Frugal February Challenge

February Theme Challenge 'Love'

And as fast as that we streak in to a new month! Hello everyone, blogging has been slower than I anticipated this year, there have been some life changes making the need for creating a downstairs craft space necessary. Then my PC C: Drive died resulting in almost a week without a PC and worry that I'd lost all my craft related photos, but thankfully my hubby had mirrored the drives so everything was backed up YAY!

That meant I didn't lose anything data/file wise, but I did lose the programs that were installed and the C: Drive which has meant several more days of getting my PC back to how it was before.

As a result there hasn't been much time for crafting, or craft spending! Which is good because spending was starting to get a little out of hand again and I need to stop and take stock both literally and figuratively!There's a meme that does the rounds, and I think I've mentioned it before about crafty spending being a separate hobby from crafty making, and if that's true I was becoming more of an expert in spending than making, and that has to stop, before we lose the roof over our head lol!

So this month I've set myself a challenge to keep to a fixed budget of £100, this amount is to include my monthly colouring class and Stampin Up class, and a SU club I'm in where we spend £15 minimum a month. It also has to include any craft magazines I buy (I cancelled all my subscriptions) and any supplies or extras.

January Colour Challenge

Last year I started to help out the creator of a Facebook group called Craft Carnage and after a while Sarah the owner of the group made me an admin and now I set challenges and swaps for members to take part in, we have four weekly mini challenges every month and we also organise individual challenges like our  Frugal February Challenge.

We also organise swaps for events like World Cardmaking Day, Halloween and Christmas, and we have lots of swaps and challenges planned for the rest of 2020, feel free to pop over and join us if you are so inclined.

All the photos in this post are of cards I have made for some of the challenges so far, we have colour palette, theme, materials, and sketch challenges that rotate each month that also take in to account seasonal events like Mother's Day, Easter, Holidays etc.

January Sketch Challenge

The current challenge for February is another spring inspired colour palette challenge and I'm hoping to use dies and items I have in already to create my card. That way I can incorporate the mini challenges in with the Frugal February master challenge.

The first card pictured in this post was for the mini theme challenge, I knew I wanted to use my wreath templates to create a circle of hearts, but I didn't know if/or where I had any small solid heart stamps. So yesterday I sat for an hour trawling sites looking for a set of small heart stamps.

After that hour I came to my senses and started to go through my boxes of stamps and dies and although I didn't have a dedicated set of small solid heart stamps, I discovered I do have several stamp sets with small solid hearts in. The ones I used came from two Altenew sets Crafty Friends and Crafty Life that I've had for a while and not used, the sentiment also comes from one of those two sets.

I used 4 different colours of Memento dewdrop inks and some Nocturne Versa Clair ink for the sentiment which I then added some clear embossing powder to, to make it stand out more, the enamel hearts and dots I won in a raffle at my Stampin Up class last year and I hadn't got round to using them yet.

Towards the end of last month, I came across a video by Kristina Werner detailing a challenge she was setting herself for February that she called Capsule Papercrafting. Her aim is to pre-select a set of tools and mediums, stamps and stencils and use only them for the month. If you're interested check out the video below.

I decided that I would follow Kristina's example, so far I've selected a couple of things but not everything, as its now the 5th Feb I need to get my skates on lol! Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have everything together that I intend to use. The goal for me is to go box 'shopping' that means I hit all the boxes and tubs of supplies I have and find items I've bought and never used BEFORE I buy new items.

If I see a project I like, before I hit search to find the stamps and dies others have used, I ask myself what I already have that I can use instead. As far as stamps, stencils and dies go I have lots of choice, so it shouldn't be too hard. My problem is choosing which inks, pens or pencils to use, I can't plan ahead of time what projects I'll be doing for the whole month and would hate to have the creative urge to work with say my Brusho's or Pixie Powders for a project and not be able to. Thinking cap on, and I have to make sure that whatever I do includes only things I already have!

