed it down and rubbed  it into the  heat and stick. 
With a fairly stiff paint brush,  I brushed away the excess gilding sheet paying particular attention to the lacey areas  until the stamped image was  revealed .

 Warning,....I did find, if I brushed or rubbed a little too hard I wiped off the gilding,  so in some areas I had to apply more gilding flakes, which was fine as I had some flakes left to patch up the areas, I just kept on applying the flakes to the areas  that felt sticky until they no longer felt sticky.
The centre sentiment  comes from the Stampin' up set Hopeful thoughts and I  stamped the words  on to brushed gold foiled card,  using  Black Stazon Ink and then die cut the circles. 
I picked the green and the gold colours from the gilding sheets as the colours for my mounts.

Easter Egg Decorating Competition 2014

Another year and another Easter egg decorating competition. 

This year  was a disappointment as only three members of staff entered. 

I love to see other people creations and  see how they interpret  the given theme. 

This years theme was Spring.

I had initially decided to do a spring cleaning egg,  wearing an apron and scarf with broom, steam cleaner, dusters, bucket of water and holding a feather duster.

I collected tiny fluffy bird feathers from  my mother in laws garden to make the feather duster, I went to the farm shop and got some Duck eggs, and I did make all the above mentioned accessories, but when it got round to the doing the egg....I lost interest.

So then I decided to turn it into a Spring Onion! That has to be easy.

After five minutes faffing around with tissue paper and card, I decided to try a Hyacinth as it seemed to be the easiest option and I needed easy.
I had left things to last minute, yet again.

Instructions ( of a sort)
The flower spike up in the centre was created by rolling a half a sheet of card into a tight narrow cone and covering the top pointed half of the cone with a long strip  pale green tissue paper wound round the cone . About half way down the cone I changed to a strip of  slightly darker green tissue paper, gluing and winding until the cone was  completed covered.


Using the punch pictured below, I punched out about 30  of  these daisies  from pink paper, I sponged a little pretty in pink ink to each daisy for  extra depth and then cut away four petals from one side of each flower.
 ( keep the cut off parts they will be the smaller blooms/buds at the top of the plant and fill in blooms if needed later)
.



The flowers
I  glued one of the end petals and curled the petal round to meet the other end petal.

 This gave each flower a conical appearance. I then curled each and every petal by scrapping the back of each petal with the back of a closed pair of scissors.

 Be careful  on this,  too much pressure can result in torn  petals.



I flattened out the points on the base of the flowers and added a little Tom Bow Glue and began sticking the blooms to the stem, starting about three inches up the stem and working my way up to the top.


You'll need patience to do this bit as the bloom you are working with will want to push the last bloom off.

 My advise would be to stick a line of flowers up one side then on the opposite side allow the glue to dry then fill in the spaces.
If you have any small open spaces after attaching the main blooms use the  four petal pieces you cut off the main flower previously.

Attaching to egg
Cut slits about 1/2" long  and about Half and inch apart around the base of the stem  the fold them outwards these will be the tabs to attach the flower spike to the egg.
Using a hot glue gun drizzle glue over these tabs and quickly stick  the  stem to the egg.


The Leaves
The Leaves were made by cutting broad sword shapes from green card and inking the edges with a darker shade of green ink. 

Cut a slit about one inch long going up the centre of the base of the leaves add a little glue to the bottom inch if each leaf and place round the bottom of the stem ( the slit will help the leaf to curl round the stem. Keeping adding leaves until you have the desired look.

Tidying up the join
Using  thin, short, strips of green tissue paper and a glue stick wind the tissue around the  base of the stem to conceal the hot glue and the bottom of the leaves. 

Finishing touches
With  brown and beige alcohol markers scribble in some  lines around the egg.
on the under side of the egg I made the roots from  white sewing thread and a fine white  blind cord and attached them to the bottom of the egg using a hot glue gun as this glue needs to be waterproof.

