Christmas Themed Floating 'Pop Cards' 🎅

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flurries of Warm Wishes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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! 🎃

Purple Hi-Top Boots Card

I made this card for my niece for her 14th birthday, hard to believe that she is growing so fast, it doesn't seem but a moment since I held her in my arms the day she was born, time goes by so very quickly!

My niece isn't a pink girlie, girl so pink, lipstick and tu-tu frills for a card for her would go down like a lead balloon, she's what would have been called a Tom Boy in my day, but I'm not sure that's politically correct these days. She loves Batman, anime, bacon, chocolate, and the colour purple!

I like to think she gets the love of anime from me, and I may have helped influence her love of purple along with her Mum. I watch her and see a few other things that are me in her, she plays Skyrim like her auntie does, we like some of the same music and has my sense of humour, watch out world lol!

I was a bit of a Tom Boy when I was younger and I'm not a huge fan of pinks and princess colours. Still today, I'm more comfortable in jeans, t-shirt and a pair of hi-tops than skirts, dresses and high-heels. When I was my nieces age, I wore hi-tops all the time, but back then they were called baseball boots and I had several pairs in nice bright colours. So when I saw the My Favorite Things 'All Star High Tops Die-namics' die I couldn't resist it, partly nostalgia and partly forming an idea for my nieces card. Although I think it would work equally well for a card for a teenage boy if you change the colours and background to something more grungy or gamey, although that would work for girls as well in my world.

The die is fabulous, but putting those eyelets in can be a little fiddly, in the end I hit on the idea of using my pokey tool as a positioner. First dab some glue on the back of your hand, skeewer the eyelet on your pokey tool or something that is thin enough to go through the eyelet hole. Add a dab of glue then holding the boot piece with one hand, position the eyelet around the hole using the pokey tool and press down.

I was amazed at how quickly I got through the job once I'd hit on that method of adding the eyelets, the rest of the pieces layered together very quickly. I did try to use some thread to make laces but I couldn't get it through the holes in the boot without it fraying and looking messy.

I made this one a an easel card using black card and used the same purple glitter card I cut the boots from from some of the mats and layers. I cut several silver stars and slightly larger stars out of black card to mat the silver stars on to and used them as simple embellishments for the card.

The happy birthday sentiment is cut using a Sue Wilson 'Scripted Happy Birthday' die from the same 'Nebula Purple' Tonic Studios Craft Perfect Glitter Card that I used for the mats and layers and boots. I love Tonic glitter card, it die cuts like a dream, it doesn't shed its glitter like some types of card and the range of colours are so rich and lush! I'm delighted to say that my neice loved her card, it always makes me smile when I make something that makes someone else happy, it makes it all worthwhile.

Bee Happy, Create Impossible Cards!

There is a new craze doing the rounds in the card making world currently for something called an Impossible Card. The irony is its really very, very simple and uses a single piece of card to make the card base.

I've seen designs that use USA A2 Size (4¼ x 5½), USA A6 (4½ x 6¼), 5" x 7" and a 6" square design and a few variations in between this website has templates for all the above, the ones I've made so far are both 5 x 7 because it was really easy to to mark it all out.

When you see an impossible card your first reaction is WOW how is that possible, the mind makes you think that the card must have been made using two pieces of card, but also makes you think its a single piece and has an optical illusion effect. The catrd is based on something called a Hyper Card, that was originally posted by a company called Bicycle who make playing cards.

To make my card I followed a YouTube tutorial by Sam from Mixed Up Craft, I actually found her tutorial and blog thanks to a lady who is a member of one of the same craft groups as me, I really couldn't believe how easy it was to make one of these cards and I'll be making more in the future. It's another card that will fold flat, so if you don't put much on in the at of embellishments, you can send your card as a large letter and save postage.

I made the "Home Sweet Home" card first and I got myself in to a bit of a pickle, I couldn't get the flap the card fold created to stand upright. No matter what I did it fell forward or backward 😕 There are 3 possibilities for the problem...

1) The cardstock weight was not strong enough, I used cardstock  that was only 160gsm and was therefore probably not strong enough to take the weight of the topper?

2) The topper I attached was too heavy for the flap. That said I tried adding a piece to the back of the flap but it didn't help stablise it.

3) I didn't fold the flap correctly. In  the demo video Sam folds in one direction half way, turns the piece over and folds the other side of the flap from the outside to the centre in the other direction. When I made the first card I turned the flap over and folded it all the same way.

