One for my sister.

Some of you will by now have made the connection between myself and my sister Jean Straw, who is also a crafter and has her own blog called My Crafty Corner. Do pop over and see her work sometime. Her style is very different from mine, but she makes some lovely things. Anyway, when it is her birthday, of course I want to make a special card for her, so last week, this is the one I made.

The little girl is a Sugar Nellie digistamp. Her name is Grace, and I think she is so pretty. I printed her onto white card and I had intended to cut her out with a Marianne circle die, but I realised that it had too many 'cut-out' areas which would cut into the image, so instead I drew round the outer edge of the die and cut it by hand. I coloured her with my copic markers, edged the circle with Brilliance pearlescent lavender, and then layered her onto another Marianne die cut circle. This was layered onto a piece of printed backing paper from my stash, and then on to a lavender base card. I added paper candy dots to three corners and in the fourth corner I again made a boho flower from printed mauve paper and added a light spray of silver mica mist. I layered this over two Marianne cut foliage pieces. (I expect you gathered that I rather like my Marianne dies!).

I was pleased with the end result, so as it was also my lovely daughter-in-law's birthday last week, I made the same card again but with slightly different backing paper and a different shade of lilac paper for the large circle mount, again using up pieces from my stash. It wasn't quite such a good colour as the original, but I sprayed her flower with copious purple mica mist because I knew she would love that. (She tells me that she has just dyed her hair purple!).

I am entering these cards into these challenges.
Make it Monday Linky Party 46: Any project.
Joyful Stamper: Inspire me Fridays Linky party 15.
Stampalot Challenge for July: Anything Goes.
Southern Girls Challenge 23: Happy Birthday.
Scrappy Frogs Challenge: Summer Flowers.

A Shaped Card

A shaped card is what Bah! Humbug! challenged us to make this week, so my mind immediately thought of lots of ideas, but because I am trying to keep my challenge cards more simple, to leave me time for other crafting as well, I settled on a circle. I know there are several lacy circle die sets available, but somehow they are never just the size I want, so I decided a while back to try designing my own using Design Master for CraftRobo. That way I can resize them as needed. So I made a template for a scalloped lace circle using a large circle and the letter 'O' from a fairly heavy font (I can't remember which one worked best).So when I came to make this card I decided to use that template and I added a plain circle to the back to make a folding card. It actually took me several attempts and several spoilt sheets of card before I managed to cut the base card out as I wanted it, but more of that later. Next I used the same basic circle and a smaller one to make a ring of blue pearlescent paper to go behind the edge. I could have just used a whole large circle but this way I have still got a fair size circle of my precious royal blue paper to use as a mount another time! For the stamp I chose one by Creative expressions, which, although not quite circular, I felt would fit into my circle frame quite well. I actually made a whole run of cards with this stamp when I bought it a good few years ago, but I don't think it has had an airing since then! I used Versafine majestic blue ink and a stamping mat which together gave me a good image. I also stamped a small greeting at the base of the trees in the same ink.

I added some sparkle to the snowy trees with stickles, and added a tiny gem to the largest stars. Hopefully that makes my card eligible for Crafty Hazelnuts challenge to use stars, though I may manage a better one later in the week. I trimmed a tiny sliver off the scallops at the base of the card to help it to stand, and added a bow to the fold at the side. Inside I stamped a simple sentiment (There was no writing on the wood block so it's origin is unknown.)

I am entering this card in:
Bah!Humbug! Christmas Challenge 28: Make a shaped card.
Celebrate the Occasion Challenge 22: Christmas; Must be a shaped card.

As I said above, I spoiled some card cutting it, so rather than waste it I used some to make another card. I had used one lacy circle as a trial run to see how the stamp fitted, and as it was a good print I used that. I had to hand cut a couple of scallops that had missed in the craftrobo, and this time it wasn't attached to a plain back. So I cut a circle of silver holographic paper to go behind it so it only showed though the lace, and not around the edge, and then mounted it onto a deep blue 15cm square card. I embellished the image as for the one above, and added three matching gems to the lower right hand corner, balancing them with a bow in the top left corner.If I am honest, I think I prefer the square card, but it wouldn't have fitted the challenges above. However, I am entering both cards in:

Christmas inspirations Challenge 29; Free Christmas project.
Digistamps 4 Joy Challenge 23: Christmas in July, with snow and ice.
Stamp Something Challenge: Christmas in July Somethings.
Simply Create Challenge 48: Christmas time.
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge 29: Seeing Stars.
And I am linking them both to Shirley-Anne's blog, Stamping for Joy, towards my target of 50 cards.

