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 👀

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

A Halloween Luminaire

I had the tree die for making this because it arrived from China yesterday, the rest of the dies are Halloween dies I already had. The Witch and Haunted House dies are by Impression Obsession and the bats are from some mini dies by Xcut called 'bats' believe it or not lol!

The Luminaire is constructed from 2 pieces of card stock that are 6" tall and 10" wide,scored at 4½" and then again 1" to create the flap that you will use to glue the two panels together. I used black card, but you can make your luminaire in any colour. Making the whole project was easy, at least it was after I found the vellum that had somehow gone AWOL in my room! I finally found it in a box with some A4 embossing folders and dies, no idea why it was in there but I was relieved to find it.

I originally saw a luminaire similar to this one on YouTube where Chari Moss demonstrated how to make one using Lawn Fawn dies. (See the video below).  Missing dies aside, its always nice to be able to see a project you want to make and be able to make it straight away because you have all you need to hand.

When I first started card making, almost every project I saw required me to buy a piece of equipment, some form of media or a die or stamp. These days I have a good supply of items that I can make just about anything, and I'm learning that if I don't have something specific that is required for the project, then I can substitute it for something else.

I'd coloured acetate and gloss card stock with alcohol inks before, but never vellum, but it was so, so easy to do and in no time at all I had four panels of vellum inked and dry ready for the next stage. I won't go in to detail with all the steps, instead I'm adding Chari's brilliant video for her Spooky Halloween Lantern project she did for Lawn Fawn, which gives all the measurements needed and she talks you through the steps to make the project.

I made some changes to the construction compared to Chari's design, I added strips of black card stock to the inside of the luminaire to cover where the insert 'tree' panel met the frame, this stops light coming out of the gap when the seams don't line up you can see what I mean in the video example.

On the next one I make I'll put strips of black glitter card on to the inside top panels of the luminaire to hide the glued vellum lines so that it looks neater and more decorative. I'm also going to make a card stock base for it to sit on, again it will stop unwanted light getting out at the base and will finish the project off nicely. My base will be separate from the rest of the luminaire though because if I permanently attach it, 1 won't be able to fold the luminiare flat when not in use.

I already have ideas for making a couple of different luminaire's, one with purple and blue alcohol ink backgrounds and an assortment of fairy dies and stamps. Plus I have a few more halloween dies I'd like to use, I think they will look good on the window ledge come Halloween to help decorate the house, won't need a pumpkin that way 😉

I think a 'falling leaves' autumn version may well be on the cards and I also want to make some for Christmas, I have a small flying Santa and Reindeer die and some of houses and village scenes, so I'm going to play with those. I dare say you could make one for every season of the year. I think I may even have a play with some of the silhouette cat dies I have and make a cat themed luminaire.

The top photos were taken without a flash so didn't show up the black glitter frames I added to the panels, so I used the flash on my camera to take a photo that does show the frame, sadly though the flash made the black card look a lot paler than it is lol!

Deathly Delights and Fright Night Cards

I thought I'd post photos of a couple of the cards I made using the panels and toppers that I made last Friday, I'm really pleased with the way these cards have turned out, although I did want to add a couple of poison bottles to the first card but I haven't been able to find that stamp/die set yet! The backing panel on this card was a free download that you can download if you're a member of Club Inspire that Crafters Companion run, its free to join if you're not and you get free downloads and a 5% discount on prices which moves up to greater discounts the more you spend. If you are a member then look for the "June 2014 - Distressed Elegance" download.

I mounted the backing panel I cut on to black card and attached it to a 7" x 7" card blank. The poison label was made using a Tim Holtz Alterations Embossing Folder "Poison", I coloured it with Vintage Photo and Black Soot distress ink. The skull and crossbones are from a Sizzix Tim Holtz Alterations set called Skull Blueprint, it comes with the dies and the stamps and a trick or treat sentiment stamp.

The sentiment is from the new Graphic 45 Rare Oddities stamp set (set 2), I saw these a few weeks ago in a craft mag and have fallen in love with them, they appeal to my dark side and the papers as have words on them that say things like 'Herbology', 'Medicinal Herbs' and 'Brews & Potions', perfect for the inner herbaholic :) So far I've acquired the 6" x 6" paper pad and 2 of the 3 stamp sets, hoping to get a couple more bits from this range, but I digress...

