Using Designer Paper in a CAS Way !

We're back to dark, dull and damp weather here in my bit of Cornwall today - hmph !  I do so hate these dark days of November, find them sooo depressing and with such bad light it makes it more difficult to see to colour images well.  I'm generally a 'warm soul' but it seems that the dampness seeps right into me when it's also cold and makes me feel pretty bleugh !  Anyway, enough of my moaning, I'm sure that the sun is shining somewhere and making everyone feel happy.

Today I'm sharing with you a card I made to enter this week's Simply Less is More Challenge.  We are asked this week to use Designer Paper in a CAS way.  Here's my creation

I used one of the dies from the SU! Framelets Holiday Ornaments set and a scrap of SU! Christmas patterned paper.  This is one of those 'happy accidents' that happen as I did cut out the bauble from the other side of this yummy paper which was green and cream.  However, when I turned it over I loved how the lacy pattern was perfectly placed on the shape so decided to use the brown and cream  side as I love the combination with the red ink of the sentiment. 

The sentiment is from Clarity Stamps and I used SU! Cherry Cobbler ink to stamp it direct onto the base card. 

I found a little scrap of tiny ric rac ribbon in my stash, attached a short length to the top of the bauble and a longer length hanging down from the top of the card to look like the bauble is suspended.

The final touch was to add a little Stardust Stickles - I used this rather than another colour as it's translucent and doesn't hide the pattern on the paper but gives a little added sparkle - well it is a Christmas Bauble !

As I've been busy making a couple of batches of cards this morning, one of the designs fits right in with this theme, so I'll be sharing that project with you another day and if I'm in time, will enter a second card for this week's challenge. 

Have a wonderful crafty day !

A bit of sewing and a great weekend

Happy Tuesday Bloggers, I hope you have a lovely sunny day as I have here in my little bit of Cornwall. 

Warning, today's post is very picture heavy so you might want to get yourself a coffee and make yourself comfortable before you start reading !

Firstly I'm sharing with you pix of a quilted Christmas table runner I made for my pal Kathy, as I was seeing her last weekend, I needed to get sewing last week to finish it in time.  Here's how it turned out

 

.... apologies for the poor quality of the pictures, I took them in a hurry and foolishly didn't check them before wrapping up the runner and leaving home with it. 

 

I used a 'disappearing nine patch' design, which is one of my favourites as you just never know how it's going to look until all the fabric pieces are sewn together, it's such a great technique.  For the quilting I stitched 'in the ditch'.  Kathy was really pleased with it (phew!) and in a few short weeks it will be resplendent on her festive table on the Big Day !

 

As I said earlier, I left home on friday morning for a crafting weekend with Kathy and a couple of other pals.  Kathy and I had Friday afternoon to craft so we started on decorating a couple of 'printers trays' which I'd had in my stash for quite some time but never got around to doing anything with.  On Friday all we had time for was sticking each of the layers together and applying a few thin coats of gesso to prepare it.  I opted for the house shaped printer tray

 

 

We had the chance for a little more crafting on sunday morning before I headed home again and we managed some progress on our projects. Here's mine with patterned paper and gold leaf paint applied - it's such pretty paper I decided not to cover it up with stamped images but plan to add metal charms, lace and other pretty embellies that I'm sure are languishing in my stash (you can just see that I've added some 'ROXS', which Kathy had in her stash in the bottom right hand section, attached using Glossy Accents.  I'll share pix of the finished item once it's all done.

 

 

 

Kathy opted for the round printer tray, shown here in it's 'naked' form ready for decoration, and as Kathy crafts at the speed of light she, of course, finished hers !  It is rather splendid as you can see and so very different from the style of mine - isn't individual Creativity wonderful ?

 



 

On saturday we headed out to Swindon to meet up with our two pals Cherry and Lauren for a workshop at Snazzy's.  It was a great opportunity to craft with pals, have some uninterrupted 'Me' time and create something I may not have done on my own at home.  We created a 'Twelve Days of Christmas' decoration using a wooden house-shaped blank with papers and stickers from the awesome Graphic 45 Twelve Days of Christmas range.

 

Here's the sample created by Val of Snazzy's

 

 

The kit of materials



 

 

Having Fun - Yay !  (note the essential crafting tools on the left - yummy biskwits)

 

 

.... here I am working hard on my house deep in creative thought !  I'm a standing up crafter.

 

 

Kathy (who crafts at the speed of light) of course finished her project completely and was off shopping in the store whilst I was still working on mine.  I didn't want to rush it and be disappointed with the final result so brought home the rest of the pack of materials and will complete it at home.