Parkrun & Health Update

Since the beginning of January I've managed to lose just over 7lb, still a long way to go, but I'm happy with that. I also walked my 2nd Parkrun on the 29th January, my foot played up royally after the New Years Day walk, and after a non-Parkrun walk I did on the 15th Jan, but at least I tried again, recovery time is getting better thanks to the stretch exercises I'm doing which is good, and hopefully with those and losing more weight I will continue to see an improvement.

One week 2 I came last (well one before last as the tail walker is always the last to finish). Technically though I was the last park runner to walk across the finish line 😥 I was slower this time and I believe it was because I decided to walk to pounding dance music, and I think I pushed myself too hard when very fast tracks played ::note to self you cannot go up Cardiac Hill in time to Darude's Sandstorm!::

Pushing myself at a stupid pace required me to recover for longer periods of time thus slowing me down, and the whole process took me 6m 25s longer than my first time. ::Further note to self don't wear a coat to Parkrun you get too flipping hot even on a cold day!:: Check out my new running trainers as well, after Parkrun number 1 Si took me to Decathlon to get some running clothes (trainers, tops, and a sports bra) it's ON!

I admit I was rather annoyed at myself at the end of week two because I was slower than my first week, but lots of people pointed out that I had actually finished a 5K again, which was an achievement in itself, which it is I guess 😁 I need to focus more on just doing it and less on trying to beat my best time, the more I do it, the fitter I'll become and hopefully the faster I'll get! I'll be doing my 3rd Parkrun this coming Saturday and plan to do it without music, walking at my own pace and not the musics pace! Because of my foot problem I've settled on the idea of doing Parkrun every other week until my foot is better, the weeks in-between I will be volunteering as a Marshall or as a token sorter.

Last weekend was my rest weekend but I still went to Parkrun but as a spectator to watch Simon complete his 50th Parkrun, I am so proud of him, its been wonderful to see him go from someone who couldn't run more than a few paces to someone who can run 5K in just over 23 minutes, fingers crossed that will be me one day! This week I will be walking to the pace of my own body and see what happens, I do like music when I walk, so I guess I have to find something that goes with the pace I can currently walk, until I do I guess silence will be golden lol!

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!

New Sizes of Templates Added

We're delighted to announce that we've added 2 new sizes of templates to the set we sell, that means the set now contains a 2" template, perfect for making small toppers for cards or cute little gift tags.

Plus a 7" template which means you can now create much larger wreaths and of course use larger sizes of stamps.

I'm very aware that not everyone has a stamp positioning tool, so I was delighted to discovered earlier this week that our templates can be used with stencils and don't require a stamp positioning tool to achieve fabulous results, and you can read more about this technique here.

The 2" template is perfect for making gift tags for any occasion, I did make a set with the 3" template but decided they were in fact a bit big to put on a small gift. So I asked the man that can to create a 2" template so that I could make smaller tags, and whilst he was at it I asked for a 7" template as well.

Much tinkering and playing with numbers and CAD software ensued and a few days later he presented me with the new templates to test out. I'm happy to say they worked like a charm, just like the other templates do, like the upgraded set from earlier this year each template has a recess for holding a magnet and a hole so that the templates can all be threaded together on a cable ring to keep them together.

Blossom by Blossom stage 1

The 7" template allows you to create designs that are big enough to add to 7" card blanks, or you can matt and layer your designs on to 8" cards. I've made some samples over the past few days for the launch of the new templates and I've had lots of fun taking the stamped squares and turning them into different shapes.

As I thought about it, it occurred to me that customers who already own the 3" - 6" set may want to purchase the 2" and 7" templates, so over on our Facebook store we've added the new sizes to the shop so customers can buy just the ones they are missing to complete the set.

I also realised that not everyone has a larger stamp positioning tool, some people only have a Mini MISTI, so a full set of templates would be a waste of money (unless they were going to use them with stencils) so I've turned the templates into 3 bundles: -

The final Blossom by Blossom card cut with a circle die.

Small (2" and 3") which will fit in a smaller sized stamp positioning tool with a stamp area of 6" x 4.75" such as the Mini MISTI.

Medium (2", 3" and 4")  For platforms such as the Original MISTI and any stamp positioning tool that measures 6.5” x 8.5”.

