Month: August 2020

Rainbow Butterflies

Hello there. I hope you are all doing well. I have created a card which I would like to share with you:

I seem to be in a bright and rainbow mood at the moment – how strange is that? I know – rainbows not usually my style – but since obtaining the Concord & 9th mini cube set – I can’t seem to get enough! I just look through the swatch of the colours and stamp away……

Another encouragement card, clean and simple, the large butterfly is the only layer to it – the rest stamped onto the base card.

The card itself is A4 folded in half. Why such a large card I hear you say? Well, I knew I wanted a row of butterflies, and to make this work – the card had to be larger than usual, especially if I was also adding the larger butterfly die-cut too.

To stamp the row of butterflies straight, I used my Memory Misti – as that is huge – 12 inches square stamping area – it’s easy to move things around to stamp. I must remember to use that more often……

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Just Us Girls – Butterflies

AAA cards – CAS sketch – option at the movies – Papillon – one of my all time favourites – though can be harrowing – and with one of my all time favourite actors……..

Daisy Birthday

Hello. I have a couple of cards to share today:

I began by die-cutting the Altenew ‘Craft-a-Flower: Daisy’ out of Altenew gradient card stock and then gluing the layers together.

I looked for a background technique behind the flowers and was going to splatter, then ink through a stencil, but decided to gold emboss some splatters through a Tim Holtz stencil.

I find splatters sometimes disappear into certain card bases, and I wanted the gold to really shine. I managed to capture the shine on a couple of the photos.

The reason there are two cards? I die-cut four flowers and after adding three flowers and leaves to one card, I had some left over – so made another card.

The rectangle was added behind the one flower because that was just sitting there after ‘failing’ to make several cards yesterday – I like the effect it gives here.

The sentiment is from Indigo Blu and from a stamp set from their first magazine, and on one strip I laid down some sticky tape, added the same embossing powder, heat embossed and die cut it with a sentiment strip die from Heffy Doodle.

The left over gold strip was then glued to the second sentiment strip.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Crafty Sentiments designs – anything goes

Krafty Chicks – occasions

Daring Cardmakers – in the garden (I have a bunch of tall daises growing in my garden – picture in the post HERE) and below

Seize The Birthday – birthday with option to add gold

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – Beautiful Botanicals

Rainbow Hello

Hello once again. I hope you are keeping well. I have a card to share today, made after emailing a friend to say my mojo had run away – scarpered – bolted – hightailed it – and then I went and made this:

I had been racking my brain for an idea for the colours at the current Color Throwdown Challenge, and the ‘Rainbow or Rain’ theme at the current Inkspirational challenge – so I took to the Color My Life app and just browsed……and found this die from Heffy Doodle just sitting there waiting for these two challenges………… 🙂

I used four colours from Concord & 9th card stock, die cut the rainbow four times – I’ll use the rest of the cuts and stars on another few makes – and then searched for a cloud die and a suitable sentiment.

Again – browsing the CML app – I came across the cloud from Stampin Up ‘Rainbow Builder Framelits’ and added it as you see.

The ‘hello‘ word is also from Heffy Doodle – die cut four times and layered together, but without the shadow die, and kinda hanging off the cloud.

I’m quite pleased with the colourful simplicity of this card, especially to say I’d been struggling to put something together initially.

I did contemplate putting the stars back into the rainbow – just maybe moving the colours one stripe down – but left it as I like the white shining through each star shape.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – orange, pink yellow, peach

Inkspirational – rain or rainbows

Alphabet Challenge – Use Kraft

Hello once again. I hope everyone is well. There is anew challenge beginning at The Alphabet Challenge. We have reached the letter ‘K’ and we want to see your creations using Kraft. Here is my card:

I have itching to use this stamp set from Heffy Doodle ever since I bought it – and it was probably last year! As soon as this letter came up, I swapped between a beach scene with the Kraft as sand, or using Kraft as soil – obviously the soil won!

Once I had stamped the images in Gina K amalgam ink, and coloured with Copics, I then used the matching dies to cut them out.

I used Lawn Fawn’s ‘Stitched Hillside’ die for cutting the Kraft, and sticking it down on the edges, but left the two hilly layers unstuck – just in case I wanted to slot an image in there.

I had to cut the scene out again in white so I could ink blend the blue sky – using a couple of blue Distress Oxides – this time not splattering as I liked the look of the smooth blue. I thought about adding some clouds – but decided against it as I wanted the stamped images to be the stars of the show.