 

Here's my project by the end of the workshop - as you can see there is quite a lot still to be done on it but it's coming along and I have plans for each of the empty 'rooms'.

 

 

Congratulations if you've managed to stay with me this far, hope you've enjoyed your visit today, do call back again, it's great to have you visit.

 

Have a wonderful craft-filled day.





So Angelic

Happy Thursday Bloggers, we've got a new challenge starting over on the Cute Card Thursday Blog today.  Our theme for this week is 'So Angelic' and our prize sponsor is Whiff of Joy Stamps.

Angels are perfect images for Christmas cards and as I'm trying to get as many cards made as I can to add to my still inadequate stock of cards for this Christmas I decided to make one as my DT card for this challenge.

 

here's a closer shot of the card

 

 

I couldn't find the stamp I wanted to use for this card but whilst searching for it I found a box of ready stamped images and this sweet angelic Magnolia Tilda image was on the top of the pile.  I coloured her with ProMarkers before fussy cutting her out.  The background paper was a magazine freebie (from last year I think) and the border across the bottom of the paper design was perfect for her to 'sit' on. 

The little heart pendants were cut using a Memory Box die, the snowflakes were cut using various Marianne's dies and the sentiment from Little Claire was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and cut out using a nestie die. 

I added lots of Stardust Stickles over all the snowflakes, the hearts and Tilda's wings which is twinkling away beautifully IRL but not showing up at all well on the pic... ah well ! 

The finishing touch to the design was some faux blanket stitch drawn with a white pen around the edges (with thanks to my pal Annie - Ink'n'rubba - who gave me the idea for this by using it on her cards).  I think it gives the whole thing a 'homespun' feel and the red/blue colour combo is quite Scandinavian. 

I hope you've enjoyed your visit today, do pop over to the CCT Blog to see the fabulous creations from the rest of the DT and full details of the challenge.  It would be great if you were inspired by our work to enter the challenge yourself.  

Have a great day, whatever you have planned and thanks for dropping by here today to check out my latest project.

Anything But a Card

Good morning Bloggers and welcome to Wednesday here in my little bit of Blogland.  Sun is shining here today, although there was a very chilly start to the day.  I'm just so happy that it isn't raining, seemed like it was never going to stop !  Hopefully I'll be taking my Dad for a little outing to Looe - mmmm cream tea springs to mind Ha Ha ! 

The November challenge on the Craftbubble II and a half forum I belong to is 'Anything but a card' so today's project is my creation to enter for this challenge.  I decided to make some gift tags using the fabulous Christmas images from the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection Mini Blueprint set of stamps - I just adore these images.

Firstly I used the snowman stamp to create a few tags, cutting out the tags with a Marianne's die and SU! Crumbcake cardstock.  I added touches of white ink, red and green ProMarkers and just a little twinkly black with a 'Wink of Stella' pen.  There were more tags than this but I used a couple which you can see in the next pic.

I then went on to make a few more tags, using the same die and more of the Crumbcake cardstock as well as some scraps of red.   I tried stamping some of the images using SU! white ink, embellished with a few gems and added touches of colour on some using ProMarkers.

I'll be making a few more of these in the coming days but thought I'd share what I've done so far and they are just right for entering the challenge.

Thanks for dropping by today, I'm off out for a breath of fresh sea air in Looe now so might be back to add a couple of pix to this post later.  Have a great day whatever you have planned.

Ho ! Ho ! Ho!

Good morning dear Bloggers, the sun is shining on my bit of Cornwall at the moment, but I don't know how long it will last.  I will be watching the Remembrance Service on TV this morning, but then have to knuckle down and work on a sewing project I need to have completed by next weekend.

Today's project is a Christmas card, I've made a few but still have lots more to do. 

I decided on a nice simple design for this card, used the Santa Hat stamp from a set by Recollections - just love this stamp set as there's a fabby Candy Cane and Holly Leaf image in the set too. 

 

I stamped the images with Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto kraft coloured cardstock (I love the different effect you get with colouring on kraft there seems to be much more depth to the colours) coloured them with Promarkers before cutting out. 

 

A little Stardust Stickles on the cuff and bobble to make them sparkle and then attached using Pin Flair Glue to give them dimension - first giving them a little curve by shaping with my fingers. 

 

I hand wrote the Ho ! Ho! Ho ! sentiment as I couldn't find the stamp I wanted to use !  (note to self :  urgently sort out stamp stash).

 

That's it, simple, quick (apart from waiting for Stickles to dry) and I love the finished result.  I'll be making a few more like this one I think.

 

Thanks for dropping by my little bit of Blogland, I do appreciate your continued support.  Have a great day whatever you have planned. 

