Technique Tuesday #14 - Mother's Day Hugs

Hello! I'm flying in a little late with my technique Tuesday today because I went down to London to visit with my daughter at the weekend and as I had Monday off I was of course forgetting that today was Tuesday.

Anyway it's a quick post from me as I'm dashing this off in my lunch break at work, but this was the Mother's Day card that I sent to my Mum.

I started by stamping the background with Versamark ink using the  stamp from Simon Says Stamp onto watercolour cardstock and then heat embossing with white embossing powder.

I then used a combination of Worn Lipstick, Aged Mahogany and Victorian Velvet to 'colour in' the circles with my blending tool. Once I'd finished I cleaned up the embossed areas with some absorbent paper and ran the whole piece through my Big Shot with the MFT Snow Drifts cover up die. I cut this out a second time from some smooth white cardstock and used the frame part as a base to inlay the die cut pieces of my background, adhering everything directly to my card base.

I cut the MFT Large Hugs Word Die 3 times from some white cardstock and once more from some lustre cardstock in cherry red, and then stacked and glued the layers of each letter with the red on top.

I stamped the mother's day sentiment from Whimsy Stamps Happy Everything set with Versamark ink on some vellum and heat embossed with gold embossing powder and then die cut it with one of MFT's Stitched Sentiment Strips.

I glued the vellum sentiment strip to my card and layered the HUGS on the top, hiding the glue on the vellum beneath the letters and some sequins, from Little Things by Lucy,  which I used to finish embellishing my card.

I've listed my materials below for you with links where available

Tim Holtz Watercolour Card
Simon Says Stamp - Circle Doodle Background Stamp
Distress Inks in Worn Lipstick, Victorian Velvet and Aged Mahogany
Smooth White Cardstock
Cherry Red Lustre Cardstock
MFT Snow Drifts Cover Up Dienamics
MFT Big Hugs Dienamics
Rose Gold Sparkly Shaker Collection

That's all from me today, hopefully my craft/guest room project will be finished by the weekend and I can get back to normal making and posting.

Thanks for visiting!

Thank You for Everything

Hello!

I'm popping in with something that was a little bit of an experiment for me. I wanted to see how the metallic colours in my Gansai Tambi watercolours would look on black cardstock. whether they would be too wishy washy or whether they would stand out nicely.

So first of all I took a piece of plain black cardstock and inked up my 

stamp with Versamark ink. I used my anti-static tool on my cardstock and then before placing it on the stamp and rubbing over firmly, holding it in place with my other hand, and then lifting off.

I sprinkled on some white embossing powder and heated until set and raised.

Then I set to work with my metallic paints. I decided to use all 3 that come in the set of 36 colours, this gives you a gold colour, a copper colour and a silvery white colour.

I just painted the large blooms, trying to spread the 3 colours fairly evenly around the design.

Once finished I put it aside to dry while I worked on the rest of the card.

I took the wafer thin You die from Simon Says Stamp and cut it out 4 times from white cardstock. For the top layer I sponged it with versamark ink and then used gold embossing powder to make it gold and shiny, I layered all the die cut pieces on top of each other, using the gold one as the top layer.

Then I stamped a sentiment from the coordinating stamp set in versamark ink on a strip of vellum and embossed that with the same gold embossing powder. 

I cut my stamped cardstock to size and  wrapped the vellum strip around it and then glued the 'You' on top.

Finally I adhered adhered the whole thing onto a white cardbase, popping it up with some craft foam and embellished with a few sequins in gold, silver and clear.

I couldn't really achieve any shading on the petals as I had to use a fairly thick coat to cover the black, but I really like how it turned out and I think it would work well for many different cards, but especially those difficult sympathy cards.

I've added links for some of the products below.

Gansai Tambi Watercolours 
MFT Floral Fantasy Background Stamp
SSS 'You' Wafer Thin Die
SSS You Matter Clear Stamp Set

Thanks for visiting!

Flowers Everywhere

Hello!

My week is still hectic, so no time for a Technique Tuesday this week, but I did get a card made ahead to share for our new theme over at Deep Ocean Challenge.

This time it's 

'Flowers Everywhere'.

Now it comes as no surprise to most that I love adding flowers to my vintage or shabby chic cards, even if I haven't used them too much recently with all the CAS cards I've been making, so my DT make for this challenge was a breeze. With Mother's Day looming here in the UK I thought I would make another Mother's Day card.

