A blast from the past

I have been raking though some of my very early cards that have been lurking in my craft room. I decided that some of the elements were still  viable and I  didn't want to throw out good flowers and ribbon, when all that needed changing was the discoloured card stock.

So I ripped them all to pieces and revamped it with some new gold embossed text, new card layers and tag and changed the base card to a 6x 6 inch square rather than a 7 x 5 inch  rectangle. On reflection I wish, I had stayed with the rectangle as I could have used the space left  at the bottom to emboss a sentiment.

If you were card making 25 years ago you too would probably have been making  a cards like this. We were very limited in those days for good quality crafting supplies. There was a lovely little art supply shop in town that sold beautiful  products, but being small it didn't offer a huge range, but as a beginner it didn't matter to me as I had no card making supplies at all. 

 Hobbycraft and The Range was miles away.  I didn't have the internet then to shop online.  A trip to the closest town with good craft shop was called for and meant 

  a whole day out  craft shopping  (my idea of heaven) and I would stock up a loads of these  flowers in different colours, far more than I thought, I would ever need or use.

I have enjoyed revisiting my cards of the past, though I don't think I would make any more in this style.

Halloween cards

I haven't done a huge amount of crafting of late, partly because my employer has said we can no longer give the children treats and partly because I have been busy trying to get the work we want done in the gardens organised and completed. (easier said than done).  Along with trying to repair all the damage caused  by a leaking roof and  having our cloudy windows replaced. 

Any crafting I have done has been very last minute, and I have forgotten to photograph  it before giving it  away .  I realised  this too late.  But enough of the excuses. I have severely  neglected my blog for way too long, for which I apologise. 

BUT THERE IS A LITTLE GOOD NEWS.  I was  recently inspired by new set of Halloween stamps  by Lavinia stamps based here in the UK.  

( I believe they're available in some parts of  the U.S too)

So I  purchased  the newly released bundle of witches stamps  and had some playtime.

The bundle consists of three individual witches and two trees small and large, a stamp with three smaller witches on, a cauldron , a verse , two tiny cats and two larger cats a set of three bats and a dotty flourish .

 On these two cards, I used two of the larger witches, sections of the larger tree, the small bat, one of the small cats, the flourish, the verse and the cauldron, along with a foliage, a berry and  a twig  from the mini stamps collection. Which retail at £1.10 

 These mini stamps are not included in the bundle. In my opinion  these minis  are worth their weight in gold.  They don't look like much but they are so,so useful for building up scenes.

 I  have enjoyed playing with these stamps after my long break from stamping.

if you're wondering how I created the background . I used a brayer and applied thin layer of  Versamark Clare ink  (colour twilight) onto my gelli plate  then sprinkled  splatters of  yellow brusho powder  mixed with water over the top.

I placed a sheet of watercolour card stock on top of the inked up Gelli plate and rubbed over the back of the card well  to transfer the colours to the card, peel off the card and allow it dry before stamping in black Versamark Clare ink. 

 Black Versafine in  is an intense black,  so silhouettes really pop out.

The sparkles were created by drawing small circles with a yellow posca pen and adding a smaller white dot in the middle once the yellow has dried.

 I also added dots of stickles (glitter glue) randomly over the scene.

Beautiful Thistle

Here are two cards I made a couple of weeks ago but never posted, due to being admitted to hospital with pneumonia. I am recovering at home now, but I'm not really up to doing much crafting as yet, so posts will be a bit thin on the ground for a while.

I fell in love with Stampin' ups  Beautiful Thistle stamp set, as soon as I saw it, probably because I have had a liking for pretty thistles since I was a child. So I knew I was going to buy it even though I 'm not sure how much use I will get out of it.

 I used Copic markers to colour the images on these cards. I used a white gel pen to highlight the leaves and petals. 

 

 To create the background, I blended a little brown ink around the edges and worked in towards the middle. Then splattered some ink over the top using a stamp and write marker pen with a diffuser gadget or the pen puffer as I like to call it.

On these cards, I used the  S.U deckled edge rectangle dies for the layers. These are a new addition to my craft stash. I really don't know how I missed these in the catalogue. I love the fact the spacing between each die is even on all sides. 

Woodland scenes

 I have been collecting the odd Lavinia stamp for a number of years, just one or two here and there, but over  the last 18months, I've been receiving them as gifts for Christmas and birthdays. I 've even bought a few extra myself, possibly because  I've bought everything I want from this years S.U catalogue. I always  struggle to find something to buy as the catalogue comes to an end.  So it's a good time to try something different using another company's products.

I find it quite a challenge to change style completely. Creating this type of scene takes some forethought and a bit of practise to create something that looks half decent, but it's worth  persevering.   Even though Hubby doesn't like this style of stamping. He says they're  too busy for his liking.

