Another Bargain, and a whole bunch of snippets

In my previous post I used a new stamps and matching dies set that I bought , at a very reduced price, from Sizzix, so this time I am using a second set, bought from the same sale, at the same fantastically low price.

For just 6.67 € I got two large and two small flower dies plus two sizes of centres, and three large flower stamps plus two smaller ones, and six alternative centres. Quite a bargain. 

Of course you don´t need to use of them but as I wanted to try them out, my first card has one flower on it that incorporates all the flower stamps and dies, and one set of centres, and here it is.

This is not a very clear photo so some of the stamping is not visible, but what look like plain white petals in the second layer have fine script stamped on them. To match the flower I raided my pink snippets box and found a piece of the pink and mauve mottled paper that I had a whole pad of at one time, but now I mostly have off cuts. I trimmed the base of it with a Marrianne lace die and distressed the edges with Memento Rose bud ink.

The bright pink card at the bottom is packaging from a Heartfelt stamp set, which I kept because it was so bright and has a high gloss finish. I used some more of this to cut the large sentiment with a Joanna Sheen Signature Die.

If you read my previous post you will realise that this one is much the same design as I used then, with a different flower, and they are both CASing a card that I received at least two years ago from a crafting friend.

It works well with this type of topper, and enables me to make smaller (A5) cards which are better for posting to UK. 

As I was making this it struck me that, although it is not a poinsettia, this flower would sit well on a Christmas card too. So then I found several snippets of mirricard in red, green and gold and cut out some flowers in each size and style. Next I used Brilliance dew drop ink pads in pearlescent poppy, pearlescent thyme, and galaxy gold, and stamped some of each design in each colour and cut them out. Then I set about assembling them in various combinations. I was hoping to make six flowers, but I found I had a few pieces left at the end so made them into a seventh one. (It probably looks better for being less crowded!).

I have a huge box of Christmas paper snippets, so I made seven white base cards and mixed and matched my papers to make seven pairs. Then I chose something to use for the join, either with a sticky ribbon, a trim from my stash, or by die-cutting an edge. I assembled my panels and glued them to the card fronts. I added a flower to each one, and then added something to decorate them. For some of them I die cut a sentiment, or cut one with my Silhouette, and for the others I die-cut holly leaves etc.

Here is the first one finished. I liked the star paper which was left over from a sheet I made with Imagination crafts Sparkle medium and a star stencil. The sentiment was cut on my Silhouette using a purchased file, and gold sparkle vinyl. It cut out beautifully.

I had to make one of my cards in landscape orientation because I wanted to use a piece of card I had made with my cover-the-page  holly stamp, embossed in gold, with the berries coloured with a red glitter pen, and I did not have a deep enough piece to make the card portrait like the others.

Anyway, I did get all seven cards made and they will be a useful addition to my very slow-growing stash for next Christmas.

So I will link these up in Pixie´s Snippets Playground, and get over to my other blog to write about what has rocked my world this week.

A big Thank you to those who look at my creations and leave me nice comments, and especially to those who have the patience to read my ramblings on Kate´s Adventures each Friday too. I do appreciate you all.
Sally has kindly pointed out that Stamping Sensations theme is Pretty in Pink this month, so I shall link my first card over there too. Thank you Sally.

Bargain basement card

The downside of being on the mailing list for so many online craft companies is the number of unwanted messages I have to sift through every day to make sure I haven´t missed an important one! But the up side is that I get notification of some very real bargains, which occasionally I do make use of. Todays card is the result of one of those.

I am on the mailing list for Sizzix.co.uk, and a week or two ago they sent me their sale catalogue. There was not a lot to attract my attention but I did spot a set of three stamps and four dies called doodle flowers. These have been around a long time and I have often looked at them, but thought they were quite expensive. But in the sale they were knocked down from 26.69 euros to 6.67 euros. (The site insists on changing the prices to euros because it knows I am in Spain, even though I pay with my English account!). Anyway, at that price who could resist?

For my card I found a scrap of creamy yellow card that I had sprayed with gold mist, and cut the bottom layer of the main flower. Then I found the nearest match of ink and stamped the doodle onto white card and cut it with the corresponding die. The other two dies were for the base layer only, so I chose a darker ink and stamped these onto the same yellow card and cut them out.

I raided my yellow/orange/ red patterned snippets box and chose a tiny pale cream strip to cut the lace with a Marianne die, and found two other pieces that worked well with my colour scheme. The bottom piece is a little snippet left over from when I made a backing paper using a photo of a wayside poppy, back in 2013. You can read how I did this HERE.

I cut the sections out, glued them together,  and lightly dusted around the whole panel, and over the lace,  with DI Rusty Hinge. 

The little butterfly was fluttering around in my snippets box so I rescued him and cut a tiny brown body using a Memory Box die to attach him with.

