Stampin Up Marker and Ink Refill Storage

 My latest project is a box for storing S.U, markers and refills.


 It consists of two boxes made of chipboard, one sits on top of the other. I added two struts to each end to create a cantilever action. So the top box lifts and swings over while remaining attached to the base box.

I designed the base box big enough to store all four colour families of the S.U re inkers.  (either in or out of their boxes).  There is a little extra space for extra  In Colour re inkers.


The top box will hold about 60 markers.
There is also a small removable compartment that will hold more refill bottles if needed.


After making all the boxes,  I used papers from Tim Holtz French Revolution  stack to cover most of the boxes and some pretty sheets of card left over from another project to give it a more feminine feel.

Inner boxes completed  it was time to make the outer cover.

Drawer  handles from  our local DIY store.
Clasps from a french company on  Ebay.






The cover  is  basically two,  three sided boxes, deep enough to encompass the two storage boxes completely when attached to a base. The outer sections will then fold up and the six clasps will hold everything together.

The two storage boxes  are then glued to the centre section  of the cover... see pic  on left.

Hubby cut another piece of  thin steel and drilled holes for the handles as he did for my ink refill box. ( see post below)

I made some liners to reinforce the edges of the cover and to hide the backs of the brads attaching the clasps and handle reinforcement and screws.

I covered the liners for the edging  in leather effect wallpaper. 

 I also used the leather effect wallpaper to make corner reinforcing pieces for the outside.

 I cut 2 panels and covered the liners with vintage card stock and glued them to the inside of the cover for extra strength and to tidy up the inside after gluing in the side liners .

Tips

Use something strong and tear resistant like Tyvek sheets  to join all the sections together, especially  the joins  that act as  hinges.

Tyvek and chip board are not the cheapest of materials so careful measuring and cutting are essential.

 Longer leg brads are essential for attaching the clasps as the chipboard is quite thick.

Copic Refills Storage.

 I found I was in need of storage for my Copic marker re inkers.

Unable to find something I liked that was suitable I decided to make my own box.

This box is made from chipboard and covered in paper from Tim Holtz " French Revolution" paper stack.

 I love these little clasps,  hubby bought for me for a project I am working on for his mum.  There were a couple left over so I used on on this little box.

They came all the way from France. I love them so much hubby has ordered some more for me.

We purchased a pack of drawer handles from our local  Homebase store. Of course the screws were far to long,  so  hubby cut them down to fit.

To reinforce the card for the handle Hubby cut a piece of thin steel a little larger than the handle and drilled two holes through the steel for the handle screws to go through.
Unfortunately I had already lined the inside of the box before we decided to  add the steel.
I could cover it with another piece of card and decorative  paper to hide it, but to be honest, I am not to worried about this.

The  leather look corner reinforcing pieces are actually leather effect wallpaper.
 I can tell you this stuff really does look and feel like leather, it's pretty tough too.




I cut some dividers to help keep the bottles in position.

I used a scraps of floral wallpaper  to line the inside of the box.

The box is approximately 6 inches square, each section holds 10 refills. the whole box holds 40.

This weekend .....I ordered more refills and hubby had ordered some for me for Christmas.......so,  "I'm gonna need a bigger box". So my next project is designing a much bigger box that will take longer to fill. lol.

Father Christmas Card

Having had a bit of a stressful day, I retreated to the craft room when I got home from work. I needed to de-stress, ... big time and the way I do that is to shut myself away for an hour or so and make something to take my mind off the issues of the day. Today's make  was made using the new "Father Christmas" stamp set from S.U. This is a gorgeous set, if a little difficult to colour , but worth the effort.
stamp in chocolate chip ink and coloured with Copic markers and finished off with a touch a glitter.
I mounted the image onto a rich,  chocolate brown, shimmery card stock.  Then  mounted again on to Cherry Cobbler card stock, which I had embossed using the new cable knit embossing folder.  You may have guessed from the amount of time I have used this folder this week ...that I love this folder.

More Merry Mice.

