My Craft Studio Samples for Academy Magazine Issue 3

Hi everyone

 … long time no speak!  I have still been making cards but haven’t had much time to update the blog, but I am going to try to post at least once every other week from now on.  My holiday seems so long ago now, although I am still slogging through the Project Life Album, it turns out that I much prefer using the online downloads rather than using the cards in the box.  I will still use the cards from the box as the filler cards in the album, but I have so many pictures and napkins and tickets etc. that I want to fit in that there won’t be much room for too many filler cards anyway.

On with the samples … these are for the My Craft Studio Academy Magazine, Issue 3.  It was fantastic doing Christmas cards in July, although when I started finding glitter in the bathroom I knew that I needed to start tidying!  The images and colours on this CD were really lovely, there was something for everyone.  My favourite was the blue snowflake paper, which you will see quite a lot of … and after realising how easy the wine bottle covers were to make up, I think there will be a few of these made up later in the year.  I was a bit time pressured on these samples, even though we had a bit longer to make them this time, as it was my sons birthday in the middle weekend so I didn't get much done on the middle weekend ... I hope they got there in time!

The first card is taken from one of the toppers that was a really nice mixture of contemporary and traditional, I love the Santa image across the moon and it was just begging to be layered.  I printed off two of the image and used the second one to cut out the sentiment and the main image.  I went round the edge of the image and the sentiment with an embossing pen and added gold twinkly embossing powder and heat embossed them both.  To the bottom layer I added some lace and some glittery washi tape as well as lots of gems.  I glittered the image and stuck it to the main topper, a bit of matting and layering and it was done!

The second one is my favourite I think, and has lots and lots of glitter.  I covered the back and the front of the front cover of the card with paper that I lightened slightly in MCS and covered the inside with the same paper that I darkened a bit.  I cut the front of the card on a slant and then stamped Chloe’s Merry Christmas on the inside top right and filled in the letters with a quickie glue pen and glitter.  Next I die cut a Tattered Lace reindeer in brown card and some Tattered Lace Snowflakes on white paper that I had covered in a double sided sticky sheet.  To fill in the gaps I found some snowflake punches to make some smaller snowflakes then glittered one side of all of the snowflakes using pale blue and crystal glitter to match the paper.  Some of the larger snowflakes were stuck on back to back slanted front cover and some were added in the gap.  I added a couple of lines of raised glitter at the bottom of the card to give the reindeer something to stand on!  A red gem for Rudolph’s nose and the card was done.  You can’t really see it on the photos but this card is really sparkly.















Next up was something I hadn't done before … a pop up tag card.  I used the same image tag as I had for the first card as I loved the image.  I was a bit disappointed with how small the card was when I finished it, but on the bright side it would fit in an envelope when it folded down.  To start with I took a piece of dark card as the base and then printed off some of my favourite snowflake paper as the toppers for each section.  I stuck two toppers back to back and using MCS cut out the topper image on the tag as well as the sentiment as I knew the sentiment on the tag would be covered when I stuck the card together.  I folded up the card with the topper in the middle, edging the topper and the sentiment in some gold glitter and finished off with a bow made on my Bow It All, which my mother finds a hilarious piece of equipment!  She can’t imagine anyone not being able to tie a bow … well I can but it takes me so long that the ribbon is all wrinkled by the time I have got it right.

This card I put together very quickly as all the time was spent playing on MCS to get the picture right, I do like messing with the software to get the effect I want.  I used the separate images to compose the main picture, added the text and printed it off.  I wasn't very happy with the quality of the black base card as to me, it didn't look quite strong enough, but I stuck on lots of gems and bows and some big glitter for the tinsel and ended up with a nice traditional card.

The fifth item was a wine box which again the photos don’t really do justice to (that's not being big headed, I mean you can't see all the sparkles).  I used the silver version of the glittery washi tape and added some spiky flowers from using a Cheery Lynn die that I put some big glitter in the middle of and some smaller Tattered Lace flowers.  These wine boxes are so easy to put together and you can decorate as much or as little as you like.  I will definitely be personalising some of these this Christmas.

Lastly was a pillow box which was in lovely colours and again is really quick to print off and cut out.  They make great boxes for little awkward presents.  I decorated the box with more Cheery Lynn die cut flowers, Tattered Lace foliage and some lace and finished off with a sentiment from the CD.

No major bloopers this time, just a bit disappointed with the bendy large card, and I also forgot that when I put the snow on the ground for Rudolph ... you can see through his body, however galloping horses wouldn't notice (or should that be reindeer?).

I loved using this CD and hope you like the samples.

Have a great week.

Chloe Handbag Card for Mothers Day

Hi everyone

I am back from my holidays and had such a fantastic time, I have taken literally hundreds of photos which I am just going through so I can get rid of the blurry ones and do my Project Life Album.   I have added one photo at the end, I just couldn't resist as it was taken on my favourite day of the holiday (but I did have three favourite days!)

I made this card before I went away and left it for my mum with a little present as I would be away on the Sunday.  So here it is and it's a stamping project! Yes, I made a whole focal element with stamping.  I am definitely getting much braver with stamps and I think that using Clear Perfect Medium somehow suits me better than stamping with colour, but it might be that I am not confident enough and should just go for it.