I glued on the flowers and used an ancient Clarity stamp and Memento Potter´s Clay ink for the sentiment.

I also bought a couple of other bargains from Sizzix (to justify the postage charge - well that what I am telling myself anyway!), so no doubt they will be turning up on here soon.

In the meantime I will pop over to Pixie´s Snippets Playground with this card.

Fluttering by for the Butterfly Challenge

The current letter on the alphabet Butterfly Challenge over on Mrs A´s blog is "C is for Corners", so we are asked to make something using a butterfly of course, and also one or more decorative corners.

For my card I wanted to try out a new Memory Box die called Waltzing Butterflies, but although i had several corner dies to choose from them, most of them looked to heavy when used alongside this very delicate die cut. In the end I chose an element from a collection, but I am afraid I do not know what it is called. It is an older one that I had before I became more careful at storing and naming them.

I looked through my digital paper collection and chose one from a set just called Blue and Brown, from The Paper Shelter, and printed out a sheet of it. I intended to use it on a brown base card, but I only had one sheet of the right shade of brown card to match the butterflies on the paper, so I used a plain white base card and cut a brown mat, and then a layer of the printed paper. This left me with enough brown card to cut the butterflies and two corners.

I wanted to put something behind the butterfly wings to make them the focal point of my card and I was pleased to find the solid butterfly die "Asti" also from Memory Box, just fitted the ones in my new die. So I cut it out twice using some very ancient (at least 25 year old!) interference paper. It is white shot with blue and went perfectly with my card.

I then glued the layers together and added some equally ancient shiny flowers in the corner, and a few gems to give it some bling.

I have not added a sentiment at the moment as I can then use it for whatever occasion I need it for.

So I now off to link up with Mrs A´s blog, with 24 hours to spare this time!!

A NBUS card for Rudolph Day.

Right, first, for those who are wondering, a NBUS card is one made with what Darnell calls "Never Before Used Schtuff". Every now and then she offers us the challenge to use something we have bought and never used, and let´s face it, we all have some of that! You can read all about it here.

So for my entry I have used a set of 3 dies called Royal Circles, by Spellbinders. I really liked these when I bought them back last Autumn, but ever since they arrived, they have sat on my table waiting for me to be inspired.

As today is the 25th of March it is also Rudolph Day so it seemed a good idea to combine these two challenges, and here is what I made.

It took a while for me to decide the best way to combine the dies in this set, but eventually I cut the largest from a small off-cut of red card, and removed its centre with a plain circle die. Then I cut the inner one and again removed its centre. For the smallest die I used a snippet of white card and stamped a Spanish greeting in its centre. The backing paper was printed from an Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque) CD. For the embellishments I tied a bow with a new reel of green ribbon which was an absolute bargain from the todo shop this week, and cut some ivy and holly leaves with Joanna Sheen Signature dies, from tiny oddments of green card.

I then decided to make a second card with this die set, but I used a completely different colour combo. This time I used the same backing paper printed in blue, and I cut the first and second size dies together from a piece of white card rescued from a card I received last Christmas. I again removed its centre and then cut a plain circle from some silver holographic paper just big enough to go behind the inner cut out circle. It looked a bit unfinished so I carefully hand-cut the inner circle of dots that were on the ´waste´from the original cut, and glued it in place. Finally I cut the smallest die in white, and added a single robin die cut from a LOTV printed image.

I decorated this one with a white bow, and two double-layer snow flakes cut with a pair of dies from "All Occasions dies", (also NBUS items) each with a gem in the centre. A small silver sentiment in the lower corner finished it off.

At the end of her post this week, Di suggested we might make our next Snippets card to fit in with Darnell´s NBUS Challenge and the Rudolf Day Challenge at Scrappy Mo´s blog, so I am linking up with both of those as well as Pixie´s Snippets Playground, and Christmas Stamping All Year Long where the Challenge is Dies to Die 4.

Twit-Twoo

This is just a quickie before I go over to my other blog for my usual Friday post, to show a couple more things that I made to sell at my coffee morning.

Firstly here are a few coasters/candle plates. When I went on an outing to Lorca recently, we stopped at the shopping mall before the journey home, and in a little kitchen shop I spotted some mirror tiles. It was during Sale week and they were nearly giving them away, so I bought one set each of the round and the square ones. I could see them being used as coasters but they needed something to raise them up a little so I bought small self-adhesive pads at the todo shop to make them some feet. Then I  decorated them with designs cut from vinyl. Each one is only 10cm across, so it was a good way to use up some of my small pieces of vinyl, and I found enough bits to do each round one in a different colour. Just to make it more interesting, I also used a different design for each one, all taken from the files I have stored in my Silhouette cameo library. For the square ones I bought a set of three frame files from my vinyl designer, and cut two of each in the same colour.

I nearly didn´t show these as it is nigh on impossible to get a good photo, but this was one just about acceptable.

