Gingerbread anyone?

First let me say welcome to my new followers. It is lovely to see you. Thanks for joining me. I hope we can share some great ideas together.

Once again I have turned to digistamps for todays card. I am still not completely sold on them. The majority of images are what I call 'cute' and I don't usually do cute, but they are often more suitable for some of the challenges I am enjoying doing. Although they can't be transferred using different types of ink as a stamp can, making them less suitable for copic markers, embossing etc, they do have the advantage of no storage needed, and they can be resized and cropped as I have done here. I started with the gingerbread tree image from Pinkcat studio. One challenge involved using Kraft card and I wasn't even sure what that was. I looked it up and it seems to be basically recycled brown paper/card. I have no access to that as a craft item out here but I remembered a packet of envelopes bought in a pack from the QVC seconds shop in Shrewsbury, which I haven't used because I was unsure of their weather durability, so I dug those out. I printed the stamp on the envelope front and added some colour using Sakura permapaque pens. I didn't like it on the brown background so I then cut all the little men out and glued them onto the same image printed onto white paper which I had already cut into a circle and distressed with adirondak cranberry ink. I then used the rest of the envelope to cover a square white card. (It has a hole in the middle where I have cut out the image, but it is hidden under the layering!). I then made the matting layers from some lovely red, metallic, embossed card, and green paper from a huge docrafts Christmas stack. A couple of pieces of sticky ribbon made the stripes, but I wanted a suitable greeting and was a bit stuck. Then I resized and cropped the original image and printed out a single gingerbread man on one of the envelope flaps, and made him a tiny greeting banner to hold.

This card is for the following challenges:
ABC Christmas Challenge: K is for Kids, using Kraft card
Cute Card Thursday Challenge 166: Using a sketch
Creative Card Crew: Anything goes
Paper Crafting Journey: Anything goes
CRAFT Challenge 104: Alter/recycle (envelope)

Bells are Ringing

When I saw that the theme for one of my challenges this week is Sleigh Bells, I went to my folder of Christmas stamps and was quite surprised to find that I didn't have a single bell stamp. Then I vaguely remembered using a script stamp in the shape of a bell, so I had a hunt, and came up with this Oasis stamp. The wood mount was actually dated 1992 and that's probably how long I have had it, but it hasn't seen the light of day many times! I then hunted through my charms and found these two pairs of silver bells that I think come from some wedding toppers I bought a very long time ago. ( I also have a lot of small round bells in my stash which are, perhaps, more in keeping with sleigh bells, but they are much too dimensional for a card that will quite likely be posted from Spain to UK).

I have very recently bought a bundle of mixed shades of very narrow blue ribbon, so I decided to use a blue base card. The main bell is stamped with Memento Paris Dusk onto white card, cut out and distressed around the edge with the same ink. I then did the same with a SeeD's greeting stamp. I wanted something to lift the plain blue card so I used this Laxmi stamp-holly trail, stamping it first on scrap paper to remove some of the ink, and then stamping a pale impression on my card. I used off cuts of the ribbons to make tiny bows to finish it off.

I am entering this card in Bah! Humbug! Challenge 21; Sleigh bells Ring
Craftyhazlenuts Christmas Challenge 22: Use some ribbon
Creative Inspirations Challenge 113: Christmas in May
2 Sisters Challenge blog: Anything goes

Birthday fun

I took a few days off card-making this week (though I did manage to squeeze a couple of challenges in at the last minute), in order to concentrate on my sons scrapbook. I have promised I will try to have it complete for when I return to UK for a visit in October, but I still have many, many pages to do! Anyway, I did manage to complete four pages this week so I thought I would do a write up about two of them.

This was a double spread to celebrate his childhood birthdays and I think I was a bit ambitious with my plan. The idea of this book is to tell the story of his first 21 years or so, filling in the bits he won't remember, and storing for ever some happy memories that we both share, so each page holds rather more photos than some people put in their modern style scrapbooks. I have so many and it is really hard to decide which ones to leave out. I have already made a plan of the themes for each page, and roughly sorted my photos accordingly. So my first step with a new page is to see what I have to work with, group these for pieces of journalling and think about a title etc. Then I draw a plan of the page on a 12" x 12" sheet of white paper, so I can see just what size I need each picture to be, and how big a text box I can allow for the script. I know that is not the way a lot of folk work, and my scrapbooking friends here think it is just too organised, but it suits me. The photos are quite old (well he's 25 now so not that old!), and they have not been stored too carefully, so I scan them in to my computer and use Corel PSP to tidy them up if necessary. Then I use Publisher to make each one the required size and print them out.

