Magazine Makes #4 - Distance Seems So Little

Hi All. well, we're done on holiday number two - it's been that kind of month, but hey, no chance for anyone to get bored!

My copy of Simply Cards and Papercraft arrived a couple of weeks ago in between holidays and when I saw it, I knew I had to play with the stamps straight away. It happily coincided with a much needed TV break for the kiddies, so I had 20 minutes of uniterrupted play time to colour. I finished the card later on in the day.

I started by stamping out the hummingbird and one of the flowers from the set onto water colour card with archival ink using my MISTI. Sometimes I find stamps from the magazines don't stamp very well, but these were excellent first time.

I then coloured in the hummingbird using my Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens. I squeeze some out onto a small pallet and colour with a brush as I find them too juicy to work with on their own. I coloured the flower in with Spectrum Aquas.

Then came the fun bit - fussy cutting. Yep. It's lucky the Proms are on at the moment so I had good music to accompany me on Radio 3!

I wanted to give the impression of a sun in the background, and I searched for a colour I was happy with. How lucky that I've been hoarding this beautiful pomegranate Bazzill paper for ages and I thought it was just the colour. I cut it out with one of my Spellbinders circle dies.

I put it together really simply. Just a folded A2 (US) card base, with the sentiment stamped in the bottom right hand corner, the 'sun' in the middle and the hummingbird and flower popped up on foam pads.

I hand drew the border with my Copic Spica Glitter pen and a Uni-ball Fine Line 0.2.

Below is a list of what I used to make this card. Please note that I DO NOT USE affiliate links.

Simply Cards and Papercraft Issue 153	Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pens - Shades of Spring	Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pens - Clear	Spectrum Aqua Markers - Floral	Hobbycraft Clear Acrylic Stamping Blocks 2 pack	A4 Super Smooth White Card - 250gsm - 100 Sheets	WHSmith Watercolour Paper 12 Sheets - Art, Craft and Hobbies	Tonic Studios Maxi Guillotine
Martha Stewart Mini Scoreboard	Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black	Hero Arts Stamp Scrubber Pad	Clear Design Ultra Clean Stamp Cleaner	Lawn Fawn Stamp Shammy	Tonic Titanium Fine Control Scissors	Copic Glitter Pen	Uni PIN Drawing Pen Black
My Sweet Petunia - MISTI Mini	Double sided foam pads	Spellbinders Nestabilities Standard Circles Large	Sizzix Big Shot Die Cutting Machine

InLinkz.com

It's currently on its way in the post, so I hope they like it as much as I do. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and to comment, you do mean so much to me!

Dance Like No One is Watching - Sugar Pea Designs

Hello! How are things going with you all mid week? Today I'm sharing a card with you that I made for a very kind crafty friend's birthday. She loves pigs and I have one set, which I use a lot, that has a very cute picture of a dancing pig in it. I think you might recognise it!

I felt like doing a bit of water colouring and paper piecing, and came up with this:

I took a square piece of water colour card stock and stamped the image of the dancing pig into the centre of it, in archival ink. I used the dies I wanted to use as a frame as a guide. I then made a mask of the pig and covered the image.

I picked three nice pinks from my Spectrum Aqua markers and gave the panel a splotchy water colour wash. I then gave it a nice splattering of the deepest pinks and also with my Pink Champagne Spectrum Sparkle pen.

I die cut out the frame with my SSS stitched squares, and die cut 4 other frames from plain white card stock to build up the frame - I am out of foam tape. I then stamped the image onto some Lawn Fawn Let's Polka paper scrap that I had and cut out the tiara, tutu and shoes and glued them onto the pig.

I stamped the sentiment in archival ink onto the bottom of the top frame, before gluing it on top of the other 4, then onto a 3.75 x 3.75 inch card blank. I then adhered the pig into the centre.

I hand wrote 'Dance Like No One is Watching' on the inside - I could do with working on my lettering, but it looked neat :)

Below is a list of what I used to make this card and where I purchased them. Please note I DO NOT USE affiliate links :)

Spectrum Aqua Markers - Floral	Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pens - Shades of Spring	Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pens - Clear	Tonic Studios Maxi Guillotine	Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black	WHSmith Watercolour Paper 12 Sheets - Art, Craft and Hobbies	Sugar Pea Designs Everyday is Christmas	Lawn Fawn LET'S POLKA Petite 6 x 6 Paper Pack
Tonic Titanium Fine Control Scissors	A4 Super Smooth White Card - 250gsm - 100 Sheets	Hero Arts Stamp Scrubber Pad	Clear Design Ultra Clean Stamp Cleaner	Hobbycraft Clear Acrylic Stamping Blocks 2 pack	Lawn Fawn Stamp Shammy	*3M Scotch PINK ATG ADVANCED TAPE GLIDER 1/4"" Adhesive Glue Gun	Simon Says Stamp SHAPES WITH STITCHES SetSS160 In Stitches

InLinkz.com

I hope the recipient likes it. I had loads of fun making it - I do like paper piecing and splattering, it's very therapeutic!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and I wish you a fabulous rest of the week :)

Craft Stash Design Team - Hexagon Panel

Back so soon, I hear you ask, well as I sent my Design Team cards off on Tuesday, I thought it was time to share them with you! 

I was sent three Apple Blossom dies to play with from Craft Stash and I can tell you now, I've had a lot of fun! 