When I made the 'Bee Happy' card I followed the steps and folded and creased in the same way that Sam did and my flap stood up perfectly and held the topper without falling over. I like the colours and image of the 'Home Sweet Home' card and didn't want to bin it so I made a couple of little hinges to glue to the back, this created the stability that the topper needed to stand upright. Whilst it wrecks the "How did they do that illusion?", it does mean that I can still use the card and didn't have to throw it away.

The bee topper and papers were from a "Making Cards for Boys" CD that came free with Making Cards Magazine in March 2017, I'd printed these off when I made the Colourful Monster cards back in February but the right idea to use them hadn't hit me.

I thought that the images would be good for an impossible card. I decided to add some Tonic Nuvo Crystal Glaze to the honey jar to make it look more glass jar like and I love the effect that the glaze created.

The topper and papers for the "Home Sweet Home" card are from a Crafters Companion "Makey Bakey Mice" CD and were printed off a while back, again waiting for the right project to come along. I decided against adding a sentiment to this card because the topper already had a sentiment on it.

I made the paper flowers from a leftover piece of the backing paper and a scrap from making the base card using the Card Making Magic Die Set 'Layered Florals' and finished the centres off with some 'English Mustard' Nuvo Drops. In hindsight, it would probably been better to use some distress ink to define the edges of the flowers after shaping them, but I was a little too eager to finish the card and by the time I thought about inking, I'd already stuck the flowers and leaves down. Below is the video I used to make the cards.

In other news a lovely card making thing happened this week, I've finally found a group of ladies that live locally that meet a few times a month to craft, chat and eat cake! I'll be going along to meet them and craft along with them on the 11th May, the lady that organises the events is a Stampin Up demonstrater, but she is foremost a crafter who it seems loves getting together with others to share the joy of crafting, I'm looking forward to it and getting together with other crafters to share inspiration. That's all for now, I'm off to work on a few more impossible cards, these cards are so impossibly I hope you have a go if you haven't already.

Eclipse Cards A New Obsession

I hope you're staying in a keeping safe and warm if you're in the UK and gripped by the current winter weather from the 'Beast from the East'? It's currently -3 here, this time yesterday it was -5 so its warming up a little. the bad weather is set to stay for another few days according to the weathermen so its looking like this weeks Young Roboteers session will be cancelled, so I'm going to have some extra crafting time this weekend, which is a good thing, although I have to tidy the room first.

How does it get so messy every time I work on a project? I think its the craft room pixies, they come into the room when I'm not looking and throw everything everywhere, and they hide things, usually the exact stamp or die that I NEED to finish a project which causes chaos when you upturn the room trying to find the missing item, least that's my story and I'm sticking to it lol!

I thought I'd share a coupel of cards from my new found obsession today, which  all started a couple of weeks ago when one of the ladies in my favourite craft group posted a card she'd made using the eclipse technique. Suffice to say almost all of us that are members of the group have now a) become eclipsaholics, and b) invested in a 5cm Alphabet die set lol! I already have a couple of die sets, but they were too small and too thin for this technique, so I picked up a set from China via Ebay.

Not wanting to not be able to start until the full alphabet set arrived, I used the only die that I did have to hand, a HUGS set that was again from China and came inside a double letterbox style frame, the letters are 3cm tall and 2cm wide, the die cuts all 4 letters at once so you don't have to worry about spacing them out, its fabulous for making quick eclipse cards, I've used it to make a couple of quick cards already. For this first rabbit card above, I used an image from a free set of Woodland Animals that Making Cards Magazine provided last year. The images are so cute and they make lovely simple cards.

The rabbits and teddies above were in a free printed papers booklet with an issue of Making Cards last year, when I posted these photos on my facebook page I got lots of lovely comments which I was pleased to receive, but I did feel a little guilty because all I did was use a couple of dies and the toppers and added a bit of ribbon, its the gorgoeus images from making cards that make these cards look so lovely. Of all the card making magazines I much prefer the free papers and downloads that making cards give the readers, moe on that in another post soon.

Just before I finished writing this post my dies arrived from China, so I couldn't resist making another couple of quick cards, I had a few problems lining up the loose letters, but I managed it sort of. I've since thanks to a tip from a crafting lady bought a t-square ruler, waiting for it to arrive from China, so eclipse cards are on hold until it arrives.

