Crafter's Block? Make swatches!

I've had a serious case of Crafter's Block since Thursday. Despite all the fabulous inspiration I see every day on Instagram, Facebook and various blogs, nothing is forthcoming. What to do? I wanted to make something, so I grabbed some scraps of water colour paper and a brush and did some washes of all my Spectrum Aquas so I could compare and make better use of colour combinations. I also drew them straight onto water colour and plain white paper to see how they differed. I like it.

My next thought went to ink swatches, but I wasn't quite sure where to start, so I stopped by Michelle Short's You Tube site and found the one I needed! She uses a 2x2 card system like Stephanie Klauck and also Jennifer McGuire, who has created a whole host of free downloads to make it easier to create your swatches (links to Stephanie and Jennifer's videos and downloads are on Michelle's video post). I don't have a printer, or I'd have used them! I also don't have many inks at present (but more than I thought I had!!!), so it wasn't too strenuous hand writing them. I used a stamp from the Clearly Besotted Mr & Mrs set that I thought worked well.

I had SO much fun, just stamping! I also had no idea I had so many blue and green inks, then I looked at our carpets and they are blue and green - must be subliminal!

Sorry there's no card today, but I hope you found this useful. I managed to find a UK supplier for the album and the pockets via Hey Little Magpie - I need another store selling goodies like a hole in the head of course!

Here's to crafting when my mojo returns :)

Thank You and Notelets - playing with Spectrum Aquas

Hello everyone! Hope you've had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend. I've three cards to share with you that I made using my new Spectrum Aqua markers - my subscription present from Simply Cards and Papercraft.

The first is a Thank You card for my in laws - they bought some beautiful clothes for the little ones and helped keep them occupied when they visited last week, which deserves a card at the very least!

I used three shades of Spectrum Aquas floral set for the outer panel (Blossom, Begonia and Rose Pink), rubbing the pen onto an acrylic block, then adding water and painting it onto my water colour panel. After letting it dry, I splashed water onto it with a brush and dabbed it with some kitchen towel leaving splatters. I love this technique! I then got a bit bokeh and used a star stencil (I got this free with my first ever purchase of Simply Cards and Papercraft!) with some Ranger Glacier White pigment ink and got busy dabbing it all over the panel. I then left it to dry whilst painting up the inner panel with three of the Spectrum Aquas essentials set (Spice, Tan and Peach), leaving it to dry and then splatter painting it too.

Once they were both dry, I made a frame of the outer panel using two of my Lawn Fawn large stitched squares, and a panel of the inner one to fit into the frame. I adhered the inner panel to the middle of a square card blank and then the frame using a lot of foam tape. The sentiment I stamped onto some pink card and heat embossed it with my Wow! bright white embossing powder before cutting out the flag. I added some stick on pearls for a bit of bling.

To the notelets!

The pink notelet was made from the inner panel of the above with another Thank You flag, adhering it with fun foam - two cards for the price of one! I made a 4x4 card blank for that one.

The other notelet was a different technique. Basically I got some water colour card and drew some very basic flowers on it using Marigold, Sunflower and Leaf Green before brushing over it with water and smudging it. I think it looks like old wall paper and I love it. I then cut out four little squares and adhered them with fun foam to another 4x4 card blank. I also made a couple of little envelopes for these with my WRMK Envelope Punch board and some Bazzill basics - they look so sweet!

I love the markers for making backgrounds. They blend well. I'll continue to practice and try different techniques - there are loads of great videos on YouTube.

Thank you for getting this far. Have a great weekend!

Home - Where the Heart Is

Hello everyone! I've had quite a few goodies arrive in the post recently, not least the Sugar Pea 'Home' die that I've been waiting on for several weeks. It finally shipped over to the lovely people at Make The Day Special!

I've also three friends who have moved house recently, so I have to make those in the next week or so. Here's the first using that new die and also my new Spectrum Aqua markers that I got free through subscribing to Simply Cards and Papercraft. I've been playing around with them and watching lots of videos on YouTube for tips - I love the way they make really beautiful backgrounds so easily. Definitely a great free gift!

I started by taping down a piece of water colour paper onto my glass cutting mat and block colouring it using three of my Spectrum Aqua markers (Heather, Orchid and Wildflower). I then washed them over with water to blend them together. After waiting for it to dry, I splashed it with water and then blotted it dry, leaving nice splatters.

I then took the HOME die and cut it out twice from two shades of purple paper, adhering the houses in the bottom right. I placed the 'Home' as in the picture, accenting it with some die cut hearts from my Lawn Fawn Best Pun Ever set. I used one for the 'O' of 'Home' instead of the house and added some Wink of Stella and glossy accents to make it pop out a bit - Home is where the heart is after all!

I think this might be the first card I've made that didn't have any stamping on it!

