Inkylicious Galaxy Splatters

A quick post from me before the year ends, I posted on my blog yesterday and on a few facebook groups some cards that I'd made using the Inkylicious Splatter Circle Background Stamp that I got at the NEC back in November, and a few people asked how I did the backgrounds believing them to be complicated. In fact that were easy peasy to do, the stamp does all the hard work for you!

I used distress inks in colour combos I like using, direct from the pads to the stamp and spritzed it with some homemade shimmer spray, but plain old water would do if you don't want a shimmery background. Then using my trusty Tim Holtz Stamping Platform I applied the inky stamp to the card stock and left it sitting on top of the card, pressing it down to make sure the ink and water mixed and swirled together. Once I'd done the coloured part, I repeated the process with Black Soot Distress Ink and then left the panels to dry.

I tried applying the colours in two ways initially putting bands of colour on the stamp with small gaps in-between (leaving gaps prevents your distress ink pads becoming contaminated with darker colours of ink), the water helps the inks to pool in to the gaps so you don't get actual gaps.

The other way was to move around the stamp randomly with a selection of colours and spritz. I like both methods but prefer the random application because it looks more natural to my eye.

You can of course apply more colour I think dripping direct from a re-inker would give more intense results, I'll try doing that soon and see what happens. All of the 6" x 6" panels (that gives you an idea of the stamp size) are now ready for me to turn them into cards, I didn't want the colours to be too dark because the stamped images I want to add will be dark and run the risk of disappearing into the background. It took me all of 30 minutes to create 8 lovely galaxy style backgrounds and that included the time it took to cut the 6" x 6" pieces of card. I can see this stamp making lots of backgrounds in the future and I'm going to try the technique on my Gelli Plates to create some square and rectangular versions. Now to turn these in to cards, I have several ideas, just need to turn them in to physical things!

Christmas Playtime

I can't believe that the holidays are almost over, Si goes back to work on Wednesday, the time has sure flown by, we've been generally chilling out, eaten lots of chocolate, watched a lot of telly and done some gaming, between that and visiting family its been relaxing and fun.

I got lots of lovely crafting goodies as gifts this year, stamps, ink pads, dies, a 5" x 7" Gelli Plate, lots of Tim Holtz goodies including a second tin for my Alcohol Inks, a cover for my Stamping Platform, a Sidekick Machine and some Side Orders to go with it.

My niece and nephews got me some stamps that I can use with the wreath maker templates and fabulous set of fir trees from Inkylicious. Simon bought my a superb light that not only gives me additional light when I'm working, it also has a magnifier on it, making it easier to see what I'm working in if it involves fine details. It can be fixed to the desk with a clip or be stood on a stand like a standard lamp and there is a battery pack that can be attached for use whilst travelling if you don't have access to mains electricity. Given that I now have better light I've re-organised the craft desk to make more space, I've added a set of 4 drawers that now house my Embossing Powders, Altenew Ink Cubes, Mixed Media Paints and a few other things, much easier to gain access to them this way and I've put things I don't use as often in the places the ink cubes etc were.

There is still some clutter and things need to be organised a little better but I'm getting there, I still need to label my Oxide inks and thin out some of the other stuff, some of it will be going to my niece Zoe, for Xmas I got her a small die cutting machine and some basic kit (cardstock, scissors, glue, foam pads etc) and I gave her a lot of stuff I didn't use any more like some Docrafts dies that cut circles and scalloped squares, I have larger sets that include all the same sizes so I don't need them.

I also gave her a lot of inkpads that I didn't use, some I'd bought and NEVER used. She has taken to card making like a duck to water, I got a message from her today saying she'd just finished making a birthday card for her Dad, his birthday is on the 2nd January. As Zoe has embraced card making I'll be giving her more of the stash I no longer use, the kind of things I bought when I was just starting out, the basic training wheel stuff, not that I think I'm a professional now, but I use techniques and products that when I first started card making I didn't think I'd ever be using.

After I'd finished sorting my craft space, I decided to have a little play and dug out some of the stamps and dies that I got from the NEC back in November and made a couple of cards. Both of them have the Inkylicious Splatter background stamp on them, I used Distress inks in various shades of blue and a couple of shades of the new Versa Clair inks I got for Xmas.

I have to say that the Versa Clair 'Nocturne' (black) ink is my new go to black ink, it stamps so crisp and clean, picked up details just like Versafine it is smudge proof after about 50 seconds but you can still emboss it for up to 5 minutes after stamping!

The ink dries very quickly and once dry, stamped images are waterproof and will not smear, the images are light fast and fade resistant and once dry you can use water colour pens without any smearing. I'm getting the rest of the colours for my birthday so when I have all 24 I'll do a post on them by way of a review.  If the inks could be use for alcohol inks as well it would be perfect, I will be using these inks a lot more from now on. Look at how crisp and dark the Nocturne ink has stamped on both these cards.

I have a lot of black ink pads and I've always used Versafine 'Onyx Black' for stamping sentiments, but I think Versa Clair 'Nocturne' will be replacing the Versafine. Both cards I made today are part of my efforts to make some flatter cards that cut down on postage costs and also to challenge myself to try and create a cards with layers of ink rather than layers of paper. That's all from me for now, wishing you all the best for the New Year, I'll be back soon with more wreath template posts and a lot of ink ideas to share with new goodies I want to master, HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of us at Warts n All Towers xxx

Concord & 9th Winter Wear

Oh boy has it ever been busy here since I last blogged, we seem to have gone straight from one thing in to another since September, always something happening or somewhere to be.

We added to the workload with the bedroom decorating which now looks lovely I may add 😀 Although the door still needs painting so does the radiator, and those are jobs for the Xmas hols lol! How are you getting on with your festive jobs? I'm down to the general cleaning and tidy up and the food shop left to do, the decorations are all up, all the wrapping, card writing and faffing has been done.

I confess that this year despite wanting to make a lot of gifts to send to people, I just didn't get the time, I had lots of ideas and made a start on several projects which just didn't get finished sadly 😞 So much happened in the last quarter of the year that I found it difficult to keep up sometimes and from mid October to today, there hasn't been a lot of time for crafting. Tomorrow we do our last teaching session of the year, Simon finishes work for the holidays, and aside from a trip to visit my family in Manchester sometime over the weekend we are all done and we can now chill and relax. Time to regroup and plan for 2019, we already have the first Young Roboteers sessions booked early in the year and have had enquiries to run some other events.

