Salvaged Dreams

Hey everyone, hope you are all keeping well? I have challenged myself to start actually using the stuff I buy pretty much as soon as I get it. What usually happens is I see a project on Pinterest or Facebook by someone using a stencil, stamp or die or medium or a combination of all of them.

I have ideas spark in my head, order the stuff to get going and then when it arrives, I've forgot what I wanted to make, or life gets in the way and what I've bought gets filed away from another day. Which often doesn't come!

I've lost count of the number of times this has happened, but have been reminded of it recently as I've been having a sort out and putting things to one side to give to my niece Zoe who I have successfully infected with the cardmakers bug lol! I'm sensing another no spend challenge coming on, but I've just agreed to join a 10 month 'Stamperettes' club run by a lovely lady that is my local Stampin Up supplier, I go to classes she runs monthly and have met some lovely crafting friends. So I will have to spend £15 a month plus the cost of the class. So maybe this time I will say have a couple of months where all I buy is the Stampin Up stuff? Whatever I do know that I need to reduce my spending again, I have got better, but I'm still finding that I'm spending more on craft supplies than I am actually using!

I sadly cannot resist a crafty bargain, the above is the recent stash I got from BeeBaab Crafting Supplies who I discovered towards the end of last year. I ordered these goodies from the same over Christmas and they arrived on Friday, given the pep talk I gave myself on saturday I had a play with the 'That Special Touch Mask - Wings & Words' stencil that I got and one of the stencil brushes. I broke out the Distress inks and stippled through the stencil with Crushed Olive, Peacock Feathers and Wild Honey inks and Black Soot of course for the words and body details on the butterfly and wasp.

Once I'd laid down the colour with the stencil, I removed it and used some Distress Markers in the colours mentioned above but scribbling on to my glass media mat and then picking up the ink with a water brush and 'colouring in' the white areas around the stencilled parts. Once the colouring was done I gave the butterfly and wasp a coat of shimmer pen to add some sparkle and set to work making the sentiment. In my head I was going to make a 'Butterfly Dreams' kind of card, but it turned into a butterfly nightmare, when I got to the sentiment and assemble stage!

I carefully die cut 7 white pieces using a Crafters Companion die from their new Enchanted Forest collection the die is from the 'fairy Wishes' set. After I'd cut them all out I glued them and stacked them together, all good so far! I let the stack dry and decided to colour it with a Peacock Feathers Distress Marker, it was a good idea, that went badly wrong lol! I must have had glue on my fingers which transferred to the top die cut, and that acted as a kind of resist and the die cut went all patchy. Si came in to see me and I did a dramatic "It's ruined now!" thing and chucked it in the bin and stomped off out of the room and went to play Skyrim lol!

An hour later an idea popped in to my head so I went back upstairs, pulled the piece out of the bin and covered it in embossing ink, sprinkled on some gold embossing powder and heat set it. A vast improvement but the colour didn't pop off the card, so I inked again and this time reached for black embossing powder, that was loads better, it popped but it didn't sparkle. So I took out some sparkly black embossing powder and inked, sprinkled and heated again and TADA, it worked! It didn't pop still as much as I wanted it to so I die cut a piece of gold vellum to add to the front and stuck the words on to that and then glued the vellum behind the words to attach to the card.

I started out with a white card blank but decided to colour it, this time I remembered to cover the back of the card with post it notes so they didn't end up covered in distress ink YAY! I used some Mowed Lawn Distress Ink around the edge and brought it in by about an inch, no point in covering the whole card as only the edge would be seen! The finally touch was to give the butterfly piece a gold mirror card fancy edge which I think set it off nicely and I stuck it all together and we're off with the first card of 2019, plus I used 1 couple of items from the new stash!

I tell myself that I really do need to stop buying more craft things, then Tim Holtz does a Facebook live showing new stuff from his new Sizzix range and I caved and bought 4 of the new die sets. He's still got to do the Stampers Anonymous and Ranger sneak peeks and there are going to be more Sizzix products launched at Creativation 2019 later this month! I am hoping for some new colours of Distress Inks or some Distress Oxide pens, I can hope lol! I really am beginning to believe that meme that's been circulating that says buying craft stuff and using craft stuff are two separate hobbies lol! I need to focus more on one than the other and my purse is crying, use the stash rather than spend the cash lol! On that note I'll go an make something to eat and then look at organising the cardstock by type and making space for the new stash. Have a fab week, stay safe and well and I'll chat to you soon!

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 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 👀

Review: Neenah vs Craft Perfect Colouring Comparison

In my Halloween Coffin Cards post the other day, I mentioned that I was going to share some tips based on what I discovered whilst colouring the images for my latest batch of Halloween cards, it boils down to another of those I'm so totally rubbish at this, lets give up moments.

