Samples for My Craft Studio Mega Word CD

Hi everyone

Hope you all had a great week.  I went to the Great British Craft Festival last weekend and had a really good time.  What I particularly liked was that it was nearly all paper crafts rather than painting or sewing.  I saw lots of lovely demonstrations and (as usual) spent too much money!  The shuttle bus was a bit of a saga though, the hosts asked us to get on the bus on the way there but almost everyone around said they would rather walk the ten or so minutes to the show, the lady next to me called over that it would be a different matter when we were on the way back with all our goodies and we all laughed.  So I went round my first Stoneleigh Craft show and had a good time, came out and hopped on a bus almost immediately which was great as I was taking my mum to lunch.  The bus just said 'shuttle bus' on the front and when about 9 or so people were on board we set off on what should have been a two minute journey ... except the driver left the Stoneleigh site!  A lady called to the driver and asked where he was going and he replied 'to the station' .... what!?!?!  which station?!?!  how far away was it?!??!  were just some of the questions asked.  It turns out that we had to go to Coventry Station which was 20 or so minutes away, wait at the station for 20 minutes and then drive back 20 minutes, what a faff.  I felt very sorry for the lady whose son was upset and waiting with her husband in the car park and she couldn't get back to him.  That will teach me to take the lazy way and not walk back to the car park!

Anyway on with the cards; these are for a My Paper Stash show that should be on Create and Craft today, I hope you like them.

First up was a nice simple card where I chose one of the pop out sentiments then went to the Papercraft Library - Paper Words CD and faded out two papers so they would match the sentiment.  I printed them back to back and then cut down the centre so I could fold back the paper and pop the sentiment in.  I did mess up a little bit in that I stuck down the paper near the fold back which meant I almost couldn't tuck the sentiment in, but managed to wiggle it in just enough.  To finish off I added some Card Candi and a button with some bakers twine knotted in it.

I loved making this card which actually started off with the paper, rather than the sentiment.  I found the paper on the 6th Anniversary All About Words CD and just had to use it.  This card is really quite big, so I had to make the card out of two pieces of A4 card, it's like a pumped up DL!  I inked round the sentiment and the main image and stuck the main image on to some lovely card from Pink Frog Crafts (can't remember what it's called as I bought it quite a while ago).  I made the flower buds out of the smallest Delicate Aster flower, inked then cut in half an rolled and stuck it under one of the leaf flourishes from the Cut Matt Create die sets.  I made up two of the next sized up Asters, again inked and added a pearl, then arranged the leaves and flowers over the image, and not a hint of glitz or glitter in either of the first two cards.

Now this card had LOADS of glitter!  The main image comes from the Papercraft Library - Paper Words CD again and as soon as I saw the snowflake image I knew I had to use it.  I matted and layered using the same colour as the snowflake and then used come Cosmic Shimmer PVA glue dots in silver glitter round the outside of the white layer (even though they look dirty grey in my pictures).  I went round one of the pale teal layers with the edge of a chisel tip glue pen and added some glitter and carefully used a Quickie Glue Pen on the centre element and added silver glitter to the writing already on the image.  I used one of the sentiments from the pad and cut it into a circle first of all, but that looked a bit boring, so changed it to the scallop shape using a Little B die.  To make the snowflake rosette I printed off an A4 sheet in the same pale teal colour and stamped it all over in silver glitter using a Chloe Snowflake background stamp and then cut out four pieces from the Brenda Walton Snowflake Medallion die.  I think I should actually have cut out less, so the medallion wasn't quite so folded, so you could see the stamping a bit more.  To finish it off I used some Chloe Sparklicious Glitter on the edges for a bit more bling.  Finally I punched out some snowflakes, some from silver glitter paper and some from the waste from the pale teal matting and layering that I covered in glitter, a couple of gems and it was done.

This card came from the Wonderful Wordbooks CD and I had forgotten how much fun wordbooks are.  I love the way that these print off and fold over giving you both sides of the letter.  All I added to the whole wordbook were some pop out sentiments (cut in a Labels 4 shape and on a Labels 4 matt) and some keys from the Spellbinders Lacy Hearts set.  The waste from the middle of the keys I used as hearts on the Home is Where the Heart is page.  To finish it off I inked round the letters and the sentiments a bit to give them some definition and then stuck it all together.

This is another really sparkly card but there's no glitter!  The image is taken from the Simply Sentiments CD and then chopped down so you just have the three hearts made out of roses (the pictures make the images look much brighter than they really are, in real life they look a much softer colour).  I cut a frame out with Jus-Cutz Rectangle dies and matted it on some soft pink card.  I covered the main image in a sticky sheet and then put Cosmic Shimmer (I think it's Iced Snow) on top of the whole image then rubbed it in with my fingers until there wasn't a shower of bits coming off each time.  Then I added the sentiment on top of a tulle knot (so I didn't have to do a bow) and finally added some gems that I bought from Joanna Sheen absolutely ages ago.