A Big Welcome

Hi happy crafters. I am so thrilled to find that my group of followers has topped twenty now, so I just wanted to say a big welcome to all the new folk who have joined my group. I have managed to send personal e-mails to some of you, but if I have missed you, you are still just as welcome. I love to read your kind comments on my little offerings, and to visit you to see what you have been doing. I hope that some of the things I make and do will give you ideas and inspiration. I have tried so many new techniques since I arrived in blogland at the end of last year, all as a direct result of inspiration from other bloggers, so hopefully I can pass on some of the love.

I really love that I am making friends from around the world through our mutual interest in all things crafty, though so far I haven't got a follower from what is now my home country of Spain.

One of my newer friends is Shirley-Anne from Australia. She makes some lovely things, so do pop over to her blog, Stamping for Joy, and have a look. On her blog she has laid down the challenge to make 50 Christmas cards by December 1st. I have just counted my makes so far this year and find I have 38 (I thought it might be rather more!) but of course none of these have been linked to her blog, so I am a late starter. I am going back to yesterdays post to link that as my first entry, and then I will have to get my skates on to catch up. I certainly need at least fifty more, so there's an incentive to start with. I met Shirley-Anne through the Make it Monday challenge blog which is a great place to go if you want somewhere to showcase scrapbook pages, ATCs and other papercrafts as well as cards of course.

And now, because I can't do a craft post without showing a picture, here is a card I made a while ago when I sorted through some rather old stash, and decided to make something useful with some of it. It has not been entered for any other challeng

es, not been shown on my blog before. It is using a dufex pirima ge sheet, cut and layered, using 1mm sticky pads because too di mensional cards are not ideal for international posting. This is matted onto a spare scrap of light blue paper from my off-cuts box which has been punched once on each edge with a fiskars border punch. The panel is then mounted onto a square navy card and a silver peel-off greeting added across the corner. I hope this can be card number two towards the target fifty.

A Little Giving.

Here's a quick and easy card from me this time.

Acording to the ABC Christamas challenge, N is for No Nonsense, so we needed to make a simple card with no designer backing papers and the minimum of 'extras'. I was also making a card for Bah! Humbug! who wanted to see some 'meeces'. Well as I only have three stamps with mice on, all by Great Impressions, it was not a too difficult choice, and I decided on the one where these two friends are exchanging Christmas gifts. So I stamped them onto plain white card and coloured them with copic markers. Then I cut the image out with nesties label 4 die and edged it with brilliance sky blue ink. For the base card I printed the sentiment from the computer in blue, then used my swiss dots cuttlebug folder to emboss the top two thirds of the card. It wasn't quite long enough so I had to emboss the last two rows of dots down one edge by hand. Then I found a length of blue spotted ribbon to go across the card and mounted the label panel on it with thin sticky pads. A touch of stickles glitter glue on the snow and it was done.

This card is for :
Bah! Humbug! Challenge 27: Meeces..
ABC Christmas Challenge: N is for No Nonsense.
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge 28: Spots before your eyes.
My Creative Moments Word Play: Christmas/Winter.
Moving Along with the Times Challenge 106: Christmas in July.
Little Red Wagon: Christmas in July.

I am also hoping to start contributing to Shirley-Annes challenge over on Stamping for Joy, to make 50 Christmas cards before 1st December, so this is my first card towards that total.

ATCs that are special to me.

A few years ago I was a regular contributor to the Stampman ATC swap, but it became so busy that they couldn't cope with the practicalities as well as the running of the shop, so it closed. I knew it had restarted over a year ago but with my move to Spain, I never got around to joining in, but this month I decided to give it a go. You can find the details here.

The theme for July was Vintage. Now I have quite a pile of vintage photos that I have bought in sets, or downloaded onto my computer, but as I was thinking which ones to use, I had the idea to use something much more special to me, and that is this lovely photo of my maternal Grandparents. I never met them, but I just love this photo, taken around 1905 I think. She is so elegant and he so proud.