 

I am  a little bit hooked on these "Merry Mice" stamps From S.U .

I have spent the last couple of evenings sat in front of the TV colouring in the stamped images. 

Today I have been turning the coloured images into cards.

This card is far from the traditional colours of Christmas and I am a little unsure of what I think of it.

I stamped the borders, which are in the" Father Christmas" stamp set from S.U in chocolate chip ink then stamped the mice and greeting and  coloured the images with Copic markers. 

The dark layers are a beautiful shimmery chocolate brown card stock.  

Unfortunately they look black in this photo. 

I finished this card with just a touch of glitter here and there. I love glitter but, to my mind too much glitter cheapens the overall look of the card. So I keep glitter to the minimum.

 Time to rescue the dinner!!

Mandy's 50th Card.

One for Mandy.

This one was made for my sister who will be celebrating her 50th Birthday this week.

She has the card already so it's ok to post this early.

I used two retired Stampin' up sets on this card ...Cheers to you, and the medallion background stamp.

I like the look of gatefold cards when closed, but I don't like the way they look when on display.

So I made this card to look like a  closed gatefold card,  although it's not.

I used clear embossing powder and heat embossed the Medallion image on Real Red card stock.

Christmas Card.

I did say I had gone mad with this new embossing folder, didn't I.

Well he re is another card using that folder.
This time as a background for this cute stamped image.

I can't remember the name of the company that makes this stamp.

This card is going to a male member of my family so I chose bottle green for the background.
The little boy reminds me of him when he was younger.

Santa Card.

This Santa stamp I have owned for about 20 years,  He was one of the first stamps I ever bought. He has lived in a drawer for most of that time, hardly used.
This was because I found him difficult to colour .
Twenty years ago the choice of colouring materials were limited. Colouring pencils, kids felt tip pens or water colours,  the  few markers that were  available were very expensive and didn't offer the results you get from markers today.
My choice of colouring  material in those days were water colours, but I still found, I wasn't getting the results I wanted. So Santa  and the  few stamps I owned at that time were put in a drawer and there they stayed for many years and I never stamped a thing for all those years.... It wasn't until I joined Stampin' Up that I began to stamp again.
This year I decided to revisit that old stamp drawer and try out one or two of those  old stamps and, I am glad I did.
Using Copic markers I finally got the result I wanted 20 years ago.

Merry Mice Christmas Cards.

I have finally got round to using the cable knit embossing folder I bought sometime ago.

I really love the look this embossing folder gives, so I have gone a little mad today, using it as the background for the Merry Mice images.

This stamp set is available from S.U. it features in the new 2016  autumn-winter catalogue .

 I forgot to ground the mouse on the first card and on the second I was a little too heavy handed with the ink.

I used Copic markers to colour the images.

I added a little glitter to some of today's makes, on the others I used Wink of Stella to add a little shimmer, but neither show up in the photographs.

Emelia's Card

A box card to congratulate a couple on the birth of their new daughter.

Lots of Blushing Bride balloons in this one. I also included a few white balloons with the relevant facts on.                                                                                                                                              The lace die is a signature die from Joanna Sheene.                                                                                                                                      I used the balloon punch from Stampin' Up.    I like this punch as it punches two different size balloons at once.                                                                                                                                             I think the alphabet die I used is an X cut  die.                                    

Acrylic Block Stamping.

I have been neglecting my blog of late due to other commitments so I have some catching up to do now.

This little card was made by applying three different colour inks to an acrylic block, then lightly spritzing the inked block with water and  stamping the block onto water colour paper.

Once the ink was dry I over stamped the little tree over the inked patch.

I have to say getting the amount of water right so a little tricky for me. " squirts wasn't quite enough, but three was too much.   
As with most things, it takes a little practice, and thankfully water colour paper is pretty thick, so if you don't like the look you can flip the paper  it over and use the emergency side.

Wine Bottle Covers

So paper crafting isn't just about making cards or scrap booking. There are lots of other things to made from paper and card.
Checkout these wine bottle sleeves. 