In my mind, the man has just returned home in his wooden vehicle, the woman is playing catch with the dinosaur and the bone – and even the mammoth has arrived to welcome him home…..well – I did say it was in my mind! 🙂 🙂

I did ink the hill layers with brown distress Oxide for a little dimension, but not too much.

I hope you can come and join us and share your ‘Kraft’ makes with us. The Design Team has some amazing creations as inspiration – I hope to see you in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Watercooler Challenge – occasions

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – anything goes

Craft Creations Challenge – anything goes

Creative Moments Challenge – anything goes

Jan’s Digi Stamps – anything goes

Saying Hello…..

Hello there -yes – that’s the theme for the new challenge beginning at Cardz 4 Galz – feature the word ‘hello‘ on your project.

Here is my card:

Do you think I have enough ‘hello’s‘ on there? 🙂

I didn’t know what to do at first with this theme, but I had a little search through the Color My Life app – and found this little gem from Concord and 9th – a turn-about stamp.

I have never had much luck with these stamps, despite having the turn-about jig – but I decided to give it another shot.

Using four of the the Concord & 9th inks and the jig – I set to it. Well – it happened so easily I haven’t a clue what I was doing wrong in the past – no clue!

I then used a ‘hello’ die from Time For Tea Designs – layered four times and then stuck down as you see, after sticking to a rectangle cut with MFT wonky stitched rectangle die set set.

I think this is a fun and vibrant ‘just because’ card – I seem to be making quite a few of them recently.

I hope you can come and join us and see what the Design Team have come up with – such a varied selection I must say.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Dragonfly Dreams – anything goes

Crafting Happiness – anything goes

Aud Sentiments – anything goes with a sentiment

Thinking of you with all my heart….

Hello. I can’t believe it’s been 6 days since I last posted. I have been preparing some DT cards so I have been crafting for the beginning of future challenges, but today I have a card to share using Altenew 3D floral dies:

I used the packs of Altenew Gradient card stock for the flowers and leaves. I like that each packet comes with four tones of the same colour and obviously this makes it easier when putting together 3D flowers like this.

I used the purple pack for the flowers, and the yellow pack for the leaves – as you can see. This took a lot of die cutting – a lot. I did manage to cut several layers in different colours on my Gemini Junior plate at once, but still – a lot of die cutting.

There is a blue striped circle beneath the flowers and leaves – again from Altenew, but I also added a smaller white circle as I felt the flowers and leaves kinda got lost.

I was going to add just the one flower, but seeing as how I made several of the smaller flowers too – I added them to make a bundle or bunch.

The most difficult part of this was the die set – there are lots of dies in this set, and it took me a while to match the four dies for each flower with the correct flower – despite having the card and web site open in front of me. I’ve sorted them onto a magnet sheet now – but it took me a while……

The sentiment is also from Stampin Up ‘Peaceful Moments‘ and has some lovely sentiments.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – purple, yellow, blue

Crafters Castle – anything goes

Aud Sentiments – anything goes with a sentiment

All Fun Challenges – anything goes

Googly Eyed Deer

Hello there. A new challenge is just beginning at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. The theme is ‘anything goes’ and can be anything Christmas related – cards, tags, boxes, scrap-book pages.

Here is my card:

The die-cut deer is from Waffle Flower and using a Tim Holtz card/paper pad I have had for absolutely ages. I used this because the card has some detail and pattern to it. I cut the whole deer out of two brown colours, then played with the placement to create the deer as you see.

I definitely wanted to use googly eyes and found some in my stash.

The white card underneath was created with some glitter paste and a stencil, made previously and just waiting for the right Christmas card to add to, and the red and white striped card is from my stash – maybe Stampin Up but not completely sure!

I hope you can come and join us this time round and get a head-start on your Christmas creations – the Design Team has some amazing makes – and includes a whole variation of creations.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Krafty Chicks – Christmas

Crafty Hazel Nuts Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas

Crimbo Crackers – anything goes Christmas

Crafters Cafe Challenge – dots or stripes

Crafty Hazel Nuts Patterned Paper Challenge – anything goes with patterned papers

Christmas Craft Creations – Christmas Animals

Please feel free to copy to your sidebar

Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge

Big Birthday Wishes

Hello. It’s raining here today, a little relief from the high temperatures last week – but I like whatever the UK weather tends to throw at us – barring the absolute extremes, of course.

