Distress Bleaching Technique

Hey crafty friends, how's your week shaping up? We're all tickety boo here and I've been playing with some new stash, I was lucky enough to get the A4 Craftwork Cards Ultimate Florals with Sentiments stamp set in a recent Craft Stash sale for £4.38 instead of the usual £17.50 😁 They did a flash sale last week with up to 70% off most of the Craftwork Cards range, I picked up over £47 worth of Craftwork cards dies, stamps and an embossing folder for just £18, I love a crafty bargain. I couldn't believe my luck getting that huge stamp set with the flowers so cheaply, the stamps lend themselves to lots of techniques and I'll be playing with them a lot over the next few weeks.

As soon as I saw the stamps I knew I wanted to revisit some old techniques, I saw Jennifer McGuire do the bleaching technique with Distress Inks back in 2015 and I tried it at the time and was impressed, but I didn't do anything with the backgrounds I created. Now I know some of you will be concerned at the use of bleach, but the smell doesn't linger and you only use a small amount, I filled a water brush pen full and its still almost full after bleach painting 7 card fronts. You can use water, but the effect won't be the same, water will just lighten and whiten the area, there is some chemistry that happens when you add bleach to distress ink that alters their colours.

Before Bleaching

I've done a similar technique last year using Oxide Inks and water, the water lightens the image and then you can add another colour on top. I used distress inks on top of the oxide inks rather successfully. I did try bleach on oxide inks and the result wasn't brilliant, on oxide the bleach acted just like water does, not dramatic or even subtle changes of colour, just a white out, which is fine, but you may as well just use water on oxides right?

If you watch Jennifer's video on the technique linked to above you can see that she inks first, then stamps and embosses, but I wanted white images. First I cut my panels using some of my favourite wonky stitches dies and then I stamped the flowers from the set with Tonic Clear Hybrid Ink and added Clear WOW! Embossing Powder before heat setting the images. Once that was done I used a selection of Distress Inks to create some bright bands of colour, wiping off the ink that beaded up on the embossing with a microfibre cloth.

Now I've mentioned it, its a good time to say that I'm ditching baby wipes in favour of plain water and micro fibre cloths (or hand sanitiser for archival inks) and a Lawn Fawn Stamp Shammy, they do the same job, but instead of throwing the clothes away like I do with baby wipes, I can pop them in the wash and use them again. I do have a few packs of baby wipes left, but once they've gone I won't be buying any more.

After Bleaching

After I'd coloured all my images I went in with the bleach to lighten the inside of the petals and leaves and a few other details to lighten the change the colour on the images.

You can see here what the panels looked like before the bleach was added and afterwards. It really does make a difference, its subtle and not in your face which I like. 

When I'd finished with the images I put them aside whilst I worked on the card bases, I use the leafy vine stamp from another Craftwork Cards stamp set I got in the sale called 'Hedgerow'. I stamped using several different colour combinations of Hero Arts Ombre Inks, I love these inks because you can utilise them to make some pretty interesting backgrounds and images.

I went around the edge of the card blank wusing the stamp and my choice of ombre pad, leaving the centre blank, there was no point covering the whole area as the Stamped panel was going to get added over the top making work and using ink in areas that wouldn't be seen.

I knew I wanted to stamp the sentiment on vellum, I trued white initially, but it wasn't very distinct against the panels due to the white stems, so I switched to black embossing ink and used some of the sentiments from the Ultimate Floral's set.  Once all the backgrounds were completed it was time to assemble the cards, I didn't notice until after I'd put them together than the ink I'd used for the backgrounds had bled through to the inside of the card, I used some old Papermania Anita's A6 cards that are supposed to be 240gsm, the card is a little flimsy and rather porous, you pays your money and you takes your choice I guess. Once they are used up I won't be buying any more of them though as they really aren't that brilliant.

Once I'd attached the vellum and panels and "finished" the cards they bugged me, something was not right, I channelled my Grandad and went away and had a cup of tea (he taught me to do that when I had a problem and couldn't see the answer in life, and as crafting is an extension of my life, a cuppa was required!) When I came back I had the solution, I needed to pick up the black from the sentiment and echo it somehow! So I added some gloss black Nuvo Drops to the centres of the rectangle panels and some Peacock Feather Jewels from Lucy's Cards to the oval panel. Once the gems and drops were in place I was happy, although I went in with a Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen to add a little subtle sparkle.

