Saturday 1 December 2012

Those roses again

This card looks pretty unassuming from the outside but packs a punch when opened. Little pockets inside are ideal for tags, bookmarks, gift cards or money. We got maximum use of our stamp this week!

Inside view one.

Inside view two.

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Inspiration from Pinterest.

Am I being narcissistic?

This is how my version turned out. I'm really pleased with it, especially with the threaded ribbon die cut again, but then I am biased! Lol

Tuesday 27 November 2012

Finnish star decoration.

This was another escapee!! I eventually found the instructions on YouTube after seeing the idea on another blog. It was lots of fun to make!

One that nearly got away!

This is one of the projects we did earlier in the year but I forgot to photograph! We made a shaker card and the little squares left over were used for another card previously posted. I have had so much use from this little stamp!

Vellum roses

This card had the ladies stamping on vellum with a versamark ink pad and embossing white. The image was then coloured from behind and layered up. We used card candi to cover the glue dots on the day but to be honest the vellum was such good quality the glue was hardly noticeable anyway.

Rudolph makes a return!

This time as a card at Cleo crafts class! It's hard to see in the photo but the topper is suspended with a narrow strip of acetate. We also had a little play with the inka gold which I bought at the Birmingham show. That's what we used to give the pearly sheen to the raised areas of the embossed layer. Love, love, love it!!! Pity the greeting isn't just centred as well as I'd like tho, lol.

Monday 19 November 2012

Butterflies galore







Well I must have done something right because Heather asked me back to do a class for her on Saturday. This was a wee quick and easy card using spellbinders and tonic dies.


Sent from my iPad

Christmas decoration.

Just as a break from the cards we made this little decoration. It could, of course, be attached to a card but would need to be either hand delivered or a box for postage. Spellbinders dies again, this time teamed with Tim Holtz tattered florals die.

Birthday wishes

Diesire and spellbinder labels 10 dies, an embossing folder and lots of lovely distress ink! The sentiment is from an imagination crafts stamp set. Love it!

Snowflake wishes

So when we had the inks out we played with the free stamp from Craft Stamper magazine and WOW clear sparkle embossing powder.

Saturday 17 November 2012

Laced Celtic Circle.

This card is the result of one of those half asleep ' I wonder' times. I got to thinking that it would be possible to weave ribbon around the slots on this Celtic die fron Tonic studios. Again the craft stamper free gift fitted the bill perfectly and the weaving works. For some reason I think this has a Scottish feel.

Embossed squares.

A quick card for my regular class in Cleo Crafts this week. Small embossed squares teamed with soft gold paper give a simple but stylish finish.

Stocking for Doodlecraft

Heather asked me to take the class for her on Wednesday and I had enjoyed making the wee stocking so decided to adapt it to suit some of her supplies. We also used the free snowflake stamp from the craft stamper magazine, stamped with walnut stain distress ink, to create the pattern on the main stocking piece. Smaller bells and a snowflake border with gems just change the design up a little bit.

Vintage star decoration

This was our advanced class project at the beginning of October. It's made out of 12 kite shaped pieces of card folded, stuck and with embossed edges. The vintage flower embelishment from wild orchid crafts teamed with a gem which we also embossed with gold powder covered the gap left in the centre and the whole decoration looks lovely (providing it hasn't been dunked in tea) LOL. This was a really popular project.

Sunday 11 November 2012

Mina's got candy!!

Head over to pinkpuds.blogspot.co.uk for your chance to win!!

Up to date again!

Well almost! I know there a few things I've missed but I have to track them down and photograph them. I went to The craft show in Birmingham on Thursday and got some new things to play with! What an exhausting but fun time I had, with my friends Gwen, Ruth and Edna. Thanks girls, I had a great day!! We also got to meet some folks we were more used to seeing on tv, so forgive me if i do some name dropping, lol. Id like to say hi to Leann and Sara from Crafters Companion. It was a pleasure to meet you both and thanks for taking time out of your busy day to chat with us! The E-bosser is top of my wish list for Christmas!!! Well I don't suppose it will be long before you see some new posts when I've had a chance to play! ;)

Just experimenting

Sometimes I like to make something " just for me." I'm really pleased with this one. It's about 6" tall and could hang on the tree or alone on the wall.