I made a few copies of the photo and for my first ATC I passed a memory glass slide through my little Xyron quick sticker, and pressed it over just my Grandmother's picture. I cut this out and edged it with aged mahogony distress ink. (This didn't dry properly but it did leave a hint of colour). Then I found some burgundy card with a gold sheen if you look at it at an angle, and embossed it in my cuttlebug. It looked a bit too good, so I sanded it, rubbed it with walnut stain distress ink and spritzed it with water. I glued a small strip of lace, left over from a scrapbook page, about two thirds of the way down, and mounted the slide at the left hand side. I then chose two feathers to glue the other side, (My ever-present lazy cat got so excited when I got my feather box out I think she would have attacked them all if I hadn't got the lid back on fast. I've never seen her so animated!), and then I knew it needed a flower to finish it off. My punches were all too large or too small, so I found a selection of paper flowers from my stash, all variations of pink and white. I rubbed tea dye and victorian velvet inks onto my craft mat and spritzed them, and let my paper flowers soak it all up. With some difficulty I then layered them up with a brad fastener through the centre, screwed them up and passed the petal edges through aged mahogony and walnut stain ink. Then I flattened it out, and when it was dry I glued it to the base of the feathers.

Then I thought I would use just my Grandfather's image for the second one. Although this photo was taken prior to the Great War, and though to the best of my knowledge he didn't die in that war, I have used his photo before to represent 'the great fallen', (See my top right side bar), and I wanted to do so again. Using a lighter brown base card I cut a mask and stamped part of the Crafty Individuals poppy field stamp across the base. I used copic markers to add a little subtle colour. I then used old paper distress ink to colour some ordinary copy paper and printed out the words of one verse from the Ballad of Willie McBride, also known as The Green Fields of France. This is a very poignant song that I have loved ever since I first heard it many years ago at a folk club. If you are not familiar with it, do spare a moment or two to read the rest of the lyrics which you will find one version of here, though there are are several others with small differences. This is the version I have on CD so I am more familiar with it. To make the 'brown leather frame, I screwed up a small piece of brown card, and rubbed it with walnut stain ink and then spritzed it, and left it to dry. Then I tore round the words and layered them up with the framed photo. I used two very small paper flowers, colouring them with barn door ink as for the flower above, and fixed them with a black mini-brad to make a poppy for the top right corner, and in the left I added two brown folk-heart brads.

I needed one more card for my swap, so this time I used the photo of both of them and added a metal frame from my stash. I had a piece of card, partially embossed, left over from my first ATC so I used that as the base. In the main photo, the 'props' were a fence and trailing leaves which gave me the idea to use a small piece of green mesh cut on the bias to represent a trellis, and some woven fibre 'ribbon' for the leaves. It lacked something so I added random tiny pearls for flowers. Then I found some beads from recycled jewellry that I buy in local markets, and threaded them on brown cord to hang below the picture, and covered the rather untidy join with a small cream organza bow. I hope you think I did my grandparents proud.

As well as the Stampman swap, I am entering these for the
Make it Monday linky party number 45.
Theme Thursday Challenge: Vintage.
Art Impressions Challenge 23: Use something from your stash.
One Stitch at a Time Challenge 70: Anything goes.

I am also linking to a new challenge for me called ABC because their current challenge is Y is for Yesterday. I am not sure if entries are meant to be a greetings card, but these fit the bill so well that I am giving it a try. I'm sure if it is only cards, they will let me know for next time.

A Birthday Card for a Friend

One of my crafting friends turned 70 today so, of course, I made her a card. It just so happens that earlier this week I received an order from Chocolate Baroque which contained three sheets of their new stamp releases, so what better way to try some of them out.

I knew my friend likes butterflies so it was easy to decide which stamp to use as the main image. I wanted to work mainly in one colour, so I cut a 14cm square of white card and used a sponge to add some Memento rhubarb stalk ink, making it darker around the edges. Using the same ink pad I stamped the main image and added a little extra colour with copic markers. I then chose a large swirl stamp from a second sheet of my new stamps, and used sections of it to stamp all around the card. I mounted this onto a dark burgundy base card, and used pink and plum stickles to highlight the spots on the butterfly's wings.

For the corner embellishment I had a go at making some boho flowers. This was only my second attempt and I was very pleased with them. The larger one was not too difficult though the tiny ones were a bit fiddly. I made them from layers of pink card and white heavy paper rubbed with the rhubarb stalk ink pad. While they were still wet I wiped them through some of the ink that I had put on my craft mat, and then when they had dried I added a touch here and there of the darker stickles glitter glue. I could tell you how I made these flowers but a lady called Carole Claxton has kindly put an excellent tutorial on her blog which you can find here, so there is no point in my repeating it all.

