Colourful Monsters

Hi everyone, outside the window its bright blue skies and sunshine, but go outside and its blinking freezing, that said I noticed more of the Spring bulbs are pushing their way through the cold, damp soil which must mean that Spring is in sight? Think I'll dig out some Spring and Easter stamps and dies and have a see if I can create something that will encourage the Spring along in the house.

I posted the other day about having a day off and spending it mostly crafting, I went a little nuts printing off things from CD's to use after Si installed a new DVD drive for me. The old one gave up the ghost and refused to even open anymore, apparently the bearings had worn out that allowed the drawer to open. The shiny new one means I can print things off again with a relish.

I have lots of CD's with images for toppers and backing papers, I've been using papers I print off to make cards for a while now, and I love the fact that if the images are not the right size or colour I can take them into Paintshop Pro and tweak them to get the colours I want.

These two cards are a perfect example, the purple distressed background was a free download - and I can't remember from where! - I decided that I wanted to make the same card but using the different monster toppers in colours to compliment both, but the background paper came only in the purple variant.

So I took the image in to my paint program and tweaked the colour, hue and intensity and shifted the colours over from the warm (red/orange/purple) side of the spectrum to the cool (blue/green/white) spectrum, it worked perfectly and looks almost like it was made to match in the beginning.

The monster toppers are from a "Making Cards for Boys" CD that came free with Making Cards Magazine in March 2017, it has over 120 papers (an assortment of backing papers and toppers) and includes the lovely dinosaur set that came free with the magazine last year. Again I made my own card blanks for these two cards, I can't believe I'd not done this before, I've made stepper and easel card bases so its amazing that I didn't, I really have to stop thinking that things are too complicated because each time I try something new, I realise its not as hard as I think it is!

To create these card blanks I used Lavender and Xmas Green centura pearl card stocks and a die from the Tonic Studios Bowscale die set. I cut the toppers and sentiment circles using the Creative Dies Plus Wonky Stitches Nesting Circles Die Set and backing it with a slightly larger circle cut from a plain circle in the same colour centura pearl that I'd used for the card base.

I'm trying harder this year to make more cards that can be given to male recepients, I find when I create without an intent or project in mind that I gravitate towards making cards for female recipients. So when I enter a challenge or I create a random card I'm going to try putting a male slant on the challenge or making cards that can be given to either a male or female recipient.

Altenew Build A Flower - Carnation

Hello out there in blogland, I hope you're all well and the crafters amongst you have been finding time to create and play? We had a fun filled weekend of teaching youngsters about robot making, visiting my adorable neice and nephews and I also managed to fit in some crafting and I'm full of ideas for some other projects that I've made a start on.

I've been waiting to get my hands on the Carnation Build-A-Flower set by Altenew since I first heard it was being released back in January, it took me a while to get hold of it, but when I did I began the process of making lots of flowers and leaves in a variety of colourways. I've used shades of Altenew inks for all the carnations that I've stamped so far, I love Altenew inks because they smooth out over as they dry making the colours more even. I have a very soft spot for carnations because they are my birth flower and because it was another close relative of the Caryophyllaceae (Dianthus) family the Clove Pink that first got my interested in flowers which led to a passion for herbs.

When I was about 6 my Nanna had a vase of clove pinks on her windowsill when I went to visit her, the scent was so heavenly I kept going to smell them, I was smitten, so much so I recall asking my Nanna if I could have the pretty flowers and she wrapped them in paper for me when I was going home. I kept them on my windowsill in my bedroom for as long as they lasted and after first finding out what they were, I then started to find out more about the plants that grew locally, I got interested in growing things and identifying flowers and my love of plants blossomed from then. Now everytime I smell the distinctive perfume of a clove pink or a carnation, it takes me back to my childhood and brings back lovely memories of my Nanna.

The Altenew carnations measure almost 7cm across and 5cm high, the die does leave a white border around the edge of the flower, but I've been using the lightest of the 3 colours of ink I stamp each flower with with a blending foam and colouring the white which I think makes the flower look a little more realistic.

If you have a stamping platform or a MISTI or similar stamping tool its easy to make lots of flowers at once. I cut pieces of card to just bigger than the die cut image will be and then stamp all the bases, switch to the next layer and repeat until all the flowers are complete. I've made lots of flowers and leaves so that I can create a variety of cards, the top card I made my own card blank using the largest die from the Tonic Studios 'Victorian Frame Layering Die Set'. The technique for doing this is so easy, and despite having seen other people do it, I've only recently started doing it myself.

