Oooooo yes!

Hello there

Oooo yes indeed! I have enjoyed making this card from what started off with leftovers on my desk and then grew from there. All a creative process which gives me such a buzz. If you've read my blog before you'll recognize the background paper as being yet another section of the freebie papers I got from the issue 15 of Craftseller. What a load of things I've been able to make with that stash and it was only about 6 double sided pages or so. I have even thrown bits away (shock, horror!) and I'm now left with three pieces which of course coordinate and I'll use on a project in the near future. I've just had a peek at issue 16 and there's fabbo Christmas papers in there, so tonnes to get on with. Infact that's why I've stopped the magazine subscription i.e because I have too much paper/inspiration. It is a great magazine.There comes a point though, when you have to stop with the buying and get on with the creating. I also have to draw the line as space is a premium and I can't stand feeling hemmed in, although I'm far from that, that's the way I want it to stay..... I am a hypocrite really though, as I bought a little 6 x 6in paper pad yesterday which was very naughty!

 

 

The stamped image was 'pinched' during a crafty session at a friend's house a few weeks ago when I just stamped a few images on cardstock and I've been using them in various things. It's from the Stampin' Up Apothecary Art set. The cardstock was SU very vanilla I think; it's definitely creamy coloured.



You'll hopefully also notice the texture I added behind that stamped image in the form of spider's web by Kanban. I bought the white roll and last night I just put some red and green ink onto my craft mat, sprinkled a bit of water in both patches and then rubbed one strip of web into each one and left them to dry over night. I then cut them into basic leaf shapes and glued them on. Cool!

Machine stitching the scallops was good fun too and
adds even more depth to the card and it's just fun! :-)

I made the envelope with the help of my Ultimate Pro as I invariably do. The embossing is from one of the boards. I inked around the edges with SU's Pacific Point.

The sun is out now and I'm off cake baking with my daughter as it's her birthday on Monday and she wants this specific cake style, which I'll no doubt show you at some point. Her being 14 years old is scary for me but I still love her to bits and bobs, so all's well.

Take care out there

Following a layout

Hello there

I rarely follow a layout for my scrap pages. The reason being is that I find it quite hard to match the layout to what I want to talk about or which photos I want to use. I have given it a try this time. I look at layouts regularly but this one came from PaperHaus Magazine's Facebook page, which linked to their blog.

This blogging business really demands better photography skills than I possess

I've still got some of the paper from the Craftseller magazine on my desk and since that has circle designs on it as it displayed in the Paperhaus sketch, I thought it would be fine to use up some more. I cut out some of the half shapes as elements for the edges.

I knew which photos I wanted this page to be about, so then I went to Craft Artist to practise the layout before printing them out. That was a really useful thing to do this time, as the sketch shows text around the photos, I decided to use the text flow function within the programme to do just that. It's a brilliant way of journalling differently.

The paper in the middle of the page is the name sheet my daughter wrote on and wore for the walk.

It took quite a bit of fussy cutting to layer up the flowers but it's worth it to make the page pop. The rounded edges are also necessary to link in with the circles and it's on the sketch too.

I got everything into the layout I wanted, so I'm a happy girl.


Take care out there

Quickie

Hello there

I had some time tonight and yet didn't have the energy to do anything too taxing as I'm full of cold, so I've made this card with things on my desk. This is definitely a benefit to not tidying up all the time!

This may not be an exciting card but I like having thank you cards and get well cards at the ready, otherwise waiting until I get the chance to make one can put pressure on me and often then the time has passed. This isn't the best photo in the world by any stretch of the imagination but hopefully it will make someone smile when they receive it as it does look better in real life.

The papers are still the ones from the Craftseller magazine. I put some gold cosmic shimmer glue in the centre of the embellishments and the flower on the sentiment.

Finishing touches on the inside of the card
and the envelope help bring it all together.

Take care out there and apologies for the poor quality photos - I've yet to work out how to make the camera take good internal night time photos.

Points of interest

Hello there

I made the card shown out of stuff lying around my table. You may well recognise the papers which have still not all been used up; they're from the December issue 15 of Craftseller 2012. The little embellishments are what was left of a frame I cut out recently from Ornamental Iron2. The leaves behind the 'for you' image are also remains of some I used recently- they were cut from Plantin School book. The 'for you' stamped image is one I got from what was meant to be a craft and chat session at a friends house on Tuesday but I just wasn't up to crafting, so I just pinched another friend's SU stamps and made some images to use later. So there one of them is. The little dots were created with Cosmic Shimmer acrylic glue. I ordered some in different colours this week, as I love the way Sue from particraft always uses them to make swirls and purely decorate her work. I created a scalloped edge for extra detail. In my humble opinion, you would never know that this was put together purely using my creative flow with bits off my desk.

Go on, I dare you; use your creative flow and use up some leftovers whilst you're at it!

This brings me nicely onto my first point of interest, which is that Cricut have now got an EU Facebook page. They've only got 107 likes at the moment so head over there if you're in Europe of course, as we may well get some prizes and deals which we can actually participate in, rather than it all be America based and out of our reach. I sent them a copy of this card, which they immediately shared with everyone, which made me happy.

Another point of interest is that for the first time ever I listened to a paperclipping transmission. For those who don't know, this is a radio type talk show with artists and crafters alike discussing a different topic each time. This talk was all about how you organise yourself to create; how do you remember to make a page about somethings; how do you deal with photos? It's very amateurish as when a guest speaks, they can't hear the other guests and presenter, so they often talked over each other, which I found highly irritating. Each guest is on the phone doing the interview; not in the studio.It's very indepth and in my opinion, it went on for far too long but still interesting to hear how other people sort themselves out. Head over there and see what you think. May Flaum was involved which is what got my initial interest but she wasn't at her best in the environment. Ali Edwards and Heidi Swapp are in a more current one, so maybe somebody who inspires you will be involved in one of them.