I started my chilling session earlier today, I'd done all my chores for the day, so I got out a new stamp and die set I'd recently been treated to, its by Concord & 9th and is called Winter Wear, I fell in love with the set back in November when I saw Kristina Werner use it to make a card as part of her 2018 Holiday Card Series, that's 2 stamp sets I bought as a result of her demos lol! I used Nuvo Alcohol Markers for the first example, they blend very well but there aren't very many colours, I'm hoping they will release more soon as the choice is pretty limited at the minute. Kristina used Copic Markers on her card but they are way out of my price range at the moment, but I would like a set of basic colours, something to collect in 2019 maybe?

I confess that I had a minor fluff up, originally I stamped direct on to the card blank with the intention of making a single layer card, but I stamped the elements to low down and it didn't look right, so I die cut the stamped image using one of my favourite wonky stitched circle dies and stuck it on to a card blank that was sitting on my desk left over from the 2018 cards. I decided not to add a sentiment on the outside, keeping the focus on the images and stamped a nice sentiment inside the card. I didn't get the scarf and face bits lined up and small amounts of white space were left. So after I'd coloured the image I used a black fine liner pen to finish off the lines.

I've got lots of ideas for using this stamp set and I'll be making batches for sending, the two cards in this post are now officially my first cards for posting out for Christmas 2019! I know it may seem early, but I'm taking the stance that early in the year and in parts of the summer nothing is happening. So if I use that time to make my Christmas cards and other items, then I won't be as stressed as I was this year because I still needed to make cards to send instead of having them all ready.

The second card was coloured with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol, I need more practice with coloured pencils but the finished card didn't turn out so bad. I used an embossing folder that was free with issue 185 of Simply Cards & Papercraft. I bought the magazine for the folder as I'd been trying to find a knitting effect embossing folder for a while. The sentiment is from the Winter Wear set and was originally going to go on the first card, but I decided that it didn't look right so put it to one side.

In 2019 I want to improve my colouring skills, I may even try to take a class either near me or online! I also want to try harder to only buy things that I will actually use, and not buy things just because I think they look cute. Something else I need to do is stop buying all the colours of a new ink pad, embossing powder etc until I've actually tried the product out. I've been caught out on more than one occasion, allowing my "full set" syndrome to dictate how I spend. I started dabbling with Mixed Media this year and bought lots of jolly things to pursue that area of crafting, so over the Xmas hols I think I'll have a play and see what I can create.

I'm hoping I'll have time to make another post before the years out, but in the event that I don't here's wishing everyone that reads my blog and takes the time to comment, a very Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years. May 2019 be filled with crafting time a plenty, mojo abounding, health and happiness in no particular order. Your lovely words have cheered me when I've been down this year and I appreciate each and every one of you. 💖💖💖

DIY Epsom Salt Herbal Muscle Spray

When my Plantar fasciitis plays up I soak my foot in a bowl of warm water that I've added a handful of Epsom salts (Magnesium sulfate) and a few drops of lavender oil to and it helps ease my foot, and when my back aches from too much exercise or from a long session in the garden I have a warm bath, this time with a couple of handfuls of Epsom salts and essential oils of my choice, I use oils that have warming properties like rosemary, ginger and black pepper which are good for easing muscles aches and pains.

I have a bath blend to share a bit further on, but a lady in a group I belong to wanted something she could use to help ease her aching muscles without having to have a bath or shower, so enter my Epsom Salt Muscle Spray which can be carried around and used whenever you need to. A small caveat before you make and use this spray, if you get it on your clothes the Epsom salts will leave a powdery residue when they dry, it will wash out but it will be noticeable until the garment is washed.

Epsom Salt Muscle Spray

The base for your spray will always be a 1 part water to 1 part Epsom salt mix and you can add your choice of beneficial essential oils, I give two versions below that I find best.

250ml Bottle
125ml Boiling Water
125g Epsom Salts

Then either: -

15 Drops Lavender Essential Oil

15 Drops Peppermint Essential Oil

Or: -

15 Drops Rosemary Essential Oil
15 Drops Ginger Essential Oil

Method: Boil your water in a kettle and place your Epsom salts in a jug or glass bowl that is suitable for boiling liquids and stir until the Epsom salts are dissolved. Once they are completely dissolved set the mixture aside to go cold, once its cold add your essential oils of choice, don't be tempted to add the oils whilst the mixture is hot, the oils with evaporate in the heat and lose their beneficial and aromatic properties.

Pour the mixture into your spray bottle and label it with name and date, then use it to spritz your aching muscles e.g. arms, legs, neck or shoulders.

You can make this spray in any quantity you like the key is to always use 1 part boiling water to 1 part Epsom salts. So if you only have a 100ml bottle 50ml water and 50g Epsom salts. A 500ml bottle then 250ml water and 250g Epsom salts, you get the picture?

Epsom Salt & Herb Bath Muscle Soak

Back pain and muscle problems seem to occur in our house rather a lot these days, a sign of our ageing bodies methinks, and when the lighter days come around and garden activity increases the aches and pains increase as well. Usually after several hours of gardening, I have a nice long soak in the bath with my favourite herbal bath blend from a jar I keep of this bath soak recipe I make up at the start of the gardening season, but its now being used to soak muscles after a long walks and runs (my husband not me, I'm not fit enough to run yet lol).

The mix makes enough to fill 18 bath bags containing 25g per bag, alternatively have one bag and store the rest of the mixture in a sealed jar and add 25g of the mixture to a muslin bag at each bath time.

Ingredients:

15g Dried Thyme
30g Dried Rosemary
30g Dried Lavender Flowers
25g Dried Cramp Bark
25g Dried Peppermint Leaf
150g Oats
200g Epsom Salts
12 Drops Lavender Essential Oil
12 Drops Rosemary Essential Oil
12 Drops Peppermint Essential Oil

Method: Mix all the dry ingredients together, stir in the essential oils and put in a large, well-sealed, glass jar such as a kilner jar. To use, put 25g of the mix into a muslin bath bag or into the centre of a circle of muslin tied up with string or ribbon and hang over the bath tap. Relax in the bath and let the herbs and Epsom salts soak away the aches and pains.

If a long soak doesn’t help and there's pain rather than just aches going on, then make an appointment to see your GP.

Disclaimer: Whilst every effort has been made to source the most up to date and accurate information, we cannot guarantee that remedies in our articles are effective, when in doubt, consult your GP or a qualified Medicinal Herbalist. Remember also that herbal remedies can be dangerous under certain circumstances therefore you should always seek medical advice before self-treating with a homemade remedy, especially if you suffer from any known illness which could be adversely affected by self-treatment.

Christmas Themed Floating 'Pop Cards' 🎅

Good morning to you, winter is definitely coming here in Derby, last night we had frost and ice forming and the temperature went to down to -1℃ and I got an extra blanket out lol! The colder weather has put me in the mood for making more Xmas cards, so my current projects all have a festive flavour, speaking of flavours there is a Beef Jalfrezi in the slow cooker wafting its aromas in my direction and I have some Christmas tunes playing on the PC so I'm good to go.