My second card is a simple A6 card blank, layered with some pink card and a white piece that I ran through an embossing folder. I added a die cut white panel that I stamped with one of the sentiments that come with the Carnation set and added some Pink Champagne Nuvo Glitter Drops to finish off the design. I have more cards planned using the carnations, I want to make add some of the other flowers from other Altenew sets and make some floral wreath cards on homemade shaped card blanks. I can paper garden with this colourful and bright 'flowers' whilst I wait for Spring to come along. I wish that the flowers had the same heady fragrance as the real flowers, I'm going to having a play with fragrance oil and see if I can imbue any scent to the die cut flowers without messing up the ink. I'll keep you posted!

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!

Creative Stamps - A Lovely Surprise...

Last week I tuned in to the Craftstash Facebook Live as I started to do several weeks ago, they broadcast live every Friday at 10am and they show new products that are unique to Craftstash and they do giveaways, share tips, ideas and lots of inspiration. Whilst I was watching I fell in love with the new range of Creative Stamps background stamps that they were show casing last week and whilst watching I added the four stamps above to my basket ready to check out when I'd finished watching the show.

During the live broadcast the lovely Janette from Craftstash announced a competition to win all 10 background stamps, all you needed to do was write a comment telling the team how you got in to crafting. So I had a go and imagine my surprise when Eleanor picked me as the winner, I was THRILLED, I didn't get round to checking out, I didn't need to, thanks ladies :)

So I waited patiently and my goodies arrived yesterday morning, as soon as I got time I started stamping. I've made 5 cards so far and I've stamped more backgrounds to make lots of cards over the next few days. The stamps are brilliant quality, nice and thick, they stamp like a dream and are A6, dye inks do stain them but that's a sign of a good stamp, they clean up really well.

I love all the stamps, but the bottom row are my favourites and I know that they are going to get a heck of a lot of use over the years. This 'Floral Sketch' stamp is so delicate and has lots of detail but it stamps like a dream, they all do and what you see on the stamp is the image you get.

For this purple and gold card I stamped with Versamark ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder, then I used Wilted Violet Distress Oxide ink to colour the white card. The flower came from my stash and was made from craft foam that I got from the kids crafting section, I did a post about making those a while back (Creating Craft Foam Flowers).

The leaves were die cut from card and I'm proud of my Hello sentiment, because its made from offcuts and recycled Christmas cards! I'll do a post on that soon, but I have lots of sentiment toppers ready to go to put on cards. Having elements like that and fab background stamps means you can put together a card in no time at all.

The Rainbow card in the main photo that I also made with the 'Floral Sketch' stamp was done in the same way, except I used Distress Inks to create a rainbow background (Salty Ocean, Twisted Citron. Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Candied Apple). I trimmed the stamped and inked panel down and stuck it to the front of an A6 card blank and all I added was a simple stamped sentiment panel using a die from another fab product from Craft Stash they brought out the Wonky Stitches Collection last year and I love them. In these cards I've used dies from the Nesting Rectangles, Circles and Ovals, I also have the Squares and  the Stitched Borders.

This card again was really quick to put together, I used Distress Inks again on the 'Watercolour Wash' stamp stamping the top first with Wilted Violet, then Picked Raspberry and the final layer I used Spiced Marmalade, at the end I ended up with a super wash effect on my card, something I'm not very good at doing by hand, I can now achieve with a stamp WHOOO HOOO!

The cute purple monster comes from the Monster Madness set that Si got me for Christmas, sentiment is from the same set and I added them both with 3D foam squares to give a little dimension. I coloured the monster with my Zig Clean Color Brush markers and added a dab of Tonic Nuvo Crystal Drops in Ebony Black.

The 'Woodgrain Planks' stamp is going to be such a useful stamp, I love making cards with a nature vibe to them and this background stamp is going to make it so easy to create my own wood effect backgrounds. This panel came together so simply like the others, I stamped the image in Caramel Hero Arts Hybrid Ink (a pigment and dye fusion).

I then die cut the panel with the largest Wonky Stitches Nesting Rectangles die and used Tea Dye Distress Ink to colour the white card. The pots with herbs in, I made a while back using my Sheena Douglass Perfect Partners Home Life 'Herb Garden' set, the herbs and pots were also coloured with Distress Inks, you can find out more via the link Herbaholic By Name.

