Felt Fun!!

So, a couple of my friends have their birthdays close to each other and we generally celebrate them together. For the past couple of years I have also given them handmade gifts (these will be revealed at a later date!!), and also have to come up with something new and different for their cards. 

This was not easy this year as I was severely lacking in inspiration, but eventually I had an idea. There seems to be a lot of people die cutting felt and making flowers at the moment, so thought I would give it a go. Nothing to lose - had a load of felt sat doing nothing - if it didn't work I wouldn't have cost me anything. 

This is one of the cards that I eventually made. I used a size 6 Craftwork Cards white scalloped edge card. The red mat is Bazzil, and the same card was used for the leaves - cut with one of the Spellbinders Foliage dies. The white card is Creative Expressions Coconut white from the neutrals pack. I used a Splendid Circle, and the large scalloped square (a nestie) is embossed with That Special Touch swirl mask.

The flowers are red felt, cut with the largest and middle sized Bitty Blossoms. It took a few runs through my Grand Calibur, but they did cut quite well.

The effect once they are rolled and glued (with my glue gun) is really quite stunning!! I impressed myself this time!! The finishing touch was some flat backed pearls along the egde of the white scalloped square, and two Creative Expressions white pearl hat pins. 

The other card was similar - this time a cream base card, the doodle daisies 'That Special Touch' mask, Spellbinders Lacy Doily and the milk card from the neutral pack - all finished with cream pearls and hat pins.

The brown felt did cause a few problems. It didn't cut right through despite numerous runs through the Grand Calibur. I ended up having to cut along the impressions of the lines. Was still very effective though, so wasn't too annoyed!!

I'd like to enter this into the following challenges:

Hooked on Craft Challenges - Flowers

Crafty Ribbons Challenge - Flowers

Do You Stack Up Challenge Blog - Use a Flower
Crafting for all Seasons - Handmade Flowers
Polka Doodles - Monochromatic

Back soon!!

Cxx

Pretty Butterfly!!

This is for my friend's daughter. I thought for ages about what to make, and eventually went back to a recent card made for my niece, for a little inspiration. 

So, I started with a white Craftwork Cards Top Notch card, and covered it with mauve glitter card and a pearl white mat embossed with That Special Touch Swirl Mask. I edged a strip of the pearl card with the butterfly insert from Spellbinders Edgeabilities decorative inserts set 6 and mounted it onto more of the glitter card. The butterflies are Spellbinders Wings of Hope, and the swirls from the Flourish Accent set. The letters and numbers are cut using X-Cut dies.

I was really pleased with the way this turned out!! It's a design I may well come back to again!<

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Craft Your Days Away - Just for Children 
Craft Calendar Challenge - Things with Wings
Divas By Design - Monochromatic

Anythings Goes Challenge Blog - Things with Wings
Timeless Tuesdays - Butterflies

Be back soon.
Cxxx

One for my Dad!!

My Dad is reaching a landmark birthday this time next week - 70 years young!! He's not an overly fussy man, but loves gardening, so I decided to go for using foliage, with numbers for his age.

The base card is 8" square, cut from a large sheet of bronze Centura Pearl card. The large, textured burgundy mat, and the cream pearl mat are from Crafter's Companion Enveloper packs that have been in my stash for ever!!! 

The words were stamped in Stazon Timber Brown using a Forever Friends alphabet stamp. Both were cut out using one of the smaller Spellbinder Romantic Rectangle dies, mounted onto rectangles of bronze pearl card. The '7' and '0' were stamped using Papermania Typography stamps onto the burgundy paper and cut out. They were mounted on a cream Splendid Circle, and bronze Lacy Circle. All the Foliage was cut from the burgundy and cream papers. The picket fence was using my Craft Robo and a template purchased from the Craft Robo Megastore. 

I made a co-ordinating box from the rest of the bronze card, echoed the main design on the top, and finished the inside with smaller lacy and splendid circles.

I now need to make an anniversary card for my parents - for the same day - 49 years!!! 

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Cute Card Thursday - For the Boys

Celebrate the Occasion - Male Birthday (must use circle)

Should be back soon with more cards - it's a busy month for me!!

Cxx


PS forgot to say that the little circular embellishments are little wooden beads from a broken bracelet!! 

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #67 - For the Boys

Our Hostess for the challenge this week is Sally. She would like a male themed project. It  could be for a big boy, a little boy or a baby boy, so long as it's male themed.

We are sponsored this week by One Stop Card Crafts who are offering a prize of a £10 voucher for their shop.

And also by Digi Doodle Shop who are offering a prize of a $10 gift certificate for their store!!

I have used the Light House image from our sponsor - Digi Doodle Shop. I chose this because it is completely different to anything else I generally use for male themed cards and I was looking for a challenge. As always, I printed the image onto watercolour card, and heat set it with my heat gun. I then used my trusty watercolour tin to paint the image. To create the sky and water, I put a wash of just water over the area, then added colour into it.

I then had to decide on the background. I wanted a red, white and blue colour scheme to fit with a nautical theme, and chose to use the red gingham and navy blue crown papers from the 12x12 Papermania Portobello Road pack. I have to admit that my first attempt was a disaster - overly fussy and really detracting from the image. So I started again, and this time kept it simple.