Large (2", 3", 4", 5", 6" and 7") Whilst the 2", 3" and 4" templates will work in smaller stamp positioning tools, we recommend the Tim Holtz Stamping Platform by Tonic Studios or a Memory MISTI for use with the 5", 6" and 7” sizes, the larger sizes will not fit smaller stamp positioning tools.

Each of the sets come with a cable ring and the price includes postage and packing. Over on the shop I have included prices for the UK, USA and the EU. As the new template bundle now contains 6 templates instead of 4, there will be an increase in the cost due to the fact that we're using more materials, more electricity to power the printers etc, so the price will increase by £4.00 going forward making the templates plus p&p cost £14.95 (posted to the UK), £17.50 (posted to the USA) and £16.95 (posted to the EU). Prices for the smaller sets and the 2" and 7" template bundle can be found over on the Facebook Shop.

If you have any further questions then you can leave a comment on the blog, or send me a message via our Facebook page and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

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 😀

Mew Are Pawsome - Time For Tea Designs

Just before my holiday back in may my lovely crafting buddy Shabneez posted a card she'd made with an adorable stamp set from Time for Tea Designs called Mew Are Pawsome, my inner crazy cat lady (who am I kidding its outer and all over lol) was smitten and I ordered the stamp set and co-ordinating dies, Joanna who owns TFTD was on holiday when I placed my order and I got an email to tell me this and explain my order would be sent once she was back off her hols. As I was going on mine at the time I thought no more of it and went away, happy in the knowledge that the stamps would be with me when I got back off my holidays.

When I arrived home as I expected my order was waiting for me, but inside there was a little note from Joanna and a free rubber stamp to say thank you for waiting for my order, which was a lovely touch, even though I hadn't been waiting. I love small companies because they offer personal service and the customer matters, suffice to say TFTD went on my radar thanks to Shabneez. I'd been so busy since I got back off my holidays I hadn't had time to play with the stamp set though which was bugging me, so yesterday after I had finished making a birthday card for my dad and a couple of Father's Day cards - I'll post photos of them after Sunday when the recipients have received them - I sat down and created the above cards just because, I needed to play with something where I wasn't worrying about getting things finished by a set date.

TTFD released 4 new stencils earlier in June and the designs are fab, plus they had a special offer to get all 4 for a reduced price of £12, I think its gone up to £16 now, its still a saving but I got a real bargain. I've only used one so far the 'Sunny Side Up' stencil which I think is going to be one of my most used stencils in the future, as well as the sun in the centre, the stencil has 4 other sides:- a straight edge, clouds, grass and hills all perfect for creating scenes. I used the clouds and grass on the background for the father's day cards I mentioned earlier 😉

I used water colour card and distress inks to create the background. The images I stamped and coloured with Copic Ciao's, I don't have lots of colours yet so I'm limited as to how I can blend the pens, but I am thrilled with them, I know they are an expense, but I really wish I'd saved money when I started buying cheaper pens that just don't do the job and just gone for Copic's in the first place, in the long run I would have saved money, and have lots more colours to boot lol!

To finish off the card I added a few gems from Little Things from Lucy's Cards, I love the gems and pearls that Lucy sells, it was via Jennifer McGuire that I discovered Lucy's Cards gems and I was surprised to find that Lucy was based in the UK, so now I order all my gem treasure from Lucy, she does sequins, pearls, gems and tiny confetti which is perfect for adding to shaker cards. The sentiment is also from the Mew are Pawsome set, I just stamped it on to a strip of white cardstock with some Gina K Amalgam ink and cut the end to form a fish tail.

The second card I created using one of our Wreath Templates to make a circular 'rocker' card, using my Tim Holtz Stamping Platform and a 6" template. I stamped lots of the smaller images from the TFTD 'Mew are Pawsome' set with Gina K Amalgam ink and coloured them with my Copic pens. I find colouring very relaxing and therapeutic to do, again I wish I had more colours but I'm happy with what I've achieved.