Again the pots were in my Maybe Someday box, I love making extra elements when I'm playing and I leave them waiting for the right project to come along in the future. This card was finished with another Wonky Stitches panel, the sentiment was a freebie but I can't remember which magazine off the top of my head.

The final card I want to share for now is one I used the 'Brushstroke' background stamp on, I stamped the image 6 times, each time adding a new colour, I used my Zig pens to create a bright bold rainbow effect, and I think it came out fabulously.

Again I've tried using an actual brush to create a brushstroke effect and failed epically, but this stamped makes it really easy. I want to play with this stamp with other mediums and add some water to the mix to see what I end up with and also want to use shades of one colour to make an Ombre effect. The Unicorn and sentiment are from a Neat & Tangled set called 'Magical Day' and the unicorn was another image from my maybe Someday box. I used most of the same colours of Zig pens to colour the unicorn so the image and the background stamp worked well together.

If you fancy expanding your stash and want to get some background stamps that will enable you make some super quick cards then I highly recommend the stamps from the Background Collection, and at only £4.99 not only are they are affordable, but they are superb quality and give amazing results. I'm hoping they will expand the range to include some more florals, autumn and maybe some animal/cat backgrounds. That's all from me for now, I'm off to play with the other stamps I haven't used yet. Happy crafting!

Crazy Cat Lady Strikes Again

Hello to you and thanks for stopping by, its been a bit manic here as I rewrite and prepare for a course on robots that I'm teaching along with my husband to a group of children starting next month, so I haven't had much crafting time but this last few days I've put paid to that and I've been making lots of cards thanks to a challenge that was set up on a lovely, friendly card making group "Victoria's Crafty Friends" I belong to on Facebook headed up by the lovely Victoria Dalziel, one of the designers for Tonic Studios. I've made some lovely crafting friends via the group who are amazingly talented, supportive and beautiful souls. You can share your latest project, have a moan and be inspired all in one place, if you're not a member then I'd recommend that you join.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I'm a crazy cat lady in training and that I like to support my local Cats Protection by making cards that I can then give to them to make some money to help care for the cats. I make all different kinds of cards for them, but this year I thought I'd focus on cat themed cards. During a recent tidy and organise of my craft room and stash, I managed to fill an entire box with cat dies, stamps, stencils and embossing folders. Seeing how many cat craft products I have (and some unused!) has made me determined to use them all during the course of the year for cards for the CP. There's an added incentive this year as well I've been told that I can sell my cards at Maker Faire Derby in October, so if I get my skates on I could make some extra crafting pennies to boot!

 This batch of cards in the above photo turned out nothing like my initial idea, initially I was going to arrange 4 of the toppers on a 6" x 6" card blank each with a cat in the centre. I tried lots of combinations, paper backgrounds, embossing folders etc, but nothing gelled, then I decided to stamp a suitable kitty sentiment in the middle of each "stamp". I already knew that I wanted to include my little cats die cuts by Impression Obsession on the project and I'd already cut them in scraps of black card stock.  No matter what I did I couldn't get the idea for the card background to gel, so I started going through my cat stencils and embossing folders and found my Hunkydory Perfect Paw Print Mask that I'd bought from Craft Stash during their December 2017 Advent deal.

It didn't take much to connect the dots once I had the mask in my hand, and I picked out a selection of Distress Inks that co-ordinated with the papers in the centre of the stamps, and I set to taping down the mask and inking the cards with my chosen Distress Ink colours and several hours later I had 7 sets of 6 4" x 4" cards, each set contains 1 of each of the sentiments with a cat silhouette.
When I make more soon I'm going to use lighter colours of paper for the 'stamp' centres as in hindsight the black sentiment seems to get lost on the darker coloured papers. But I do like the way these cards turned out, it was rather relaxing inking and watching the latest videos from 2018 Creativation in the background. So many new goodies to come, I've already ordered the 3 batch of Distress Oxides, which I'm very excited about and the Distress Resist Spray.

There's also a whole bevy of beauties in the form of craft tools and mediums by Tonic Studios in their Nuvo range to come, including shimmer sprays, new colours in aqua pens and ink pads as well as shimmer powders and brushes. My craft stash is starting to have a decidedly Nuvo look to it, glitters, glues, embellishment mousse, colouring pens and so much more. Tonic excel at tools like guillotines and of course the Tim Holtz Stamping Platform which has been a game changer for me since I acquired mine last year, no more stamping errors or ruined projects when I mess up, because with the stamping platform I never do! I'm looking forward to using more of the Nuvo range in 2018, it will be interesting to compare the Nuvo products with some of their competitors like Cosmic Shimmer.