I saw an example of this style of card pop up on my Facebook news-feed yesterday and I thought it was amazing, simple to do and so effective and the beauty is it folds flat to fit in a standard 6"x6" envelope meaning you can use regular 1st or 2nd class postage. Assuming that is that you don't put too many embellishments on the card to make the whole thing thicker than 0.5cm!

I got the idea from Sam over at Mixed Up Crafts, if you follow that link you'll be taken to her blog post which has all the details including measurements, tips and a useful YouTube video that walks you through the construction step by step.  In her tutorial Sam shows several ways to make the card using different layers and shows examples of cards made for other occasions, the fold/shape is very versatile. I made the two cards up in the blog post here and cut the base and decorative panels to make 6 more cards in the same style, although they are not all circular apertures. I don't want to share photos of those cards on my blog when they are finished, because they will be going to some lovely people that read my blog and I don't want to spoil the surprise 😉

Once you get your head around the positioning and decide in what papers, style of aperture you're going to use the cards are very quick to put together. It was even faster for me because I already had a lot of images that I'd stamped, coloured and cut out, like this adorable little image from the 'Newton's Holiday Mischief' set.

If you look closely at the image you can just see the piece of acetate that the image is 'floating' on
Crafting has been slow the past few weeks with the decorating going on in the background.

Sadly the photos don't do the cards proper justice, the papers I used are from a 6"x6" Trimcraft pack called 'Christmas Wishes' and the ones I've used for the cards I'm sharing today both have glittery, shimmery bits on them. I used another Newton's Nook stamp set called 'Ornamental Newton' and some of the new 'Red Glitz' WOW embossing powder I got from the NEC earlier this month. I finished the card off with 6 gems from my stash which added a lovely little bit of bling to the card.

For my second Floating Pop Card I did a bit of recycling, last year I made a set of gift tags to add to Si's Christmas presents, and I was very proud of the colouring I did with my Inktense pencils, I actually made them in 2016 for using in 2017, I was organised back then lol! So again making this card was quick. I decided to use a flower nesting die set, not sure who made it it was a second hand job lot from Ebay.

I actually matted the panels with the same silver card that I used as one of the front panel pieces and used the same stitched flower shape (I thought it looked a little snowflake like) and stamped my sentiment using some Delicata Silver Shimmer ink. Each of the cards have a plain back panel for adding my message.

Now I just have to crack on with the other 6 and I have about 12 other cards to construct, all I need to do is some embossing and assembling so they should come together quickly. Tomorrow is our 16th wedding anniversary so we won't be getting any decorating done, its all about the two of us, we have a date night planned with a steak dinner and a trip to the cinema to see Fantastic Beasts 2.

On the decorating front the floor is all fixed and no longer squeaks, the electrics are now done and we've sorted a good chunk of the loft out, it needed sorting to allow access to the ceiling bits for adding wall lights and a new ceiling light. So on Saturday we'll finally be ready to fill in holes in the walls, sand down paintwork and start painting the ceiling and woodwork lol!

Over 2 weeks since the job was started and it will be another 2 weeks until its finished, work and doing after school robot sessions are going to take up time, I'm hoping we can get stuff done sooner rather than later though so we can get the Xmas tree up and the house back to normal (not that we do normal in this house lol!) Well that's all for me for today, I need to get some chores done and then get myself ready for a dentist appointment and after that some Christmas shopping, so glad that curry is in the slow cooker for tea!

Flurries of Warm Wishes

It's been a busy week and I've just realised that I forgot to share a couple of cards that I made with one of my NEC purchases that I got almost 2 weeks ago now! When I came back from the NEC I had a head swimming with ideas of ways to use the goodies I bought but I've just not had time to turn the ideas into projects.

My idea isn't an original one, I must give credit where its due to the lovely and talented Kristina Werner, I've CAS'ed a card made by her as part of her 2018 Holiday Card Series and it uses a lovely Pink & Main stamp set called Flurries. Like Kristina I made a circle card but I used dark card stock and a scalloped edge die and I different colour combination of Distress Oxides.

In the first example I used Picked Raspberry DO, Wilted Violet and Faded Jeans, I prefer to use Chipped Sapphire when working with this colour combo, but the Chipped Sapphire DO hasn't arrived yet. I'm still waiting for my order from Craft Stash, hopefully it will arrive soon and I will have the last batch of 12 Distress Oxides.  I've also noticed when I made these cards that my Wilted Violet DO pad was starting to not have as much ink in it. Its not a fault of the ink pad, it just shows that its one of my most used inks, so this week I purchased a re-inker for it and a few for my standard distress inks as well.

For the second card example I used Spun Sugar, Shaded Lilac and Wilted Violet DO's blending them into each other as best I could. I realised just after I started blending the inks on to the card stock that I'd picked up the wrong type of card stock to use so blending the inks was a bit of a struggle, but I got there in the end!

I used Ocean Blue and Purple 300gsm card stock to make the card blanks, I got both of them at the NEC from Limetree Crafts. The colours are gorgeous and they cut really well.  I made the card blanks in the same way I did from the Festive Circle Wreath cards, you can see how I did it in the video on that post.

I allowed the inked panels to completely dry out and then I arranged my stamps and sentiment on the circle and inked up with Versamark, having first used my anti-static powder tool on the coloured panel, I transferred the stamped image to the card panel and then covered it with WOW Opaque Bright White Super Fine embossing powder and heat set it. I had to repeat some of the snowflakes, so after stamping and embossing both panels I rearranged some of the snowflakes and repeated the procedure.

Once both of the panels had been embossed I adhered the panels to the card based and then placed a gem from Lucy's cards in the centre of each one and finally added some iridescent sequins that I picked up last year from The Range. The cards fir inside a 6" x 6" envelope and are relatively flat for posting. I have some more ideas for using these stamps and will hopefully get to share those ideas soon. At least this is another couple of cards ready to send, I've got a little behind with my xmas makes, I need to get a wiggle on and soon because there's just over 5 weeks now until the last post for Christmas eek!

Cool Little Dude Card

Hello lovely people in blog land :) I hope that life is treating you kindly and you are all safe and well? I haven't had much time for blogging so far this month, we've undertaken a large DIY project this month. It started with just laying a new carpet in our bedroom and morphed in to getting new plug sockets and lighting installed, fixing all the squeaky floorboards and decorating the room, before we put the carpet down!