Once I'd die cut the circles and layered everything up I finished the card off by adding a little shimmer pen to the balloons and cupcake icing and a little white gel pen detail to the balloons and cat. My stroke of genius for this card was to use a red Sakura Glaze pen for the centre of the candle to make it more flame like. This stamp set is going to get a heck of a lot of use, and I can't wait to use the other stencils I got from TFTD, watch this space.

Happy Easter Wreath Template Cards

These 6" x 6" cards are not traditional 'Easter' colours I know, but I started playing with some Altenew ink cubes and random Altenew stamps just making wreath's late on Friday night when I couldn't sleep not really intending to make any particular kind of card and these cards kind of evolved from that play.

When I began I was going to make some simple one layer cards, but when I finished stamping the green wreath I managed somehow to get a paper cut and got blood on the edge of the card. I used my sand eraser and managed to sand so much I ripped the card, swear words drifted in to the late night air and I drummed the table wondering how to fix the problem. Cutting the offending mess off seemed like a plan, so I reached for a circle die that would go over the wreath.

Once I'd done that, I spotted a pile of bunny die cuts on my other desk and a stamp set recently bought but not yet used which had a Happy Easter sentiment and my sleep deprived brain decided that I could make some Easter cards.

The gingham backing papers were printed off and I used the edge of the square that I die cut the scalloped circle from as a mat, waste not want not huh? The leaves are from an Altenew set called "Happy Dream" and the small star like flowers from another Altenew Set called "Crafty Friends". The large flower is from a DoCrafts Creativity A6 stamps set called "Trad Floral".

I've started taking a look at stamp sets in my stash and finding the small stamps that don't get much use and using them to create wreaths. On their own small and tiny stamps can leave you with a "how do I use these little monkeys?" kind of feeling, but take them and combine them with other small stamps to make a wreath and they come in to their own and you can create any kind of wreath for any kind of occasion.

Something I discovered whilst stamping these backgrounds, it should have been a no brainer and is certainly something I will do moving forward when making wreath backgrounds. It's something very simple really and I don't know why I didn't twig to it before now, but to get a better result, start your design using your lightest colour ink first, add the mid tones, then stamp the darkest colours on top, and the wreath builds up with more perspective.

I stamped the sentiment using Versafine Clair ink in "Nocturne" and once I'd layered the 4 cards up, all that was left to do was add some 'Dandelion Yellow' Nuvo Crystal Drops to the centres of all the flowers, save for those that are directly under the Happy Easter sentiment, and add the little bunny die cuts and I had 4 cards ready to send. 😀

Updated Cable Ring Wreath Template Set

It's been a little while since I posted about the Wreath Maker Templates on my blog, the sets have been evolving since Si made me the very first set last year, and I'm thrilled to be rolling out the new style template set today. As you can see from the photo above, we’ve updated the original version of the wreath template to allow for the templates to be stored together. The new design templates have holes in each template that allow you to thread the templates on to a Cable Ring to keep them together, we've sourced the perfect Cable Ring and one is included with each template set purchased. Going forward we won't be producing any more sets without holes because we think that the 'holey' ones are better, and with the holes you have the option to store the templates on the ring or off it.



The Cable Ring supplied is 50mm in diameter when both ends are connected together, the rings are made from stainless steel cable and they have a screw head lock fastener to close them. It’s the perfect way to keep your wreath templates together when not in use, so that you don’t wind up losing one of them to the Crafters Bermuda Triangle! I have lost 2 sets already, don't ask lol! Not any more though because my templates now hang together just next to my desk.

As a bonus, you can also use the cable rings to keep Tim Holtz Layering Stencils together and organised, or they can be used with tags to create colour swatches for inks, if anyone is interested in purchasing extras for these purposes we can make it happen, just ask.

The cable ring development isn't the only improvement to the template design we've made, each template now has a recess to enable you to place a magnet (not supplied) on to your template to hold it firmly in place.

This design change came about when I noticed that occasionally my template would slip in the Tim Holtz Stamping Platform, it didn't happen often but it was annoying when it did. I put my thinking cap on and realised that the slipping occurs because the template has a shiny underside and the stamping platform does as well and sometimes when the two meet it has the skates on ice effect and slipping can occur.