For the title I decided to cut out a row of balloons in bright colours and cut the letters for happy birthday out of them. I did this on craft robo using a template that I made when I made a similar book for his brother. I used a range of pearlescent papers as these cut so well with my machine. I had intended leaving them like that but I knew these would be quite 'busy' pages, so I chose a fairly neutral background paper and it didn't stand out through the cut letters in my balloons. So then I cut some more letters and put a letter of a contrasting colour in each balloon. Then I had the idea for the number train along the lower edge. This was a template that I bought from craftuprint, with a young grandson's birthay in mind. It was an SGV file which normally I would open in inkscape and cut straight to my craftrobo, but this time I could not make the cutter 'see' the file. After many abortive tries, and a wasted afternoon, (even my computer-smart hubby couldn't get it to work!), I had a rethink. I moved the engine and just the carriages that I wanted (there is template for every letter and number) on to a new page and printed them. I scanned this sheet into the computer, converted it to a bitmap and loaded this into craftrobo using the design master software that I bought separately. I then discovered that the carriages were not all the same size so I had to do a bit more adjusting, but eventually, Hey presto! I had my train. Was it worth it? Well I think so.

Once the train and balloons were glued in place, it was relatively straightforward to mount the photos and arrange them on the pages. I am not good with empty spaces so I cut out a few puffs of white smoke to go on the left hand page, and tied a bunch of smaller balloons to the rear carriage.

I had not intended to do this for a challenge, but there is a new challenge blog this week called Crafting for all seasons, and they suggested a scrapbook page as one possibility for their first challenge which is Anything Goes, so I shall be linking this to their blog.

Just forget the world

I thought I might not have time to make a card for Daring cardmakers this week, but their challenge was to be inspired by a Cold Play song, Chasing cars, and I love that whole CD. Also I need a male birthday card for a family member next week, so I decided to have a go, and here is what I made.

The stamp is by Crafty Individuals.

I have actually used a Christmas backing paper from the Artylicious CD, Season's Greetings, but the holly is hidden underneath the image.

The panels are cream card distressed with antique linen, tea dye and rusty hinge ink pads.

The letter tiles are from an A4 sheet in my stash that is ancient, and its origin is forgotten. I like it because I have a Woodware punch that it fits perfectly.

The swirl was cut using a Marrianne die, and sprayed with That Special Touch, copper mica mist.

The lace edging is a Martha Stewart punch, and the birthday greetings is a copper peel-off.



I am entering this card for the Daring Cardmakers' Challenge: Chasing Cars.
Truly Scrumptious Challenge 57: Anything goes
CrfatyCatz Challenge 83: Anything goes

Magic!

We are making kinetic cards for the Bah! Humbug! challenge this week. There are not so many entries this time so maybe folk are finding it a bit difficult. I decided to make a magic slider card, a technique I learned with Hazel from Horseshoe crafts, back in the days when it was my local craft shop. I spent many happy days in her workshops, and learned lots of new ideas. I haven't made another card like this since then, so when I got a bit stuck I looked on the net for tutorials to jog my memory. I found several but the one that followed the same method as I was trying to use was by Christina of Card-Making-Magic. Thank you Christina.

I chose some beige linen effect card for my stamped image, which is a cute nativity scene from Penny Black. I stamped it with Memento tuxedo black so I could use copic markers to add some colour. Then I stamped it again with Stazon on to acetate, and assembled it as per the tutorial. To decorate the front frame I used a home made script stamp (using imagepac), and a variety of small silhouette stamps from SeeD's, Stampendous pefectly clear, and Crafty Individuals. Because of the textured surface of the card, these did not work too well, so I touched them up with a black memento pen. I have found this such a useful little item to keep to hand. A small piece of organza ribbon threaded through the eyelet will encourage the recipient to 'pull' and reveal the magic.

Although a child would love this mechanism, it is perhaps not colourful enough to attract them, but even an adult would enjoy the surprise element of it.

I am entering this card in Bah! Humbug! Challenge 20; Kinetic Cards

Moving back to traditional colours

Yes, I'm moving back to traditional Christmas colours for my card this week.