I'm using the time that everything has been boxed and bagged up to do some de-cluttering and redistribution, books to both Cats protection and the local National Trust book shop and clothes to a local charity shop. I really cannot believe how much clutter and things we have in our home that have been bought but never used or worn! I'm sure it will all be worthwhile when we're finished but at the minute the house looks like a bomb has gone off lol!

Until today I couldn't get at my craft desk because things from out of our room had been put in my crafting room, so there was no free desk space, but as I've boxed and bagged things up over the past few days, I've made some space to be able to get my craft on! I've been saying for a while now that I wanted to add more cards for the menfolk in my life to my box of made cards. So when a lady in a group I belong to on Facebook posted a card using this cool little dude I was smitten and knew I wanted to use the image to create a card or two (most likely more because he's such a cool little dude).

The images are meant to be used with a die from the latest issue of the Tattered Lace magazine which is issue 60, sadly I haven't been able to find the magazine locally yet, but the images and backgrounds can currently be downloaded from the Tattered Lace website. The Little Dude is available in 5 different colour combinations with colour co-ordinated backing papers. Once I'd downloaded the images and printed off the colour I wanted to use I carefully fussy cut out the Little Dude and added some card stock to the back of the paper to give him a little more substance. I used brown, black and burgundy markers to trace around the edge of the dude to hide any cutting imperfections.

I have to say I am impressed with the cutting I did on this image. I'm getting a lot better at fussy cutting and I think that is down to the scissors I use. My fussy cutting has always until recently been a bit hit and miss, but last year I invested in a pair of Fiskar's Softouch Spring Action Micro-Tip scissors, they are the dogs doodah's as far as fussy cutting goes, they are very comfortable to use and very easy to control.

As there wasn't much to do to this card because of how colourful the little dude and backing papers were I wanted to add some little touches. I used a Versamarker watermark pen to add some gold embossing powder to the little dude's chain and some Tonic Crystal Glaze to his shades. The sentiment is from a set of stamps that came with issue 52 of Creative Stamping magazine. I stamped the image with Versamark on to black card stock and used the same WOW Metallic Gold Rich Super Fine embossing powder that I'd used for his chain and then fussy cut the image out. I used a metallic gold sharpie around the edge of the cut out image to hide any little imperfections.

I used some 300gsm Purple Cardstock that I got from Limetree Crafts at the NEC, its an absolutely gorgeous shade, I've used it to make some Christmas cards and to make a Fairy themed card. The card base I made is tent fold and I added a mat of gold metallic card on to the purple then added the printed backing paper on top of that. I added the little dude and the sentiment to the front of the card using some 3D foam pads and popped some star shaped gems to the front from my stash of gems and bling and voila the card was complete.

I have to say the hardest part of this card was finding a sentiment, I wanted a 'cool dude' phrase but I don't seem to have anything like it, so I'll have to acquire something soon. I'm hoping to find the die at some point in the not to distant future, but for now I can continue to fussy cut the little dudes to make more cards!

Creative Craft Show NEC November 2018

On Friday I had a fabulous crafty day out thanks to my wonderful husband, I got to have a brief chat with Keren Baker one of my lovely Facebook friends who I've never met but she inspires me with her wonderful creations, you may know her? Keren is a designer and demonstrator for Fiskars, Winnie and Walter, Tonic Studios and Clearly Besotted. I played with Powertex, learnt to use the gelli plate correctly thank you Amanda Branston! I met an old friend and a new one, got oodles of new crafting goodies to play with and got the chance to try new products and techniques. Ooh yes and I wore a Unicorn headband and made a few people smile 😁

It was a day of discovery and even though I had a few mini panic attacks, Si was there to ground me and make me feel better/calmer, he's really amazing and senses when I'm having trouble coping and just appears and all is right with the world again. But I digress, and lets get back to why I'm writing this, we didn't arrive at the NEC until just after 10am the first thing I did was find the Lavinia Stamps stand so I could book a make and take session, so glad I did because Hazel informed me that there was just one session left at 4pm!!! On Facebook they had said to come early to book because the sessions go fast, I didn't realise how fast lol!

The hall where the Creative Craft Show was situated was very busy when we first arrived, so we decided instead of starting at row A, we'd go to the end and work our way back round, so pleased I did because we ended up in the 'Art Materials Live' area and wandered in to the Pebeo stand just as the lovely Jenny Muncaster started a mixed media demo using a selection of Pebeo products.

I truly didn't realise how versatile Pebeo paints were and that you could mix their glass paints with ceramic paints and also the Fantasy Moon and Prisme paints, and when you do, the effects are amazing. So much so, my first purchase of the day was a Pebeo Mixed Media Ultimate Kit, which contained loads of things to help me play with the techniques that Jenny demonstrated. Sadly though the Glitter Medium was missing, but the lovely people at The Art Shop Skipton who were running the Pebeo stand are already on the case and my missing medium will be sent out on Monday :) Heads up also if you have Amazon Prime, Jenny has a 6 part series on there called 'The Artist in You' where she shows some fab mixed media projects and other creative techniques.

After Pebeo I continued to wander and found the Crafts4Less stand which had lots of dies and other goodies for sale, Si liked the Sue Wilson Festive Industrial Chic Flying Santa die so I guess that die will feature on his Chrimbo card this year 😉

I also got the matching sentiment die to go with it and and a jolly set by Sweet Dixie called 'Christmas Jumper' that will make some quick fun cards. Whilst I was stood at Crafts4Less I heard someone call out my name, I turned round right in to a hug from my friend Sarah Jane whom I'd lost touch with. She is now the co-owner of White Gecko Craft Lounge in Dinas Powys and was there with her stand. It was such a surprise to see her there in the NEC with a stand but I was so pleased to see her, we're now Facebook friends so we can natter properly. As hard as it was I dragged myself away from Sarah and continued to shop and browse, I called at the Crafty Devils stand and picked up some Tonic Nuvo goodies and the Media Tool set to go with my Tim Holtz Glass Media Mat.

I found the Powertex stand and donned rubber gloves to have a play with powertex, and discovered that it wasn't for me sadly. I do like some of the their stencils, plaster embellishments and their pigment colours but I didn't like the feel of the powertex and I didn't like the smell either. Some of the things you can make with it are amazing, but its a messy craft that I don't have space for. Still that's the beauty of shows like this, you get to try before you buy, saving yourself from another costly start up project you think you may like, only to find actually you don't and you've wasted a lot of money.

We went for a little break in the VIP area and got free coffee and cake YUM! It was nice to be able to sit down on a chair, in previous years we had to sit on the floor, so this year Si treated me to the VIP tickets which gave us fast track entry, a goodie bag (which wasn't anything to write home about really), a free area to store your purchases and there were make and takes happening inside, but I didn't try any of them because I didn't have enough time lol!