I started with the Hexagon Panel which is a large die, but as soon as I saw it I thought of bees, so this is the first card I came up with - and it's a BIG shaker.

I started off by cutting a piece of water colour card slightly larger than the die and giving it a wash of three different yellows using my Spectrum Aqua markers, so it had an ombre effect. Once dry, I ran the die through my die cutting machine and because it was thick card, the hexagons cut but stayed in place, so I could then set about carefully fixing the outer edges with tape on the back so they didn't fall out on the front of the card. Once that was done, I trimmed the edges and then popped out all the hexagons in the middle with a pokey tool. I was impressed I didn't have to run it through my die cutter again - a definite plus for the die!

 
I then made a card blank and using a craft knife, cut an aperture in the front. I made a shaker pocket with my Fuse tool using the central piece I'd cut out as a guide and filled it with a variety of sequins and shaker mixes and most of the hexagons and then sealed the top. I'm getting to know my Fuse better and you do have to leave it to heat up a lot - I let mine do 15 minutes before I use it. 

I trimmed my shaker pocket and attached it to the back of the front panel with tape, and then I attached the whole panel to my card blank. I love that I can see the inside of the card through the shaker.

The little girl is a digi stamp from JustMEdigitalstamps - @mom2sofia on IG - and I printed her on Neenah, coloured her with Copics and fussy cut her out. The sentiment I wrote with a VersaMark pen onto some scrap card and heat embossed with WOW! Bright White embossing powder, cutting it out with the CB Long Flag Die (I am rubbish at cutting flags!).

I love how this turned out and as the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge is featuring shaker cards and We R Memory Keepers products, I thought I'd enter this there.

And that's not all! I had quite a few hexagons left over, so I made this simple card by embossing the die, and adhering all the spare bits of hexagon onto the front with foam pads. 

The sentiment is layered using the CB Thanks die. It's all adhered to a grey card base. Seemed a shame to waste those little bits! It's what Darnell calls a 'Two-fer' :)

[Supplies: Apple Blossom Dies Hexagon Panel; JustMEdigitalstamps Honeybee Girl; Clearly Besotted Thanks Word Die; Clearly Besotted Long Flag Die; Spectrum Noir Aqua Markers Floral and Primary; WH Smith Watercolour Card; Neenah Classic Crest 110lb; Copic Markers; White, yellow and grey card 250gsm; We R Memory Keepers Fuse Tool; A4 clear plastic wallets; Little Things from Lucy's Cards Lemon Sherbet; Pretty Pink Posh Sparkling Clear 6mm sequins; Double sided tape; Foam pads; Ranger Multi Medium Matte; VersaMark Pen; WOW! Bright White Embossing Powder]

Thank you so much for reading and for all your lovely comments. I'm looking forward to getting my next lot of dies through to have some more to play with. Have a great weekend - I'm going to get back into the 30 Day Color Challenge - can't believe it's half way gone already!

Muse Challenge #144 + Mind Crafternoon reminder

Firstly, thank you so much for all your kind comments on my Copic colouring. I really do think I am improving - just shows that practice makes perfect! Aileen and I will be taking a short hiatus as we get going on Christmas cards and shopping and spending time with family and friends. We'll be back in the new year to finish the course off - lots of cards I think!!

So I saw this week's Muse challenge and HAD to play along. Ardyth's daughter is this week's Muse and created the cutest CAS card I have ever seen:

Bearing in mind that all I'm thinking about at the moment is Christmas cards, I remembered I'd purchased the cutest little set of Christmas stamps ever back in October at my local-ish non-Hobbycraft shop, Samuel Taylors. They're called Majestix Clear Peg Stamps - Christmas Treats and are tiny and designed to be used with special acrylic pegs, but I found they worked fine with a small acrylic block.

I was inspired by the line of food and the bright colours and decided to make an equally CAS (Clean And Simple) card on watercolour card.

I lined each of the stamps up as equally spaced as possible and as best I could in a straight line - this is where a MISTI would come in handy and am ever convinced it would be worth the £50 now we can get them in the UK - I then took my large acrylic block, picked them up, inked them up with Archival Jet Black ink and stamped them onto a piece of card stock cut slightly smaller than my A2 card base. The results are quite good!

I then selected different bright colours of Spectrum Aquas and water coloured a splodge on top. The sentiment was added at the bottom and I completely mucked it up with not adding enough ink so had to go over it with my Copic Multiliner - better than I ever expected though despite my wobbly hand - and again, a MISTI would have coped well with this! I then adhered the panel to my A2 card base with some tape.

[Supplies: Card-io Majestix Clear Peg Stamps - Christmas Treats; White card stock 300gsm; Spectrum Aqua - Primaries and Florals; Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink; WH Smith water colour paper; Clearly Besotted Best Christmas]


I love the result and hope that you do too. I hope you feel inspired to try your hand at the Muse challenge.

Thank you so much for stopping by. If you are interested in doing something crafty over the weekend, can I remind you of the Mind Crafternoon I posted about a few weeks ago? Verity's Crafternoon is on Saturday and the official Crafternoon on Sunday. I'll be on Instagram using the hashtag #crafternoon - come join me and feel free to tag me @craftingwhilethebabynaps and I'll do my best to pop by and say hello.