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 :-)







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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

Alcohol to spray

Hello there

I'm a happy girlie again as I bought these little beauties today - £3 for 4, so I bought 8 of course. Why? I hear you ask. Well, why not?! But why get excited about plastic bottles? Here's why:

Here's the alchohol. Not quite a bottle of wine but it's of more use to me than that. Carole Bryson Wood of Stampin' Up fame has told me how to make my own mists out of alchohol, water and re-inkers, so I'm getting all set up to start my own alchemy.

Bring it on!

Take care out there
p.s please visit  cheapfrankingmachinesupplies on ebay if you want to buy some alchohol yourself

I'm back at it!

Hello there

Yes, yee hah! I'm back to doing some crafting. I've been in Florida on holiday for two weeks and I've also been to Aviemore in Scotland for a week in August, so it's not been a great crafting time. I did actually make an ipad case in the week between Aviemore and Florida but I can't find the photos anywhere. I suspect that's because they got deleted from the sim card, trying to make room for more holiday pics. I definitely want to make at least one more, so hopefully I'll share the photos before they disappear off the face of the planet.
The only crafting I managed in Florida was a trip to Joanne's in Altamonte. I was in there two hours whilst the family had to look around there too. I had no idea I'd been that long until I left. They had so much fabric in there and so neatly displayed and easy to get it; I loved it.

Alright, enough of embarrasing photos, back to the matter in hand, which is actually meant to be a card I've made for the birthday of a friend of my daughter's. I wanted to use the Indian Summer papers from the latest Craftseller magazine. My daughter looked through the samples and chose one but then I remembered about a card I'd seen over at My Craft Spot blog which uses negative images. So I just went ahead and did the card I wanted to do. I'll probably still have to make the one she chose but I'm hoping she'll prefer the design of the one I've made - fingers crossed!

I started off by cutting out all the papers and embellishments and added bits of Glossy Accents and glitter where I thought would be nice.

I used a 15cm x15cm card blank and then cut the patterned paper a few millimetres smaller than that and then cut the top piece from Neenah super smooth card at about 14cm or smaller; sorry, I'm not much use with measuring as I usually just hand cut the same size pieces down to the size I physically can see I need.

Firstly I stamped 'Happy' up the bottom left hand corner and then I cut 'birthday' out vertically with Plantin School Book using the roly poly button. In my trial cut, I used 1.5cm but I thought it was a bit too tight to the edges, so I changed the setting to m.m's and made the letters 13m.m; real dial size too. Your sample cut will show you whereabouts you need to start cutting the word to make sure it fits on and also so that it's high enough to allow room for the words 'to you' underneath.

 I used Pinflair glue to place that mat on top of the patterned paper, ensuring it was raised slightly; this gives the best result for seeing the paper through the negative letters.

Once that had dried, I cut the balloons from Create a Critter using standard shift. I cut the tails off two of them and replaced them with cherry red Baker's Twine, tied together at the end.

A bit of a tip for new Cricut expression users; to find an image on your cartridges, use the image search facility on Cricut Craft room. It's brilliant as it gives the results in either image order or cartridge order, so you can not only pick the best ones you have but also be able to go straight to that cartridge to get it cut. I'd also suggest you do keep the software of your machine up to date. I had to update mine whilst doing this card; it feels like a real pain at the time but it's important to keep it usable for you.

Since I had cut out the balloon shapes on a practise piece of card, I was left with the stencil of those shapes, so I put it to good use by putting the balloon shapes on the envelope and inside the card. It finishes the whole package off nicely in my opinion.

Let's hope my daughter agrees.

Take care out there.

P.S For those of you paying attention, I'll try to remember to show you how I actually use the embellishments from the magazine in another post, as I didn't actually use any on this card :-)

Scrappin' with pals

Hello there

Here's a photo of a layout I did recently at a scrap and chat session at a friend's house.

