Tattered Lace Charisma Collection Carnations - April 2015

Hi, hope everyone has had a good week.

It has been so long since my last blog post but family illness has meant that I have had less time than usual to post.  Going to try and catch up a bit now!

This set of samples was lovely to do.  I love making cards with a floral theme and especially like making flowers, but as I work full time I am often stuck for time.  This was a great way to make 3D flowers without spending hours and hours making them.  I also love the effect of decoupage but am not great at cutting out, but it is the fiddly bits that make the decoupage come to life ... so decoupage dies was an idea I loved straight away.  I also liked that you could either leave them completely flat or lift up all the little petal edges, which I thought looked much better.

I thought I would do more of a 'recipe' style of what I used on the cards and then a brief explanation ... if anyone has any questions or queries, then give me a shout.

8x8 Card

Martha Stewart Border Punch - Optic Dot

Nellie Snellen Multi Frame Dies - Squares

Paper from Charisma Collection CD

Tattered Lace Die - Charisma Collection Carnation

Tattered Lace Die - Ornate Leaves

Tattered Lace Embossing Folder - Fretwork Lace

This was a really simple idea but trying to fit it on the page in real life took a bit of squishing.  If I was more of a measuring person, I would have measured the card down the middle and cut it a bit thinner!  I worked out in the end though, what do you think?

A4 card
Matchbox design found online
Paper from Charisma Collection CD
Sentiment from PC
Tattered Lace Die - Charisma Collection Carnation
Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Vintage Photo

Loved doing this one, as I don't often do inky stuff.  Didn't bother to line the drawer, I just printed the same design on both sides of the card.  Instead of using the whole decoupage design for the top of the box, I used one whole one and then a few sections to finish it off.

8x8 Card

Paper from Charisma Collection CD

Tattered Lace Die - Charisma Collection Carnation

Tattered Lace Die - Free Die from Tattered Lace Magazine issue 10

Tattered Lace Embossing Folder - Fretwork Lace

This card is really simple, just a few mats and layers and some glitter but I thought it was a really pretty colour way.  Again I used one whole decoupage and then a few smaller sections.  The second picture shows the detail really well, I especially liked the white bobbly bits (I'm sure there's a more technical flower name!) which I would definitely have cut off if I had to had cut them out.

A5 Card

Die-Namics Die - Pierced Fishtail Flags

Inkylicious Stamp - Happy Birthday

Paper from Charisma Collection CD

Ribbon from stash

Tattered Lace Die - Charisma Collection Carnation

This was another of my favourites and although you cant see it very well above, it was actually printed on pearl paper and card which gave it a really soft look.

A4 Card
Joy Craft Die - Card Stand 6002/0122
Paper from Charisma Collection CD
Spellbinders Die - Scalloped Labels 1
Tattered Lace Die - Charisma Collection Carnation

Saw something similar to this on Pinterest and had to have a go!  I did have to change the handle to a strip of card rather than a ribbon so that it would stand up a bit.  I also cut a Joy card stand so it could be displayed rather than lying down.  If I do this again I would pop the gift in and make a card that also fitted inside.

8x8 Card
Paper from Charisma Collection CD
Ribbon from stash
Sentiment from PC
Tattered Lace Die - Charisma Collection Carnation
Tattered Lace Die - Ornate Leaves

This one I would never have made if you had to cut it out!  Again I used one whole decoupage and different sections for the corner and the sentiment.  Had a bit of a faff trying to make the middle of the ribbon narrower without it bulking up but, as everyone knows, Pinflair glue holds anything!

No out and out bloopers this time although I did have to do a lot of tucking and 'encouraging' with the first card as I should have cut the middle vertical strip a bit narrower.

Thanks for reading, have a great week and if you get a chance, let me know what you think.

Mother's Day 2015

Hi, hope you've all had a good week.

Mother's Day was a few weeks ago so I thought I would share my Mother's Day gift and card.  It's taken me a little while to sort my photos out, so apologies for the delay.

Firstly the gift; I started with a 'special mum' MDF blank from Anna Marie Designs and glued, then painted it with a Range Paint Dabber in Juniper.

When the paint was completely dry I stamped an Inkylicious script stamp with Flitter Glue and used gilding flakes over the script.

Next I went round the edge with some pale rose gilding powder that I bought from the Stencil Library, it's hard to see in the pictures but you can just see it on the edge of the glittered flowers that I covered in in PVA glue and then added two colours of Chloe's Chunky Glitter.

Next I used some Arianna Blooms and Arianna Lace die cuts for the flowers and flourishes and dug out a packet of rosettes I had in my stash.  I inked round the edge of the flowers before assembling them and added a couple of the flower stamens (also from Anna Marie Designs).  I only used a few as they were so floppy ... it didn't occur to me until later that I could have put some PVA on them to stiffen them up, doh!

I then placed the buttons and pearls (both from a Tattered Lace show) in place and shuffled everything around until I was happy and then I glued everything down with my brilliant hot glue pen.

This is the rear view and also where I did my practice run on the stamping and gilding!

This is a view from the top and you can just about see the gilding powder on the top and at the front.

The card was quite simple; as ever I had spent so much time on the gift I had to be quick with the card.  The base card came from a pack I ordered from Create and Craft a while ago and  I embossed the next layer with a Tattered Lace Embossing Folder then inked round the edges.  Next I cut three of my favourite Labels 1, the patterned paper on the left side was from my scrap box and the right hand side was printed on the PC and then die cut.  I covered the messy middle with a ribbon, added a bow and a paper flower from Wild Orchid Crafts and ended with two stick pins that I made a while ago that happened to match.

No bloopers this time ... just my usual slightly rough looking inking, I definitely need to practice making it blend better.

Well that's it for this week, thanks for reading, hope you all had a great week.