My answer is, woodlands are busy places. He obviously doesn't take in the scenery when he is walking through the woods with the dog. ha ha. I'm going to be in trouble for that one.  lol.

My next post will be on how I create these scenes. So pop back in a few days if you're interested in how I did these.

There are also lots of  video tutorials on  Lavinia stamps website.

Beside me.

 

I 've been playing with this new set again. I really like these images. They are nice to colour as well as being really sweet and relatable images. 

I used Copic markers to colour these images.  

The set contains all three of these images along with the birds and seven sentiments.

girls card

 I came across this stamp in my craft room, It's been stashed away for years unused.  So I thought I would try it out as she is such a sweet image. I think it's a Whiff of Joy stamp.

 Coloured with Copic markers.

No Wow!! cards here.

I need  a card for a child who will be two this weekend, so I have been playing with  the Elephant Parade set.  I do struggle making children's cards, I would far rather make men's cards. 

 The card above is the one we have decided to give. If I can find some narrow ribbon in the same blue, I might add a small blue bow before gifting this, I can't help feeling it needs something more.

The peanut, flower and butterfly stamps are all included in the Elephant parade set. 

 I stuck all three of the stamps to a small acrylic block (spacing them out evenly) then stamped all three at the same time. I coloured the images with Copic markers and added the Elephant image.

The Mouse is also part of the set. On this card I stood the mouse on top of the greeting.

Maybe he is trying to grab that giant peanut. 

The background paper is a from a Sale a bration gift card pack.

 I like the design on the card,  but the cards don't have enough weight for my liking so I'll be using them as DSP.

                                  

My last Elephant parade card for today was just to experiment with stamping the peanut in Soft Sea foam ink onto Soft Sea foam card to make a simple background. It's a technique I haven't used in a very long time and I was too lazy to search for a suitable DSP to compliment with this image.

This photo doesn't do this card justice, it looks better in reality.
 

Corgi Card

This is another stamp set I bought to make up my quarterly figures. I am not sure I would have purchased it had there been something else in the catalogue I liked.

I teamed  up the Corgi image with some left over DSP  from The Pampered Pets suite Stampin' up sold a few years ago.  I chose orange card for the layers to coordinate with the Corgi.

It's been quite a while since I made a card, I have been making 3D projects for a few weeks now, so I'm easing my way back into card making with some very simple cards.

 This is certainly not a Wow! card by any stretch of the imagination, just me playing.

 

Inspiration is everywhere.

 Sometimes I'm asked where I get my inspiration and ideas from, my answer is everywhere. 

These cards are the perfect example of that. 

Last week while travelling on the motorway a van  delivering wine caught my eye. It had an attractive company design on the side, which got me wondering several things. First one being do I have a stamp suitable, two, which stampin up ink pad is closest to the colour on the van and three, could I reproduce the a similar design that would work on a card. 

Well I didn't have a grape stamp that would work, but I had a vine like leaf that may work. The above card was the result of playing with one leaf stamp from the autumn splendour stamp set, heat embossing it multiple times on white card, and using clear embossing powder. 

Then blending  a mix of blueberry bushel and soft succulent ink over the embossed card. 

The card below was made using the pieces I trimmed off the panel above. These would normally have gone straight in the bin.  But I had been watching a of lot videos on working with scraps, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. It's not my cup of tea, but it shows that you can make a half decent card out of the scraps that you would normally throw away.

And if you'd like to the design that captured my interest... Take a look at the back end of the truck in the photo below.

 

Don't be fooled by the front of this card... it's all happening on the inside.

This is a card I designed about 10 years ago, but never completed. Earlier this week I came across the prototype and decided to give it another go. It took three attempts but that was because I kept getting  ink on my fingers and it transferred to the card. But I persevered and this was the final result.

 

I started out with a sheet of basic white card  cut to  5  7/8 th  x 8 1/4 inches for the back panel. 

The front panel was cut to  8 1/4  x 5 inches. 

I stamped the balloons on both panels and masked them off before doing the ink blending.  

There are three score lines on the front panel and one in the middle of the back panel. But I'll come back to that later.

Warning!!  Do NOT score before completing the blending. The ink collects on the score lines making them much darker and unsightly and any stamping over the score lines will be patchy.

I  used torn paper and a blending brush and an assortment of green inks along with so saffron ink for the fields and blueberry bushel for the sky. 

The stamp sets I used are retired S.U  sets called,  Lovely as a tree and Up up and away. I used my cloud stencil, which is basically cloud shapes cut into the edges of a page from a glossy mag and blended ink over the edge to form the clouds. 

The front panel (The bit that folds out) I stamped the first balloon as close to the top as possible and masked it off.  I cut in half diagonally across the long side but in a wavy/hilly way, cutting around the red balloon.  After blending in the fields and a little sky. You may notice in photos that the sky disappears  later... I decided I didn't need it, so cut some off, then decided to do the front panel again without the sky.                                                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                   

 

The small trees are the single leaf stamp in the Lovely as a tree set.  