I used the same CD, Crafters' Companion Vintage Christmas, as I did for my previous card, and this time I chose a Santa image, because it was in a circular frame that I thought would go well with my scalloped circle Marianne die. I wanted the image behind the die cut with the decoupaged layers spilling over on top of it, so I needed to cut out the centre of the frame. I got careless here and left myself with only about a quarter of a centremeter all round to fix it in place. Fortunately the layers also helped and I mounted the whole thing directly onto the base instead of using foam pads, so that held it all together. It was rather dull against the green base card so I cut a panel of thick, cream parchment and edged it with a scalloped lace punch by Martha Stewert. Then I stamped all over it with my all time favourite Christmas holly stamp from Penny Black. It is just perfect for lifting a plain back ground. I assmbled it all and added a strip of green velvet, scalloped ribbon from Cosmo Cricket. The two jelly embellishments come from a Vaessen-creative Christmas scrapbooking kit. I stuck the lower one a bit off line, but as my eyesight is not too good, being slightly crooked is almost a hallmark of all my crafting, so I am not going to risk trying to move it.

I am entering this card in this challenge:

Craftyhazelnuts Christmas Challenge 21; Let's see some scallops

Am I Stressed or Distressed?

Not at all, but that is the theme for the card I have made today. I needed a fairly straightforward design as I am a bit close to the challenge deadline so I chose to print out an image from the Crafters' Companion CD, Vintage Christmas. It was a decoupage sheet but I didn't feel she needed to be layered. She is so sweet just as she is.

I matted her onto some torn card from the colour core'dinations Chocolate Box stack. For the base card I chose white and one of the glimmer mist screens, the smaller swirl. I used sponge to dab on ink from two Distress ink pads, walnut dye and tumbled glass, moving the screen around so the whole card was covered. I used the same two ink pads to distress around the edges of the card. I mounted the image at an angle and across the base I glued some off-white lace topped with red organza ribbon and a bow. A couple of flowers from my stash, lightly coloured and joined with a flower brad, finished it off.

I am entering this card in:
Craftyhazelnuts Christmas Challenge 20, Don't get stressed about Distressing.
Creative Craft challenges; Distressed/Vintage
The Paper Shelter Challenge 14; Distress to Impress

Butterfly, flutter by

Since I was a very small child, I have had a deep interest in nature, including all the creepy crawlies (much to my mum and sister's horror!), but my real favourites are butterflies. So I was a bit disappointed on moving to Spain, to discover that there are not a lot of butterflies around here, and certainly no very exotic ones. But one afternoon I found this rather sad specimen, dead of course, by my gate. I decided I could use it for something crafty, so from this photos I made a black and white image. I then made a clear stamp of it using my imagepac kit.

Next I resized it, drew some free-hand flowers, torn netting and swirls and leaves, and scanned these into the computer. I then computer generated some text and using a mixture of Publisher, paint and Corel PSP, I cobbled together this collage. Unfortunately I was unable to get the contrast balance quite right between the various elements so I never managed to make a successful stamp of this, but I stored it to use as a 'digistamp'.

So this week I decided to dig it out and make a card. I was working to this sketch, and I found some lovely butterfly paper that I remember buying at the Hobby craft show a few years back, to make the side panels. For the centre I chose a fairly plain antique gold paper.

I wanted to keep the butterfly close to its natural colours so I stamped it onto white card and coloured it with copic markers. To make it more of a feature, I cut it out, rubbed it all over with a versamark pad and heat embossed it. I only used one layer of fine powder because I wanted to be able to shape the wings a little without cracking the glaze.

I then thought I would use just part of the collage for my script panel, so I printed this onto white card that I had coloured with a very pale copic pen so that it didn't look too stark. Because I wanted to add colour with the same copic pens as I had used on the butterfly, I went into my printer properties and increased the ink volume to maximum and as soon as it came through the printer I threw fine embossing powder all over it. You do have to work quickly to do this, but it gives a good image for colouring or painting. I then linked the central panel to the colours of the side panel butterflies by covering the joins with pale pink sticky ribbon top and bottom, and a matching brighter pink down the sides. The glossy butterfly was attached under the panel, and three pink flowers from my stash completed the design, and here it is.

I am entering this card in the following challenges.
The first challenge on the new Card and a Half Blog; Following a sketch.
Daring Cardmakers: The Darlin' Bugs of May
One Stitch at a Time Challenge 62; Anything goes.
Scrappy Frogs Challenge; Anything goes.