Card Making

Birthday Wishes

I had a chance to play with some new products from Spellbinders:

I cut a white panel and used a Spellbinders embossing folder to create the background, layered onto a white card base.

I then did some die-cutting – when I say ‘some’ die-cutting I really mean quite a bit. I was using the colours from the current challenge at Color Hues, and die cut the hexagons, flowers, and all the layers from white, teal, and lime green card stock. I had no idea when I began which colour I was going to use for which layer, so I played around until I found the layers that I wanted, then glued them all together.

I then played with the positioning of the hexagons until I was happy with the layout above, glued the floral images down, added some small gold gems to the flowers then thought about the sentiment.

I used a debossing sentiment – also from Spellbinders – and some of their gold card stock to match with the centre of the flowers.

I’m getting quite used to the small fiddly layering dies, and instead of dreading them I embrace them wholeheartedly….and the only thing I get just a little worried about are the colours for each layer, but with a colour challenge that is taken care of……

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Allsorts – anything goes – option of wings not taken

Color Hues – lime green and cyan

Creative Knockouts – birthday

Time Out – birthday

Everybody Art – birthday

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Christmas Soldier

The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge has started a new ‘anything goes Christmas/Festive’ challenge. Here is my card:

Channelling Tim Holtz yet again, I die cut the soldier layers from the white and grey woodgrain card stock – just colouring his little face a tiny bit. I also used some double sided sticky sheets for each piece – a great tip from Tim – not so much glue oozing out of the edges….!

The background is a piece of patterned paper, to which I added a Spellbinders die cut, and a foiled sentiment.

Doing the soldier this way – and many of the ‘Colorize’ dies I would imagine – would look great from this card stock….

I hope you can come and join us with your Christmas/Festive creations and get your stash ready and waiting for the end of the year. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Most Magical Time of the Year – anything goes Christmas/Halloween

Sparkles Forum Christmas Challenge – Christmas and non-traditional colours

12 Months Of Christmas – anything goes Christmas – option of into the woods not taken

Creative Crafters Challenge – anything goes

CAS – Circles

Hello there. I was lucky enough to be chosen as the winner for AAA Cards Challenge in January 2023 with this card here – and so was invited to be Guest Designer for an upcoming challenge. I accepted of course……

The theme is ‘Circles’, and it must be CAS. Here is my card:

This is the third card I made – the theme was a real struggle for me. I went through the CML app and searched ‘circle’, looked through what came up, and came across this stamp set from Uniko which I haven’t used in absolutely ages…..

Onto a white card base, I first stamped the sentiment – a CAS sentiment – then took my newly delivered ‘Lost Shadow’ Distress Oxide ink, and my ‘Salvaged Patina’ Distress Oxide ink, and stamped what you see here. I used two of the smaller stamps in the Uniko set, and I did use my Misti when stamping.

Even though Distress Oxides stamp better than the inks – I still feel a second or even a third stamping gets a better impression.

I am loving the ‘distressed’ look of the stamps, and when I first stamped them I thought they were faulty – but no – just the way they are.

The teal and grey are also a good match for each other.

I hope you can come and join in the AAA card challenge with ‘CAS and Circles’ as the theme – I hope to see you in the gallery over there. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Krafty Chicks – CAS

Crafty Catz – anything goes – option black, grey and one colour – black, grey, teal

Floral Frame Birthday

After a busy week, I was able to create a card over the past couple of days, and completed today:

The base colour is cream from my stash, a Creative Expressions cream coloured card stock. I first took an A2 panel and dry embossed it with a Spellbinders embossing folder. I then attached this to the card base.

I then took another cream panel, and ink blended the floral frame (The Greetery) using the layering stencils. I used a light pink for all the flowers, stamping them twice for the base layer, and then for the added detail layer – using the same light pink – stamped three times to create a darker pink. I then used the outer and inner edge dies to cut the frame out.