The Butterflies
I heat embossed  some butterflies with black embossing powder and then sponged  ink over them and added a little glitter.

Not having a proper Hyacinth bulb vase the search was on for a glass pot to fit my Duck Egg....

Amazingly enough hidden away on the kitchen counter was an empty mini coffee jar waiting for me to decide if it was going into the recycling bin or was it nice enough for me to recycle another way. As you can see the  I recycled it my way and it was cheaper than buying a proper bulb holder.


Sue's  Very Worthy Entry.


I am sure the creator of this little chap won't mind me sharing her entry to this years competition. 
He is gorgeous!

Humpty Dumpty brought a big smile to my face as soon as I saw him this morning.

(hubby would say that's because he has a tash & I kind of like moustaches, probably because hubby had one when we dated 30 years ago)

Sue told us,  her daughter said "he looks like a Mexican Humpty Dumpty with that moustache" ....
But I am looking at this photo and I am now seeing him as a Mafia  Book Keeper.... with eyes like that he couldn't be a hit man,  he 'd never see his target. lol.  Sorry Sue!

I digress.... 
Sue has  very cleverly used a Stampin' Up!  Snowman building stamp set called Stylin' Snowfolk  to stamped  his face. I don't think I would have thought about stamping on an egg.... (Now there's a thought for next year. hee hee)
I really like the colour combo  used here, they all work together perfectly. 

Sue's Class loved him  and at the end of the day she did a ( no money involved) raffle to decide  which  lucky child would have the privilege of taking him home. Isn't that a lovely idea.

Baby Mobile

This project has caused me no end of problems this evening just trying to photograph it.
Low light conditions in doors caused all the photos to come out yellow or green and using flash created so many shadows they distracted from the mobile.
I had to resort to taking it out into the garden and photographing it outside, 
but by time I decided to take it outside the light was fading there too.

The true colour of this should be Stampin' up's Pool Party.
I used all the patterns the DSP  stack in Pool Party along with the silver glimmer paper. Unfortunately this does not show up very well in this photo.
The Moons and Stars were punched out  of each paper/card using S.U punches and then glued  back to back sandwiching the silver thread through the centre line on each star/moon.
The top of the mobile was created by cutting 5  of the petal cone favour boxes and gluing them together to form a circle.
 I cut triangles  slightly smaller than the triangles of the petal cone die in the polka dot DSP  and glued them  round the inside edge of the mobile top. 
I  threaded a loop of wire through the centre  for hanging.
 Then set about sticking the strings a of stars and moons to the outer edge of the top and two strings from the centre.

Hopefully  I have managed to upload this small video clip of the mobile in motion.

Success at last . I have managed to get a clearer picture for you

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.

Faux Fire Place for Christmas.

My creation this week has nothing to do with card making or scrap booking. This is a prop for the Christmas play this year and you are seeing it before the cast and the rest of the school.

Made from five cardboard boxes. and a whole lot of paint and glue.

The two uprights are the boxes that the fadeless display board backing paper comes in. If you work in a school  you will know  exactly what I am writing  about
 I mention this as so many Stampin' up! demonstrators work or have worked in schools.

The base is made from two similar shaped boxes  just a bit wider and stuck together end to end, a sheet of card was then glued over the top to conceal the join and to give a little more stability.

The two side boxes were glued into position with PVA glue and I placed weighty objects on the top of each box while the glue was drying 

 I then painted the inside of the inside faces a of the boxes black and the outsides a creamy yellow (using school acrylic paint.)
Once the  cream paint was dry,  I added  the brick work. This is easier and quicker than you may think. You just make a large brick stamp.

How to make the stamp Using a piece of fun foam  (available from any craft shop)  

Cut a rectangle approximately   3 1/2 " x  5"     Using   double sided  tape stick the foam  in the centre of a piece of grey strawboard  which is three time the length of the foam,.... but the same width


At  each end the foam on the card....score a line .... turn the card over so the fun foam is face down on your surface and is place length ways across your surface.
Fold  both ends of the card back onto it's self .  these flaps  will be the handle.