After the first break I'd made a note to visit the Craft Stash stand and watch their Facebook Live, so off we set for stand E10 only to discover it wasn't there! That's because some numpty in her eagerness to get there took a wrong turn and ended up in the Simply Christmas hall. A quick turn around and mad dash back through the Creative Craft show hall and we found Craft Stash, hurrah and watched the FB live even getting to wave at my crafty chums as well.

Next I visited the WOW! Embossing Powder people, I was amazed to discover that they now stock Pink & Main dies and stamps. I'd seen Kristina Werner use a Pink & Main set called 'Flurries' the day before the NEC and loved the card she made with the set, and liked the look of the 3 inverse stamps. I had an idea for using the sets but knew that it wouldn't be easy to find the set in the UK easily, so you can imagine my joy when I found it at the NEC and lots of other Pink & Main goodies to boot!

Next stop was the Inkylicious stand where I watched Emma Redfearn do a demo which was incredible, she showed lots of new techniques and ideas to try, watching her was quite mesmerising. After Emma's stag card demo I asked her about using the Splatter Circle XL stamp and she very kindly gave me a demo and let me take the piece home that she demonstrated.

Emma used Distress Oxides for this demo piece but she said you can use any inks. The trick is to put them in a line using the edge of the ink pad and leave a small gap inbetween so as not to contaminate your ink pad. She said that to use the stamp its best to use a stamping platform as its so large.

Once you've inked up your stamp, spritz the stamp with water and when you place the stamp on to the card the water spread out and mixes with the inks to fill in the gaps. I think the water that Emma used for spritzing had some mica in as the piece has a shimmer to it. Emma also showed me how to use a white Posca pen to create stars, it was a light bulb moment. The other discovery was the white gel pen Emma used, I have one by Ranger which to be frank is PANTS! It's very hit and miss, so I don't use it, I have a white Sakura gelly roll but that isn't always useful.

The one that Emma used is a Uni-Ball Signo Broad pen that contains pigment ink. I picked one up when I bought my other Inkylicious goodies and I love it, making lines is so much easier, it writes straight away, non of this scribbling on paper first to get it to work like the Ranger pen or trying to write and it stalling like the Sakura pen.

I bought a few more Inkylicious stamp sets and a couple of stencils, I couldn't resist the bigger brother Unicorn to the one that Emma used in the example above and of course the new 'Cat Face' and the 'Silhouette Stag Deer' stamps. I also picked up a a stamp cleaning mat, it was only £2 and I've used it already to clean stamps yesterday and it gets right in to the details on the stamps and cleans them so much quicker and cleaner than a baby wipe.

I couldn't wait to have a play with some of my new goodies when I got home on Friday but I was so tired after all the walking and Saturday turned in to a rather busy day, but I managed to get some crafty time in on Saturday evening.

I taped the Inkylicious 'Snowflake' stencil down on to a piece of card and used Distress Inks (Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet and Chipped Sapphire) and Ink Duster brushes to create the snowflake. before I removed the stencil I spritzed the inks with some shimmer mist and blotted off the water.

I left it to dry for a while, and then whilst the stencil was still in place, I stamped the trees and the stag with Versafine ink in 'Majestic Blue'.
At that point I removed the stencil, cleaned it off and used a Chipped Sapphire Distress Marker to create shadows at the base of the stag. Once that was done I ran the panel through my Big Shot in a snow effect embossing folder.

I made a card blank using some gorgeous 300gsm Ocean Blue lightly textured card I got at the NEC from Limetree Crafts and adhered the panel to it, all that needed to be done then to add some white highlights with my new gel pen and add a few sparkly gems. I still need to add a insert to the card so I can stamp and write my message but the whole card took about 40 minutes to make. I reckon you could make 6 or more in a couple of hours if you did everything in batch stages.

I picked up some of my favourite Black Smooth 260gsm cardstock as well whilst I was there, I was down to my last 5 sheets so needed a top up, Limetree Crafts card and paper is absolutely brilliant quality and a fab price. I also picked up some of their water colour paper and some of the card for using with alcohol markers, I'll be giving it a try in the next few days and see how it performs.

By this time it was 3pm, so we went for more free cake and coffee in the VIP area and had a bit of a sit and chill, after that we had a lesiurely stroll through the stands again on route to my lavinia stamps make and take at 4pm.

I was pretty nervous, especially when Si decided to go and look at some of the other stands whilst I crafted, but Amanda Branston soon had us all laughing with her gelliplate spa night anecdotes. I explained to Amanda that I'd bought a gelli plate last time I was at the NEC in 2016, used it once fluffed it up, put it back in the package and its been there ever since!

During the make and take Amanda showed us how to use the gelli plate and how NOT to use it and we got to play with inks, stamps and glitter. I was impressed with my little self, although when it comes to anything I make myself, my ever critical eye looked at what I made and found flaws. I stamped the the lowest hollyhock in the wrong place, the purple ink just didn't take, but that wasn't my fault, Amanda discovered after the session that the pad had run out of juice and binned it lol!

I added some water droplets as well but added too many and they were more like blobs than droplets. Add to that I didn't put enough ink on the fairy so her leg looked a bit patchy, but considering how nervous I was I didn't do too badly.

Lets not get started with the carefully putting pearl drops on the piece and adding lovely sparkly glitter to it, then promptly putting your thumb in it smearing the glitter everywhere when you decide to 'ground' the fairy lol!

I am very taken with the new Versa Fine Clair inks and I'll be adding them to my inking arsenal in the not too distant future. A few at a time though as there are 24 in the set at around £5 per pad, that's a lot of cash to pay out for a full set of inks. So picking a few and then expanding the colours is the way to go.

I need more flowers and foliage stamps for my lavinia designs, one day very soon I'm going to do an inventory of what I have so far and then make a kind of wish list (one of everything 😉). I do have Inkylicious stamps that I can use and some new fairy foliage stamps from the new Crafters Companion 'Enchanted' range. There were other purchases made and stands visited but I think this post is long enough already. Suffice to say I had a wonderful day, yes I did almost not go at two points, that happens a lot I build myself up to doing something then chicken out at the end. I think I did spend a little too much but at the end of the day I ended up with lots of new goodies and things to allow me to try new techniques, and lets not forget reconnecting with Sarah Jane and literally bumping in to Sheila a new friend from the Stampin Up classes I recently started going to 💖😀

Retro Gaming Wreath Template Cards 🕹️

As today is my favourite day of the year, can I start this post by wishing those that share my love of it a Happy Halloween' 🎃and for those who don't celebrate then I wish you happy last day of October 😁 I know that the cards I'm sharing today aren't what I'd be expected to share on today of all days, but if you read on you'll discover that there is a halloween connection, honest!