Christmas workshop, 3/11/12

What a fun day we had!!! Can't wait till 1st December when I get to make them all again. If you missed this class the first time, and wanted to go,be sure to book your place soon. They're sure to fill up quickly!!

Santa gift bag.

We decorated a little take-out bag to get us started with our Christmas workshop. Since I did a grown up version last year I thought I would have a bit of fun with it this time!

Ho, Ho, Ho card.

Our second project was a Christmas card. It is a case of one by someone called Dawn,a stampin up lady. I loved how the snowflakes, embellished with card candi made the "o"s. the letters were cut using the Cricut machine and the Jasmine cartridge.

Sweet place setting.

I wanted to give the ladies an idea of something to use as a little token gift or place setting. I got the idea from the inking Idaho blog and adapted it to suit the dies and materials to hand. It's not particularly Christmassy but could be used for wedding favours too. Another suggestion, from Margaret, was to make it slightly larger to accommodate a battery operated tea light instead of the sweet as shown here.

Wall hanging

I wanted to make a little something to hang on the wall as well as tree decorations so this is what I came up with. The star shapes were cut using the Cricut machine. The middle layer was passed through an embossing machine and the raised areas skimmed with versamark ink then sprinkled with clear sparkle embossing powder from wow and heat set. After the layers were put together we used the cropadile to punch holes for the wire which we them attached and twisted. We embellished the wire with hessian string and ribbon and the star itself with more string and a little wooden shape. The ladies kept saying, " you'd pay a fortune, in the shops, for something like this!" Just shows what a little imagination can achieve! Lol

Let it snow!

This was the final project for our Christmas workshop. It is a tree decoration but its hiding a secret! The bauble is a spellbinders die and we made a rosette and cut some sparkly snowflakes too then put it all together with some ribbon, a button and a jingle bell to finish off.

Snow much fun, a peg and a magnet!!

This photo shows the peg on the back and there is also a magnet so this decoration can be used in many ways, pegged to the tree stuck to the fridge for your notes or however you wish.

Sing Rudolph, sing

This is another project I borrowed from someone else. I saw the idea when trawling the net. Whatever did I do before when I had creative block? I had used the same folding technique to make cards a couple of years ago but had forgotten about it until I saw the idea for this little guy. The ladies in my class absolutely loved him. Hope you do too!

Scraps tag

This card is another of my "let's use up scraps" projects. The papers used were left over from my preparation for the Christmas workshop and far too nice for the bin! Combined with some trimming and a seasonal stamp I think I got away with it!!

Let the light shine at Christmas

There seems to be something of a blue theme running through my cards at the minute! Both images come together in the set along with a few other little star/ snowflake type things. We worked the emboss resist technique again for the background with simple stamping and colouring for the focal image. A little bit of ribbon and some card candi complete the story.

Masked ornament

For this card we use the negative cut out as a mask before stamping the snowflakes with versamark ink. We white embossed them before replacing the masks and adding colour with distress ink. The snowflakes were embellished with pearl gems and these were also used to hang the ornament. It's hard to see on the photo but we used a clear sparkle jelly roll pen to add shadow on one side. The snowflake theme is carried on with the little images on the sentiment.

Decoupage wise men

I must admit this is one of 'those' stamps which, when you go to use it, completely stumps you. There was so much detail in the zentangle design that I felt too much colour would be over the top. After sleeping on it I decided decoupage was the answer. I first tried embossing the stamped image but when i tried to colour the embossing reacted with pro markers so,when in doubt,pull out the distress inks! These combined with a water brush to pull the stain out resulted in this design. It was lovely to be able to combine it with this sentiment. They suit each other well!

When is a heart not a heart?

When it's a Christmas tree!! This is one way to use a stamp you wouldn't generally consider at this time of year. Some layering, a piece of ribbon for the trunk and a few snowflake sequins as a star on top = Simple but effective!

Snowflake decorations

This was an idea I borrowed from some talented ladies from stampin up. We used some Woodware snowflake stamps on 3" square pieces of card before doing some folding and sticking. You can see we experimented with colours and I love how they fold up small so they can be stored away once the Christmas season is over.