I have been meaning to make  a couple of these  wine bottle sleeves for sometime now. 
Today I finally got round to it.

I have no idea who the original creator of these is, but I do know that Linda Parker has made a great video tutorial, which you can find on Youtube  or on her blog.

 Linda makes the most amazing things and her  video tutorials are easy to follow, so if you fancy having a go at these check out Linda's   videos on Youtube.

I made three of these this afternoon, a practice one, then the pink full size wine bottle cover  followed by the Bermuda Bay mini wine bottle cover. Which proves they don't take an awful lot of time to make.

Linda has two videos  on these, one for the full size bottle and the other for the mini bottle,  she provides all the measurements  you need to make the covers  in her videos.
Thanks Linda for your fabulous tutorials.

 Full size bottle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1fIEOiO9jE

Mini Bottle
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5C0kiBaKEA

Wedding Shutter Card.

I have to say this rather elaborate card and it's gift bag took up all my free time for over  a week.

Making all the panels for this card seem to take an age,

An old school friend asked me to make this card for an up and coming family wedding, 

The brief for the card was:  one red rose, shamrock , 4 bees and  cupcakes.

(For a closer look at this photo click on the photo.)

Lots of layering, heat embossing, hot foiling, punching and die cutting in this card.

The 3D elements on this card, meant it required something deeper and more robust than a standard envelope.

So I created this wedding handbag from pearly card for the card to be delivered in. 

I confess,, it took about 3 attempts for me to get this just right.

The closure on this bag is a very strong, rare earth magnets  concealed in the liner of the bag.

1st Birthday Card.

This  little step card was created  for a first birthday.

Using the" I love lace " background stamp from SU I heat embossed the card stock in white for the lacy background.

The bear stamp is from the "Me to You" range of stamps.  

The Text on this card is all hot foiled in pink.

Angel Fish Card

Loving this new stamp set from Stamping up. It's called Seaside Shore,   I used  Copic markers to colour the images and added a touch of Wink of Stella to add some shimmer. 
To get the red  Angel fish to swim the oppose it way, I stamped it upside down ...it does mean the eye of the fish is in the wrong place, but I don't really think it matters too much on this fun card.

Simple Sponged Card

Here's a simple card that was created by tearing an aperture in a piece of scrap paper to create a mask. 
Secure the  mask on to a piece of water colour paper. 
Apply inks over the entire area the area starting on the scrap paper and working towards the centre.
Once the entire area is covered with ink, remove the mask and over stamp with black ink and a stamps of your choice.
I saw this  card somewhere on the internet and rather liked it so thought I would have a go at reproducing it. 

Loving this years autumn - winter catalogue

Just loving  the goodies in this years Autumn -Winter Catalogue. click on the image of the catalogue on the right to view the goodies with in.

Love the Merry Mice stamp set, the Pine cone charms, the  Father Christmas and  the Christmas Magic stamp sets and several items.

30th Wedding Anniversary Card.

 I wanted to make something special for a lovely couple I know, that were very quietly celebrating their 30th anniversary.
But I have been struggling the last few days to come up with an idea for an anniversary card with the wow factor, that didn't require hours of work and  was not too fussy.

My lack of inspiration resulted in me chopping up card and trying different things for a few days  but I  still came up with nothing usable, until last night when I suddenly gained some inspiration.


The inspiration came from the Apple blossom, ornate heart  die I bought at the beginning of the summer and had yet to use.

This is the first card I have made in years that has absolutely nothing from Stampin' Up in it. 

Making this card reminded me of the type of cards I was making in my pre Stampin' up days.  So it was  a bit like stepping back in time while making this one.                                                                          

This card is one of the largest cards I have ever made, measuring in at around   7  3/4  x 9  1/2 inches.                                                                                                            

I  typed up the personalized sentiment for the centre of the heart and printed it off, using a (black only)  laser printer.

  

A laminator and some toner foil were used to turn the black text into gold.                         A simple,  but effective technique.  

The flowers were purchased from my local craft store.