The image and the mats are cut using Spellbinders nesties, and the corners of the large blue mat were rounded with an X-Cut corner rounder. The centre panel on top of the gingham paper is made from layering white grosgrain, blue satin and wine organza ribbons from my stash. I finished it off with tiny circle of white with blue gems. 

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

That Craft Place Challenge Blog - One for the Boys

Daisy Doodles Creative Challenge - One for the Boys

Be back soon!!
Cxx

Feeling Funky!!!

You may be wondering what's making me feel funky!! It certainly isn't the after effect of teaching Year 6 today, believe me!! It is, however, the fact that Funky Hand have a Design Team call going on at the moment - and I thought I'd apply!! Part of the application is to post a couple of projects that I am particularly proud of, in order that my style of crafting can be seen. Now, as you can see, I've technically included more than a 'couple' but it was difficult to choose just two.

It was the Funky Wordbooks CD that first got me interested in Anice's work so I have to include one. This is using the Blue Magic selection from the Dreams Come True CD: 

My next choice is a 8" boxed wedding card that a friend commissioned me to make. This was my first foray into using embossing paste - and I love the Dreamweaver stencil. I love this because of the white on white textured layers which makes the red heart pop out!!

I am a great fan of Sheena Douglass' Paint Fusion, and have made lots of fusion-ed items to give to friends for their birthdays. One of these friends asked me to make some coasters for her to give to her Mum. The problem was she wanted a full bloom rose. Now, this was before Sheena brought out her Rose Bloom, so I had to come up with something myself. Working from a photo, I came up with this. I'm really proud of being able to take all the techniques I had learnt from Sheena, and translate them into producing this.

I've put this one in , as I was proud of myself for trying something new with it!! I used my sewing machine to stitch down the sides! I also created it with just white card and one ink pad!! Quite a feat for me!!

And finally, I have to be proud of this card, as it is the card I won my first (and -it has to be said -my only) Challenge with. And yes - it was the Funky Hand 'Blue' challenge earlier in the year

So, there you have it!! I will just have to keep my fingers crossed and will let you know what happens.


Cxxx 

Golden Times!!

So, I've broken my resolution to blog once a week, but I think I have a valid excuse!! From Wednesday to Friday I was on a residential trip with a class of Y5 children!! Was great fun - but very tiring!! 

Well, I'm back now with a card that I have struggled to photograph to best effect - in particular to show the flowers. But here it is!!

This is a Golden Weddng Anniversary card for my husband's Aunt and Uncle!! It took me a while to decide how I wanted to do this - but eventually plumped for gold flowers.

To make the base card and matching box, I used a large sheet of Centura Ivory pearl card. The cream and gold pearl papers, and the burgundy textured paper were all from Crafters Companion Enveloper paper packs purchased eons ago!! I used an insert from the Spellbinders Postage Stamp Edgeabilities set and cut the decorative edge in the cream paper, backing it with the burgundy. The rest of the mats were cut using various Grand Nesties, with the Lace Doily providing the background for the flowers. 

The flowers are cut from the gold pearl paper using the two largest Bitty Blossoms dies, while the embossed leaves are one of the Foliage dies. A little gold ribbon finished it off!! As ever, the lettering is X-Cut Roma die, and the numbers are from an old X-Cut set.

The lid of the box echoes the card design but without the lettering, while the insert has a scaled down version of the mats without the flowers!! Just hope they like it!!

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

Hiding in My Craft Room - April Showers bring Homemade Flowers

So Artful Challenges - Wedding/Anniversary

Fairy Fun Fridays - Anything with Flowers

Be back soon!!

Cxx

Lucky Dip!!

You'll be glad to hear I am pretty much back to normal after my little throat infection. I haven't had much time to craft as we had to catch up on all the planned Easter Holiday jobs around the house that went by the by when I was ill. So I'm just about sorted, tidied, rearranged, cleaned and painted out!! Need to get into the greenhouse at some point too - luckily it's all pretty much looking after itself at the moment - just a bit of potting on to do!! 

I'm hoping this week to get back to Zumba, and restart my preparation for Race for Life - my toe is just about OK now - still a bit sore - but hopefully will hold up to some exercise.

Well, so as I don't break my 'one blog a week' resolution here are a few cards made from what I pulled from my lucky dip 'kit' box. In the past I have been a real sucker for buying card kits. I'm getting better at resisting - but I still have loads of bits left - all sorted and ready to be made up in my 'lucky dip' box. 

These are all from the Hunkydory Butterfly Jewels Amethyst Collection. The A5 base cards are foiled and printed already, so not much extra was needed. All I've added is some silver mirror card. The first topper is simply matted and layered onto silver mirror card, and a piece of the co-ordinating backing paper. The corners were rounded with an X-Cut corner rounder punch. I added some silver flourishes cut with Spellbinders Flourish Accent Dies. As a finishing touch I glazed the larger jewels on the main image.

The second topper was mounted onto a piece of co-ordinating paper cut using a Spellbinder Romantic Rectangle, and then onto silver mirror card. This time I glazed the large jewels in the image, and also around the border. 

For the third and final card, I cut the paper with Spellbinders Lace Doily Motif die, and mounted both onto silver card, and another piece of co-ordinating paper - the corners rounded with the X-Cut punch. And of course, I glazed the jewels in the image and border. 

Think that's just about it. Until the next time....

Cxxx