If you don't already have Distress Ink pads getting a good selection of colours can be a costly endeavour, Aladine's iZink Dye Based ink pads are a good low cost alternative, currently on Craft Stash they are £1.50 each compared to the price of distress inks at £4 - £6 depending where you buy them its a pretty big saving. Granted there are only 20 colours to chose from, but they work pretty well for the price. If you haven't encountered this brand of inks before, you may find this video useful.

And that's it really, a quick and simple way of creating a batch of colourful cards, I have some for anniversaries now and birthdays for my box and I'll be creating some more for get well cards and some thank you cards. I also want to stamp and heat emboss in gold on dark cardstock and use metallic paints/inks to create dark versions. I've been collecting lots of craft items over the past few years to try a large variety of techniques, and I reckon I've tried about a 10th of the projects I've bought stuff for!

So I'm going to dig out the supplies and try my hand at all of them and revisit some old techniques like foiling, acrylic backgrounds with the gelli-plate, masking fluid backgrounds and so much more. I realised this week that I have to stop telling myself I can't do it, or it won't look as good as people like Jennifer McGuire. Of course my cards won't look that good, I'm not a professional crafter! I have to stop 'saving' things I've bought to do things because I may mess up and waste the supplies! It's a waste to my purse to buy them and not use them lol! So I'm going to try more and do more and if it works that's great, if it doesn't then the trials can be deposited in the bin or recycled somehow 😉

Wreath Builder Templates: For the Boys

It occurred to me last week that all the card examples I've done so far to show the wreath templates have had a distinctively feminine feel about them. So this week I started creating some male themed cards with the templates, both of my  creations have a slightly robotic theme, perfect for the number one man in my life 😍

I used the the 5" x 5" template and just for a change I worked with black card stock, metallic inks and pens and threw in a little heat embossing.

The inks I used for both cards are the Delicata brand made by Tsukineko in 'Golden Glitz' and 'Silvery Shimmer', the second project I used the same inks plus their 'Celestial Copper' ink. If you haven't yet come across Delicata inks yet, I recommend you add some to your stash when you can, they come in 12 different colours and are some of the best metallic inks I've come across, that give some of the best results out of all the metallic inks I've tried and I've tried a good few brands believe me!

Delicata inks dry really quickly on porous surfaces and don't smear once dry like many other metallic inks. They are the latest generation of metallic inkpad's and give a superb, rich, bright metallic colour, the ink pads are water-based, acid-free and archival, and they are available as full sized ink pads and in cube inks, plus they also have re-inkers available, the re-inker bottles lend themselves to other techniques not just re-inking.

My second card was constructed from two large 7" squares  that I hand cut to be a hexagon, and the new 7" template. Once all the stamping was done I glued the 2 pieces together at the top to create a tent fold card. I made my own card blank from Limetree Craft​ 260gsm black cardstock, the best black card stock I've ever bought, I highly recommend Limetree for all their card, plus their Silky Smooth Ultra White 240gsm Card for alcohol markers is the BOMB!

The cog wreath was stamped in 3 different colours of Delicata metallic ink as mentioned above and I added 'Peacock Feather' Gems from Little Things from Lucy's Cards to the silver inked cogs.

The sentiment and centre panel are cut with another of my go to sets, I have several sets of the Craft Stash Wonky Stitches dies in a variety of shapes, and if you've seen many of my cards you'll know I use the ovals, circles, squares and hexagons a lot, they are brilliant for giving an interesting edge to a card without being too fussy.

The robot in the centre (and the sentiment) are from a Woodware set called 'Rusty Robot', I heat embossed them with gold then used to metallic pencils to colour him in. Couldn't resist the addition of some wobbly eyes for a bit of playfulness 😉 Now I need to investigate other stamps that can create cards for men and now that we the 7" template it means I can use larger stamps, which should make it a lot easier!

Using Our Wreath Builder Templates With STENCILS!!!