Using the off-cuts of the base card, I cut two 'forest branches' with a Marianne die and using the back of one of them so that they both curved inwards, I glued them from the bottom left corner, and then glued the flowers in place over them. A small greeting in the same ink, added to the top right corner, finished it off.

I am linking this card to these challenges:
Scrappy Frogs Challenge: Summer Flowers.
Creative Craft Challenge: Pretty Blossoms.
Ooh La La Creations Challenge 83: Summer Flowers.
Make it Monday 44: All Papercrafts
Joyful Stamper: Inspire me Fridays 14 linky party.

Poppy

This is a card I made a couple of weeks back, for one of my sisters. but as her birthday wasn't until last week, and I had to allow extra time for the vagaries of Spanish mail, I didn't want to put it on my blog until now.

This was my first attempt at Sheena Douglas' paint fusion. I have been 'sitting on' the stamps for a while but I have only just been able to source out here the paint she recommends, and when I tried with my usual acrylics, they were just too thin, and I wasn't happy with the results. I am still waiting for a new order of the paints to arrive, so I only have a very limited colour range, but I had enough to attempt the poppy. I had painted it on plain white card which looked rather stark to use as a topper, so in the end I cut the flower and its leaves out, and made a meadow background to mount it on.

For the background I sponged all over the card with distress inks in mustard seed, shabby shutters and peeled paint. I then randomly stamped over it with an Adirondak meadow ink pad and the peeled paint, using Hero arts grasses stamp and several meadow flower stamps by Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque). I edged the card with the darker green ink, mounted the poppy and added a green stamped greeting and a butterfly peel-off. I think that was a mistake but I couldn't remove it. Another time I would stamp a small butterfly and colour it. But I was pleased with the card over all and I hope my sister was too.

I am linking this card to
Make it Monday week 44; All paper crafts.
Scrappy Frogs Challenge; Summer flowers.
Stamping Sisters in Christ Challenge 96: Clean and Simple (Well it has no fancy embellishments).
The Paper Shelter Challenge 20: Anything goes.
Craft Room Challenge; Summer birthdays.

In the pink

When one of your regular blogs sets a challenge to use something you hate, you have the choice to give it a miss this week, or stop muttering and give it a go. I decided to take the latter course, so here is my card using the infamous acetate!

For this card I used a set of images that I have had on my computer for years and I do not know their origin. I know they started as a cat sitting on a window ledge looking out onto the bare branches of a winter tree, and I expanded this into a set so I have one with and without the tree, and with or without the cat, and one of just the frame and just the cat. Using the frame and cat I printed this onto white card, cut and folded it into a standard A6 card, then cut out the window panes. Lightly pencilling around the edge of these to mark their position on the inner right hand side of the card, I used a stamp positioner, (and removed the pencil marks), to stamp inside the card with a winter tree stamp from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque). I used eclipse paper to make a frame mask for this image, and one for the hills, and using a sponge I applied shades of pink/purple inks to the sky - Versacolor in lilac, hyacinth and grape. To make it a bit more 'Christmassy' I stamped the Crafty Individuals Santa and sleigh across the sky. I then gave a suggestion of frost with stardust stickles on the hills and tree branches.

While this was drying, I stamped just the cat image and cut it out. Then I dabbed it on a versamark pad and triple embossed it, rounded it a little, and using silicone glue for dimension, I atached it to the main image. To complete the front I used the same lilac ink pad to stamp a personal Impressions (Dawn Bibby) Christmas tree, SeeDs parcels and Clarity stamps baubles, and added a peel-off greeting that I had coloured with a black permanent marker.

Oh, and of course, I covered the open window panes with a piece of ACETATE, held in place with another window frame on the inside of the card! It is very hot and sunny here and this card did not photograph well. The base card is white, not pink, but I did my best.

I am entering this card in the following challenges.
Bah! Humbug Challenge 26; Use acetate.
Craftyhazelnuts Christmas Challenge; Use Pink and/or purple.
ABC Challenge; M for monochrome.
For Fun Challenge: To cool off those who are hot!
Creative Friday Challenge 47: Christmas in July.
Our Creative Corner: Christmas in July