Last up is a really bright happy card made from the Simply Sentiments CD.  I actually did this one in Craft Artist rather than MCS as I wanted to change the colour of the big pink balloon to a yellow one, so it wasn't quite so obvious that I had chopped down the image then flipped it and stuck it together.  I used Die-Namics Pierced Fishtail Flags dies to cut out the sentiment and the bottom shapes that I had printed out in colours that matched the balloons in the main image.  To finish it off I added some confetti balloon shapes that I have had in my stash for years.

Although I used Craft Artist on the last card, looking at all the CDs to do these cards, it did remind me how good the images are on MCS CDs, some of them are really beautiful and I have earmarked some of them for up and coming cards I need to make.

Only one blooper this time; I wanted a snowflake shaped sentiment so found a die big enough and cut it out, completely forgetting that snowflakes are lacy and the die laced right through the sentiment leaving me with just a couple of black lines that you couldn't read ... doh!

Have a great week everyone and thanks for reading.

My Craft Studio Samples for Wishes and Whispers CD

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a great week.  I had a fantastic long weekend in the New Forest, I have never been there before and it is really beautiful.  The scenery and the forest and all the wild ponies and donkeys were just lovely, I want to go back already!

Well, guess what?  After sending in my samples to My Craft Studio for the cards a few weeks ago (see other post), they asked me to be part of their Design Team.  I just can't believe it, I am so flattered (thanks so much Diane), especially as I thought my cards were in the average range and some of the other samples shown were so much more intricate than mine.

Anyway I said that I wouldn't be able to make cards / samples with very little notice as I work full time and Diane was so lovely and said that she would only put me down for samples when there was a bit more notice.  That would have been great except I was going away last weekend so I had to make all six samples in two and a half days the weekend before!!  I am a bit of a 'try this, try that, go back and improve it till I am happy' sort of crafter so doing six samples that quickly was a bit rushed for me.  I am sure there are sample makers out there that make loads of samples much more quickly than I can ... but they are probably a lot more organised than me too!

I really liked the soft, but not pastel colours on this CD, and since seeing it on TV there is just loads and loads of stuff on it.  Anyway here are the samples:

First up is one of my favourites although very plain.  The picture above makes it look slightly blue when actually it was all white.  The flowers I manipulated in My Craft Studio and cropped the ones that had the most colour flecks and then made them into two sizes, one set as per the other flowers on the original image sheet and the other set smaller.  They are actually supposed to be roses, but I cut into the petals to round them off a bit and curled them up rather than down.

The background is an embossing folder at the top and then a separate piece at the bottom that I scored every 8th of an inch (you can't really see it in this picture).  The flourishes are actually the waste out of the Tattered Lace Heart Die that I inked with Antique Linen that I also used on the sentiment which I printed then cut out from Fancy Framed Tags 2.
 

This one is fairly obvious what I did, using my favourite Labels 1, but the backing paper is really pretty and doesn't really show up here (my photography again, sorry!).  I wasn't a big fan of this card by the end as it has a bow on it!  And as usual the bow took as long to get right as the rest of the card did to make.

This one is crying out for some ribbon round that plain oval in the middle or some mulberry paper, but I didn't have anything that looked right so I had to manage without!  I did quite like the effect of the Heartfelt Creations Decorative Lattice Swirl making a frame (just cut out four and stick them together) with the Floral Ovals on top.  Again I used a printed sentiment on a tag from Fancy Framed Tags 2.

This next one is only a little card but the flowers took AGES!  I used a Tonic Petal Pairs Punch and punched out lots of petals then coloured them with Promarkers.  Then I snipped each petal into three and shaped them to curl a bit.  I used two Martha Stewart punches to make the borders along the top with a bit of ribbon from my stash to cover the messy bit.  I printed off the whole card from MCS but used the one with the blank sentiment and filled it in myself using their text feature.  I couldn't face another bow so I sorted out my Pull Bow Ribbon that I bought years ago from the NEC.  The centre of the flowers is also another purchase from years ago Beadazzles or something like that, anyway I thought they matched the colours on the card quite well ...

... I did a close up so you can see them better ... you can also see the gems and glitter better too!  The little tiny flowers are also the 'waste' from the Tattered Lace Heart die that I coloured with a Promarker and stuck a tiny gem in the middle.

This is a Pillow Box to match the card above and I used one of the spare flowers from the card with two flowers made out of the smallest of the Delicate Asters die.  Another Pull Bow and a little tag that I just cut out of spare card and inked round the edge and this was done.  All the work is done for you really as I just printed it straight off the CD, scored it and decorated it!

This is just showing the Card and the Pillow Box together.

 

Last but not least I decorated a candle.  Took a while as the printer seemed intent on chewing my tissue paper as it went through the printer but I eventually got enough to put on the candle.  I took the images and flipped the flowers and put a load on a sheet along with two fairies and the sentiment and then printed it several times on tissue paper till I had enough to go all over the candle.  Another bow and a gem and it was done!

Phew!  Long old post this week.  Hope everyone has a lovely crafty week and thanks for stopping by.