Perseverance and a new tack meant that I discovered that it wasn't me being rubbish at the colouring, but it was the cardstock I was using for the job!

I started off using Neenah Classic Crest Solar White card stock that I got from Crafters Companion and My Favorite Things Hybrid Ink pad 'Black Licorice' which works for both water based markers and alcohol based markers.

When I started to colour I was getting frustrated when within minutes the markers were bleeding outside of the image and at that point I wasn't really laying down lots of colour. I tried again this time with Hero Arts 'Intense Black' ink that is specifically alcohol marker friendly and once again the markers bled out of the image and once I'd laid down a darker colour to add depth to the image and I went to blend in, it was dry and wouldn't budge. At this point I was about to chuck in the towel and have a sulk, instead I channeled by Grandad and went and had a cup of tea and thought about the problem.

As I sat sipping my brew I mulled over what I'd done, on the product description for Crafters Companion Neenah it says "This high quality Neenah Classic Crest card is ideal for use with all alcohol based colouring mediums. " Having read that, again I figured it had to be me at fault, I tried again and pressed on and as you can see from this photo CC Neenah card stock is not an ideal card stock to use with Tonic Nuvo alcohol markers!

I decided to have one last go, but this time I opted to change the cardstock to Tonic Craft Perfect Ultra Smooth cardstock, and the difference was incredible! I did the same darker grey line for shading on the Craft Perfect that I did on the Neenah, but on the craft perfect it blended out like a dream, the colours didn't bleed outside the image (see the grey on the Neenah witch's hat) or merge in to each other. Working on the cardstock was different as well, the markers glided across the card and it was easy to control laying down of the colour.

Lesson learned, it wasn't me fluffing up, it was the cardstock that wasn't suited to the markers I was using! If I get time over the next few day I'll try using Promarkers and Spectrum Noir Markers on both lots of cardstock and compare the results. That said, in future when I'm colouring with Nuvo Markers I'll only be using Craft Perfect card stock.

Again I'm thrilled with how the final card came out, my colouring and fussy cutting are getting better and I used up bits from the Maybe Someday box to make the card. A while ago I die cut one of my Tim Holtz dies 'Birch Trees' and I used some black Starlights paint to colour it, when I'd finished and it had dried I decided it was too dark for the project I was working on, so I didn't use it. The panel at the back was another panel I made when I was experimenting with Distress Stains a couple of weeks ago. When the panel was dry I embossed it my Tim Holtz 3D embossing folder 'Lumber', when I accidentally put both pieces together they looked perfect and screamed turn me in to a Halloween card lol! So I did, I have pumpkins on the brain lol!

Halloween Coffin Cards 🎃

I should apologise for the large amount of Halloween cards that are going to appear on my blog over the next few weeks, and I  know its a bit early for some people, and that some people don't celebrate Halloween at all, but I love Autumn and all the things that are associated with the time of year, the colours, aromas and of course Halloween 👻🎃

It gets to the end of August and my inner 'Autumnite' starts craving anything that tastes like apple & cinnamon and loves filling the house with the scent of berries, spices and homemade cinnamon swirl bread. I make cards and decorations for the house, I don't send so many cards though as not so many people celebrate Halloween, so if you do and you'd like a card let me know 😍

On the halloween theme, late the other night I had the notion to make some Coffin shaped cards, the shape appealed to my Halloween loving dark side, my warped sense of humour had decided that a hammer and nails on the front with the sentiment 'Nailed It!' would be amusing, not to everyone's taste but I think some of my Gothy friends would be amused by the card, although as I created I strangely enough never got round to making that one. After that thought, my mind started playing with other ideas of how I could decorate a coffin card for Halloween, alternate Valentine's cards etc.

But when I tried to sort out the dimensions for making my own coffin shaped card blank boy did I have an EPIC fail! I decided that I'd try and buy some pre-cut card blanks so did a google and discovered that nobody sold Coffin shaped card blanks, you can get treat boxes, but not card blanks, somebody is missing a trick there! So I soldiered on as best I could and I ended up with a passable coffin shape but it was rather wonky looking, I decided at that point and take the win and head off to bed.

The next morning, I decided to have another go, maths and geometric are not my strong suit, they are my kryptonite in fact, and I dread having to use them, the surrounding area can quickly becme festooned with colourful language when I try lol!