I've followed the layout for this month's Make the Day Special Challenge, as I'd like to enter. They give such brilliant customer service, so any excuse to buy things there ;)

Hope you like it and thanks for reading!

More Bokeh!

Hello again! Hope your weekend is treating you well? I got a bit carried away with bokeh and now I can't stop! I realised I had a birthday card for a friend to make, and so I got my little girl's paints out again and went with a green theme this time.

It's the same technique as in my previous post, but with a few additions. The dragon fly is the Simply Cards and Papercraft free gift from issue 134, embossed using my new bright white Wow! Embossing powder. It's so fine compared to my other powders and gives a lovely result. The sentiment is stamped in Lily Pad Ranger dye ink and is from Clearly Besotted's Sweet Little Sentiments set. I added a few of my new Lucy Abrams' sequin mixes. This one is Phosphorescence and the colours just went beautifully.

Hope you like it, I think I'll enter this one too into House of Cards Challenge!

Thanks for reading, enjoy what remains of the weekend :)

House of Cards Challenge - Bokeh Effect

Hello there! The House of Cards May challenge has started and since I had a lot of fun with the last one, I fancied giving Bokeh effect a go. This is totally new to me, so I had a read of Mynn's instructions and also found a great video from Dawn at Wplus 9, which also taught me how to make my own circles stencil using dies (acetate is very hard to die cut though!). The only thing I didn't have was a dauber, but I improvised with a piece of sponge from the top of a kitchen scrubber - not brilliant, but not bad either.

Here's the result:

I tried a panel of watercolour paper with my Inktense pencils, but didn't like the results. I then tried watercolour paints belonging to my four year old which gave a much better finish. I've now received some Spectrum Aquas, courtesy of taking out a subscription to Simply Cards and Papercraft, so I will try those next :)

I used Ranger pigment ink in Glacier White with the stencil once the panel had completely dried. To finish it, I wanted a simple sentiment that would stand on its own without any embellishment, so I found this from the Clearly Besotted Book Worm collection. In view of the election yesterday, it's something that any government needs to do. I then die cut out a panel using my Memory Box stitched rectangles and adhered it to a Kraft card blank. Simple.

I really love this technique and the results and am planning on trying it out again - how many entries am I allowed??

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!

April Showers

They keep talking about a heat wave, but it's avoiding West Yorkshire at the moment, so with the grey weather in mind I decided to try the challenge at Addicted to CAS - Code word Showers.

The card top is a piece of water colour card die cut from the Memory Box stitched rectangles with the images stamped in Ranger Archival Ink. I used the bicycle from Clearly Besotted's Good Times set (the first thing I purchased from them and it's still my favourite!) and the umbrella from the Mama Elephant Up and Away set. I then added some colour using my Prismallo Aquarelles, and some rain dashes (ME Up and Away) in Memento London Fog. The sentiment (also ME Up and Away) is in Versa Magic Night Sky rather than my usual tuxedo black for a change!

Been a long week without much crafting, and it's funny how frustrated you can get without a bit of 'me' time, so I was grateful for baby's long nap this morning.

Thanks for reading! It's nearly the weekend again and hopefully it will be a bit brighter up north :)

PS Apologies for the not so great picture. I need to work out a better set up in my tiny craft space and also get a decent camera!

Another engagement!

This time my older sister, which is really lovely, although I rather hope she's not reading this because I haven't sent it yet! If she is - it'll be with you next week :)

As usual it's a white card blank. I'm favouring tent fold at the moment. I cut a piece of my new Papermania 6x6 smooth coloured card slightly smaller than the card base. I chose purple because of the fuschias. The stamps are from the free Clearly Besotted set from Simply Cards and Papercraft issue 133, and the inspiration for the card came from there as well as from Vixx Handmade Cards. 

The leaves are stamped in Versa Magic DewDrop Hint of Pesto and then fussy cut. The buds and flowers stamped in Jet Black Ranger Archival Ink onto water colour paper. I then took the opportunity to use my new Caran D'Ache Prismallo Aquarelles that I bought on holiday. I like them, and I'll practice a bit more with them. After the vibrancy of the Inktense pencils, these were different to work with. I fussy cut the fuschias out too and attached them all with foam pads to the card front.

The sentiment is from Clearly Besotted's Mr & Mrs set. I rounded the corners of the card top with the reverse punch on my WRMK Envelope Punch Board and attached it with foam tape.

Thanks for reading and I'm hoping my sister likes it!

Birthday Express

Been a week since I blogged and I've been getting a bit frustrated at the lack of crafting going on in my life. We all got colds and under 5s with colds are hard work, bless them. Not been well. However, we're all back on the mend just in time for our holiday in a few days and as we're going to visit some friends with a little one who just turned 4, I figured some crafting was in order. Here is the end result!