Delicate Asters in Pink

Hello again.  This week I am back to my one of my favourites ... die cut flowers.  What I liked about this one was that it has plenty of dimension but the flowers are not actually very deep so it just went in a normal envelope (although I did put a piece of light card at the front of the envelope). 

Apologies (again!) for the photography, I thought these pictures weren't too bad but when I uploaded them I realised that at least two of them are a bit blurred. 

This was for my aunt in Ireland who was 90 this year and I thought I would try doing it back to front, in other words stamping white onto coloured card ... or not so white as it turned out.

I started by die cutting lots of the Heartfelt Creations Delicate Asters out.  I didn't pre stamp them and then cut them as I thought I would try just popping them on the stamp after I had cut them, it was irritating that no matter which embossing powder I tried, I couldn't get it to look white it always looked cream as you can see from the pics.  For the middle of the flowers I just brushed the ends on to a Perfect Medium pad and then dipped them in embossing powder.  After that I just put a pearl in the middle and I was quite happy with them (apart from the white looking cream!)

Next up was the background, I used the Embossalicious Rose Garden embossing folder and although it looks okay once the card was put together the embossing was definitely lighter in some patches than in others.  On the picture below, looking at the pink card, the top left is quite strongly embossed and the bottom right is a bit fainter - this could be down to my worn plates on my HappyCut but it doesn't happen with any other folders, so I'm not sure. After it was embossed I matted it onto a piece of white that I had pierced with my Tim Holz ruler.

I then cut out two of the Botannical Swirls and Accents corners, I love these, they look so effective and it makes the card as a whole a bit less pink.  As before I taped them together first before sticking them down so I didn't get wet glue everywhere.  My favourite nesties, Labels 1 was next to put the sentiment on, and I cut the larger shape out of Decorative Labels 1.  I was going to ink round the plain smaller label but decided I wanted it to stay white as the pink was getting a bit much.  If I did this card or similar again I would definitely use a paler pink.  All that was left was to cut out the sentiment with my Britannia Word dies and add some pearls and it was done.

No blooper this time either, although there was a lot of swearing under my breath when I was trying to stick the sentiment onto the label - I really must get a fine tip for my wet glue!

That's all for this time, thanks for looking.

My Craft Studio Samples ... how exciting!

Hello again, not much sunshine the last few days but at least we can all craft if we can't go outside!

This last week has been very good in lots of ways, first of all my amazing mum had a major op but is recovering marvellously which is a big relief to all of us.  Secondly a week or so ago I saw on the MCS Forum that they were asking for people to volunteer to do some samples for a Pick of the Week on Create and Craft TV, so I thought I would have a go.

Now I am not very brave with my cards as I only make them for me and my mum to send and maybe one or two close friends.  Plus I have only recently started my blog, and I don't join in any challenges because I work full time and I always nit pick about my own cards, but I thought I should just give it a try anyway.

After sending off three sample cards to MCS I got a lovely email from Diane at MCS thanking me for my samples and that she really liked them.  To be honest, I thought that LOADS of people would have done samples and we all would have had the same email, so didn't think much more of it and certainly didn't think they would use them on TV.

Imagine my shock when I watched the launch programme back on Friday evening (the actual programme had been on at 12 noon when I was at work) when Diane was showing samples and held up this card and said that I had made it:

Now personally, this was my least favourite out of the three as even though I loved the butterfly background paper I thought that the Epiphany oval made the pink behind the butterfly look a funny colour and also that the ink that I used on the edge of the flowers (Delicate Asters) wasn't dark enough, but it still got shown on TV, I was so chuffed!  Especially as some of the cards made by the other Forum members were absolutely lovely and much more intricate and pretty than mine.  Oh and notice the leaves that I had left over from when  I made the Heartfelt Birthday Card - I still have some left so you will probably see them again!

This next card was shown on the 5pm show and I had just said to my son that one of my cards might be shown on the programme ... he actually snorted with laughter at the thought!  Just then Diane was demoing on the PC showing the image of the topper I have used in the card below and said "and you can see what Melanie has done by adding embellishments to this topper".  My son was absolutely stunned, I definitely got the last laugh there!

I did notice that when they showed the card later one of the pearls had gone missing from the longer bauble, and also that the glitter I used on the snowflakes doesn't show up very well but was very pleased to have had two shown out of the three I made.

I had only managed to catch bits of each programme as I was visiting the hospital on Friday when most of the programmes were on but on Saturday when mum was home again we sat down and watched the 1pm show.  My mum was so pleased when they showed the card above and then they followed it by showing the card below, making three out of three shown.

This card was actually my favourite out of the three, I really liked the snowflake background paper in the darker blue which I faded out for the lighter blue section at the top, then I just punched and die cut some snowflakes, but I really liked the combination of the silver, white and blue.

Anyway enough showing off, but I really do want to thank Diane from MCS for showing them, I know there are loads of sample makers out there who make some really stunning cards but for me to get my little cards shown really was thrilling.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by.