Si and I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody last night, I really liked it, it transported me back in time and my brain was awash with memories, from the first time I bought the double A side single Bohemian Rhapsody and Killer Queen and played in constantly when I was just 11 years old, in front of the bedroom mirror with a hairbrush microphone and dreams of becoming a famous singer lol! Incidentally Bohemian Rhapsody was released today (31st October 1975, see I wasn't fibbing lol!) and 43 years later that song still gives me chills and sets my blood pumping.

My memory banks cycled around a series of events including me chilling as a teenager listening to 'The Game' whilst doing my homework and getting told off by my Dad for playing 'Another One Bites The Dust' too loudly, everytime I hear that song I hear my Dad shouting "Turn it down NOW!" lol! Then there was dancing to 'I Want to Break Free' at my first wedding, talk about an omen, I should have run away as soon as the song finished. The memories kept flowing and when the film showed the live aid segment, my brain brought back my memories of watching Freddie's performance on Live Aid. I still recall how the hairs on my arms stood up listening and how electric it felt to be a part of something so unique. It hadn't occured to me just how much Queen and Freddie had been a part of my life, and yes all that flowed through my head because of the film.

The memories of being a teen and a young 20 something led to my recalling playing my first video games like Pacman and Space Invaders on a Spectrum 48K computer, I remember a time when you had to code a game before you could play it WOW I'm old lol! I've been a gamer almost as long as I've been a Queen fan, although I'm not sure playing Pong via a TV plug in counts as a gamer, but it was my Grandad that started me playing that and it all went down hill to Skyrim after that lol!

Before I knew it I was in the craft room making some retro gaming cards, partly for a Challenge, partly because I need to make more cards for giving to the men and boys in my life and partly because of the nostalgia. I got a couple of stamp sets recently that were perfect for what I wanted to do and one of them had a sentiment in that said "You're so old, you're retro!" and that tickled my inner gaming geek, its true but I don't feel as old as I am.

I used the 6" template for this card and the stamps on the Retro Gaming cards are from two sets, one by Hunkydory called 'Alien Invasion' (space invaders and old style joy stick) and a set by Pretty Cute Stamps called 'Game On' (sentiments and stars). I'm on the lookout for a now discountinued set by My Favorite Things called 'Level Up' and the matching console die, so far no luck but I'll keep searching.

I stamped the white version using Ranger Dye Ink Pads in the following colours: - Grape Soda, Wild Orchid, Blue Yonder, Classic Cherry and Electric Lime, these inks are fabulous and even if they go on blotchy they smooth out nice and even as they absorb into the card stock. The only thing I don't like about them is the limited range of colours.

I used my new favourite technique of embossing over the wreath stamped this time with an old Crafters Companion Embossalicious folder called 'Happy Birthday', I love the texture doing this gives to a card, it transforms it somehow without distracting from the stamped images. I coloured the joystick with a couple of Nuvo alcohol markers, very simple colouring and stamped the sentiment on a die cut panel used my trusty 'Wonky Stitches' circle dies. I use them a lot because I think the edge it gives looks better than a plain circle. The card was made in now time, the longest part was the stamping and that went by very quickly.

The old gamer in me was a tad niggled by the bright colours on white background, sure the pixelated images that we destroyed were nice bright colours, but back then the backgrounds to games were black.

As you will know stamping bright coloured dye inks on to dark card stock is generally a non starter, so I reached for the Distress Oxides for the darker retro look. I did manage to fluff up and smudge 2 of the aliens though when the oxide ink was still wet, but it doesn't look too bad lol!

Not all Distress Oxides look good on black, I wanted to use Wilted Violet on this card but it didn't pop, so I used the following colours: - Candied Apple, Salty Ocean, Picked Raspberry, Cracked Pistatio and Squeezed Lemonade. As the sentiment I wanted to use was small I used a smaller die cut circle which meant that more of the green aliens were visable.

For the sentiment on this card I hear embossed it with WOW Opaque White embossing powder. The aliens are from the Hunkydory set and the sentiment, stars and joystick are from the Pretty Cute Stamps set. I will of course be making some more of these cards were the aliens are in neat little rows like in the old days, but I think the stamps leant themselves to wreath stamping very well. That's all for me for today, I have a few projects to get finished and I'm experimenting with different ways of using the stamped panels, more on that soon. Until next time, have a lovely day and happy crafting :)

Halloween Wreath Template Cards 🎃

I think anybody that knows me well will have been expecting these cards, to say I'm a halloween card making fan is a bit of an understatement, some of my crafty friends have dubbed me the 'Queen of Halloween' lol! I can't help it, I love the colours and imagery and I have lots of small stamp sets that lend themselves to making Halloween wreath cards. So I thought I'd share some of my recent makes with you 🎃

I've still got a couple of Halloween cards to share, but they may end up being shown after the 31st lol! It's been crazy busy here with Maker Faire and robot endeavours and a few other projects, but things seem to be levelling out now, and I gace lots of crafting planned for the rest of this week, culminating with a trip to the NEC on Friday for the craft show.

I have made a few halloween wreath template cards already, but they went straight out in to the post and I forgot to photo them eeek! This one is another circle card, I like them because they fit in to a 5" x 5" envelope and if you don't build up the layers too much they are flat for posting.

I started out by using some Distress Oxides: - Carved Pumpkin, Ripe Persimmon and Wilted Violet to created my background. Once that was stamped I used my Hunkydory 'For the Love of Stamps - Happy Halloween!' stamp set for the design.

I wanted to keep it simple so I used just 3 stamps from the set, the spooky tree, little black cat and the bat. After I stamped the trees I decided to remove some of the oxide ink with water, this has a bleaching effect, although you can only use water on oxides to create this effect, you can't use bleach like you can on regular distress as it doesn't react with the oxide formula, but water does!

All I did was take a water brush and paint inside the tree, dabbing away the oxide to lighten the background in the tree area. Once that was done I scribbled a Walnut Stain Distress Marker on to my media mat and using the same water brush, I painted the trees with the Walnut Stain ink. I've used the 'bleaching' technique a lot, you can see an example of the technique in this post Distress Oxide Water Painting.

The sentiment for this card came free with a recent issue if Creative Stamping and I coloured the white letters with a Fluorescent Orange Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker. I also added a thin coat of Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen to give the tress a spooky glimmer. I made the card blank in the same way that I showed in the video contained within my Festive Circle Wreath Cards post.

My second card is again another circle card, but this time I used stamps from an A6 stamp set by Craftwork Cards called ' Spooky', there are lots of stamps in this set suitable for creating a wreath card, I wanted to go for a bit of a day of the dead look. Not so much for the stamps, but for the colours.