I made my own card blank again using the Tonic 'Victorian Frame Layering Die Set', the image was a free paper download from Hunkydory from the 'Shimmering Watercolours Collection'. Note you have to be a member of the club to be able to download the papers, its free to join and you get lots of other benefits. I've seen some fabulous examples of eclipse cards in groups that I belong to on Facebook and on Pinterest, so I'm fueled with lots of ideas and as soon as my t-square arrives I'll be making lots more eclipse cards. Time to go an appease the craft room pixies now, I also need to bake something nice for the weekend, I can't decide on Red Velvet cake or Chocolate Orange Muffins, whatever it is I better do it soon or it'll never get done! Until next time, stay safe and warm and enjoy your crafting :)

Bee Happy Card

It's been another crazy hectic week, but its got round to the weekend and this morning when I should have been cleaning I had an idea and this is the resulting card!

I also sorted out my cardstock now, everything is all in one place, well at least all the A4 stuff is, I couldn't believe how much watercolour card, assorted colours of centura pearl etc I have! At least its easier to get to now and I now know just what I have, I don't need to buy any white card, acetate or vellum for a very long while as well lol! Despite being busy by day, I've managed to pack in a fair bit of crafting this week by night.

Thanks to the lovely ladies on a fab group I belong to over on Facebook, I've become addicted to making Eclipse Cards and this week I got a proper set of alphabet dies, more on those in a post very soon. Back to my Bee Happy card, sadly the lighting in my room is not so brilliant so the gold frame and sentiment aren't standing out as well as I would have liked, but it really does shine :)

I actually made the bee in May last year when I got the die from Hobbycraft its from the Intricut range, I cut it out in black card and then added yellow card behind the body and vellum behind the wings that I'd coated with some clear sparkle pen. The bee sat in my maybe someday box waiting for the right project to come along and although I've nearly used it on a couple of occassions, none of the projects were right, until this morning.

I bought the Sizzix hexagon framelit dies in the 2017 January sales and until today I hadnt used them, this whole card started with the backing paper catching my eye. I'd printed some papers off to use and put them to one side and whilst sorting the craft room out yesterday I came across them again. This one is called Honeycomb and if you're a DoCrafts member you can download it here, if you're not a member, its free to join and there are lots of papers to download and lots of inspiration on the site.

This card is the first time I've made a card blank from 2 pieces of card where I've 'hinged' the back piece with a fold and glued the top piece to the fold to make the card blank, a technique that I learned from the lovely Jennifer Mcguire :) I was so chuffed with how easy it was, I can see me making lots of cards like this in the future, in fact I already have one sketched out in my head for some flowers I've just stamped and cut out.

The flowers and greenery on this card were cut using a Crafters Companion Die'sire set called 'Lace Bloom' and I inked through the die with 'Wild Honey' Distress Ink and finished them off with a small golden orange pearl that I picked up at The Range today. They're from the 'Simply Creative' range, they are 6mm in diameter and have 7 colours in the pack and a total of 372 pearls in the pack. They have larger and smaller sizes as well and are just £1 a pack, I didn't go for them though, I went for the Dovecraft ' Bee Happy' die set for the sentiment for the card, I picked up some lovely pink and blue buttons to add to some baby cards I have planned.

This card was really quick to put together once I'd decided what I wanted to do, I've decided I need to stop over thinking what I'm doing and just go for it, sometimes I spend so much time thinking about what I'm going to make and looking at Pinterest for ideas that my craft time gets eaten and I have nothing to show for it. It's also time to start using things from my stash and bits box and stop stock piling lol! That's all for now, I need to put crafting things away and have some chill time with the hubby, we have a nice chilled weekend planned after tomorrow, the sun is apparently going to shine, I hope it shines on you to and you have a lovely weekend!

Step Into An Enchanted Wood

Back in June I became aware a company called Craftwork Cards thanks to the massively talented and creative wonder of a woman Jennifer Kray, she designs for CWC and Tonic Studios, if you haven't checked out her blog I urge you to do so, I checked out the wealth of projects made with CWC products and I fell in love with the 'Enchanted Wood', 'Hedgerow', 'Pampered Pets' and 'Potting shed' designs to name a few. Suffice to say, I acquired a couple of the pads, but some of them are no longer available I found to my chagrin, I missed the chance to play with the Botanica collection sadly.