What I decided was needed was a means to keep the template in place, I had tried washi tape but it started to leave a sticky residue on the platform, easy to clean off but it can be a pain when you are working on a project. By placing a magnet in the recess the template is held firmly and more securely.  The slip doesn't happen in MISTI platforms because the black foam in the MISTI grips the template in place and prevents it slipping. I think this tweak will be the last for the circle templates because there isn't anything else that we can add.

Price Increase

It's not all good news though, we have to increase the price from £10.00 to £10.95, we like to be upfront about our costs, many of you have said you can't believe how cheap the sets are and we've pointed out that we are not out to make a massive profit or take advantage of our customers, but we can't be out of pocket either.

When we first began selling the template sets we posted them out second class post, that meant it took longer for the package to get to customers. I knew if customers were anything like me, once they placed their order they would want it as quickly as possible, so I started posting them out 1st class so they get to you the customer faster.

However we’ve only been including the cost of 2nd class postage in the original price, and now there is also the additional cost of the cable ring and we'd forgotten about the PayPal fee! So we are hoping that customers will appreciate our reasons for the small rise and not mind that the cost of the set has increased, if it ensures an improved product and faster posting? If you take a look at the video below, you can see a little demo of how the templates are made, the video also has a few facts that you may find interesting.

On the 3D printing front, we've now got a 2nd printer up and running and Simon has begun constructing a 3rd, recently I was trained in the art of starting prints to keep production going, allowing us to send out orders faster. We've also been contemplating colours, the new style templates are now a golden colour, we hope to keep to that colour but we hope that customers won't mind what colour they receive because that means we can alternate between several colours at times when the main colour goes out of stock at the manufacturers end.

Getting hold of the purple PLA that we originally started printing in is getting harder, so we've this week started printing in a golden hued PLA. We did dabble with a fuchsia colour but that's run out now and the supplier says its currently out of stock pffft. The gold is nice and bright making it easier to find on your desk, that part has been inadvertently tested on numerous occasions, I lost the purple ones frequently lol!

Finally a little inside gossip, the Man that Can and I put our thinking caps on and we've been experimenting with templates to create different shapes, a new set of templates to make a new shape that aren't circles will be available in the not too distant future, there's some more testing and some sizing to sort out. I've been playing with the new shape today and its gone back to the 'Man that Can' for tweaks and changes, its fun to be developing these templates together. I don't want to reveal the shape yet, all I'm saying is nobody is currently selling this shape and you're going to love it! 😁

Dinosaur Wreath Template Cards

It feels like a long time since I did any crafting and in fact it has been, I've been focusing on health and well-being and working on some other projects and crafting hasn't factored in to life very much since early February and I have to say I've missed it! Suffice to say that once I'd dusted the cobwebs out of the craft room I started work and finished several projects including several wreath template cards and a few birthday and Mother's Day cards for my stash.

Going through my stash I uncovered a selection of dinosaur stamps and dies, and got together ones I'd bought recently and I was amazed at just how many dinosaur stamps I have, so expect to see a lot of dinosaur cards from me in the not too distant future. The small set I used to create the wreath template was a bit of a buying disaster, I'd been looking for the Stampin Up set "No Bones About It", I found what I thought was a set, it showed photos of the Stampin Up samples, and packaging but when it arrived the stamps were tiny compared to what they were supposed to be and they weren't pukka Stampin Up stamps 😔 I complained and was given my money back and told to keep the stamps, so I decided to use them for smaller cards whilst I try again to obtain the pukka set!

I used the 5" template and a 5" x 5" card blank and stamped the wreath directly on to the card blank using a selection of Versafine Clair Inks and Memento inks. The dinosaur die used for the topper is by Luxe Craft and is exclusively available at Hobbycraft, it was one of the things I got for my birthday back in January.

The Luxe Craft sets have a selection of stamps and dies in each pack, I picked up a set called Purrfect Day which has a couple of cute cat stamps for me to play with. The dinosaur set cuts several pieces including a balloon and party hat but I didn't use them on my design.