Rather than colour up a flowery stamp I let the flowers in this beautiful paper and my paper flowers take centre stage.

I've added links below where available.

Galeria As if in a Dream Retro Paper Pad

Cheesecloth

Chipboard Frame

Cherry Blossom

Beaded Stamen Pink/White

12 mm Faux Silk Pale Pink Ribbon

Rose Leaves

Thank you so much for visiting, I do hope you can join in with our challenge and don't forget to leave the rest of the team some love!

Friendship Ties - Whimsy Stamps March Release Day 3

Hello!

Arrggghhh! You know when you have everything all planned out like clockwork and you think you can relax and take a moment off and then it all goes horrible wrong? I had a day like that yesterday, I knew I had a very busy day, so I planned ahead but on the day everything fell to pieces, this should have gone live yesterday, but for reasons I won't go into and just want to draw a veil over it didn't.

Anyhooooo....I'm back today with some more yumminess from the March release at Whimsy Stamps.

Today I'm showcasing one of the new Wee Stamps Collection, this is called Friendship Ties and like all of Sylvia Zet's wonderful drawings it is super sweet.

I coloured her up with my distress ink markers to match some pretty papers from the Maja Design Vintage Spring Basics collection, love me some lilacs and the pale green just keeps it all fresh.

I had a bit of a change from my recent CAS fest and went shabby chic with this one, I think it suits her well.

The papers, cheesecloth, seam binding and ......are from The Ribbon Girl

Don't forget to check out all my teams wonderful creations and if you're on Facebook you can join in all the fun we're having in our Facebook group.

Have a fabulous Friday!

 

Happy Birthday to Ewe

Hello!

I didn't quite get time to join in with the MFT sketch challenge last week, so this week I'm making sure I get in early. So here's my interpretation of 

Sketch #324 

using the fantastic 

Birdie Brown 'Ewe are the Best' stamp set.

Most of you will know by know that I have a soft spot for a punny sentiment and you have several to choose with in this set as well as some great images. I coloured the little sheep with the party hat and ballon, with my zig clean colour pens.  I didn't buy the matching die set this time, but there is one available if you are not a fan of fussy cutting. I stamped him/her on my background too and coloured that in grey and cut the sheep and ballon out separately so that the string of the balloon is from the stamped image on the base card. I popped the sheep and ballon up on some foam tape and gave the hats a few white dots with a Posca marker and gave the ballon a coating of Wink of Stella.

So this is my take on the sketch, I mostly kept close to the original with a tweak here and there, adding another strip of patterned paper and using some sequins instead of the small banner and moving then to the other corner.

I created the background using a self made mask and my distress ink and blender. The colour I used was tumbled glass.

I stamped a sentiment from the set in black versafine ink and also MFT Razzle Berry dye ink.

I've listed everything I've used below, with links where available.

Smooth White Cardstock

Hot Pressed Watercolour Paper 

Versafine Ink Onyx Black

MFT Ewe are the Best

Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens

Tumbled Glass Distress Ink

MFT Stitched Circle Scallop Frames Die-namics

MFT Sweet Celebration Paper Pack

Stitched Sentiment Strips Die-namics
MFT Stitched Scallop Basic Edges Die-namics

MFT Razzle Berry Premium Dye Ink

Stitched Circle Dies

Pretty Pink Posh Sparkling Clear Sequins

Adhesive

Foam Tape

Don't forget that in the UK and Europe you can get all your MFT goodies at Dies to Die for.

I hope you like it. If you would like to see the original sketch and/or join in with the challenge, you can find it here.

Thanks for visiting! 

Shine Bright - Day One - Whimsy Stamps March Release

Hello!

It's that time again, Whimsy Stamps has a brand new release for March and we have all kinds of goodies to share with you.

Today I'm going super CAS with a card using the new Shine Bright clear stamp set.

This really is a set I've been looking forward to, so many crafty possibilities with this set, lots of different designs of cards running around in my head lol, and of course you can also just use them as sentiments to add to your cards with various different stamps, the sentiments are very versatile.

Now to 'fess up, this shaker card did not start out with that large purple star, originally I was just going to cut a star aperture but....I kind of forgot the add the acetate before I added all the foam tape lol, so I ended up having to add it to the front and covering it with the star outline.