The first collection to turn up was the 'Enchanted Wood' paper pad and I got a set of the toppers off Ebay of all places, as the Enchanted Wood set is no longer available on the CWC website. The designs that resonate with me most are the ones that appeal to my inner gardening, herb and wild flower loving crazy cat lady, so naturally I wanted to play with these beautiful papers. I was so happy to raid my 'Maybe Someday' box for bits of water colour paper scraps I've kept that were perfect for die cutting ferns to echo the ferns on the papers.

The papers are fabulous, I've since bought the 'Winter Woodland', 'Pampered Pets' and the 'Festive' USB stick which is cram full of lovely papers and toppers, so far I've drafted out a couple of cards that need to be put together mostly for Christmas, I just need to get round to finishing them.

Both the cards I made in the photo above use the 'Enchanted Wood' collection and were very simple to put together, I made a stepper card and an oval easel card and used the backing papers from the set. The flowers are made from cheap craft foam that I added some Nuvo Drops to the centre of. I used a selection of Tattered Lace (fern), Tonic Studios (scalloped circle), Spellbinders (white oval frames) and Crafters Companion (flower and leaf) dies.

The hardest part about putting these cards together was deciding which of the lovely papers to use, I have a problem with collection paper pads, once I buy them I then struggle to use them, because when I do I don't have it anymore!? Ironic as I buy them to use them, but some papers are just so lovely it seems wrong to rip them out of the pad to use them! That's why designs on USB sticks are brilliant because you can print them off as often as you like and never use them all up!

Newton's Nook - Sweater Weather Card

I've not been doing a lot of card making lately, I'm rewriting a course to teach youngsters about the history of robots and been off visiting Oxford and doing the Christmas present shopping lark.

It hit me the other day that I was VERY behind on making all the cards I need to send to friends and relatives for Xmas, so I started yesterday making cards in earnest. I have 60 cards left to make and some gifts also eeek!

I'm entering this card in to the Newton's Nook Inky Paws Challenge #60 'Add Some Sparkle' it was fairly quick to put together, the easel card I'd made last year and never used, so lay in my 'Maybe Someday' box. It seemed like the ideal backdrop for using with the Newton's Nook Sweater Weather stamps and dies.

My colouring still leaves a lot to be desired in terms of shading, these images are coloured simply with Zig Waterbrush Pens and then given a layer of Clear Sparkle Pen, I added more sparkly touches with Tonic Craft Perfect glitter card which I used to cut the snow bank and all the snowflakes. I also used gold metallic cardas the base for the easel layers, to cut the frilled edge to go behind the main image and for the sentiment stopper for the card and the gems are very sparkly as well, but sadly the photo doesn't show them at their best.

Breakout The Stash, It's Time For A Swing Out Sister Card!

Greetings from Warts n All HQ, its been a busy few weeks so I've not been doing much crafting or blogging, we've been away on holiday to France and I've also been organising the cupboards and trying to de-clutter rooms, well every room but the craft room, although really I should try to tackle that room lol!

Over the past few weeks I've acquired lots of jolly new stamps and dies from Lawn Fawn and Newton's Nook and some of the new Tonic Halloween range, so now I have some time on my hands I can Breakout the stash and play, you see where this is going from the title, right?

I've decided this year I'll be making pop up box cards for close friends and family, so I've been cutting the panels to create them like a trooper. I've also cut a few halloween themed panels and some for get well and birthday.

The boxes are quick to put together and I'll show a few examples soon in another post, but I couldn't help but want to try my hand at a new card type, I bought some dies from China off Ebay that were purportedly like the My Favorite Things Die-Namics Flip Flop dies. Only to be disappointed to discover that then don't score and cut like they should, they just cut, grrr!

I'm sure they'll have some kind of use in the future, but they aren't any good as flip flop card cutters. So I had to put my thinking cap on and find an alternative way of making a flip flop card, also known as a Swing Out card. It's really a lot easier than I thought, and you can use any die shape you care to, there are other versions of the swing out cards as well to try in the future that are more complicated than my simple design.

For my first ever attempt at creating a Swing Out Card I used some free papers and toppers from Making Cards magazine (October 2017), a set called 'Christmas Puppy', such cute images and I love the bright festive chevron striped papers, that accompanied the toppers. The toppers were so cute that I decided to add another on the reverse side of the swing out panel.