Hi Everyone, I'm really excited to share with you another fabulous use for our Wreath Builder Templates and to use them in this way you DO NOT need a stamping platform!!! I know, it sounds too good to be true doesn't it? I can't take the credit for the idea because I saw the lovely Jennifer McGuire do this over on her blog earlier this month and I wondered if I could achieve the same with our templates.

I didn't want to rush to say to you "Oooo look what you can do with our stencils!" Only to discover that you can't use them in the same way. Instead I thought that I'd test the idea and create a couple of projects to make sure that our templates could definitely be used in the same way before I said they could be, so I did and they can! ::Tigger like bounces::.

All you have to do is tape the template to a flat surface, I used my Tim Holtz Glass Media Mat which has the added bonus of helping the inks to blend more smoothly. I've recently switched to using blending brushes for using with distress inks (more on them soon) and you end up with some brilliant results. I've so far tried the using the 6" and new 7" templates (more on that soon!) and both work, but I won't lie you have to keep a firm grip on the stencil if you do it the way I did, next time I'll tack down exactly like Jennifer did, but the results are amazing!

What I should have done is use low tack tape and mask off the areas I didn't want to use, instead I held it down with my hand and used a piece of A4 paper to 'mask', Jennifer explains how to do it in her video that I've linked to below.

I was a little excited to try it as I had some free time so I skipped steps, but it still worked! I used painters tape to stick the template to the media mat, don't worry about getting distress ink on your template, if you do it will wipe away with a damp cloth or a baby wipe.

For the green card I used the 'Line Em Up' stencil from Time For Tea Designs and two shades of distress ink in Salty Ocean and Twisted Citron and they blended together beautifully. The image was in my Maybe Someday box, I'd coloured it a few years ago when I got the Neat & Tangled 'Purrfect' stamp and die set, so my colouring isn't as good as it is these days, but its not too shabby!

I haven't made a card with the panel generated by the 7" template yet, I'll finish it and add it to my post to introduce the new 7" and 2" templates later this week. I have so many templates that I can use in this way to make some fabulous backgrounds, I think its a huge added bonus for the templates and its brilliant that it means that people without a stamping tool can also use the templates as well.

I'm off to play some more, my head is now full of stars, snowflakes, hearts and more that I can use to create card backgrounds with my templates. If you already have a set of templates and your try out using your templates with stencils, please share your cards over on our Facebook Page, I love to see what you all create 😀

Creative Stamping Freebie - Vintage Collage

Greetings from Warts an' All towers, I'm not sure what happened to January but it sure flew by, I didn't get to do much crafting for a variety of reasons. Having our 18 month old Granddaughter to stay for the weekend was high on the list, followed by slipping down the stairs, misjudging the bannister and consequently causing my umbilical hernia to flare up making bending, sitting and just about any movement painful.

Plus dealing with a new freak menopause symptom that causes the skin on my thumbs (and only my thumbs) to split open as if its been cut. No sooner does one heal, another happens, rendering me unable to do so many tasks, until recently I really didn't realise just how many tasks you need you thumbs for! I've been liberally applying hand cream and just discovered that I can seal the cuts with a product called Germolene New Skin, this product alone has been the reason I've been able to craft again, the past few months I've ruined so many projects because my thumbs split and blood oozed out all over my projects ruining many of them.

This card is made with stamps from Issue 67 of Creative Stamping there are some fabulous stamps included in the set including 3 by Crafty Individuals, a relatively new company to me that make some fabulous stamps. I used a combination of Versafine Clair inks to do all the stamping and several Distress Ink Markers to colour the flowers and dragonfly. I know I promised a review of the VF Clair inks and as soon as I have all 24 ink pads I will, I'm 2 colours short of a full set so that I can make some swatches and test all the colours.

I started off with a 5" x 5" panel and used the script stamp from the set and 'Morning Mist' VF Clair ink to stamp the background. I couldn't resist distressing the edges a little so I used a little 'Vintage Photo' Distress Ink to take down the harshness of the white card I stamped on. Next I stamped the flowers and dragonfly from the set on to watercolour card using VF Clair 'Nocturne' and covered the stamped images in WOW clear embossing powder and then coloured the images with Distress Markers.