That's all from me for now, I'll be back with some more kitty cards very soon, I now seem to be on a roll and have lots of ideas as well as products I want to try out so watch this space. Thanks again for stopping by, I really appreciate it and your comments and support, much love to you all and happy crafting :)

Birthday Bargains 2018

This is my first post for 2018, I can't believe that we are already over a week in to the new year, where does the time go? I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year and you are fueled with lots of creative ideas for 2018? I know I am, one thing I've promised myself that I'd do is to stop watching so many videos of other people creating things and use the time to create more things myself! I can sit for hours watching super talenetd people create and then its time to go do the ironing or feed the hubby and I my crafting 'me time' has gone! I watch for inspiration but one video runs in to another and before I know it hours have passed. I also need to try to blog more and catch up with my crafty friends blogs more regularly than I did in 2017! I have plans, I just have to make them a reality :)

It was my birthday on Sunday and I got spoilt rotten, I got some lovely cards including some from my talented crafty friends, and lots of birthday wishes and smiles over on facebook which made me feel loved :) Birthdays since 2015 (the first after I got in to card making), mean that I get a wadge of cash that I get to spend on whatever crafting goodies I desire. As part of the birthday tradition my hubby has the day off and takes me to some crafty places that I can't easily get to as I don't drive myself, but as my birthday fell on a Sunday this year hubby announced I could have a birthday weekend and not just one day!

The festivities began on Saturday with a trip to Coleman's Craft Warehouse for their first Sale and demo day, at which I picked up all the Tonic Nuvo Brush Script Pens, the Aqua Flow Pens and one of the sets of the Nuvo Glitter Markers. I also found the other Tonic Festive Friends bauble die and stamp all reduced by a considerable amount, and I was chuffed to find the 2017 re-issue Lamp Post Bigz die by Tim Holtz for £7.49 :)

There are few good things about having a birthday in early January, its after Xmas when everyone is skint and the weather is cold, usually wet and dismal and most places are shut until the spring, so there are not many places to visit as there would be in you have a July birthday. But January sales make January birthdays a lot brighter, because it means that my birthday money goes twice as far. If I'd bought all the items in the first photo at RRP it would have cost me £121.37 as it was it cost me £63.51 almost half price!

The experience was similar the following day when I visited the Crafters Companion Store in Chesterfield and got a lot of goodies for just over £40 these included some Yupo paper reduced to £3, the Sheena 'Sown with Love Thin Metal Die' RRP £12.99 for £3 and the Waffle Flower 'Pattern Play' stamp set with an RRP of £12.49 I got for £3. I did buy some full price items but as a member of Crafters Companion Inspire Club, I got 15% off the prices of the non sale items and also off the sale items which made the Waffle Flower stamps for example cost me just £2.55.

I topped the weekend off with a visit to Hobbycraft, as a member of their club they sent me a £5 birthday voucher to get some money off my next shop, whilst there I got the Sizzix dies in the photo above and 4 Faber Castell Polychromos pencils 3 metallics (Silver, Gold & Copper) and White for adding highlights to stamped images. With my voucher the Sizzix 'Animal Portraits' die set was free, its earmarked for making some get well, easter and baby cards and I'm looking forward to playing with the cat die set.

The weekend wasn't all about buying crafting goodies, we went on some lovely walks, ate cake, lots of cake actually and did a lot of snuggling on the sofa watching TV, I even got to have charge of the remote! Also whilst I was in Hobbycraft I met a lovely little girl and her Mum, the girl was just starting out on her crafting journey after being given a card making kit for Christmas and she wanted advice on die cutting machines for beginners. I chatted to her for a while and told her about the difference between pigment and dye inks, how you use a die cutting machine, gave her a brief idea of the wonders of distress ink (she'd seen a YouTube video and was curious) and explained a little about heat embossing and embossing with folders.

As she lives not far from me I've promised to look through my stash and pass on things I think she could use and have promised to be on hand if she has any questions in the future. It was such a lovely feeling to be encouraging a young new crafter that it really made my birthday weekend feel complete. All I have to do now is start using the goodies I got for my birthday, my head is already full of ideas, and 2018 I want to make many more cards to donate to Cats Protection and also maybe sell some myself at Maker Fair events we'll be attending with K9.