But you know what? It looks even better than it did in the original design, so sometimes mistakes are a good thing because they make you think outside the box!

Anyone who knows me well will know that I do like a bit of purple, so it's probably not a big surprise when I use it as an accent colour, and I do think it worked very well here. I did ponder whether to also stamp the sentiment in purple ink, but I wanted it to really stand out from the rest, so I kept it black.
I used all the star stamps in the set and just stamped them somewhat randomly over my card front.

To finish off I just added some of those pretty sequins and gems that are in the shaker to the front of the card,

If you love this set, you might also like the sister set Wish Upon a Star.

You can see the full release here.

That's all from me today, but I'll be back tomorrow and I'll have some more from the Whimsy Release on Friday. Until then, take care and thanks for dropping by!

Technique Tuesday #13

Hello!

Tuesday has rolled around again and isn't this year just whizzing by?

My Techniques on show today include emboss resist, ink blending, and die-cut layering and I do have to say that I'm a little in love with the way this one turned out.

So, what did I do to make this?

Firstly I used a fab background stamp from My Favorite Things (I've listed everything used below for you, with links where I have them), and stamped with Versamark ink on some watercolour card stock.

I love using watercolour cardstock for my ink blending even when there isn't going to be any water involved as it always blends much more easily. I prepared my cardstock before stamping with my anti static powder tool.

Then I sprinkled on some fine detail white embossing powder and heated until all the powder was melted and shiny.

Then I got to work with my distress inks and blending tools. The colours I used were:

Blueprint Sketch, Picked Raspberry, Cracked Pistachio and Twisted Citron.

I took care to blot a lot of the colour off of the blending tool onto some scratch paper before adding the ink to the embossed cardstock, to make sure that whilst colours I used were bright, they had a more subtle effect. I also really blended them out with the last colour (Twisted Citron) almost blending into white at the end. The Picked Raspberry was blended right over the top of the Blueprint Sketch to turn the blue into much more of a violet colour.

Once I was happy with my blending I wiped the whole lot over with a paper towel to clean and brighten the white embossing. I didn't add any water or white acrylic paint this time as I was going to be doing some layering and I wanted the rest of the blending to show fully.

I cut my finished piece using the largest die from Blueprints 15 and mounted that directly to my card base (5.5" x 4.25").

Then I cut a piece of vellum using the Jumbo Fishtail Banner STAX and set that aside. I used the because die from the Because You set to cut out the word because in some beautiful specialty cardstock from Papermill Direct. I love how this Sparkle Cardstock just has little pieces of glitter embedded rather than being in your face glittery, not that there's anything wrong with in your face glitter mind you, just sometimes it's nice to have a subtler approach for a softer card. I didn't layer my word to be thicker today as it was already going to be layered on other things.
I stamped a greeting from the same set in Vesrfine Ink Onyx Black, on smooth white card stock and cut it to size, angling one end. I also cut 2 small hearts from that glittery cardstock using the heart die that comes with Blueprints 15.
Once I had everything I needed I set about layering it all together. I popped the vellum up on some foam tape, hiding the tape behind the heart and the sentiment strip and overlapped the strip slightly with the die cut word. I popped the other heart up in the lower right corner to give the card a little balance and then finished off with a few  sequins from Lucy's Pale Pistachio mix.
Making this card actually made my heart happy because I love the end result! I hope you do too.

Products Used

Smooth White Cardstock
MFT Wavy Coloring Book Background Stamp
MFT Blueprints 15
Versamark Ink
Fine Detail White Embossing Powder
Distress Ink Pads (I used minis) in Blueprint Sketch, Picked Raspberry, Cracked Pistachio and Twisted Citron
Heavyweight Vellum
MFT Because You stamp and die set
Versafine Ink Onyx Black
Tea Rose Sparkle Cardstock
Pale Pistachio Sparkly Shaker Selection from Little Things from Lucy
If you are in the UK or Europe, you can buy all of the MFT products from Dies to Die for
Tool and Basic Supplies

Big Shot Die-cutting Machine
Adhesive
Scissors
Foam Tape
Scoring board and Bone Folder (for card base)
Tweezers
Anti static Tool

Thanks for visiting!

Togetherness

Hello!

It's another wedding card from me today and I was going to go live with this in the morning, but I got involved in sorting out stuff ready for my big guest room/craft room makeover, and well time just whizzed by.