The base is a  precut A6 card blank. I used my Derwent Inktense Pencils (Hot Red, Sun Yellow, Lagoon) to create the backing colours on a piece of water colour paper, blending them slightly together - I will be getting some more pencils in next month's crafting purchase! I then cut it to size and rounded the corners.

The die is the Sweet Dixie steam train and I bought it because my husband is a railway enthusiast. For those who want to know, it is a 9F, of which, nine still survive. I cut it out of some scrap silver card and glued it to the water colour paper. I then stuck it onto the card top, and stuck this onto the card blank with double sided tape.

I stamped the name and the age using Memento Tuxedo Black onto some Bazzill card and coloured them in with my pencils, then cut them out and stuck them onto the card with foam pads. I thought it would be fun to have them take the place of the steam!

I hope you and he like it. Thanks for reading :)

Hang in there

Hello again. Here is card number three from my crafting mania of Thursday morning. I really enjoyed making this one. It's just stamping with a bit of colouring. I'm definitely realising that I prefer Clean And Simple (CAS) cards.

Monkey here is from a Mama Elephant stamp set called Up and Away that I purchased from Make the Day Special. Golly, they have some lovely things. I was good and only bought this set, but I was sorely tempted to buy so much more!

I started by using my three Derwent Inktense Pencils (Hot Red, Sun Yellow and Lagoon) to create a nice rainbow of colours. Once dry, I stamped the balloon onto it using Jet Black Ranger Archival Ink and cut out the balloons and not the string with my Tonic fine control scissors. I then stamped the balloons onto the card with the archival ink and the monkey (and its tail which is separate!), holding onto the strings, in Memento Tuxedo Black. I stamped one of the sentiments from the set and then using foam pads added the coloured balloons. It looked a bit plain despite the balloons, so I coloured in the monkey using some of my new Derwent Artists pencils (they were cheaper in the shop!). I know a lot of you use pens (Spectrum, Copic, Promarkers), but I have a fondness for pencils at the moment.

I really like it and I think I'll use this set again and again. 

Thank you for reading!

Birds on a Wire - From me to you

I started a card on Friday whilst baby was napping and toddler was at nursery. She's been a bit poorly this week, so it didn't last long and I only managed to finish it this morning whilst she was napping and toddler was watching CBeebies. Didn't take long, just needed a bit of glue and a sentiment.

I decided to try my hand at one of the cards I saw in Simply Cards and Papercraft, with the idea of having something interesting on the inside of the card, in my case, viewed from an aperture. 

I started with a 6x6" card blank in Bazzill Cardshoppe in a nice blue shade. I found another shade of blue Bazzill Basics in my stash and cut it 1/4" smaller than the card front and added another layer in cream Bazzill Basics 1/4" smaller still on top - that's a bit long winded for mat and layering! I cut a circle aperture on the bottom right of the card top using my Spellbinders Nestabilities Circles dies. Next I took the card front and cut a circle in the larger size. I then took some watercolour paper and using my Derwent Inktense pencils, made some blocks of colour which I brushed with water and used to die cut out the Spellbinders 'Birds on a wire' (a Christmas present that I've finally found a project for!). I stamped the sentiment (Clearly Besotted Mini Basic Banners) onto the inside of the card using Memento Tuxedo Black and affixed the birds to the card top, then the card top to the card front and there you are! 

I love the blues and I feel it needs an envelope - time to crack out the envelope board :)

Valentine's Day

Every year my husband and I decide we're not going to have anything to do with Valentine's Day. It's too commercial etc etc. Yet every year each of us buys the other one a card. So, whilst child no.1 was at nursery on Thursday, he was at work and baby decided to have a long nap early afternoon, I made this little card. Always have to incorporate green into his cards. It's his favourite colour.

 

The card base is made from Bazzill Cardshoppe in a light green. The tag is the rounded tag die from Clearly Besotted, cut from water colour paper and stamped with the rose stamp from the free Clearly Besotted Stamp collection from Simply Cards and Papercraft no. 133 and coloured in with hot red Derwent Inktense Pencil and then brushed lightly with water for watercolour effect. As I only have hot red, lagoon (blue) and sun yellow, the leaves were a combination! I stamped the sentiment with another of the free stamps in Memento Tuxedo Black and then added some sticky gems. I used a bit of red ribbon I'd bought for Christmas cards for the tag and stuck it on with foam pads.

I also used the We R Memory Keepers envelope punch board to make an envelope in Bazzill Bling - a  nice pink I bought to make a card for my 4 year old, but didn't quite get round to it. I really like using the board, but found I had to have quite heavy card and not paper to make the envelopes. It's nice for special cards.

This year we've decided to share a box of chocolates too.