Now in the centre of the two flaps score another line down the centre of both flaps ( the same as you did at each end of the foam.) 

Fold  the card outwards on the new score lines  of the card.

Apply glue  to the whole length of these  flaps and stick  together,  The shorter flap at the end should  stick up in the air,  so when you look at the whole thing side on it looks like a  letter  T. 

This sounds more complicated than it is and it should only take about 1 minute to make once you know what you are doing .... two if you don't.

When dry,  smear a thick layer of  brick coloured paint over a tray and use the stamp you have made  to pick up the paint and to apply the paint to the fire place  press firmly over the back of your stamp and lift off.

You don't have to use the whole stamp,  I used either one end or the other most of the time and you don't want a perfect solid impression every time.

Don't worry if you make a  a bit of a mess  or you get some paint missing from your bricks you can fill in the  big misses with a brush afterwards.

If you place your brick in  the wrong position either wipe it off  while it's still wet with some water and a cloth  ( because you used acrylic paint)  or wait for it to dry and  tidy it up later  with  your  base colour.

DO NOT fill in all the misses in the brickwork,  some  small misses help to give depth.

 I found this a great way of getting my bricks fairly evenly placed and of equal size.
 I think it took me less than twenty minutes to make the stamp and paint the bricks on and do the filling in. If I had done it by hand with a brush  it would have taken much longer and not looked as good.

The hearth of the fire I painted black and allowed to dry before spraying it diluted white acrylic paint . I used a bodyshop,  bodyspray  bottle to spray the paint on. These bottles are great as they deliver a very fine mist




On a large sheet of Grey strawboard  I painted the  outer edges of the board black and left the centre of the board blank until the black had dried as I didn't want the black paint mixing with the  bright colours of the fire and dulling them or worse  .... everything turning into a muddy mess.
It's important to use acrylics and not  school poster paints, as once the acrylic paint has dried it stays put. It is not re activated when it gets wet or by painting over it. I painted over lots of the black area s to create this fire. 
Once  the  painted fire was dry, I applied  streak and dots  of PVA glue and sprinkled glitter in various colours over the glue to add a little sparkle.

 When all was dry I added  a 1" wide line of PVA glue  to the  long sides  of the strawboard and then adhered the strawboard to the  back of the upright boxes, using a wall stapler and stapling the back panel to the back of the uprights this helps to keep the back panel in place while the glue is drying.

 NB it's a good idea to measure the distance between the  the upright boxes before you glue them to the base box to make sure you will be able to adhere the back of the fire place to the back sides of your upright boxes.


The mantle piece  was a  cardboard box which I had removed the tape from the bottom and folded flat. Lucky for me this box  that looked as though it was going to be too short turned out to be exactly the right length once folded flat. I made use of the flaps that were already on the box to attach it to the back of the fire place, Before doing this  I cut off the flaps at the other end of the box scored a line across the width of the box the same depth as the uprights as this mantle has to fit over the uprights.

About  six inched out from this score/ fold  line,  I trimmed off the excess box. I now had a long narrow U shape  piece of card which can now be glued to upright side boxes. Apply lots of PVA to the top of the upright boxes and position the U shaped card upside down over the uprights making sure both ends are even and that your uprights are still upright and not listing. Add weight to the top of the mantle piece to help the keep contact between the glue and the card.
Paint the mantel piece and decorate as desired.
The grate was created by cutting strips of strawboard approximately 1 " wide and gluing and stapling together. I then screwed up balls of coloured paper and foil and placed them in the grate.
 Here I have used green tinsel and the  Bow die from Stampin  up to create my double bows. the stockings were cut free hand and  stamped and heat embossed using the  serene snowflakes stamp set. the label on the stockings is from an old stampin' up set called gifted.

I don't have a fire place at home.... maybe I'll be bringing this one home for the season. I'll have to be quick because  a couple of other people have their eye on this piece too.