I used my Delicata metallic inks again for this one and also my Stampin Up 'Whisper White' pigment ink. The shimmer doesn't show so well in the photo but its lovely in real life.

The sentiment comes from a stamp set by Sugarpea Designs called 'Fang-Tastic'. The whole card didn't take long to put together, and I'm rather pleased with the results. I'm hoping to pick up some different edged circular nesting dies when I go to the craft show, to add more variety. I think wreath card wise I'll be creating some Get Well Soon and Birthday style cards next and I have some pop up box cards to complete and I still have lots of Xmas cards to get done, and some of them will be wreath cards. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at my makes, if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below, until next time happy crafting 😁

Festive Circle Wreath Cards + My First Video Tutorial 😊

I thought I'd do something a little different for my next wave of wreath template builder cards this week and show examples of shaped cards, different folds and also working on darker coloured cardstock. Having recently acquired the new Delicata metallic ink colours I'm going to use these on the darker card stocks because they give such a stunning effect.

I confess that I'm rather smitten with these inks, they look fabulous on white card stock but stamp them on to black or navy blue card and they look positively luminous, so to show you what I mean I've worked todays card on both black and white card stock so you can see the difference between the two.

So far all the card examples I've done for the Wreath Builder Templates have been stamped on to the card panel cut and measured for the template e.g. 4" x 4" or 6" x 6" which is then adhered to that a square card. So today I thought I'd show you how to stamp a wreath so that it will fit on a circular card, and for the first time I've made a tutorial video. Well technically its an animation, because its not live footage, I don't have all the equipment to be able to do that yet.

What I've done is take photos throughout the process of making the cards and then edited them together with music and captions. I think that's much better than adding lots of photos to the blog, although it takes ages, I now have a new found respect for crafters out there that make proper tutorial videos, it must take so many hours out of their day!

For the video I made two cards, one on black card and one on white, using the same stamps and ink colours so that you get to see the effect that the metallic ink have on different colours of card.

I discovered how to make my own card blanks from larger sized dies a few months ago and have used the technique rather a lot since. The dies I used for these cards both come from the Creative die range from Craft Stash for cutting out the wreath i used the Wonky Stitches Nesting Circles and for the card blank and decorative edge I used the Scalloped Circle Stitched & Pierced Nesting Dies. I've used the stamps recently for another Wreath Template card, they are also from Craft Stash look for the Creative A4 Woodland Stamp Set.

The Delicata inks I used for the card are: - Silvery Shimmer, Sapphire Blue, Emerald Green, Dark Brown Shimmer and Celestial Copper and the card was finished of with drops of Autumn Red Tonic Nuvo Drops. Well that's all for me for today, my first ever video is below, feel free to give it a watch and I'd love to know what you think of my first journey into the world of video media, so comment and let me know if you'd like to see more of these kind of videos? Until next time, happy crafting!

Stampin Up Spooky Cat Cards 🙀

Good morning all 💋 I hope you've had a good weekend, its been a bit hit and miss here, but we survived and rolled on in to Monday, I've been making more wreath template examples to share, but I wanted to make a few more Halloween cards to send out. So I got my stamp on and created a couple of cards one of them an eclipse card, both were quick to put together because the stamps did all the 'colouring' for me!

The stamps are my first Stampin Up set of stamps, to explain for the past few months I've been going to some classes run once a month run by the local Stampin Up demonstrator and I've begun to meet local ladies who like to craft and its been nice to get out and meet real people in the real world that share my love of papercraft. Don't get me wrong I have some fabulous crafty friends that live 'inside' the computer but real world physical friends I have very few. Long story and maybe I'll tell it one day, maybe I won't.

I confess that not everything Stampin Up do is too my taste but they do have some nice stamp sets and I'm hoping to acquire a few of them over the next few months. I've also started to treat myself to some Stampin Up goodies, so far some ink pads, water markers and re-inkers that I picked up in a recent sale, I saved a fortune 😍

My first stamp set is called 'Spooky Cat' and I managed to find it via a group on Facebook where members can look for and sell retired Stampin Up products. I'd seen some examples of the 'Spooky Cat' set on Pinterest and fell in love with it, so I was sad to discover when I went to buy it from Tracey my Stampin Up demonstrator that it was now retired, it only came out last year! That's the downside of Stampin Up they have a fast turnover and things don't stay around for long.

I'd picked up the 12" x 12" papers that were part of the 'Spooky Cat' release by accident last month, so I had them to work with, and I knew that one of the cards I wanted to make was an eclipse card, so that's what I did. I made 3 cards in a couple of hours and that includes the time spent trying to remember where I'd put my flippin' alphabet dies lol!

As I mentioned above the stamps do all the colouring, the owl has 3 stamps to complete him, but I only used 2, the hat has 2 stamps and the cat words stamp again has 2 but I only used 1. I used Just 3 ink pads to make this card Hero Arts 'Intense Black' and Delicata 'Golden Shimmer' for the hat and for the words and owl I used a Hero Arts 'Ombre Autumn' pad, I love this ink pad for Autumn projects because it has rust, orange and golden yellow tones to it.

I made a black tent fold card blank, covered it in a mat of some of the papers from the Spooky Cat pad, then I lined up my dies and die cut the BOO word out of the pane. I stuck the stamped panel down on to a rectangle of black card slightly bigger than the stamped panel, then using some 3D foam squares I put the letters in place.

I also made another quick card, it took me 10 minutes from start to finish using the stamps. I first die cut the white panel, stamped it, matted on to black card and then added it to the purple tent fold card blank I made.

The card stock had been in my stash since about 2006 when I first dabbled with card making thought I couldn't do it and gave up. I got rid of a lot of the stuff but some of it I kept and the cardstock is one of those things. 

The set has a punch which I'm hoping to be able to get before its retired, you can use it as a stand alone or cut around the wordy cat.  I can see me getting a lot of uses out of this set, there are a few more sentiments and some grungy stamps. I have the last of the Halloween cards made now, although I don't think I'll stop making them yet, I can make more for next year lol! I just need to get them in the post and then I can concentrate on the Christmas makes and I need to make an Anniversary card for Simon, it will be our 16th year married in just over a month, boy has that time ever flown.

Back to wreath stamping now, the Facebook live that Jennifer was going to do on Saturday 20th got rainchecked for this weekend due to unforeseen circumstances. Not the end of the world because it gives me a chance to make more cards to show people what can be done with them. Have a good week everyone and thanks for stopping by 👀

Be Jolly Snowmen Wreath Template Cards

Hello lovely readers, welcome to day 3 of my wreath builder template posts and today I have not 1, but 3 cards to share with you. All 3 are almost identical (I changed my mind about one of the snowflakes after using it on the purple version lol). The stamping was super speedy 4 stamps 1 of them stamped twice so techincally 5 stamps making 8 x 5 = 40 impressions. It sounds a lot but put some music on and chill out and you'll have created the bases for a batch of cards before you know it.