The two large purple flowers were coloured with Wilted Violet and Ripe Persimmon markers, the small photos were coloured with Picked Raspberry and Ripe Persimmon and the dragonfly was coloured with Peacock Feathers and Twisted Citron. I simply scribbled the markers towards the edges of the images and used a water brush to spread the colour all over the areas I wanted to colour.

I added the brown 'dots and squares' texture stamp from the set with VF Clair 'Acorn' ink and used 'Nocturne' again to add the ink blot and ink ring stamps. I used the shaping tool that came with free with issue 61 of Creative Stamping to give the flowers and the dragonfly a little extra dimension then I adhered the flowers to the card base. I added some small 3D foam squares to the dragonfly to raise him above the flowers and glued the finished panel to a homemade card base made from Kraft cardstock.

I added the sentiment 'Just a Note' which is also from the Vintage Collage set, stamping it on a scarp of white cardstock with 'Nocturne' ink before finally adding some shimmer to the centre of the flowers and the dragonflies wings with a Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle pen which sadly doesn't show up very well on the photos, but it adds a lovely shimmery effect in real life.

This set has so much potential and I'll be making lots more cards with it for my stash, the images can be used to make male and female cards and are brilliant for using on mixed media projects. You can see from my close up image just how well the VF Clair inks stamp and the detail they give, they are my new go to ink for this reason alone. I love how this project turned out, and it was rather quick to put together, the bright colours gave some sunshine to my soul on this cold winters day.

I've just got the new Tim Holtz Sizzix Wildflower Stems #1 & #2 sets and plan on using them to make some spring floral cards and some cards for Easter using those and the Cotton Tail die and I think that bright sunshine colours will be called for 😍 This week if my thumbs behave I'll also be stamping some spring cards with my wreath templates using some new stamps I got for my birthday last month. I've set myself the task this month to make a batch of 'Thank You', 'Just to Say' and some 'Sympathy' cards for my box. The plan is to also make 4-6 Christmas cards every month and set them aside for when I'll need them in December.

Coupled with the motivation board I'm making ready for the Live Well programme I start this week, and the cards to make for friends and family birthdays, there will be lots happening in the craft room, I have an MDF storage rack to make and decorate for my Stampin' Up ink pads and I still have to label all my oxide inks and sort out more stuff to give to my niece who is turning in to a fine papercrafter 😍Here's hoping my thumbs let me get on with the things I want to do! Stay safe and warm everyone and keep on crafting!

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 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

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!

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 😁

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!

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

Ingredient Jars of Joy 1:12 Scale Style

Hello again from planet I'm quickly becoming obsessed with 1:12 scale miniatures lol! I'm just sharing what I've made today and yes I'm feeling pleased with my little self, although my ever self critical eye can see lots of room for improvement, still I'm thrilled with what I've achieved so far this week. Just one week ago I had the idea to create a 1:12 scale Apothecary Shop and I knew I wanted to add a "Wise Woman" room complete with crystal ball, tarot cards, cauldron, herb and spell books and a vast array of bottles and jars of potions and ingredients.

When I started looking for bottles and jars of ingredients I found them but the majority of them would make stocking the room cost much more than I could afford, the jars are impressive but at £13.50 for 6 made up bottles or almost £40 for 20 it could get very silly. I started to think maybe I should abandon the idea due to the cost, but then I started to think of ways I could make my own, initially I doubted my abilities, but then thought better of it and decided to just go for it.

So here are the first batch of 'ingredients' for the wise woman's room that will form part of the apothecary shop & garden. I've had so much fun concocting this little lot tonight and I used just what I found in my room. Some of the jars will change colour as the resin stuff dries out, so I'll take another photo when they change to their true colour and add the photo here. I already had a pack of mini bottles of varying sizes I bought from the works a few years ago and they've been sat in my stash doing nothing.

Then when I went out to The Range today to pick up some tissue paper and craft sand, I found some miniature gems both figuratively and literally. These jars of mini gems cost £1.99 for 8, which is brilliant value when you think that 4 empty jars will set you back £3.19 at the Dolls House Emporium. I wasn't sure what I was going to fill them with this afternoon, but I bought them anyway. Picked up a table and some picture frames as well for £1 each, both of which can be experimented with.