This is another no image card made with those gorgeous  Galeria papers. I have put the links below for you to find easily.

This was quite a simple card to make (no honestly!), a little diecutting, inking and distressing the edges of my papers and some gold ink on those lovely chipboard pieces from my stash was about all it took apart from the normal cutting and gluing.

I added a sprinkling of sequins to finish off.

Galeria - As if in a Dream Retro Pad

Cheesecloth

Ivory White Magnolia Flowers

Hip Rosebuds

10mm Ivory Open Roses

Beaded Berries Ivory/Cream

23 mm Ivory Organza Ribbon

That's all from me today, but I'll try and drop by again tomorrow with a quick share.

Social Media, Love it or Hate it?

Ok so.....not a bit of cardstock or coloured image in sight for this post today (don't worry there's lots in the draft folder for sharing later), as I wanted to have a bit of a chat about social media.

So....social media and I have a bit of a love hate relationship going on. I love it in that I can share my creations with more people, I love it that I can see what my friends are making, that I can see new crafters that I wouldn't otherwise have come across, that I have a whole melting pot of inspiration to fire my creativity when my mojo takes a nosedive.

So where does the hate come in I hear you ask?  Well that can be answered in one simple word....time.

When I first started blogging, that's all I did. I did use FaceBook socially, but not in connection with my crafting.

Over time and as I joined DTs, I added (in no particular order), a Facebook page and also started sharing my cards on my personal page, I added Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram. Currently I have no plans to add Twitter, but hey I had no plans to add Instagram originally!

All of these things soak up a huge amount of my very small pocket of spare time. It takes time to upload to each place, write a blurb and post, time to add a bunch of hashtags, time to look through, like and comment on other's creations, time to reply to comments on mine.

I fail miserably some days, I would love to be able to comment on everything I see, but time is not kind to me. As I work a full time job with around two and a half to three hours journey time each day, I only have a few hours in the evening and the weekends to do everything else I need to do. That includes all the normal chores such a shopping, cleaning, washing, cooking etc as well as contacting/visiting family and friends and any RL social stuff I can, plus actually crafting, then photographing, uploading, editing and making my original post. Trying to cram in all the other social media sites can be very difficult sometimes, I manage (mostly), but there are the times when it feels a bit like work. So in the main if I comment on a post of someones on one of their sites, I may not comment on another. Some days I don't get a chance to comment at all, and though I try to catch up where I can this isn't always possible, I do try at least to run through and like stuff quickly on Instagram or FaceBook though.
Where YouTube is concerned I would love to share more, but the combination of a lack of free time, no room for a permanent video set-up and rubbish internet speed due to the distance from the exchange, means that I haven't posted in recent months, though I'm hoping to rectify that after my guest room/craft room makeover.

So in conclusion, Social Media and I have a bit of a love hate relationship going on, I like it and I use it, but I think I'd need a time machine (or retirement!) to truly love it.

What about you? I'd love to hear your views, are you a Social Media guru, or do you hide in the corner, love it, or wish you didn't lose half a day due to one post you clicked, which of course led to another and another (and Pinterest you have a lot to answer for here!), we've all done that right?

Thanks for dropping by, I'm looking forward to hear how you balance your time.

Technique Tuesday #12 Stenciled Background

Hello!

I'm coming in with my Technique Tuesday a little later today as it's also my card for
Deep Ocean Challenge's new theme of 

Dots and/or Stripes. 

As you can see I went for Dots, although since I cut through the card horizontally and added a coloured background, it does also have a single Stripe too.

To make my card I fir cut a piece of smooth white cardstock, 5.5 x 8.5 inches and folded it in half to make a horizontal top folding card.

Thank I took a piece of the same cardstock and cut that a quarter of an inch smaller on the length and width and taped that to my craft mat with some post it tape.

I used the Circle Dots Stencil from Simon Says Stamp and taped that down over my cardstock, and then stenciled through with my Clarity Brushes and some blue and turqouise tones from my Distress inks.

I stamped a sentiment from the You Matter Stamp Set from Simon Says Stamp, with Versamark ink on some green lustre cardstock, and then heat embossed with white detail embossing powder. I cut the green cardstock to size and adhered it to my cardbase and then adhered my 2 pieces of stenciled cardstock overlapping this with some foam tape, taking care to keep my sentiment visible.