Very nice packages to receive and yes,
that is the brand new SU magazine full
of goodies plus the inks which
I'm going to have great fun with :-)

Another great crafty event for me this week was yesterday when the postman delivered these goodies.

















Take care out there

The journey is often most of the fun

Hello there

Today's card is yet another example of me using some recent papers from the Craftseller magazine. The papers are still sat on my desk, so the plan is to use them all up. I've no idea how long this'll take though, as I'm not the quickest at the best of times. I may well have hit upon a design I'm happy to duplicate, probably with little tweeks on each one to make them feel different.

Firstly I selected which papers I would use together. I placed them on the card blank I made to fit into the envelope I wanted. The card I saw which struck me to get me properly started was on particraft's blog. My card ended up being quite different to that indeed but it sparked my interest and gave me a focus on what elements I needed.

I then went into Word and typed out the sentiment in a colour I thought would match some of the circular images in the bottom patterned paper.

Next I went onto Cricut Craftroom as I knew that Ornamental Iron2 cartridge would have a frame type that I wanted. Sure enough it did. I made sure the frame was the right size to fit around the sentiment; which is one of the joys of CCR. I just happened to have a scrap of card, almost exactly the right size for this cut. I just LOVE it when that happens!

I thought that the sentiment wasn't quite right. So I searched for which leaf cuts I had on my Cricut and used some of the decorative paper (glued onto thicker paper, as the paper itself doesn't cut well at all without the extra support of more paper underneath it) to cut them out.

What you see in this photo is the decorative leaf pattern I inked along the inside bottom of the card. I used dusty concord distress ink on my craft mat, with a few sprinkles of water thrown in. I dabbed a small section of my old bath sponge and used the negative of the leaf die cut as a stencil. I also LOVE doing this!


 

Even more use of leftover die cuts was made on the envelope. I coloured the frame leftovers with dusty concord.

 

 

The final version is totally different to my original inspiration but that's how it is for me usually. I take it along the path which is open to me; which papers I have, which equipment I have, how much time I have. It's a creative process after all.

Take care out there

More of the Craftseller magazine embellishments and papers

Hello there

As promised in a post a few days ago, here's some cards I made using the embellishments and papers which came with the issue 15 of the Craftseller magazine.

This card started off really well. I thought almost immediately of having the tag embellishment from the magazine layered onto a die-cut larger tag and that on top of a stencilled inked tag. I used plum Baker's Twine as the bow. I learnt that Hunkydory silk art card die-cuts like a dream - why I haven't learnt this before is another point altogether! The stencil comes from the negative of the diecut tag - I LOVE using the negatives and positives of die-cuts, as it makes it feel like I'm getting more out of the paper stock; makes it feel more of a creative process.

Then I got stuck.

I had the three tags on the left hand side and didn't know how on earth to fill the big white space on the right. I was also tired after having done my first two early shifts back at work after being off for almost a month. ..... excuses, excuses, I hear you!

It took my poor little muse quite a long while to slowly create the result, for better and worse. It'll become clear in a little while!
I thought of using Baker's twine again to create links with the tags and then realised I needed to form a link from the left to the right, so just took a piece of Baker's twine from the right of the tags and took it straight across. NO! Far too boring! Instantly I just dragged the twine up instead of just across. YES! I like that. I added two more pieces to enable it to show up more and used light blue as well to tone in. Unfortunately the glue I used was playing up and it ended up going far too wide from the twine. At that point I was ready to throw it away. That's defeat though and I can't have that, now can I? May Flaum has taught me to never give in; there's always a way of hiding mistakes to enhance your card further. To this end, I decided to add more glue and glitter around the twine.

There's a reason I don't use glitter alot; I can't stand it! It gets everywhere!

Anyway, use it I did and then thought of putting the word 'enjoy' in the space still available. Nothing for it but to glitter those letters too - groan!

I used a die-cut of 'enjoy' on the envelope too but decided to steer clear of the glitter and I used LV2 Spectrum noir pen instead - much easier!

 

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The base card and the papers have a deep pink
hue, so it's really irritating to see it
looking bright orange in this photo

This card came about as the bloom dots embossing folder I'd ordered arrived and I 'had' to play with it. I instantly used it on the blue card which has been floating around, so to speak, lately. I then matted the tag embellishment with coordinating card. I used a strip of the patterned paper (which is actually meant to be a sentiment on the other side but it fitted almost perfectly onto the embossed card) as another element and matted that onto more of the patterned paper from the magazine. I then used some pearlescent card as the card base and used my Crafter's Companion Clever Cut to make the vertical edges scalloped and hey presto, there's the card!

I did more embossing and some die-cutting on a small piece of matching patterned paper to create the stamp for the envelope.
I'm much happier with this card as there's NO glitter anywhere in sight :-)







                                                 -------------------------
Card number 3.

I have really enjoyed making these cards, despite that first one taking much longer and being far too fussy. This last one was fun in particular as I used alphabet spaghetti i.e die-cut left over letters.  I also got to use the new brads and ribbon which I got as part of my Stampers 15 club; which is a Stampin' Up club.
Spectrum Noir colour CR9 used for these letters.

I used Spectrum Noir colour GT2 to edge the card base and to colour the letters for the envelope.

If you get the Craftseller magazine, I hope you enjoy creating fun stuff too with the freebies and put a photo of your creations on their Facebook page.

Take care out there