The other thing I made this week was this gorgeous basket. I love owls, and as soon as I saw this pattern on the internet I knew I had to make one. I got the pattern from a site called Crochet Ever After, and you can find it here. It was quite quick to make but a bit hard on my hands as it is crocheted with three strands of chunky wool. That makes him sturdy enough to be self-supporting and I think he is lovely. I am thinking of having another go in a different colour combination.

So I will pop over to Pixie´s Snippets Playground with my coasters, and then fly over to my other blog to do some positive thinking. Do come and join me in an hour or so.

It´s a Stand Off!!

Just a quick post today as I am getting ready for my coffee morning tomorrow. I thought I would just share another of my Easter ´makes´, this time some little ducks and chickens that each hold a Cream Egg.

They look like they are having a bit of a stand-off, ducks v chickens!

The ducks are knitted and the chickens are crocheted, both using some of the many free patterns available on the net. (Search for cream egg cosies). I adapted them for the yarn I had available. The ducks were quicker and less of a fiddle to make and I think I prefer them. For speed I used my hot glue gun to add felt eyes, beaks etc, so I need to go through them and trim off any stray glue strands. I am hopeless at using a glue gun cleanly.

Getting Ready for Easter

With Easter coming up very soon, and the fact that I have committed to having a table at two events - a coffee morning next week followed by the village Gallarte Exhibition over the Easter weekend - I have been on the look out for some quick and easy items to make.

I was browsing the design store for my Silhouette Cameo last week when I saw the cutting files for some cute little boxes, both by Lori Whitlock. I thought they might be just the thing to hold some little chocolate treats so I bought the files and had a go at making them. And I was really pleased with how they turned out.

It took a sheet and a half of A4 card to make each one, but as I have enough card to last my lifetime, I was happy to put some to good use. My snippets boxes furnished me with pieces for the ears, beaks, bows and flowers etc, and I cut up a tatty doily for the lace along the front, and shredded some ancient green tissue paper to line the boxes. 

At our local Lidl store I bought a bag of hollow eggs and some little chocolate bunnies and chicks to go in them. On average they cost me 50c to make, so I should be able to get some profit from them at my sales. There is no guarantee as the tabletop sale will be attended by my retired English friends who do not have many children to buy for out here, and I am still struggling to find what items will sell to my Spanish community at the village expo. But they were fun to make, and will brighten up my table. Plus I have an in-house chocolate eater who will be quite happy if I bring them home again!!

As I used several snippets of card for the finishing touches I will pop over to Pixie´s Snippets Playground with these.

H is for hexagons

H is for Hexagons is the theme over on Mrs A´s Butterfly Challenge blog this week, that´s hexagons and a butterfly of course. I was prompted to enter this challenge when I bought a new digi scrapbook kit  from Kimeric Kreations at Digichick called It´s a Guy Thing . When I buy a kit I like to download it straight away and unzip all the files, so I can look closely at all the items, and arrange them in folders as I like them, ready for when I want to use it. With this kit there was a folder called Graffiti and one of the elements in it was a patch of hexagons. So starting with that, and using other items from the elements folder and the matching alphabet, I built up a design in Photoshop, and then flattened all the layers and saved it as a jpg file. I rather liked the flower made from half of a zip fastener.

Next I used publisher to resize my image to fit twice onto an A4 sheet of paper, and printed it out.

I cut one of the prints to fit onto an A5 card, and the other to fit a 15cm square card. I made the base cards from some more sheets of the mottled turquoise card that I used in an earlier post.

I also had a new butterfly die that I wanted to try out. It is from Wild Rose studio, and I bought a large lacy butterfly from there a while ago that I am really pleased with, so when I saw they had a smaller one too, I decided to order it, and it arrived last week. So using a snippet of card from my box that matched the base card, I cut out the butterfly, and also drew around the outer edge of the die and cut this out. I covered it with wide, double sided sticky tape, and glued the two butterflies together, trimming the back layer to the same size as the fancy one. Then I rubbed a mixture of blue, green and aqua glitters over the lacey spaces to make a sparkly butterfly, which I added to my square card.

Occasionally at my Wednesday craft group, someone donates left over materials and bits and pieces, and recently I was given several packets of part-used embellishments. One of these had three layered flowers in it that exactly matched my colour scheme, so I used these to finish off the larger card, along with a shiny butterfly sticker from my stash.

So now I have two cards which I feel could equally be given to a woman or a man, and what´s more, I´ve actually used one of my digikits!  I am addicted to buying these kits. I just love the pretty papers and all the matching embellishments, but I am not so good about finding time to make the scrapbook pages with them. Perhaps, now I have done some cards, I might move on to a Lay Out.

In the meantime, I´ll link up with Mrs A´s Butterfly Challenge, and Pixie´s Snippets Playground.