I have couple of cards to share today using the same stamp set from Hello Bluebird, and for a few different challenges:

Both are one layer cards, stamped onto folded card-stock from Catherine Pooler I received many eons ago in one of her kits.

For the hippo card, I stamped the hippo in Gina K amalgam ink, then coloured with warm grey Copics, adding some white gel pen for details.

The grass was drawn on – to fit in with one of the challenge themes – and coloured with Copics. I must say – drawing grass is far harder than it might look. 🙂

The second card, the elephant, was coloured in the cool grey Copic markers, and this time I just drew in the top of the grass and coloured the rest with the same as the previous card, but adding bunches of grass with the darker green instead of drawing more black lines.

The hippo card will be entered into the following challenges:

Simply Less Is More – CAS and doodles

Animal friends Challenge – hippo or rhino

Watercooler Challenge – occasions

The elephant card will be entered into the following challenges:

Moving Along With The Times – Elephants

Pink Gem Challenge – anything goes

Seize The Birthday – birthday anything goes with option rainbow colours (not taken)

You’re The Cat’s Meow

Hello and welcome once again. I have a card to share today which turned out to be made largely from Mama Elephant products. This wasn’t planned at all – it was just the way my mind went when designing the card:

The theme started off from the current challenge at CASology – the prompt word being ‘BALL’. I put that into the Color My Life app and it came up with lots of balloons in my stash – and a few stamp sets which had cats/kittens with balls of wool.

Of those three, I chose the Mama Elephant stamp set ‘My Pet Kitties‘, stamped a couple of the images in Gina K Amalgam ink onto a scrap piece of Concord & 9th white card (from a previous make).

I coloured the kitties in Copics – the warm greys (and this card stock loves Copics – very easy) with a touch of peach to the ears, an aqua Copic for the wool balls – following the current colours at Color Throwdown – and then used the matching dies to cut them out.

I was going to go with a ‘normal’ card layout, but I have several of the slimline die sets so I went with that. I first looked on the Mama Elephant web site to get the dimensions for a slimline card, especially as I was using their dies to create one.

The base card is Neenah card, the Kraft layer is cut using Mama Elephant ‘Slim Card Basics‘, as is the white layer and the three windows.

Instead of ink blending the windows, I used another Mama Elephant die set – ‘Slim Window Dressing‘ – which had grass and cloud dies so I used an aqua and Kraft card for those two layers in each window.

The sentiment is from C.C. Designs ‘Cutie Cats‘ – one of the other stamp sets I was going to use – and then all put together with foam pads and glue as you see.

I added a couple of little butterflies – just because I could………

Even though this has a few layers to it, I still think it’s CAS enough for the CASology Challenge – but I am sure the DT there will let me know if it’s a problem – I still had fun thinking about a card for their current theme – it has taken me days and days…….

I shall be entering the following challenges:

CASology – word prompt ‘BALL’

Color Throwdown – peach aqua, Kraft

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – midsummer blues – use blue, or the blues music, or sad

You Really Are The Sweetest…

Hello there. I have a ‘berry’ sweet card to share today – pun intended:

See what I mean?

I used the Clearly Besotted ‘Pick a Plushie‘ stamp set and – obviously- the strawberry. Once stamped with Gina K amalgam ink and coloured with Copics – I then had to fussy-cut them out……I know – not usually my thing, but these were quite easy.

I then used some white gel pen for details and turned to the sketch layout, using three die cut squares which were left over when I die-cut the Heffy Doodle ‘Stitched Slimline Trio die’ a few cards ago – I always keep these little squares or circles for future uses – but sometimes I forget I have them! These were still on my craft desk and just begging to be used.

The inner small squares were cut using a Stampin Up ‘Stitched Squares’ die set – a staple in my craft drawer and used frequently.

The sentiment is from the same Clearly Besotted stamp set and stamped directly onto the card base.

I am continuing to make cards for non-specific reasons and just sending them to friends as a little encouragement and contact.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Fusion Card Challenge – sketch and/or photo – photo inspiration of the berries

CAS Colours and Sketches – sketch

Crafty Sentiments Designs – anything goes

Arty Divas Challenge – anything goes

Inkspirational – word prompt ‘Face‘ – my strawberries have faces 🙂