 

I'm off to find my sewing machine now.

Animal Magic

Happy Thursday Folks, hope you're having a great day.  The new challenge starting today over on the Cute Card Thursday Blog has the theme 'Animal Magic' and our prize this week is sponsored by Bunny Zoe Crafts.

For my DT card this week I decided to use these two adorable House Mouse images that have been sitting in my stamped image box waiting to be coloured and used. 

I created a background to 'suggest' the sky by taking a piece of SU! patterned paper and adding Distress Inks with a piece of cut and dry around the edges and across to look a little like clouds.   Using a craft knife I cut a piece of SU! Crumbcake cardstock to look like uneven ground, again I used DI to add shading.

I coloured the images using ProMarkers, adding Glossy Accents on the balloons and the cute little noses of the mousie and baby bunny.

The sentiment is from a set by Lilli of the Valley which I stamped and cut out using a Sizzix banner die.  The flowers were cut using a Penny Black die (the stem is much longer but I trimmed it to fit my design) cutting the flower head from a scrap of SU! patterned paper.  Gems were all from my stash.

I hope you've enjoyed today's project, do pop over to the CCT Blog to check the fabulous creations from the rest of the DT.

Happy 87th Birthday Dad !

As my title says, today my amazing Dad is 87 years young.  This year I am Blessed to have him here staying with me so I can celebrate with him.  Have an awesome day Dad x

I made this card especially for him - it says just how I feel about him.

I used some digi images from Rebecca B's blog and fussy cut out each word before attaching using foam pads.  The letters were in a bag of alphabet chipboard cut outs, I've used quite a lot of them in my Smash Books, but found the appropriate letters to spell DAD still in the bag.

That's it, simple but I like it - hope Dad does too !  We are heading out to his favourite restaurant this evening for a birthday celebration meal.

Waste Not, Want Not !

I'm guessing my post title caught your attention then !  Thanks for dropping by today to check my latest project.

I do so like it when I can use up even the tiniest scrap of my stash and today's card does just that.  Whilst creating yesterday's card using the Dees Distinctively Die sentiment die it left me with the outline on the scrap of cardstock I'd used, perfect to use on another card and much better than having it end up in the bin.  I like how the 'Merry' is set at a jaunty angle - not done deliberately as when I cut it I was only concerned with creating the diecut words, just one of those creative 'happy accidents' I guess !

 

I used a different Cuttlebug embossing folder than on yesterday's card to create the background for this one. then attached the sentiment panel with Pin Flair glue to lift it up a little.  I then tied some festive red and white striped twine around the top and finished with a bow.  I've also entered this card in the current Rudolph Challenge on Craftbubble II.

 

A really quick and simple design, but I think it looks classic and neat and meets my requirement for flat cards to mail out.  I may well make a few more in this design to help swell my Christmas card stock and (hopefully) be well prepared a little earlier this year !

 

Thanks for visiting today, have a great week.

Merry Christmas

Happy Sunday Bloggers, hope you're having a great day.  Today I shall be heading along the M6 and M5 bringing my Dad home to spend a couple of weeks with me - which makes me very happy !  He'll be celebrating his 87th Birthday while he's with me too, which is even better.

My project today is a card I created to enter for the Rudolph Day challenge on Craftbubble II which has the theme of 'embossing' this month.

I used a Christmas themed embossing folder to emboss the base card, adding Stardust Stickles on all the snowflakes.  I used a Dees Distinctively Dies sentiment die to cut out the Merry Christmas from a scrap of SU! Cherry Cobbler cardstock.  The holly sprigs were cut using a Marianne's die and the berries were created with a red Waco Pearlmaker pen.

That's another Christmas card in my stock, although I still have loads to make in the next couple of weeks.  I'm trying to keep the bulk of my cards fairly flat in order to keep postage costs down a little for those I have to mail to friends and family in far away places. 

Have a happy and creative day, whatever your plans are.

JOY

Morning Folks, just a quick drive-by posting from me today, again I'm away from home - this time spending a few days visting my Dad, Brother and family.

I made this ATC whilst crafting with my pal Kathy at her home in Florida during our vacation and thought I'd share it with you.

 

I applied Distress Inks to the base white ATC sized card, then dragged the same DI around the edges to give a tiny border.  I then used this, lovely corner image from a set of stamps by Hampton Art, coloured it with Copics and Promarkers added Glossy Accents and Platinum Stickles to give a bit of shine and sparkle to the design.

 

That's it from me for  - well I did say it was a quick drive-by post today !

 

Thanks for visiting to check out today's project, I hope you'll stop by again real soon.