I used a Heartfelt creations die to cut the backing  leaves .

There are an awful lot of pearls on this card that are not immediately obvious.

Thankfully the tiny pearls I used were on a sticky sheet that I cut into strips. This certainly made applying all these pearls much easier and quicker than applying them one at a time.  

   

                                                                                                                                                

Christmas card four

A centre step card  featuring the Pine tree from the "Lovely as a Tree"  stamp set and some retired DSP.  I was reminded of a technique the other day that I haven't used for years , so I decided to use it on this card. 

I cut the oval from cream card, but before removing the card from the die,  I sponged some green  ink over the die onto the card.  When I removed the die, the die cut edge was clean creating a frame for my little tree. I added a few glitter baubles to finish. 

A discovery too good not to share

I think the picture says it all really... But just in case you don't know what this gadget is I will tell you. Its called  a "Sticky Buddy" it is designed to be a clothes brush, it's great for getting dog hair off your clothes and off the furniture. You just run the roller over the area and it picks up hair crumbs and all sorts of bits. Once it's full and no longer sticky you run it under warm water  and gently wipe the debris off the roller, dry it and it's ready to go again.
We have had this one for a few years and one of the disc s at the end of the roller is broken so it's not so good on clothes these days.
I decided to put it in the craftroom to be fixed, but I haven't got round to it yet.
Last week,  I celebrated my birthday and one of my pressies were two intricate lace dies. Now we all know that some intricate dies can be a real pain to clean, even with those expensive rotating brushes designed for the purpose.
Seeing this broken sticky buddy  lying around in my craft room,  I decided to see if it would remove all those little pieces left in the die.......................IT DID  BRILLIANTLY!!!..... two rolls over the die and it was completely clean.

I then rolled it over the back of the die cuts and it collected all the little pieces left in the die cuts brilliantly.
Once the roller is full it will need rinsing to remove all the pieces of card and to restore the stickiness of the roller. I will say,  it may not be advisable  to do this in the sink as the small pieces of card will probably block your drains after a while.
 I think, I will be rinsing my sticky buddy off in a small bowl of water and then strain the water through a tea strainer to remove the pieces of card. This may seem like a bit of a faff, but I still think it will be quicker than poking through every single hole in the back of the dies,  then having to clean all those tiny pieces from the floor.

Christmas card three

Here is a very simple little card featuring a new stamp from Stampin' up.
 These cute mice are all on one stamp and  they are part of  a set called   "Merry Mice"   This set will be available in September. I really like the sentiment in this card..." Merry Christmouse,"

Christmas card two

An oldie, but a goody  today.
I was inspired to make this card yesterday after spending Friday  teaching lots of techniques to a new stamper.
Having refreshed my own memory on lots of different techniques I decided to try this technique again.....it's  basically sponging  through a mask, then over stamping.

I began by cutting out an oval from scrap paper, I discarded the oval centre  as it was the negative I wanted to work with.
 I applied some two way glue to the back of the aperture mask and allowed it to dry.

Once the glue was completely dry,  I placed it over  a piece of white card stock and pressed it down  gently to secure it to the card.
I tore a very narrow strip from the sticky edge of a post it note,  (just so that it no longer had a straight edge but still had lots of sticky left along the edge)   

 I stuck the post it note across the  middle of the aperture  and began to sponge  Barely Banana ink ( a warm yellow ink) from the centre of the post it note and worked upwards  in an arch shape.
  I applied Apricot Appeal ink from the sides and  worked around the yellow arch and blending the edges of the two colours.
 I added a touch of Pretty in Pink ink around the arch and blended it the Apricot .  t
That was followed by a few light strokes of Lavender Lace  ink around the arch, again blending the edges. The  final colour was Smokey Slate at the very top of the arch and a touch at the edges.

 I removed the post it note and then began to sponged small amounts of Smokey Slate ink over the edges of the bottom half of the oval and worked the ink in towards the middle.

