I'm doing my best to keep up with my plan for two videos a month, one haul and one other. It's taken me a while to get round to this one as despite the antibiotics, which cleared up the main infection, my tonsillitis lingered in the form of earache and a bad cold, and then everyone go upset tummies - it's been a wild 6 weeks! But, it's here before the end of the month and I hope you find it interesting. I'm using my Letterpress which comes out maybe once a year for a play. It still works, despite the large crack in the top plate....In my December haul video, I showed the new supplies I'd managed to get at a reasonable price from the USA, so I got it out to have a good play. These are the panels I made.
And the video process is here or on my YT channel:
I particularly love the floral background panel. I've used it with the Altenew layering dies which came free with Simply Cards and Papercraft issue 174. Last time I used this panel, it was with the Altenew layering stamp with also came free with Simply Cards and Papercraft. You can read about it in the blog post Magazine Makes #2 - Altenew Roses.
I really like these inks, but they aren't as vibrant as the sticky tube ink that comes with the kit, which is a shame, but they are so much easier to clean and don't take a long time to dry, which can happen if you use too much of the other.
Been good to get a whole lot more cards added to my stash! Thank you for stopping by - it is always appreciated. Happy Crafting Everyone! :)
A birthday card for my crafty friend Lisa, who is not only kind and caring but super talented too, so if you haven't ever visited her blog, My Card Trip, please take the time to do so today. You won't be disappointed. If you have had a wander around her blog and various other social media sites, you'll notice she loves flowers and Clearly Besotted, so I combined the two - as I did with my card to her last year.
I fussy cut the flower, which took me a good while, but it's something I really love doing, and then found a card base which I'd stencilled with some embossing paste using a stencil that she bought for me. That's something she's introduced me to recently, stencils and how versatile they are.
I adhered the flower using some tiny foam pads I had, just to give it some dimension. I think sticking those on was more frustrating than the fussy cutting. I left the sentiment off as I tend to do these days with a big image. I'm never sure where to put it. In addition I also sent her this quirky gift. I hope she's laughing because I asked her for her head circumference ages ago and I don't think she ever worked out why. This goes back to a conversation we had when I first started sewing about her needing an eye mask. I wonder if she remembers, because I did and finally I got round to making one. Not my best work and not something to go into production with, but I had a lot of fun sewing it, and I hope she gets a chance to use it on a sunny day relaxing in her back garden with a glass of vino.
A very very happy birthday Lisa!! Thanks for taking the time to pop by, see you again soon and happy crafting.
So here we are half way through Half Term, it's Valentine's Day AND Ash Wednesday. There's a lot going on. I felt the need to break out Sven to make my husband's card. I love Sven. I can't seem to stop colouring him - I made this card a couple of years ago!
I've used quite a lot of NBUS (Never Before Used Schtuff - see Darnell for more details on this!) from my January haul video, including the heart stencil and stitched heart peekaboo die both from MFT.
Sven is coloured in with Copic markers and then fussy cut. I used some Barn Door distress ink with the stencil on a white card blank and then covered it over with some red card which I'd die cut using the Peekaboo die. I popped it up on foam tape.
I popped Sven into the opening using some more foam tape - I wanted you to see him rather than covering him all up - and the sentiment is from the Clearly Besotted Tiny Type set. Lots of red, lots of Sven. What's not to love? Happy Crafting and thanks for popping by :) As for Lent.... I shall be giving up chocolate and crisps for the next 40 days and donating some money to the British Heart Foundation. Wish me luck!
Hi Everyone, I've been MIA for a while owing to life getting a little bit hectic, but I'm back and ready to share my haul for the month of January.
First up is my news. I've recently got a paid job, as opposed to my current unpaid work as a full time mum, of 5 hours a week as the school librarian in my daughters' school. It takes me back to what I was doing before I became a Mum and has been good fun. Extra cash, but sadly less time for crafting as I adjust to it all. Of course working in a school comes with hazards. The germ ridden little darlings then gave me tonsillitis which is a horrific and unimaginably painful disease for which I've been on antibiotics for the past week. I can't wait to see what else I get - been a while since I had the mumps..... So that's my life lately, of course it hasn't stopped me buying stuff, so onto my latest haul. You can watch it below or on my YouTube channel, where I'd love it if you stopped by and subscribed.
I've ordered from the following shops I've used before (please note, I don't have any affiliation with these shops), Amazon, Seven Hills Crafts, Clearly Besotted and Samuel Taylors, but I've also got some digital stamps from a newish company run by Patricia Alvarez. It's called Kinda Cute by Patricia and I love her little images,and they are very reasonably priced and don't take up much storage space.
I decided to use one small stamp and to stamp it several times onto some watercolour cardstock with Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink. I then took my Daniel Smith Hero Arts Palette dot sheet and coloured one of the images to spotlight it.
I used quinacridone fuschia for the petals. Don't you just love the word Quinacridone? Being a bit of a linguaphile, I had to know more about it, and the quinacridone wikipedia entry is a wealth of knowledge - complete with a molecule!
I stamped the sentiment from Clearly Besotted onto some vellum with my as yet unused Stazon Ink - now that has an interesting smell!! - as I wanted to see how it fares. No wonder people love it for stamping on acetate, it works a treat. I wrapped the vellum overlay around the card and then attached it to a card blank.
I hope this gives you some inspiration and I can't wait to see what you come up with. Happy Crafting Everyone!
Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the first Card Concept challenge of the new year. What a sweet inspiration it really is.
Those pastel colours and the stripes and pearl decorations gave rise to to my layered and sparkly shaker card.
It's been a while since I used my Fuse tool and I remembered why. I fall in and out of love with it a lot as sometimes it doesn't fuse the plastic as well as it should, but when it works, I love it for making quirky shakers like this. I used my much underused C9 stripes builder set with some nice pastel chalk inks for the background. Lots of scraps of Lawn Fawn patterned papers for the birthday cake dies (Sugar Pea Designs) and a whole load of Little Things sequins I have in my stash but haven't used for a while.
The key to the Fuse tool is to get it really really hot. I've also found the Fuse pockets are thinner plastic and seem to work a little better (for me at least!), and double fusing them at the sides adds a bit of added security. You may think this is a bit much, but I still prefer to do them this way than with foam strips! Hope you get the chance to join in and as always, happy crafting!
How is everyone today? I'm trying to keep up with my New Year's resolution to have a haul video on the 1st and a crafting video on 10th. So far so good, eh? I've been wanting to try gelli printing for a while now after watching Kim Dellow's mixed media videos. My November - December 2017 Haul shows the gelli plate I bought along with the acrylic paints. The latter give lots of colour for not much cost.
I had a lot of fun, and plan on playing more after watching some more videos. I find the acrylic paint dries very quickly and I didn't fully get to grips with how to manage that. I ended up using the blue background to make a picture for my Dad for his Christmas. I simply framed it with an IKEA Ribba box frame I had. Apologies for the terrible photo, but I forgot to take a picture before I wrapped it and so this is it in situ on his wall and I only had my phone with me to take a picture!
Do let me know what you think. Ever dabbled in mixed media or gelli printing? Happy Crafting!!