I finished the card off with a stamped sentiment panel that I stamped with 'silvery Shimmer' Tsukineko 'Delicata' Pigment Ink. It's a fabulous metallic ink which dries really quickly and unlike other metallic pigment inks, it doesn't smudge and smear once completely dried. A couple of snowflakes cut from white glitter card with some crystal diamanté gems in the centre added a finishing touch. In hindsight, I should have put paper on both sides of the Z fold, a point to note for next time.

As the first card went well, I wanted to make another, I have lots of the red metallic pearl card that I got last year but haven't used it yet, and its great for making card bases like these, so what better excuse?

I stamped and coloured the image on the second card whilst on holiday using my Altenew 'Poinsettia & Pine' set.

I gold heat embossed the corner decoration and the inside panels have sentiments on stamped in 'Delicata' Ink again, this time in the 'Golden Glitz' colour.

Whilst I was putting the card together I kept finding myself humming a tune, it took me a while to realise that the tune I was humming was from my early twenties by a band called Swing Out Sister, for all you youngsters who have no idea what I'm talking about, I've added a Vevo video of the song below. Music or not I think there will be a few Swing Out cards on my crafting horizon and using different shapes. Now back to chilling with tunes and putting the box cards together :)

Ken Oliver Tree of Life Cards

I just realised that I made these cards a few months ago now and totally forgot to post about them! I saw this Ken Oliver Tree of Life Die and Stamp Set on the cover of Simply Cards & Papercraft Issue 160 back in February and loved it.

At the time I couldn't find it in the UK so I ordered it from Amazon via a USA supplier and waited patiently for it to arrive.

When it did I couldn't wait to get started, I stamped the first image on to white card stock and coloured it in with my Zig Real Color Brush Markers and added a little sparkle with Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen and finished the centre of the flowers off with some Nuvo Drops.

The beauty of the die set is it not only cuts the fine detail of the tree, it also cuts the shaped background panel, and its really easy to line up so you cut it accurately. I folded a piece of white card and used the die to create a card blank by over shooting the fold of the card with the die. See this step by step Papercraft Inspirations video on How to Die Cut A Shaped Aperture Card if you're unsure how to do it.

Once I'd cut the card blank I used Mowed Lawn and Broken China Distress inks to colour the background and added the tree to the base with small foam pads.
I decided to experiment with a different medium on black card stock, my inner would be Goth seems to favour black card to white when making cards, in everyday life I tend to go for black, purple, dark blues and browns, my 'invisible' colours.

I made another shaped card blank to attach the finished tree to using black card and coloured that with a layer of Broken China Oxide Ink which gave the card base a look of a black board which I loved.

This time instead of stamping in black ink, I elected to stamp in Versamark ink and heat emboss the image with some WOW Rich Gold embossing powder. I then coloured the tree with some Metallic Gel Sticks which are primarily aimed at children and are a little cheaper than a set of Metallic Gelatos.

Both products are made by Faber Castell and I have both sets but when using the metallics, I actually prefer the kids Gel Sticks because they seem to have more pigment in them and thus give a richer, more vibrant colour. If you're on a budget, the Gel Sticks also offer better value for money in that although they are about £1 more than the Gelatos, you get 6 Gel Sticks, the same colours as the Gelatos, plus a gold and silver gel stick.

Once I finished the darker tree of life card, I added a gold and black sentiment using the Avery Elle Hugs Elle-Ments dies, in my head there was a reference to tree hugging but it didn't translate as well on the card lol! I love this stamp and die set so much, I've been working on some seasonal versions.

If I could change the set in anyway I would have left off the flowers and added more leaves. Whilst the flowers are pretty it would have been nice to colour just leaves for an autumn tree of life.

Beautiful Day Rocker Card

I'm entering this card into the February Win & Tonic Monthly Challenge, first time I've entered a challenge on their blog. The colour chosen was kraft card, this is the first time I've used craft card in a card design and as luck would have it I purchased some of the Tonic Studios Craft Perfect Brown Kraft Card a few days before I saw the challenge. I'm pleased I did buy it because it die cuts like a dream, its 280gsm so perfect for making card blanks and for die cutting, everything I cut from it come out of the die easily and beautifully cut.

I used a couple of dies from my Tonic Scalloped Circle Layering Die Set to make the rocker card base. This is the first time I've made a rocker card and it won't be the last, my card making buddy Emma sent me a stunning handmade rocker card for my birthday and I've wanted making a card of that shape since.  The other dies I used to make the topper for the rocker all come from a new die set I got last week also by Tonic, its called Sew Pretty - Have A Beautiful Day Circle Frame the set has 4 dies in total and it cuts beautifully.