Monday 5 November 2012

Faux marbelling

At least I think that's what this technique is called! It was discovered by accident when my friend was playing with my ipad. Happy accident!! :)

Birthday rosettes

We made this card because many of the ladies in the class had never made a rosette before. This one is for hand delivery as it is quite deep!

Blue Christmas

Having fun with acetate and how it looks embossed with a folder. Love the colours and the peacock feathers distress ink is just perfect with the paper. The background stamp is from Woodware and the snowflake is a spellbinders die.

Old fashioned Santa

I love the vintage feel of this card. The stamped image is coloured using distress inks and a water brush. The punch is from EK success.

Acetate window

A Woodware stamp again, this time we coloured with, pro markers, on the back of acetate which had the image heat embossed with black powder.

Waiting for Santa

The idea for this decoration came from the Little Claire stamp website. The stamp is from Kars.

Bottle cap beauties

This wee stamp again!! Love how the images just pop into the bottle caps. There's a piece of acetate on top to protect the colour and the rim of the cap is dipped in sparkly embossing powder but doesn't show up too well.

Christmas gift box in a bag

The instructions for this can be found on splitcoaststampers in their resources section.

Christmas squares

Back to this woodware stamp. It has been very versatile and I have so many more ideas using it! The punched squares were left over from another project, which I must find and photograph!! Lol

Watercolour phlox

Simply stamped and then we dragged the colour out with a water brush. Stamps are from Woodware.

Not more blooming butterflies, LOL.

1st Christmas card of the year.

Sunday 12 August 2012

Cardigans!

Yippee!! This is the last one and I'm up to date!!


Once again thanks go to Ruth Hamilton on apassionforcards.blogspot.com. I love her CARDigans!! Once more we used some off cuts form last weeks envelope and tag mini. I guess we might be using them up for a wee while but that's how it goes. I used a Martha Stewart punch for my frills and a paper crimped. The buttons are card candi and the main body of the card is embossed with the Swiss dots cuttlebug folder. Some white faux stitching around the collar completes this fun card(igan). :)

Ps.. PLeeease can I get off the naughty step now. I will be good from now on, honest!

Stamping with bubble wrap.

That's right bubble wrap!


This is what happens when you are struggling for inspiration. Sometimes it comes from the strangest places. Cue catching sight of a bundle of bubble wrap. Ok I know your first instinct is to start popping, but this time I went 'I wonder?' and the background for this card was born, lol!
Out came the trusty distress inks and a very satisfying while experimenting with how to get the stamped bubbles just right. Putting the ink straight on there and pressing the card straight on gave a very mixed colour background, not suitable for this project. Try again stamping each colour individually with loose wrap, better but still the colours are too strong. How to control it? Well I ended up cutting pieces of bubble wrap and securing them with elastic bands around the reels left when ribbon runs out. No I don't throw anything out!! Lol. I WILL find a use for it..., some day!!! I could now control exactly where the colour went and if some were too strong then I could stamp them off onto a scrap piece and use the 2nd generation colour. Sorted! The stamp is another Papermania urban stamp! The edges of the card were distressed with a blade, carefully, then inked with a couple of the main colours and finally black soot. The bottom edge of the red mat layer is punched with one of the new crafty edger cartridges, also called butterflies, and embellished with some self adhesive pearls.

Envelope and tag mini album.

August advanced class.

Would you believe me if I told you that this was made with only 3 dl envelopes. There were lots of pockets for tags, 8 in fact, and some pages which flipped over as well. The papers are "Beautiful Moments" by Carta Bella, and I love, love, love them!! Everyone had fun finding all the pockets for their tags once it was completed.

Flip mini book/card.


YouTube is such a fantastic place to go for inspiration. The only problem is that there is so much on there that its easy to loose whole days and forget where you got ideas. For that reason apologies to whomever I got this one from!
Also I haven't taken photos of the inside but the pages flip open in all different directions so it is really interactive but hard to photograph, sorry!
We made this to match the advanced project, using up lots of the off cuts of paper. Waste not want not!! We also kept the bird theme.