When I was happy with the effect,  I inked up two thirds of the  row of trees  stamp from the "Lovely as a tree" stamp set in black ink  and stamped over the sponged area, positioning the stamp slightly over to the right side.


I inked up the pine tree stamp and stamped it on the left  side of the card, overlapping the sponged oval.


 I added some glitter glue to the branches of the trees on one of the cards. When the gltter glue was dry, I added a greeting.

Magic of Christmas

Here's a little card made using three stamps from a new stamp set from Stampin' up.The set is called "Christmas Magic " and it will be available on 2nd of September.
The holly branch is from  another new set coming out in September. I have to say,  I am very excited about this new Autumn- Winter catalogue.   I think  it's was because almost all the stamp sets I love come in the red rubber, wood mount rather than the photopolymer.

I coloured the images with Copic markers and used a black stamp and write marker to drawn in a few more snow mounds to match the mounds at the base of the snowman.
The background I created using the Serene Snowflakes stamp set, (now retired) and white craft ink.

Wedding Card

I have had this die set for a while now,  but I  haven't had the chance to do anything with until recently.
It's a floral heart die from Stampin up that also has two  single flower dies (in different sizes) that come with it.

I chose Peekaboo Peach and Flirty Flamingo to colour the flowers on this card to correspond with the colour of the Roses in the wedding bouquets. 

I cut a piece of ivory card 5 1/2  x 5 1/2 and cut out the floral heart, then  glued the  negative piece of card  ( not the heart )  onto the front of my base card. 



I cut the heart out again this time in silver card, added a little glue to the back of the silver heart and set it  into ivory cut out .

I cut the floral heart out again, this time in green and snipped of some of the leaves and adhered a little foliage to the underside of each orange flowers.

Baby Dungarees Card

I found the template for this card on the Trimcraft website. I printed off the template, but it was very small, to enlarge it to the size I wanted,  I had to cut the template sheet into pieces and enlarge all the pieces individually.  Not having access to an A3 printer, I had to print the back and front of this template  off on to two pieces of card.

Then  join the front and back pieces together at the shoulders to create this card.

 On the website it was made from papers with  cute baby designs printed on it. I didn't have any printed papers suitable for this card, so I used the Bundle of love stamp set from S.U to create my own baby paper for this card.

I used a textured card stock that resembled  a fine needle cord fabric. I have to say,  I was surprised at well the stamps printed on textured card stock.




Once I had covered the card stock with stamped images,  I  coloured each image
using Copic markers and  S.U
markers.

 Unfortunately some of the inks bled  a little, but I don't think the bleeding is bad enough to ruin the overall effect,  so I went a head and completed the card.

I lined the inside back of the cars with some pretty checked paper to correspond with the colours on the front.

Baby Congratulations Card

Regular readers of my blog will know this Two by Two stamp from S.U is one of my favourite stamps for baby cards.  Although I used the stamp quite a bit,  I  tend to change the die or the orientation of the die when cutting out the image, of course I  also change the background papers and colours for  a different look.

I coloured the image with Copic markers and  a few S.U  markers.

Grand daughters request for a Tudor dress.

Something a little different today, A post which is really intended for a friend, who wanted to see the dress  I created from a curtain.

My grand daughter's school were holding a Tudor day, She wanted a tudor style dress for the occasion. (Luckily I had a pattern  for one in her size).
I was given 48 hours notice to knock up something for the occasion. But in reality I had a lot less time to put something together for her. Having work  commitments and various appointments booked, severely cut down on the time I had to make the two dresses to create one tudor style dress.
Having no time to go shopping for materials,  I  decided to make this overdress from an old blue velvet curtain.  I wanted to add a broader gold trim as decoration, but I couldn't find anything suitable in my stash, so I added a narrow gold ribbon to trim the dress.
The under dress was made from an old T shirt and some rather lovely floral silk  I had stashed away. I stitched the silk skirt to the bottom of the  T shirt  and extended the sleeves of the  T shirt to give the impression of a full gathered sleeve.
Little Miss loved her  new dress and couldn't wait to wear it.