Originally my topper had a white 'stitched border', but I wanted the edge to be kraft card to match the card base. So I used a circle die slightly smaller to cut out the centre of the piece I die cut in kraft card and glued that to the top of the white stitched piece. Using the stitched piece on its own creates a full circle with a stitched edge. I cut the doily piece in white card and the floral centre and then coloured the flowers and leaves with some of my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens. Finally adding a coat of Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen to make the floral elements sparkle.

The final touch to the topper was to add the sentiment which comes with the set, in to the centre in between the flowers and give the centre of each flower a touch of Nuvo Drops to create some dimension. I used English Mustard and Ripened Pumpkin, I would have liked a brighter yellow, hopefully there will be one in the future! I used 3D foam pads to raise the floral pieces and to attach the topper to the card base.

I'm becoming a bit of a tonicaholic, a little late to the tonic party but so far I haven't had a bad product from them. All the products are a dream to use, I'm looking forward to adding more to my stash in the future :)

Star Wars Card Designs

I've been trying to find time to blog about some of the cards I'd made for friends and family last year and so far not got round to it, so I thought that I'd add a couple of photos every now and again to share what I've made in retrospect because I know that lots of people - myself included - struggle with cards for the menfolk. I often wonder why that is, is it because as women we can't think outside the floral box or is it more to do with the fact that you can really only make sporty cards for men or cards that have a nature or DIY theme?

I admit I've struggled when it comes to ideas for my Dad because in my head the only thing that I could do would be a football themed card, but then when I thought about it, I realised that there were lots of options, he was a Teddy boy so rock and roll themed would be good, plus he loved keeping tropical fish and still likes them even though he doesn't keep them. I had an idea a few months back when I used a Hero Arts stamp and die set called 'Color Layering Goldfish' to make an easel shaker card, so I can do a variation on that theme and I have another stamp and die set which contains more tropical style fishes.

For my hubby Simon and my brother choosing a subject is easy, they both love Scifi especially Star Wars, gaming and rock music and of course Simon is very into robots. So its easy to find something suitable for them, and whilst the dies aren't always available it is possible to improvise.

I made this BB-8 and R2D2 card for him for Father's Day off the cats, okay some of you may roll your eyes at that but it was an excuse to do some more crafting lol! I found the images on the internet and printed a few of each off to layer them. The Moon rock background was created using a Crafters Companion Textures Elements embossing folder called 'Rain'. I inked up the folder with Memento London Fog ink and embossed a piece of light grey card. Worked like a charm, the sentiment was computer generated using a Star Wars font.  I created an easel card with black card and silver mirror card mats.

My sister-in-law asked me to make 3 father's day cards for my niece and nephews to give to their Dad for Father's Day, the theme was easy, my brother is a HUGE Star Wars fan, so I decided to use that as the theme and tailor each card to the child.

I decided that all the cards should be easel cards to give me a larger area to work with. The first card I created was for the my youngest nephew the spelling was deliberate, Zach finds farts funny at the minute and he thought the card was most appropriate for his "trumpy bum Daddy" lol!

I used the same embossing folder and technique to create the back panels and the images were found on the internet and printed off then attached to the card with 3D foam pads. I added 5 die cut silver stars which I topped with the same adhesive star shaped gems that I used on the top panel. I stamped the moon using the Altenew 'To the Moon' set and the sentiment was again computer generated.

The second card was created for my eldest nephew Casey to give to his Dad, again I made an easel card but this time chose a rectangular shape. My brother does a rather good Yoda impersonation and he and Casey often tease each other about having big ears like Yoda, so it seemed most appropriate.

I used another Crafters Companion Textures Elements embossing folder this time the 'Lightening' pattern and I went over the embossed area with a 'Clear' Spectrum Sparkle Pen to give the embossing some depth.

Again the image was found on the internet and I printed it off several times and 3D layered it so that Yoda popped off the front of the card. I used a piece of green card to make the easel and then used gold mirror card for the mats and to mat the computer generated sentiment which I mounted in some 3D foam pads. I have to say the photos make the cards look a little flat but they really did pop.