Anyway I started off with an 8x8 card and ran a quickie glue pen round the outside and dipped it in crystal glitter.  I then did some matting and layering with some paper I had in my stash and some more white card finishing up with a Labels 1 die cut.  I cut a couple of the smaller Labels 1 dies for my sentiment which was printed on the computer, then I was ready to stamp!

I used the Glam Clutch Bag Stamp from Chloe Crafts with Wow Embossing Powder and Clear Perfect Medium; stamped it twice on white card and once on the paper then cut them out.  I used the quickie glue pen again to glitter up the embellishment on the front of the bag with crystal glitter and silver glitter then used foam pads and a bit of glue to layer them up.  The top part of the bag was done with Chloe's Sparklicious Glitter, which is just lovely - and I'm not much of a glitter fan -  I think Chloe's stamps have converted me a bit!  The bag was finished with some plastic beady/ribbony stuff from my stash, some gems from my stash and the big glittery embellishment was again from Chloe Crafts.

When I assembled the card it just wasn't balanced, so I got out my Pretty Pretty Bow Die by Cheery Lynn and cut three large and three small and two sets of tails and made it into a rosette rather than a bow and finished it off with a button from my stash.  The tails are actually straight when they come out of the die, but I cut into them and bent them round and then added a bit more glitter.

I made a 7 x 7 inner on Craft Artist 2 with a simple message and a silhouette branch which I copied and manipulated so it was in all four corners.  The colour of the branch was actually black to start with but I faded it out until you could hardly see it and then used the quickie glue pen and some crystal glitter to go round the whole image.  It did take a little while to do but it looked really pretty and just put the finishing touch to the card.

No bloopers this time, although I should really have stamped the bag out a couple more times to give me more options on how to stack the flowers on the front.

Well that's it from me, hope you liked the card and thanks for reading.  Special thanks to Craftysusan who left a lovely message about my blog on the blue card post.

Have a great week.

Amazing!!  It was such a treat.

Floriography Sympathy Card

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since the last blog post, as I have been really busy getting to grips with my new job but things are settling a bit now so I have got a bit of time to blog.  This card was made for me to send to the mother of a friend of mine who so sadly passed away at the very young age of 41 two years ago this week. She truly was a beautiful soul and had the biggest smile I have ever seen.  At her funeral a tenor sang Bring Her Home (instead of Bring Him Home) from Les Mis, and I have never been able to listen to it since without a tear in my eye.

I didn't want to do a traditional dark card so looked through my favourite floral CD, My Craft Studio Floriography and found the image above.  The card base is A5 and once I had found the images I wanted I merged them together and then moved it about until the cream flower was in the middle.  I used the text tool to print the message at the top and the bottom and then printed it off as a whole piece and also printed another version without the cream flower so I could die cut the embellishment to match the card front. Although it looks like a butterfly it is actually the Large Lace Faerie Queen die from Cheery Lynn, I cut two of them and stuck the body and bottom swirls together but kept the wings separate so I could give the card a bit of dimension.  I decided to keep it simple and not put pearls or gems on the body of the butterfly but added a tiny bit of glitter here and there on the die cut and also a fine line round the edge of the flower.  

All that was left to do was the inner which is also on the CD, you can just see it on the picture above.  The whole card was actually quite simple, but I was happy with the end result and hope Debs would have liked it too.

Thanks for reading and stopping by.

Paintbox Poppets Birthday Card

Good afternoon, I hope everyone is having a great Bank Holiday weekend.

A few weeks ago someone told me that I should put the Pinterest button on my pictures.  I am not that technical so for me it was easier said than done, however it is on there now if anyone feels the urge to 'pin'.  I have had a look on Pinterest and pinned a few cards I like but I am still not entirely sure what it is all about!

Anyway, back to the card ... I made this card last year for my sister in law and it was a bit of a different style for me as I don't usually do the matting quite so randomly, but I quite liked it once it was done.

I started with an 8x8 card and printed out the backing paper from a Wild Rose Studio Spring CD that I have had for some time, I printed off enough that I could cut the bottom layer out as well as a few of the Cheery Lynn Fanciful Flourishes.  I ran a piece of Centura Pearl through my Regal Mbossability and wrapped a piece of seam binding ribbon with a bow round the card.  The sentiment was printed off, inked round the edge and then burnished onto an old button I had in my stash box.

I used this Paintbox Poppets picture as my nieces are twins and I thought it would make the picture a bit more relevant.  I know the photo isn't very good and it looks quite flat but the die cut decoupage on the Paintbox Poppets sheets is really lovely and intricate ... tiny bits that I couldn't cut out if I spent years on it!

Next I cut up a couple of the Fanciful Flourishes and arranged the pieces along with a couple of whole flourishes, stuck them down and then put the decoupage piece on the top and it was finished.

There wasn't really a blooper this time either, the bow took ages as usual (even for me) and I really wasn't happy when I finished it so I sprayed on a bit of water and scrunched it up which covered up the bits I didn't like.

That's it from me, hope you all have a great week and thanks for stopping by.