The frame around the sentiment is part of the stamp set and I stamped that first in clear embossing ink and used Whispers Metallic Copper embossing powder. I then stamped the Deathly Delights sentiment with clear embossing ink and used Cosmic Shimmer Black Detail embossing powder. I added a dashed line around the edge of the black card with a Metallic Copper Sakura Gelly Roll pen and added 4 black adhesive gems from my stash. I did have a problem with the gelly roll pen, after doing 3 rows of dashes the pen started giving out slightly sparkly clear liquid and not the copper line it started with, no idea why, I ended up keeping going over the lines until they eventually showed up, not impressed when I paid £20 for a set of pens!

The Fright Night card started with a white 7" x 7" card blank, I used a Sheena Douglass tree stamp that came free with Issue 8 of Crafters Inspiration and stamped in Tuxedo Black Memento ink to create the black and white edge. I then took a piece of 6" X 6" paper with a grey and cream pattern and covered it with Spiced Marmalade distress ink to create the orange panel, I'm not sure what paper stack the piece I used came from as it was given to me by Lainie as part of a prize for winning a Docrafts challenge. I mounted it on to black card and attached a piece of black ribbon and a bow I made with my new bow making tool, and a couple of black glitter bats I found in my stash, think I got them from Hobbycraft a few years ago?!

The main panel was embossed using the Tim Holtz Alterations Embossing Folder "Halloween Night", I first coloured the panel with Spiced Marmalade and Ripe Persimmon distress ink, which I added some homemade gold shimmer mist to to give it a sparkle. When the ink was dry I embossed the panel, then ran Black Soot distress ink over the raised embossed area. I trimmed it to size and decided to cut around the top of the 'railings' and mount it on a piece of black card that was smaller than the panel so that the spikes of the railings stood out.

Cobwebs, Poisons and Spooky Things

As I'm currently on a 3 day week at work, I have Friday and Monday off, these are becoming my crafting days when I can play with new ideas and techniques, although I lost the past few Fridays preparing for a herb tea workshop I gave in the Cotswolds last weekend. This weekend though I have nothing to do bar  a little cleaning so I figured it was time to play!

When I first started card making last October I bought the Sizzix 'Halloween Night' and 'Poison' embossing folders off the internet, when the folders arrived I embossed the poison label on purple card, decided it didn't work for the card I was making and put the folders in the draw, back then I hadn't discovered distress inks and all the cool things you can do with them!  So as its getting round to Halloween and I have a few friends that have parties and enjoy dressing up I thought it was a good excuse to make some cards and play with some stuff I bought last year and this year that I haven't played with yet.

Back in July someone on one of the Docrafts forums posted that Sixxix were having a sale with some things up to 90% off, couldn't be true I thought, but it was! I picked up the Skull Blueprint die and stamp set for £3 saving around £17, I also got the cobweb, acorn and leaf sets as well, but they were put in my die box until after my holidays. Yesterday I got them out to play and also the water brush pens I'd found in France. The skull above and the cobweb panels in the first photo are the results of my first attempt at colouring with a water brush, I used Antique Linen, Pumice Stone and Hickory Smoke inks to colour the skull, it's actually layered in 3 parts but the photo makes it look rather flat. The colouring isn't perfect but then again not bad for a first attempt, I need to get my head around shading a little more, I'll be practicing by making several more skulls and in some lurid shades of orange, purple and lime green for other cards :)

I've been trying to find the Pumpkin blueprint die and stamp set and some of the stamp sets Tim Holtz released in 2013 namely 'The Chemist' and 'Halloween Blueprints 2' but so far I can't find them at a reasonable price in the UK. I confess I'm becoming drawn to a lot of the Tim Holtz Alterations stuff, things like the Bell Jar and Apothecary Bottles appeal to me because they can be given a herbal twist, i also like halloween designs, they bring out the kid in me and I love the colours, its all wrapped up in that Autumn season I adore so much, I'll keep searching for the dies and stamps I want, you never know I may get lucky :)

The above is a close up of what I've done so far with the embossed poison folder, I used a piece of cream card stock which I trimmed to the out border of the folder image and then distressed the edges of the embossed image with my distress tool, then I went over the raised design with Black Soot distress ink before giving it a spritz with my gold metallic misting spray, I inked the distressed edge with black soot and the 'label' was complete. The other label seen in top photo was cut from the same card but the edge left straight and I used Vintage Photo distress ink on the label and the same gold misting spray, both have come out really well, so glad I discovered distress ink :)

I'll add some more photos when I've finished the cards I have in mind using the bits I've made, I'm waiting for some stamps from the Rare Oddities collection to arrive for some other ideas, I love things with poisons and apothecary type things on them, luckily I have friends where these kind of cards can be given all the year round :)