I cut the word You, with the Simon Says Stamps You wafer thin die, 3 times in white cardstock and then once in the green lustre, and stacked and glued them together. I placed this carefully on my card and adhered with some Multi Medium Matte.

Finally I added some sequins from Lucy to finish.

Smooth White Cardstock
Spring Green Lustre Cardstock
SSS You Matter Stamp Set
SSS You Wafer Die
SSS Falling for You Circle Dots Stencil
Distress Inks in Twisted Citron, Cracked Pistachio and Peacock Feathers
Selection of sequins from Lucy's Shop

I do hope you can join in with our fun challenge this week, check out the blog for the prize on offer and don't forget to stop and admire my lovely teamie's gorgeous makes!

Thanks for dropping by

MFT stamps Hog Heaven

Hello!

I hope you're all having a great weekend. Mine is as usual much too short, I've gotten a little more work done on my guest room/craft room makeover, my new desk is up and I've done some more clearing and organising. So I can now move my colouring zone there, and hopefully the die-cutting area by next weekend, I'm slowing getting there and it's beginning to take shape.

So anyway I did get a little crafty time this weekend, I did a bit of work on some new release stuff for March and also I found some time to join in again with the Wednesday sketch challenge from MFT. If you want to see the original sketch you can find it here. It's not a difficult sketch to follow and this is my take on it.

I used the super cute Hog Heaven stamp set by MFT, stamped on Strathmore paper and coloured with distress ink markers and then fussy cut as I don't have the matching die-namics for these, but the Strathmore paper lends itself very well to fussy cutting as it's not so thick as my regular watercolour paper.

For my background I just used an offcut of cardstock that had been cut with a wavy border die and used that as my mask. For the sky I used Tumbled Glass distress ink and for the grass I used MFT Limelight Premium Dye ink, this blends really well.

I cut a piece of Deep Pink Lustre cardstock around a quarter of an inch smaller than my cardbase (which is a standard US A2 size), and adhered that to my cardbase. Then I trimmed my background a little smaller and adhered that on top.

I cut out a frame with the Stitched Rectangle Frames in a deep pink lustre cardstock and mounted that on a double layer of foam tape and then popped my pig and gate inside the frame with a little thinner foam tape.

I stamped the sentiment from the set on some vellum, with Veramark ink and used some pink embossing powder and heat set. Then I cut it out with a die from the Stitched Sentiment Strips

I popped the little basket of flowers in the corner of my frame and adhered the vellum behind so the the glue didn't show and I supported the strip on the other end with a tiny square of foam tape which I hid behind an enamel dot. A few more well placed enamel dots and my card is finished!

Well actually not quite, I did stamp another pig and the sentiment 'Ham it up on your birthday',

but I forgot to take a photo of that so I will have to add that later doh!

If you are in the UK or Europe like me, you can buy all your MFT goodies from

Dies to Die for

I'm entering this card into the MFT Sketch challenge #322

Thank you so much for dropping by

We make the perfect pair

Morning!

Do you remember last week I shared a shaker card using the negative die-cut of the large hugs die?
Did you wonder what I did with those letters I cut out? Well wonder no more because here is the card I used them on.

Firstly I took a piece of watercolour paper and did some ombre technique, using diluted distress ink and a large paintbrush. Once dry I sprinkled with some clean water and blotted to lift some areas and lighten. Then I added some splashes of white acrylic paint. While that dried I stamped and coloured the 2 bears from the Snuggle Bunnies set by MFT stamps, I used the same combo of purples and lilacs I used on my background. Milled Lavender, Wilted Violet and Dusty Concord.

I stamped one of the sentiments from the set on vellum with some versamark ink and heat embossed with white embossing powder. Then I cut it out with a die from the stitched sentiment strips.
I cut and adhered my watercolour paper to a piece of lustre cardstock a little smaller than my card base.
I popped the 'HUGS' up on some foam tape and adhered the sentiment strip beneath the bottom of the letters. I cut out my little bears with the matching dies and popped those up on some foam tape so that it looks as though they are sitting on/running across the top of the letters.

To finish I added a few sequins.

MFT Snuggle Bunnies
MFT Snuggle Bunnies Die-namics
MFT Big Hugs Word Die-namics

In the UK you can buy all the above at Dies to Die for

I hope you like my make for today. Thanks for dropping by!