I began stamping the trees.  

Stamp the rest of the balloons  on the back panel and masked off before blending the sky.

  

With a the fine end of a dark brown stamp and write marker, I drew in branches  and thickened the leaf stem to turn it in to a trunk. I scribbled some shrubbery around the base of the trees to ground them.  Then coloured the leaves with Copic markers, a light  green at the top and dark green at the bottom and not forgetting to add some green on the shrubs.

The last thing to stamp were the trees in the foreground. 

On the front panel, I  scored a half  an inch in from each end to wrap around the back of the back panel and I scored a third line in the middle.

Score the centre of the back panel in the centre.

Fold the score lines and adhere the front to the back, by wrapping and gluing the the half inch flaps around the back of the back panel.

 I cut a 6x 4 1/8 th inch base  card in white and blended some clouds on the front to match the inside. Punched out a balloon  in white and coloured it. Confession Time... I did actually stamp the balloon on the front and then smudged it, hence the punched balloon. It was slightly bigger than the stamped one, so it covered my mistake well. Once all the blending and stamping was done I adhered the inside into the base card with Tombow mono glue.

 Push the front flap into the card to fit in a standard 6x4 envelope.

Sweet as a Peach cards

 

 I used the Sweet as a Peach set to create these cards along with the coordinating DSP.

I don't really get why you'd put fruit on a card, but this was quite pretty and it reminded me of Avon's Pretty Peach soap on a rope. I loved the smell of it. I'm giving away age now ha ha.

Many years ago S.U did a pair of edgelet dies with a coordinating embossing folders. I used these to cut and emboss the edge of the top layer.

I am not a fan of the Dist-ink-tive stamps because they leave a tiny dotty effective rather than a solid image, so I was in two minds about buying this set. The effect is rather like the old magic painting books.  To combat that effect I used a blender pen to smooth out those dots between the layers.

When I say layers, it's because I stamped the peach multiple times. First I stamped in peekaboo peach then stamped on top with pretty in pink twice and blended the colours together with the blender pen.  With a sponge dauber I added some cherry cobbler ink around the  very edges of the stamp only and stamped over the top again. I did this a couple of times more,  bringing the cherry cobbler ink in a little further each time and blending each layer of ink. Resulting  in a deeper more intense colour at the edges and no dots.

  I also used the blender pen on the leaves and flowers to eradicate those dots.

I kept the card below simple, I just used the blossom from the same set on the this card.

  Not a peach in sight.

Slim line cards

 These three cards were a result of me experimenting with hinge stamping and  the stampin' up set Biggest Wish. I wanted to see  if I could create a  slim line card using all seven colours of the rainbow with this large stamp set,  but  it didn't quite work as the stamparatus isn't quite big enough for the taller  DL cards.

 As I write this an idea pops into my head on how this might be achieved. I'll let you know if it works when I 've tired it.

For the other two cards, I wasn't so ambitious  and stuck to just a couple of colours. I added a thin line stickles glitter to the  uprights of the letters only.

addicted to gnomes

 

A couple of weeks ago I needed a gnome card for a nephew that collects them.  I found a website with  free downloadable colouring pages.  I chose an image and coloured it and turned it into a card.(See the previous post for more info on this.)

I enjoyed colouring the gnome in his habitat so much, that I decided to revisit the website and download a few more images.  I have spent every free minute colouring these images and I have loved colouring    them  turning them into 5 X 7 inch cards. As you can see from the header photo...I got a little carried away.  Although I really like the way they have turned out,  I don't think my friends and family would appreciate being sent  a Gnome card. So these will be gifted as a set to the gnome lover. 

 The gnome caring for the duck is a cute image that oozes caring, so I thought the sentiment I chose was perfect for this one.

The helpful squirrel gathering nuts for the gnome  just had to be a "thank you" card.

This one I kept fairly neutral so it could be used for a notelet.

Now this one I was going to have Happy Anniversary on it, but that would restrict its use, so I used a generic greeting that could be completed on the inside. For example,  Just for you....

 On your anniversary,  or  On your birthday.

I haven't added the sentiment yet, but I think the card above will be a happy birthday card. I am toying with adding a tiny candle to the top of the nut the gnome is offering up. 

 Equally it could be another thank you card, if you think the squirrel has been gathering nuts for the gnome.

This one might make a masculine birthday card, or a new home card,  or at a push congrats on the new job,  for the handyman,  anyone into DIY or in the furniture restoration business.

Party invite maybe

Two for the gardener

A Birthday 

New rug rats maybe...ha ha

You have got to love these images, even if you don't like gnomes.

If you fancy having a go at colouring these images here is the link .

 https://printablefreecoloring.com/drawings/cartoons/david-the-gnome/

I forgot to mention there are a lot more images to colour on this website, It's not just  gnomes.