The cards themselves were pretty quick to put together once the stamping was all done, I decided to layer the little dinosaurs on to scalloped stitched circle dies from CraftStash and to stamp the sentiments on to the circles and place the dinosaurs to the left of the sentiment.

I love the fact that I can create such colourful backgrounds for my cards using the stamp templates to suit any occasion, and I have to say I'm loving experimenting :) I wanted to keep these fairly simple as the stamping is rather colourful.

The only things I added were some black detail pen to the centre of the Triceratops eye space and I gave the die cut dinosaurs chest and spines a coating of sparkle pen and I finished them off with a little wobbly eye for a touch of added cuteness. These little cute monsters now go in my box ready to send to people. Now to get on with more cards, on my desk currently are some bear and dog bookmarks and some non-wreath template projects for cards for teenagers. It's nice to be crafting again :)

Retro Gaming Wreath Template Cards 🕹️

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Halloween Wreath Template Cards 🎃

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Festive Circle Wreath Cards + My First Video Tutorial 😊

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be Jolly Snowmen Wreath Template Cards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Warmest Wishes Festive Wreath Card

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evergreen & Pine Cone Wreath Card

It's been a very busy and exciting week here, thanks to my friends Jennifer and Justine we had a deluge of template sales, which was fabulous, and we've had some lovely comments and recommendations by happy customers. The name of the Facebook Page has now changed to Cook's Cards & Crafts, if you haven't given us a like yet please do.

We like to listen to feedback from customers and as such we had a few suggestions for tweaks to the templates and we've took them on board because they were fab ideas, the new look templates will launch on Saturday when Jennifer of Jennifer Kray - Paper and Stuff will be doing a Facebook Live using our templates! To celebrate we've given Jennifer a set of the new style templates to give away and she's put together some other goodies, so tune in for your chance to win.

I've been making lots of different wreath cards, this is one of the latest and I'll add some others to the blog each day this week. I've now been trained by Simon in the art of using the 3D printer and he's got a second printer up and running and we have plans to add another very soon, which increases the production by a lot 😁

Stamping this card was so quick, took me 10 minutes, I used 5 stamps but the darker green 'Northern Pine' stamp I stamped twice on either side of the design so 6 x 8 stamp impressions. Doing it this way you can quickly make a batch of cards really quickly, stamp all of the first stamp on all your panels, switch to your next stamp and repeat until you are happy with the design.

For this card I used Memento Dewdrop inks in the following colours: - Bamboo Leaves, Cottage Ivy, Northern Pine, Rich Cocoa and Espresso Truffle, but you could use any colour inks you choose. After I'd finished stamping I decided to add some texture to the card, so I ran it through a snowfall embossing folder and I love the effect it gave, I'll be using that a lot for this years cards.

Since I posted a link to a close up of this card on Facebook, I've been asked by several people where the stamps came from, I used a set that came free on Issue 27 of Creative Stamping back in 2015, but as luck would have it, you can buy the stamp set from Craft Stash for an amazing £2.99 look for the Creative A4 Woodland Stamp Set. I've linked to it here, but please be aware that the link is an affiliate link and if you make a purchase I get a percentage of the sale, but it doesn't cost you any extra.

I finished this card off with some 'berries' made for Tonic Studios 'Autumn Red' Nuvo Drops, I followed the fab tips on Jennifer's Beginners Guide to Nuvo Drops tutorial and my drops came out perfect. I did them on a leftover piece of the waxy backing from my 3D foam pads. Experience has taught me that adding Nuvo drops direct to a project can sometimes result in a nightmare so I air on the side of caution now and make them first and glue them on later lol! To finish the card off I added a die cut sentiment using red foiled card to the centre cut using the Sue Wilson 'From Our House to Yours' die and to finish the card off I decided to round two of the corners off to echo the curve on the wreath.

if you're interested in seeing how I used the Woodland Stamp set back in 2015 then follow the link to see my stag card, keep in mind the cards were created 3 years ago now and I was only just getting started in stamping and colouring lol! That's all from me for now, pop by again soon when I'll have some more cards to show you using our wreath builder templates and don't forget to join Jennifer at 7pm Saturday 20th October for her Build-A-Wreath Stamping Facebook Live.