I then took another stencil set from The Greetery and ink blended the two yellow flowers, using the die panel to cut those out.

I was going to attach the frame straight onto the embossed panel, but I thought the centre looked too busy with the dry embossing behind it, so I die cut the outer edge of the frame from another piece of cream card stock and attached it to the back using 3D foam tape – to create a more solid centre, and create some dimension and shadow behind the frame.

The yellow flowers were inserted, the sentiment stamped and the sentiment strip adhered with glue on the edges, and 3D foam on the centre.

I added some yellow dots to balance the yellow above the sentiment strip.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – yellow, light pink, cream, green

CYHTP – embossing folder option of hearts not taken)

Inkspirational – use stencils

AAA Birthday – birthday and use stencils

Unicorn Challenge – birthday

Stencil Fun – stencils – option of hearts not taken

Beautiful Blossoms – flowers and mood board

A Golden Hello

Hello there. It seems I have a thing about creating cards with birds at the moment. My two previous posts are with swans, and now I have a card with a golden dove:

Onto a white card base I adhered a red layer, then a blush pink dry embossed panel,. using a Spellbinders embossing folder. I die cut the central label shape using a Gina K Designs ‘Master Layouts‘ set, the same blush card, and layered with the same red card. I fiddled around to ensure that the central label embossing matched the background embossing – a little fiddly but I achieved what I wanted to do.

I then began die cutting……..

I used Spellbinders floral dies, and die cut them all in the blush card and white card, then decided to cut them again in a brushed gold from Spellbinders, played around with which colour for which layer, and then decided I needed a darker pink card for some of the buds on the floral pieces – and you can see what I ended up with. There was a lot of die-cutting and assembling the different colours and the different layers until I was happy.

The bird is from The Greetery, die cut using the shiny gold card from Spellbinders, and I also used the shiny gold for the sentiment, but also added three layers of white behind it to make it more substantial.

Using two different types of gold, and two different pink tones seems to work quite well – the bird still stands out as it is shiny…..

I even added some more bling using Trinity Stamps gold embellishments….

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – red, pink, gold

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – fun with dies

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

Creative Fingers – anything goes

Die Cut Divas – die cuts and add some gold

Ally’s Angels – anything goes

More swans….

I am hosting the new challenge at The Alphabet Challenge. The theme was chosen by another team member who has since left the team, but we are staying with the theme chosen – ‘Water’. There are a lot of possible choices – as you can see from the Design Team inspiration makes. Here is what I have gone with:

This card took a little planning, a little frustration – but I believe the outcome was worth it. I actually gave this card to my mum-in-law for her birthday.

The swans are from Hero Arts, one of their ‘Looking Glass’ collection of dies. I love to use these sets of dies to create a scene – but I find them difficult – despite watching the YouTube videos – over and over again…….my brain just doesn’t want to take it in….

I added circle frames, and added a decorative die cut from a Pinkfresh Studio die set.

The layers of the swan scene were coloured – the sky and water were ink blended with a Distress Ink, the reeds and swans coloured with Copics.

I hope you can come and join us with your ‘water’ themed creations – either making a water scene, using water-colours…….I;m looking forward to seeing a variety in our gallery. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge – anything goes with option ‘I Love’……(Hero Arts Looking Glass dies)

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – fun with dies

Lil Patch Of Crafty Friends – anything goes

2 Crafty Critter Crazies – anything goes with critter as main focus

Crafty Animals – anything goes with an animal

Ellibelle’s Corner – anything goes

Crafts Galore – anything goes

Hello there…..

I had some time to play in my craft room today to create this card with some dies from Honey Bee Stamps:

I decided to use the dragonfly from Honey Bee Stamps ‘Lovely Layers: bugs‘ for the first time. The wings were created by using a pink and a mustard alcohol ink and dropped them onto a piece of vellum – let them move around a little – and die cut the wings from the reverse side – catching some pink and some of the yellow/mustard.