I think during my second attempt I cursed a little louder than usual and my brilliant man heard me and came in to the room as I was struggling again to make the shape a reality. He asked me what I was trying to do, so I explained and he went away and used his talents to create a 3D print a coffin shaped template, plus a template for cutting the mat for the coffin which also has a cut out area to enable me to do some inking or add some texture paste to the design. Saying I was a happy bunny is putting it mildly, with the template, what I'd struggled with for several hours, I achieved to make several card bases in minutes and that included cutting the card stock to size, scoring down the middle, laying on the template, drawing round it, and cutting it out!

The first card created used a panel from my Maybe Someday box, I'd created it back in May 2016 when I was making some cards for my brother, I didn't like the colours at the time but loved the panel so put it to one side knowing one day in the future it would be useful.

The cute bat stamp is from Sugarpea Designs and is called 'Fang-Tastic', I got it last year but until today I haven't used it. Truth be told, because I didn't have a matching die I was worried about using it. Turned out I didn't need to be as my fussy cutting is really improving 😄 I used Tonic Nuvo Marker Pens to colour the image and also Tonic Craft Perfect Ultra Smooth cardstock to stamp the image on. I stamped the image using Hero Arts 'Intense Black' which is brilliant for alcohol markers.

The moon is also part of the Fang-tastic stamp set and I stamped that with Silvery Shimmer Delicata ink and then added some clear embossing powder on top.

My next coffin card I used a technique that I've wanted to try for a while after seeing Jennifer McGuire do it, but I thought I'd fluff it up, I die cut the Lady Death skull die that I got off Ebay and added Versamark Ink, then a layer of Ranger 'Rose Gold' ink.

When it was dry I added more Versamark and embossing powder, and followed that 4 times until I ended up with a piece of cardstock that looked like enameled metal. To say I was chuffed with the result is another understatement, I've done a lot of surprising myself creatively this week 😀

The sentiment for this card comes from a Graphic 45 set 'Rare Oddities Set 2' that I got a few years ago, again heat embossed using the same embossing powder as the skull. The addition of some black & white bakers twine using a trick that I picked up from Kristina Werner I poked a hole with my pokey tool in the crease of the card and threaded the twine through the hole, wrapped it around a second time and tied the bow.

My final coffin card to share today is I think my favourite, my colouring is really starting to get better and I'm getting a little better at shading after watching Jenn Shurkus's video on using Copics. Granted I didn't use copics, they are way out of my price range at the moment, but are definitely on my wish list! 

The background again came from my Maybe Someday box and was created a while back using Gelatoes on black card stock and some silver gilding wax was added to highlight some of the detail. At the time I was experimenting and it didn't work as well as I expected it to, but I hing on to the piece nethertheless.

The images are from a My Favorite Things set called 'Witch Way Is the Candy?' there is a matching die set for this card but I don't have it, so I fussy cut the images out by hand and used a black Memento Marker to colour round the edge, it works like a charm every time. My shading is still a little off, but its definitely improving, I'm also limited to what colours I have, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to acquire more in the future. I do have some other cards and tips to share but this has already turned in to a mammoth post so I'll write another post over the next couple of days. Not many Halloween cards left to share now, well maybe there are lol, I have started working on some Xmas cards tonight and some gifts, more on these soon, for now I'm away to my bed to dream dreams of pumpkins, witches, and things that go bump in the night! 🎃

3 Sisters for Halloween

You know yesterday I posted about not being able to finish projects, well guess what? Despite having a pile of unfinished projects to finish, my brain had a bright idea to make a set of Halloween cards, that has morphed in to making more of them with different sentiments and colour ways and from there I fished out a santa & sleigh silouette die and I'm going to make a set of Xmas cards using xmas colours and sentiments.

I got the dies a while back and hadn't gotten around to using them (nothing new there lol), whilst I was sorting out some things I came across the unused dies and thought it would be good to make use of them with Halloween not being far away now YAY! I sat for a while wondering what to do with them, I new I wanted a bright background utilising distress inks, but I wasn't sure what to do beyond that. I have a couple of small drawers with embossing folders in, I started to look for suitable Halloween style embossing folders and guess what? Tim Holtz aside - which I didn't want to use for this project - I discovered that I had absolutely NO halloween folders, tons and tons of Xmas and floral affairs but no halloween!

Not to be put off I looked again and found several tree embossing folders, the one I chose is by Darice called 'Tree Trunks', it was still in its packaging and had never been used! I wanted to have a moon in the background, but wasn't sure how, I didn't have any circle stencils large enough, so I cut a circle free hand from a Post It note. I inked Mustard Seed Distress Ink on 3 pieces of card if different places, then I popped my Post It Mask on the yellow and inked around with Carved Pumpkin Distress Ink.  I added some Wilted Violet Distress Ink to the bottom layer and was pleased with how it looked, I gave each panel a spritz with water and blotted it off and whilst still damp I ran each piece through the Big Shot in the embossing folder.