Creative Stamping Autumn Treasures

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I'm a sucker for autumn and its colours and for Halloween, so when a magazine offered a free stamp set called Autumn Treasures you can understand why I got a little excited at the potential.

The magazine in question is Creative Stamping, the issue is 60 and the stamps are just fabulous to have a closer look click on the image below, like all stamps sets that come with Creative Stamping they are superb quality and stamp really well, I've had stamp sets from some magazines that just didn't stamp well at all, I never have that problem with stamps from Creative Stamping, it helps having a Stamping Platform 

The magazine in question is Creative Stamping, the issue is 60 and the stamps are just fabulous to have a closer look click on the image below, like all stamps sets that come with Creative Stamping they are superb quality and stamp really well, I've had stamp sets from some magazines that just didn't stamp well at all, I never have that problem with stamps from Creative Stamping, it helps having a Stamping Platform 

I've so far only used around half of the set and my head is full of ideas for using those stamps again, and for using the rest of the stamps in the set. To give you an idea of size of the stamps the 3 leaf and quote card is 8" x 8" and the other 3 cards are all 6" x 6" cards. For the 6" cards, I used a 5" and 6" Wreath Template to build up the designs.

As soon as I saw the set the idea to create this card popped in to my head, the leave stamps are perfect for using my Hero Arts Ombre 'Autumn' ink pad, lovely rich autumn colours that lend themselves so well to stamping leaves and items for autumn.

This card was so simple I die cut the 4 panels and used my Stamping platform to line everything up. The backing paper was a free download, but I can't recall from where. A couple of mats and layers and a bit of rich chocolate brown organza ribbon finished this card off nicely. I've used some different ombre pads to create some different cards for different seasons.

My next card used a selection of Memento Dewdrop Ink Pads: - Elderberry, Rhubarb Stalk, Potters Clay, Cantaloupe, Morroco and Expresso Truffle and I added some touches of Distress Marker to the blackberries, leaves and acorns. I used the 6" Wreath Template to create this autumn inspired goodness.

The sentiment also from the Autumn Treasures set I stamped on to white card and then used a Sizzix Bigz die called 'Millinery Leaves' by Brenda Walton and used some Memento Potters Clay ink to add some colour to the leaf. I stamped the sentiment in Vintage Sepia Versafine ink.

This card again was really simple to put together, again I used the 6" Wreath template and the stamps in the set designed by Hot Off The Press to make a quick almost 1 layer card. This time I stamped the design direct to the card base in Versafine ink.

I die cut 2 different sized circles and stamped the black cat from the set and the sentiment with Onyx Black Versafine ink. I used a Fluorescent Green Zig Real Colour Brush Pen to fill in the sentiment and the same pen for the eyes with a dab of Nuvo drops to finish off the cats eyes.
Some 3D foam pads and the cards was complete.

My final card from tonight's play was actually the first one I made, in hindsight I used the wrong shade for the acorns, next time I'll use a lighter ink, I was actually going to discard it but decided in the end to use it. This one was stamped with the 5" template and I used Elderberry, Rhubarb Stalk, Expresso Truffle, Cottage Ivy and Pear Tart to form the wreath.

I love this sentiment quote by Emily Bronte from the set, and I again stamped in Onyx Black Versafine. I kept this one simple again, matting the trimmed panel on to some purple foiled card, then a piece of elderberry card and finally adhered it all to a lilac Dovecraft 6 x 6" card blank.

I had so much fun creating these cards tonight even though the temperatures in my little craft room topped 29.5C again, phew! This hot weather plays havoc with some mediums, they dry out before you have time to use them, but stamping with inks is something you can do because ink drying quickly is a bonus, unless you're going to try heat embossing on it. Just another couple of days of the heat and then temperatures are set to cool down again and I'll be happier, when I get too hot I get cranky, which is no fun for my poor hubby. I hope you are all coping with the heat and managing to keep your cool, time now to attempt some sleep I think, the temperature seems to be dropping whooo hooo!