MCS Magazine Issue 5 - Glamour a la Mode

Hi everyone

Hope you have all had a great week.  Last weekend I was all set to print off a load of photos for the holiday Project Life album when the chance came along to make some samples for the latest My Craft Studio magazine ... and the artwork is really lovely on this one, glamorous ladies rather than Christmas or children's themes. Not sure that my phone takes the best pictures, but here goes ...

First up was the trusty pillow box, they are so easy to print and cut out.  The hardest part is scoring the rounded edges, which doesn't long. It leaves all the time for the best bit, decorating and glittering.  I have taken a really close picture of this as I wanted you to be able to see the lovely pattern on the dark card.

Next was a simple card taken from a section of backing paper, adding the sentiment, glitter and some butterflies and finally distressing the edges.  The thing that was supposed to bring it all together was going to be faux stitching round the edge done by hand with a pen, it didn't go well!  I tried colours, Promarkers, black gel pens, and finally decided that only white would do and out of the FOUR white gel pens I had, two wouldn't work and two were too thin, so to me this looks really unfinished.  If anyone can recommend a good white gel pen I would love to hear about it!

Next was a version of the card I did for the magazine article (which I still haven't seen yet).  I did the green matt on the outside edge using MCS and again used a piece of backing paper and enlarged it to give a main focal element.  Using MCS I then added the figure then just glittered and added some gems and a sentiment.

This card took ages and didn't photograph well at all.  I selected a beautiful backing paper off the CD and then heat embossed in light gold using an Inkylicious text stamp.  I decoupaged the top part of the figure so I could stick the feathers underneath the waist of the dress.  Looking at it now I should have made the sentiment a much stronger colour.  I did all the matting and layering using the software and finished off with some glitter and gems.

This was another backing paper and I used the same bride but using the software cut away the veil using the scissor tool (it did take a while) and also cut one of the flowers out to put in her hair.  I matted the backing paper onto pink and then on to a large black card then used the Tattered Lace Mini Blooms and a flourish that I cut up finally adding some gems and a sentiment.

The final card was great in my imagination, but didn't quite come off.  I think it should have been gold card that I punched around and white at the back, I'm not sure but it may have worked better.  I took an 8x8 piece of white card and used the Martha Stewart Border Punch to do the outside edge and cut out the middle using a square die. I then enlarged the image on the software and cut it out and added a small black frame and finally stuck on the white punched frame and added some jewels I got at Hobbycraft recently.  I cut the sentiment out using a Spellbinders Tag and then cut a black version of the tag out as well and cut it in half to give the slight shadow.

Bloopers are legion in this set of cards!  On the Pillow Box I didn't print the card double sided and you can see it from the back at the bottom of the photo.  The less said about the butterfly card the better!  On the circle card I forgot to put the green matt behind the main card so you can see the white card in the middle. On the feather bride picture my stamping went a bit wobbly by her head and I didn't flatten the feathers for the picture so it looks a bit scruffy, and then the jewelled card didn't work out how I wanted.  When I saw the show the other members of the design team had made some stunning samples, I particularly loved the acetate one.  All in all 4 out of 10, must try harder for me!!!

On the brighter side MCS kindly asked me to do an article for issue 5 of the magazine (thankfully before they saw these samples!) so I put a bit about me and had to do two projects.  One is a little box that can be used for sweets or (as I use it) for a small pack of tissues.  The other is a square version of the round card above, which is quite a simple card but you can dress it up in lots of ways.  I chose Floriography as my favourite as I really love that CD, it has so many beautiful backing papers, just reminds you how good the artwork on the CDs is and how much of it you get.  It was so lovely to be asked to do the article, and I really enjoyed making the samples for it.

Hope everyone is having a great and crafty week, thanks for stopping by.

Botanical Birthday

Hello again.  I am going away this weekend so I am posting a bit early, I'm not quite brave enough to try and schedule a post yet.  So have a good weekend everyone, and I hope this lovely sunshine continues ... fingers crossed!

This card was inspired by a Sue Wilson card from 11 April 2013 called 'For You' (Sue's Blog - Particraft), as you can see I didn't have any of the same dies that Sue did so my version looks like this:

It is for my cousin who isn't a 'pink and fluffy' girl, so I wanted to make a card that suited her rather than glittz and bling it up like I would for my neices!  I'm not much of a 'pink and fluffy' girl either, but I do love letting loose with the glitter for others.

The colour of the card above isn't quite right so I took pictures without flash, but they look a bit too pink as you can see in the photo below, you will just have to imagine a colour somewhere in the middle of the two!

I started by cutting four of the corners from the Botanical Swirls and Accents Spellbinders set.  After putting the corners face down I used a tiny bit of repositionable tape runner to get the corners positioned how I wanted them and then glued them together where they overlap.  This made it easier to stick the corners down all as one unit when I was ready.  Then I cut out the whole set of Splendid Circles and used my Ink Dusters from Inkylicious to ink the second largest circle with Dusty Concord Distress Ink.

I've had some stamps for ages, but have only just really got the bug for stamping.  I find it much easier to stamp with Versamark or Perfect Medium and then use coloured embossing powder.  I am not sure why that works better for me, but I don't seem to get as many smudges.  Anyway the stamp on this card is one I have had in my stash and never used until now, unfortunately they weren't in packaging so I can't let you know what make they are, but it just fitted the second smallest of my Splendid Circle die cuts.

To finish off the card I made a couple of mats, one white which I pierced using a Tim Holtz ruler, and one of the same lavender colour that the Botanical Accent Corners were made from.  After sticking it all together I added a few gems and there it was!

As the card is really quite a simple one there were no bloopers either, although looking at it now I would probably put the white layer that I have pierced through an embossing folder!.

Anyway, I hope everyone a great and crafty week and thanks for stopping by.