These were all done super, super quickly to demonstrate the batch making ability of the Wreath Builder Templates, you don't have to just use floral stamps, you can use any small stamps you have  to make your design for any occassion. The stamps I used to create these cards I picked up in France a couple of years ago, they are by a French company called Toga but they don't seem to give their stamps a name like we do, just a code you can find them on Amazon look for 'Toga tpe34 Pad Silicon Clear', not that you'll need those particular stamps because there are a myriad snowflake stamps on the market, and if you are already a stamper you may have some that you can use.

So on to the card construction, I confess to the fact that these went together so quickly because I'd already, stamped, coloured and die cut my snowmen. When I can't sleep I use the time to stamp and colour images ready for future projects. That way when I want to make a card I have the images done already and they just need to be added when everything else is done.

The stamp and die set I used is by Avery Elle and is called 'Be Jolly' the snowman is so cute, I've used it ever year since I got it on a variety of cards, its so, so easy to colour, all these are done with Zig Real Brush Pens and to make his snow sparkle I added some Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen.

For the snowflake wreath on each card I used Altenew ink sets for the pink colourway I used the 'Cherry Blossom' ink cube collection, the purple colourway used the ink cube collection called 'Shades of Purple' and the green colourway was stamped using the 'Tropical Forest' ink cubes. I love how Altenew inks smooth out and the fact that the cube collections give you shades from light to dark of a colour to play with.

I used the 6" template and a 6" x 6" piece of card stock and first stamped the large snowflake and built up the designs and colours. I did some batch stampin I made 6 cards in all first I stamped all the large green snowflakes on two cards, switched to pink ink and again stamped another 2 cards, then the purple.

Then I started again with the next stamp and the next shade of ink so in essence I stamped each stamp on all the card bases before moving on to the next stamp and colour. Its much faster that way than to keep switching stamps to work on the first card. Think of it as a production line, doing it this way means you get through the stamping faster. 

Once all the stamping was complete I decided to use the embossing technique I did on the Evergreen & Pine Cone Wreath the other day, this time using an old Xcut A4 Embossing folder called Snowflake Pattern, I'm not sure if its still available as I've had it about 4 years now. I was initially going to put the wreath on a mat of Centura Pearl card, but realised I didn't have any light green.

Not to be perturbed I decided to use foiled card instead, the finished card photos don't show the colours of the foiled card very well, but the above photo does, yay for taking some along the way photos 😉 Once I'd matted everything and attached the wreath and mat to the card base, I had to decide what sentiment I wanted to use. The set comes with two sentiments "Be Jolly" and the "Warm Wishes" sentiment I decided to use.

I wanted to make the sentiments stand out a little so I cut some small rectangles of white card just bigger than the sentiment and stamped the sentiment in Onyx Black Versafine, then I used some of the darker coloured Altenew inks in each of the colourways and stamped small starry snowflakes around the sentiment.

After that I used an ink blending tool and 3 of my favourite shades of Distress Ink (Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet and Twisted Citron) and blended over the top of everything to make a solid panel.

I glued the bottom part of the snowman to the top of the sentiment then added 3D foam pads to both elements and added it to the centre of the card.

The final touch was to add some little iridescent gems to the centre of each large snowflake, the gems I used I discovered via Jennifer McGuire she uses them on projects they are by a lovely lady called Lucy Abrams who runs Little Things from Lucy Cards, she has some gorgeous sequin and gems mixes for cards and blends that work fabulously in shaker cards, and the kicker is she is UK based so no high shipping fees and waiting ages for the sparkly goodies to get to you.

Well that's all for this post, don't forget to tune in to Jen Krays's Build-A-Wreath Stamping Facebook Live tonight at 7pm (that's if you're reading this on the 20th October 2018) otherwise you'll have to catch it on a replay. I'll have some more cards to share with you tomorrow some dark and shiny, until then take care and thanks so much for stopping by😁

Warmest Wishes Festive Wreath Card

I have another wreath card to share with you on the blog today, I started this one last week but only got round to finishing it tonight, I visited the Crafters Companion Store in Chesterfield last weekend and got some goodies and kicked myself that I didn't pick up this stamp set, so when I got home I ordered it from Craft Stash. The stamp set is called 'Joy to the World' and is part of the Crafters Companion "A Winter's Tale" collection. As well as all the festive greenery stamps there are some fab sentiments that look fab heat embossed and simply stamped.

If you look at the image on the Craft Stash website it shows the stamps, but you get even more under the header packaging a lovely 'merry christmas' sentiment and more greenery stamps and tiny flourishes. It's one of those flourishes that I've used with some Delicata 'Gold Shimmer' ink. Sadly the camera and lighting has made it look brassy but its a lovely shimmery gold colour and really pops in real life!

Again for this card I used Memento inks, mostly the Dewdrop size but I did use Cottage Ivy and Lady Bug in large sized pads, they just aren't shown in the photo the other colours I used are: - Pear Tart, Olive Grove, Northern Pine, Bamboo Leaves and Rhubarb Stalk, and of course the Delicata 'Golden Shimmer' ink. I have another snowflake wreath card coming up with the delicata inks on black card, its lush!

This wreath took a more time than the previous card I posted yesterday it used around 11 stamps to create the wreath so the math is 11 stamps rotated and stamped 8 times each is 88 impressions. You can keep it simple with just 2 or 3 stamps and less impressions or go all out and add lots of colours to make the final wreath 'fuller'.

Once I stamped the panel, I then had to decide how to turn it in to a card, I loved the effect of the wreath and didn't want to detract from it too much, so I embossed the card front with an old Crafters Companion embossing folder from the Nordic Christmas range they released a couple of years ago, the folder is called 'Christmas Time' but doesn't seem to be available from CC anymore.

I used the 5"  x 5" template to stamp this card and as luck would have it the largest die in on of my go to die sets Wonky Stitched Squares die set is 5 x 5 so you don't cut the shape but you can add the stitched detail, or cut the whole panel out and then use that to stamp your wreath 😉 To finish this card off I added a 'Warmest Wishes' sentiment die cut from a Sue Wilson die of the same name, I used some matt gold card from my stasth, its no longer in the packet so I can't remember what brand it is sadly. Everything was glued to each other do raised areas, its almost a one layer card but the strict rules mean it isn't but its very flat for posting cheaply and I think it looks rather pretty to boot. Stop by tomorrow when I'll have some snowflake wreath cards to share with you and we can get excited together about Jennifer's Facebook Live demo on Saturday.