The sentiments I used are from two sets the 'Happy Halloween' sentiment is from a Craftwork Cards set called 'Spooky' and the other two are from a My Favorite Things set called 'Witch Way Is the Candy?'. I stamped in Versamark and used WOW! 'Opaque Bright White Super Fine' embossing powder.

Of the 3 cards I like this one best, not sure why, although I put the wrong sentiment on it, this one was meant to go on the card with the witch holding the raven lol! I was going to put dimensionals behind the witches but it created too much shadow which made the focal points lose their clarity, so I glued the images to the card front after first giving the 'moons' a covering with Nuvo Aqua Flow Glitter Gloss pen to add some shimmer.

The best thing is I now have 3 cards for my box and all of them were started today and FINISHED today and I have ideas for making other cards using the same techniques. I have a couple of Flying Witch dies and a Halloween village style die, so I'm going to have a play with them tomorrow, I'm already working out in my head what colours to use. I may make a few birthday cards in this style as well, not everyone likes flowers and cute cats after all 🐱

Card Makers Block

Last night I sat with a desk full of "parts" that I'd made over the past few weeks, and after 2 hours in the craft room, all I managed to do was die cut some leaves for yet another idea I've had and shuffle this bit with that bit and decided that actually it didn't look like I wanted it to anyway.

I posted a photo on Facebook last night (see below) because I felt a little overwhelmed, I see people creating several projects a day, working on massive design team deadlines and crafting while they are really under the weather, I chastised myself because I couldn't make just one card and boy did I ever be a Debbie Downer on myself.

I logged on this morning to discover that a fair few of my crafty friends suffer from low mojo, even those on design teams, over my morning coffee I read what they had posted and replied and came away feeling a lot better, thank you to everyone that responded 😘

This photo shows some of the potential projects I was struggling with last night, I like the individual components, but can I get them to meld together in to a completed card, can I heck! I just couldn't move forward with anything, so I left my desk, moaned on facebook and then went to bed lol!

And low, I got up this morning, and after sipping my morning coffee whilst browsing Facebook I went back to my desk and an idea of how to complete one of the projects hit me and I have now finally finished the 'Wicked Ancestor' card above! It had me stumped for a while, you can see parts of it in the photo. I made the embossed background after playing with a couple of shades of distress stain and my new media mat, I added some shimmer and stopped.  Whilst I was playing with the stains I dyed the seam binding with some Carved Pumpkin Distress Stain, I was so chuffed with result, even though I've seen Tim and several others do the exact same thing on YouTube, its always magic to me to try something that I've seen a 'professional' do and get as good as them results even if its something simple like dyeing a piece of ribbon lol!

I've been trying to complete this project for 2 weeks now, but nothing would work, looking at some of the other projects this morning I think I've figured out why I'm having a problem with Tim Holtz and some other American dies and stamps! Their designs are based on American card sizes mostly A2 (4.25" x 5.5"), I like to work with mostly 6" x 6" and UK A6 (4-1/8" x 5-7/8") card bases and the embossing panels don't look right on either of those sizes, unless you put them to one side and then you have a void that has to be filled somehow, or in the case of the A6 chop the card down to make it smaller. So despite trying, I can't get it right unless I make my own card blank USA A2 size.

This morning it occured to me that I could make my design into an easel card and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. For the ancestor image (it isn't one of mine, oh how I wish it was lol!) I found the image on the internet, printed it out in black and white and then added a wash of Carved Pumpkin distress stain over the top, I made a frame using dies from the Sizzix Tim Holtz Baroque die set and glued the image to the back of the frame.

I used a sheet of paper from the 8" x 8" Halloween Kraft Paper Pad by Tim Holtz as a background for the panel and the raised piece and sentiment section. I scored a piece of black card to make an easel card and I had previously embossed the distress stain coloured panel with the Sizzix 3D Botanical embossing folder.

The little pumpkin charm was an ebay purchase, I've bought some cat charms, snowflakes and other pumpkins. I gave the pumpkin charm a couple of dabs of Valencia Alcohol Ink to change the colour from silver to this orangey copper colour which I think goes well with the coppery orange metallic cardstock that I cut the Wicked sentiment from the TH Sizzix 'Vintage Spirits' die set. I'm really pleased how well this card came together, despite my inability to make any progress recently on lots of the projects I started. I'm hoping that this will be the start of my getting a little bit more productive and that my xmas and halloween cards will materialise very soon, I'm so grateful for my friends and the support they gave, you know who you are xxx