There was a tonne and a half of papers and sizzix dies available but one lady had bought some freebie papers she got from a magazine. I liked the colours, so I just went with them. I just get overwhelmed by too many papers so find it too hard to choose a few. The photos led me to this design really and the papers played along nicely.
I found out some very sad news at the end of the night but prior to that I had really enjoyed myself with people who love doing the same things as me. Friends aren't just for the good times; good friends go through allsorts of life experiences in the best way that they can.

Take care out there and look after your friends

Congratulations on passing exams

Hello there

Here's a card I made recently for a very clever wise old bird (she's so going to kill me if she reads that 'old' bit :-)) who has recently found out that she's qualified for ACCA, which is an accountant's certifcate. She has worked full time the whole time she's been studying, so she should be extra proud of herself.

I had the basic idea of using the owl from Create a Critter and then the rest just flowed from there. The bunting is from the Carousel cartridge (I hand wrote congratulations on there) and the grass is from Plantin schoolbook cartridge. I like the way the branches go over the edge of the card; thankfully I knew the envelope I was using was bigger than the card blank. The trees are on an icon feature for the 'booklet' on page 38. I drew the eyelashes on the owl myself. The branch the owl is sitting on is from page 25 of Create a Critter; using the accessory function. I used Cricut Craft room to get it all the correct size.

I decorated the inside with a frame from Wild Card cartridge. I cut it out twice so that I could get a different coloured internal section. I used MS Word to write the sentiment in the middle using font Sakkal Majalla.

I used 'real dial size' option on the letters 'ane',
 as they were too small otherwise in comparison
 to the J

I machine stitched around the edges of the front.
This is a cartridge heavy card but I really enjoyed making it and Jane, the world's your oyster now!

Take care out there

Pencil case

Hello there

This is the pencil case I made for my daughter recently. She picked the materials, which I wasn't certain would be a good mix but they turned out brilliantly.


I'm getting to use the spotty material from my Stampin' Up-
Candy cane Christmas pack. I can't remember which
company made the loveheart material

I got the instructions from issue 13 of Craftseller magazine. Rebecca Tufnell's instructions aren't great, so I asked some further questions about it but I haven't had a reply, so I just carried on making it in my own little way. Once you start thinking for yourself with alot of instructions, it does all come together, as you use your sewing knowledge or basic common sense to make it all work ok.

Cut four pieces of fabric 13 x 22cm. Those are the measurements in the magazine. My zip was slightly bigger, so I adjusted the width.Two are for the outside and two are for the lining.
Along one long edge of each piece, fold over 1cm to the reverse side of fabric.

Along those folds, pin a lining piece and an outer piece of fabric to each side of the zip. The photo shows the right hand section with inner and outer pieces attached to the zip and only the inside piece attached on the left. Make sure that your outer pieces are attached to the correct side of the zip; the side with the zip handle uppermost. Wrong sides of the outer and the inner pieces will be facing.

ready to sew

Sewing

With right sides facing, sew a 1cm seam around the outer pieces around the three open edges. Do the same with the inner pieces, making sure that you leave a wide enough gap in it, to enable you to turn it round the right way. You sew that seam by hand with slip stitch, once it turned the right way.

Finished! I wasn't very happy with the finish, where the zip ends met the edge of the case, as I'm rubbish with zips but it closes ok; I'm just being fussy.
Go on try it; it's fun!

Take care out there

Time goes by

Hello there

Goodness gracious me, Mr. Time is pushing his boundaries big style right now. Although the good thing is that I have been able to make things; I just haven't had time to blog about them. That's fine really, as without the creativity there is no blog. There are so many internet based crafting sites now, it's really hard to keep up with it all. I added some of my projects to my pinterest account this weekend, so please do go and have a look at a few things which inspire me. 

I just made this purse in super quick time this morning. Great birthday presents for my daughter's friends, I would've thought.

I found the instructions for this cute little purse via pinterest. The batting I had is too thick really but I'll have to remember the instructions as it's very easy. Another good thing about it, is that you can use any size zip you have, as long as it's bigger than the width of your purse. I found this really handy, as it meant I didn't have to do any shopping at all. I have loads of fabric pieces, so it was really easy to find a matching fabric to the zip.

Take care out there