I've seen a Pharmacist Table by Reutters on the DHE website, its lovely but at £71.99 for a table not much different to the one in my photo above and some accessories it seems rather excessive and I'm pretty sure I could make one myself for a lot less. I've seen the same table for sale at another online dolls house place for £99.99 which considering what is in and on it unbelieveable. It can be a rather costly business like anything I suppose, which is why I'm going to try and make as much of the contents for my dolls house myself.

To fill my little jars I let my imagination run riot, pieces of lavender leaves became 'Rats Tails', left over Lycopodium was chopped in to another jar and became 'Centipede Legs', red alcohol ink became 'Dragons Blood', lavender buds became 'Cockroach Parts', and a little white craft sand became 'Powdered Unicorn Horn'. I've created 'Fish Scales', 'Eye of Newt', 'Toe of Frog', 'Slug Slime' and a few other gruesome sounding ingredients, 11 jars of joy. I didn't have any resin for the jars so I've improvised and used Tonic Nuvo Drops, time will tell if it dries out and becomes clear, for future ingredient bottles I may invest in some resin, but I just wanted to play today.

My head is full of ideas for other ingredient jars to make and I've got a couple of mini bell jars, moss, tiny toadstools and skulls winging their way to me, as well as about 60 mini bottles to play with. So by the time I've finished the apothecary shop will be well stocked as will the wise woman's room, that realisation makes me incredibly happy, this time last week I was about to throw the towel in thinking my idea wouldn't get off the ground because it would be too expensive. It makes me wonder just what else I can create, years ago I made a 1:12th scale wingback chair, a sofa and I even made a padded quilt and pillow, they weren't prefect but I'm certain I could make the same kind of things, only better because this time round I have more skills, tools and supplies. Here's to the next miniature adventure :)

Aerial Fairy Bookmark

Hello to you out there in blog land, its been a couple of weeks since my last blog post, I've had my 14 year old niece Zoe staying with me for a week and I introduced her to the art of card making and Distress Inks, she took to them really well and went away armed with some distress inks, a heat gun, embossing powders and ink and lots more besides and I look forward to seeing what she creates in the future.

The week went by so quickly and I didn't get to show her everything I wanted to, there were trips to some National trust places, Sherwood Forest and we went to see Mamma Mia 2, which we all really enjoyed, it was all I could do to stop myself from singing out loud everytime the cast did the musical bits lol! Now Zoe has gone back home it seems so much quieter here, not that she was noisy, but having an extra person in the house changes the dynamic and when they aren't there you notice it.

One thing that was odd was the inability to be able to wander into my craft room late at night when I couldn't sleep and play with ink and paper, now that I have my craft space back I've started creating again. Yesterday we went to a local craft centre and I picked up a lovely stamp from Lavinia Stamps called Aerial. It occured to me that despite having about 20 Lavinia Stamps stamps I very rarely, if ever use them. More of the Tim Holtz fear I think, I see people create stunning projects and feel I can't do the stamps justice, so I put the stamps in a box and look at them every once in a while. It's actually been over 2 years now since I did anything with the stamps and because of how pretty the stamps are its a crying shame.

Not using the stamps seems a stupid when I think about it, given how much the stamps cost me initially, the fact that if it goes wrong the bin will accomodate the mishaps and whilst I'm playing I'm learning in the process. So last night I decided to have a play with the new Aerial stamp and my trusty distress inks and make myself a bookmark. 😁

I cut a strip of watercolour card and shaped the top with one of the dies from the Sizzix Tim Holtz Baroque set, then I began to layer the Distress Inks. I used one of my favourite colour combos, Wilted Violet and Picked Raspberry with bits of Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet and some Black Soot to edge and ground the image.

Before I used the Black Soot I spritzed some water on the cardstock and blotted it after a minute to lift the ink. Pleased with the result I wanted to add a Moon to the image, I do have a couple of Moon stamps, one from Altenew and the other from Just Rite but the first was too big and the second too small. I sat thinking and my eyes hit upon the solution.

On top of my Distress Ink storage units sit a variety of items from Gamsol, glue, erasers and embossing powders. It occured to me that the small sized jars of WOW embossing powder were the right size for the moon I wanted to create. So I spritzed the lid with water, placed the bookmark on top and pressed down firmly making sure the cardstock didn't move around. After a minute I carefully lifted the bookmark off the lid and used a paper towel to blotch away the ink leaving a light moon shaped patch.