The final card was created for my niece, this time I went with a square easel card and used an a standard white 8" x 8" card blank to create the easel card. For the background panel I embossed a piece of A4 black card with Craft Essentials Creative embossing folder called 'Cogs', then I used a selection of silver, bronze and copper Cosmic Shimmer Metallic Gilding Wax to bring out the details.

I found the cartoon strip style images on the internet and found them amusing Darth Vader daddy teaching his daughter to clean her teeth, drive a space ship and finally admonish his daughter for wearing a dress he thinks is to revealing lol! My niece loved it as did my brother, I matted all the images and the cog panels on to silver mirror card and attached everything with 3D foam pads. Again the sentiment was computer generated and matted in the same way.

Baby Chest of Drawers Cards

A few months ago, I realised that my stash contained a large amount of dies and stamps for Christmas and birthday's but very little else for other occasions like wedding's anniversaries, new births, new homes and everything else that life throws at us. So I've been attempting to acquire new stash that can be used to make these kind of cards.

Of course wanting to make new baby cards is practice for July when our new grandchild comes along, but in the meantime I can make them for friends and family and also put some in the box of cards that I make for Cats Protection.  I'd seen some cards made to look like chest of drawers on Pinterest I think and I thought they looked rather nice, I dare say they can be made for just about any occasion with the right 'accessories' to jazz them up.

I started by making an A5 tent fold card blank and covered the front with a piece of wood effect paper I'd printed off from my Crafters Companion 'Flights of Fantasy' CD Rom. The colours were perfect for the project, and if I take the jpg in to PaintShop Pro, I can pretty much make any colour I wish. I also covered an additional piece that I then cut down to make the 3 drawer fronts for the card. The cards I'd seen had fancy dies to cut their feet but I didn't have anything similar so I improvised and used an Xcut 'Ornate Frame' die to take a piece out of the bottom and whilst not perfect it adequately did the job.

When I'd finished cutting the shaped bit for the legs and drawer bottom, I decided that they legs were two wide so I trimmed each side down and put them trimmed strips to one side. When I started to assemble the card, it occurred to me that they would make perfect tops for the chest of drawers, so the discarded bit became a part of the card. Before I stuck the drawers in place I decided to distress the edges with contrasting shades of distress ink to define the edges and make them pop a little. In hindsight I wish I'd used more than 1 layer of 3D foam pads to make the drawers stick out more, but that's a note for next time.

Once I'd added the drawers and stuck on some gems in  similar colours to act as the knobs on the drawers, it was time to add the final touches, originally I was going to stick the baby grow to look like it was coming out of a drawer, but it didn't look right on balance. So I decided to stick everything just to the front of the drawers instead. For the baby clothes I used the 'My First Outfit' die set from the Crafters Companion Little Angel range, the sentiments on all 3 cards are dies from the Sue Wilson 'New Arrival' range. I'm happy with how these cards have turned out, I'm going to make more but use some less conventional colour schemes. A card making friend makes some gorgeous cards and the recent baby ones were a revelation, lovely bright cards and not traditional pink and blue. Take a look at Emma's Baby Cards, I was lucky enough to receive a package from her last week with some of the die cuts of the Tattered Lace animal dies amongst other jolly things to colour in and use, it was a lovely surprise.

Just Keep Swimming Shaker Card

Ever since I made my first easel card back in May 2016 I've been hooked on this kind of card and have used it to create lots of different cards for different occasions from Father's day to birthdays and wedding cards. Last month I decided to add a new dimension to my card making and try another technique I've often seen but thought I wouldn't be able to achieve.

You could have blown me down with a feather when I sat looking at my first completed shaker card, and guess what? I think you'll be seeing lots more of these kinds of cards in my cardmaking future, they are not as hard to do as I first thought they were and they give superb results which really does add an extra dimension to the cards I make to give.

I discovered the super Hero Arts Color Layering Goldfish Stamps and die sets back in March 2016 when Jennifer McGuire used them to make a 'Faux Colored Heat Embossing and Window Panel Card' on her blog. Jennifer's blog has been a constant source of tips, information and inspiration since I first discovered her in 2014. As she is American, she uses mainly US releases from US companies that aren't easy to find in the UK, but some stores like Seven Hills Crafts stock lots of the brands that Jennifer uses so its become a lot easier.

The trouble is when the new releases hit these shores, they sell out very quickly, and it took me a while to get the stamps and dies to make this card. I knew when I did get them, I would be making cards for my Dad with them, because he loves fish, I have a Lawn Fawn set called 'Fintastic Friends' to make next years Father's Day card for my Dad as well, and now I have the Zig Color pens it should turn out to be very colourful.