The body of the dragonfly is die cut from a previously created ink smooshed green panel, and the wings layered on top…….I had to check whether to glue them to the top of the bottom of the body first……for some reason my mind went blank.

I dry embossed a diagonal border onto a white panel – using the reverse of the embossing for the smaller lines – cut this panel down slightly, and adhered to the card base.

The greetings banner was created by die cutting the main banner three times, setting the sentiment part into the top one, and colouring the second layer with a pink Copic to get some pink to shine through the words.

The arch frame was die cut, then the middle of the arch is a piece of vellum which had been passed through the Xyron to enable it to stick to the base panel without having to worry about where to put dots of glue.

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Color Throwdown – mustard, pink, green

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – anything goes

Everybody Art Challenge – new

CYHTP – embossing folder – option of borders taken

Sparkles Forum – friendship

Mix It Up – anything goes – option of now stamping taken

From Me To You

The Alphabet Challenge has started a new challenge. We have reached the letter ‘V’, and Debbie has chosen the theme of ‘Vellum’. Here is my card:

I first took some vellum and applied alcohol inks, I think two or three shades of green, moved it around – generally played really – and set that aside to dry. Once dry, I die cut the leaves – snipping one and adding to the larger image – and adhered with wet glue.

The card base is created with some linen textured card, and an arch die cut added.

I added the foiled sentiment strip, and I felt the card was done. No embellishments – just a very CAS card.

I hope you can come and join us with your ‘vellum’; creations. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Here Is A Place To Start – anything goes

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – anything goes

Sparkles Forum – friendship

Love To Craft – anything goes

Mix It Up – anything goes – option no stamping – option taken

Column Card

Claudia has chosen the next theme at Cardz 4 Galz, and she wants to see your shaped cards. Here is my card:

I created the base column card using instructions from a previous online crafty event – Maker Mania – and it was quite simple to put together.

I chose a white base card, and then used some Graphic 45 papers and ephemera to embellish. I don’t use my patterned papers enough, and I certainly don’t use ephemera very much, but I am trying different things, exploring different avenues – anything to do with paper crafting I’ll give it a go.

This also folds down to be mailed easy:

I struggle with layering and ephemera, what colours to use and where to place the items, but I’ve decided that what works for me is to lay things out and just go for it……..as long at the ‘stuff’ co-ordinates it seems to work. I can see I’ll be playing around a little more in the future.

I hope you can come and join us with your shaped cards. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

A Perfect Time To Craft – anything goes

Craft Rocket – not square

Crafts Galore – anything goes

Creative Crafters – anything goes

Papercraft Challenge – anything goes

Love To Craft – anything goes

White and Gold Christmas

A new challenge has started at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. The theme is always ‘anything goes Christmas’. Here is my card:

The three circle dies are from a kit through Scrapbook and Cards. I found out about these kits from another online card making course. The kits ship every two months, and combines a stamp set, die set, and a class with different people/companies. I believe the next one is with Gina K – but I haven’t received that yet – it takes a little more time to get to me here in the UK.

This die set was from LDRS Creative and I decided to make baubles.

I first created the dotty background with a Spellbinders stencil and gold paste. I left that to dry for 24 hours – just in case – and prepared the ‘baubles’.

I die cut the base circle from Spellbinders gold card stock, die cut the main decorative circle from white card stock, then layered. I used another die set for the bauble topper – adding with 3D foam.

Onto the slimline card base I added a gold base layer – I ‘gutted’ this layer to preserve some of that fabulous card stock – layered with the gold dotty panel, then added the baubles.

The sentiment was die cut from the same gold with a white shadow layer.

I decided to add some matt gold gems – kinda hard to stop when you get started.

I hope you can come and join us with your festive/Christmas makes. xx

I shall be entering the following challenges:

Cut It Up – anything goes with a die cut

Creative Fingers – anything goes

Most Magical Time Of The Year – anything goes Christmas or Halloween

Creative Knockouts – celebrations

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – anything goes Christmas