I think really I should have left it as is, but I attempted to edge the moon with a gel pen and I didn't get a perfect circle as my hand wasn't steady enough. Something else I need to work on, I decided to add some Pumice Stone Distress marker to the moon and again spritzed with water and lifted off and then gave the moon a lick of Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen. It helped disguise the messed up bit a little but its still not perfect, but does it have to be, its only for keeping my place in a book, and I've used chocolate wrappers, bits of ribbon, and torn pieces of paper before now lol!

I stamped Aerial, the leaf branches and mushrooms with Onyx Black Versafine Ink and added some Wilted Violet and Black Soot Distress Inks to the bottom to 'ground' the fairy. I added some specks of Stickles to Aerial's hair (Black Diamond) and dots to make stars (Crystal) and highlight the end of her wand. The final step was to use a hole punch at the top centre and thread some purple organza ribbon through.

I'm really happy with the way this turned out, imperfections aside, when I started the project, I was going to make a Winter themed card in blue and lilac icy shades with snowflakes/drops in the background, but somehow as I worked it turned in to this. I'm now wondering about making some bookmarks to give as gifts to friends. I actually started making some homemade xmas gifts this week. I made some Peppermint Foot Fizzes, just need to make some little boxes to put them in. I'm going to make some bath bombs as well and some notelet cards, this year I want almost all of what I give to friends and family to be homemade, I may even have a go at soap making, I've been wanting to try for a long time.

The Crazy Cat Lady Makes A Purrmaid

I finally finished this card last night and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I created the topper back in January and its been sitting in my 'Maybe Someday' box ever since because I couldn't decide what to do with it. Yesterday inspiration hit me and I decided to turn it in to a circular easel card.

I got the 'Purrmaid' die, at least that's what I call it, off Ebay, I've done lots of searches and cannot find it as a branded die, I have seen graphics of a similar style but never any dies. The crazy cat lady in me fell in love with it when she saw it and couldn't resist. The die itself is rather large at 12.5cm wide by 10cm high so it makes for a rather substantial piece for a card. The die removes all the pieces in the tail scales and fins, so I cut it twice and inlaid pieces of Tonic Craft Perfect 'Midnight Topaz' Glitter Card in the spaces.

I cut the whole piece from a piece of black card stock and then used a set of Arteza Metallic Markers to colour the greenery, tail and details on the cats face. I mounted the inlaid and coloured image on to a circle of water colour card, which I'd first inked with Mermaid Lagoon and Salty Ocean Distress Oxide Inks and spritzed with water to give the tiny bubbles effect.

Originally as you can see on the photo of the topper itself, I mounted that panel on a frame of gold metallic card but when I came to put the card together last night I decided the card worked better without the gold, so I removed the piece from the back.

I cut the base for the card from a sheet of 'Pacific' A4 Centura Pearl card and used another sheet to cut a circle the same size as the base to add the topper to and a smaller circle for the stopper. After cutting all the pieces I embossed them with an A4 Sizzix embossing folder by Debi Potter called "Happy Texture", it looked a little like the greenery on the card so I thought it would be a nice finish.

The sentiment is from a Tonic die and stamp set called "Cat's Whiskers", I used Tonic Clear Embossing Ink and Cosmic Shimmer Glitter Embossing Powder in "Brilliant Sparkle Blue Zircon" to echo the glitter on the purrmaid tail for the sentiment. I love the way this card turned out in the end, and its reasons like this that I have my Maybe Someday box, I can play when I don't have time to do much else and save it for another time and if I need a bit of inspiration for finishing a project, I have a look in the box and 90% of the time come away with just the right thing to finish the project.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks here, the hot weather made it difficult to do very much in the craft room, so I've been getting lots done since it cooled off a couple of days ago, but apparently the temperatures are going to climb again very soon. Tomorrow we're off to collect our new car tomorrow, the bathroom is almost finished, just the carpet and the finishing touches to do now and we're getting ready for my 14 year old niece to come and stay for a week very soon. I'm looking forward to her visit very much, she's asked me to show her how to use Distress Inks and we're going to be making a Tim Holtz Village Mansion together and we have lots of places to visit  with her ear marked.