This first card was more a test for the process, rather than a card for someone special, despite seeing lots of shaker card video's on YouTube by lots of different card makers, I wasn't convinced that I'd find it easy, some people have the knack of making difficult things look easy, fooling those of us who don't find it so easy to think it will be.

Yet this technique is a lot easier than I thought it would be, I started out by cutting the easel card out of twin colour card from The Range, I embossed it with a Chevron embossing folder from Crafters Companion and gave it a spritz of shimmer mist. The goldfish bowl panel started as a white panle that was inked with distress inks in Cracked Pistachio, Mermaid Lagoon and a little Blueprint Sketch, when finished I also gave the panel a spritz of shimmer mist.

I stamped the goldfish in three contrasting shades of Hero Arts Bold Inks (Dandelion, Tangerine and Caramel) and used Green Hills Shadow Ink for the seaweed, I then die cut the fish and seaweed out and finally over stamped the fish with Versamark and used clear embossing powder to give the fish a more life like shine. I glued some dome shaped clear gems to the back of the card to look like bubbles and also glued a few of the sequins to the back to not everything fell to the bottom of the 'tank'. I got the sequins from The Range for £1 each container is split in to 4 and has 4 different lots of contrasting colours, I took some from each of the colours and mixed them together.

I die cut 2 circles from my Presscut Die Cutting & Embossing Stencil Round Dies using gold mirror card to make a frame and glued my acetate to it before securing it in place on foam tape. The 'Just Keep Swimming' sentiment is in with the Layered Goldfish stamps and I used a piece of card leftover from making the easel card base, I used gold detail embossing powder and Versamark to stamp the sentiment and then attached it with foam pads, the final touch was to add a couple of the clear gems to either side of the sentiment 'stop' to finish it off.

Deer Christmas Easel Card

It certainly is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas here with the cold and frosty weather, even if it doesn't look like it yet! I've been sorting things out in my craft area, its almost tidy, ready to be messed up with more crafting!

Today I managed to lose one of the lenses out of my glasses, luckily I found it before I stepped on it!

Crisis averted, I decided to do some crafting, finally finishing a card that I started making in France back in July!

I die cut the pieces for the panel from the XCut Woodland Stag Wreath, using coloured card I got from The Range.

I attached the pieces to a circle of white card that I first embossed with a snowflake embossing folder that came free with a Crafters Companion mag a while back, and lightly ran a distress ink blending tool with Tumbled Glass distress ink on it to bring out the pattern.  Once I'd glued down the pieces for the wreath I added bits of 'Ruby Slippers' Nuvo Glitter Drops to enhance the berries, I've fallen in love with the glitter drops and have been using them a lot over the past few months, I prefer them to Stickles for most things now as they are more dimensional.

At that point inspiration abandoned me and the panel went in to the 'Maybe Someday' box, it came out again in early October when I decided to mount the panel on an easel card. The decorative top bits of which I embossed using an A4 embossing folder by XCut called 'Snowflake Pattern' and made the easel card base from a piece of 12" x 12" dual coloured card I got in The Range, I got that far and inspiration abandoned me again, so the project went on my pile of cards to finish.

Then last night as I was going through a selection of free gifts that had come with magazines, how I wanted to finish off the card came to me when I picked up the free gift that came with issue 35 of Creative Stamping. I stamped one of the script sentiments from the set on to a piece of Neenah Solar White card using Versamark, and sprinkled Stampendous 'Detail Silver' metallic embossing powder over it and heat set it. I've only recently discovered the Stampendous embossing powders and I'm mightily impressed with the results it gives thus far.

After I stamped the sentiment I die cut the panel using a scalloped die from the Tonic Studios 'Scalloped and Plain Ovals' set and lightly went around the edge with some Tumbled Glass distress ink. I also used a couple of tiny snowflake stamps and stamped with Broken China and Tumbled Glass distress inks. I die cut a piece of silver foiled card to make a mat using the next size up to the scallop die from the Tonic set previously mentioned and glued the stamp piece to it. The final touch before adding it to the card was to add some pieces of greenery from the Woodland Stag Wreath die and a few more blobs of glitter drops. Really pleased with how this card turned out eventually and its spurred me on to use some of the other free sets I got and get more of my christmas cards made for friends and family.