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 :)

Creative Stamping Freebie - Vintage Collage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Salvaged Dreams

Hey everyone, hope you are all keeping well? I have challenged myself to start actually using the stuff I buy pretty much as soon as I get it. What usually happens is I see a project on Pinterest or Facebook by someone using a stencil, stamp or die or medium or a combination of all of them.

I have ideas spark in my head, order the stuff to get going and then when it arrives, I've forgot what I wanted to make, or life gets in the way and what I've bought gets filed away from another day. Which often doesn't come!

I've lost count of the number of times this has happened, but have been reminded of it recently as I've been having a sort out and putting things to one side to give to my niece Zoe who I have successfully infected with the cardmakers bug lol! I'm sensing another no spend challenge coming on, but I've just agreed to join a 10 month 'Stamperettes' club run by a lovely lady that is my local Stampin Up supplier, I go to classes she runs monthly and have met some lovely crafting friends. So I will have to spend £15 a month plus the cost of the class. So maybe this time I will say have a couple of months where all I buy is the Stampin Up stuff? Whatever I do know that I need to reduce my spending again, I have got better, but I'm still finding that I'm spending more on craft supplies than I am actually using!

I sadly cannot resist a crafty bargain, the above is the recent stash I got from BeeBaab Crafting Supplies who I discovered towards the end of last year. I ordered these goodies from the same over Christmas and they arrived on Friday, given the pep talk I gave myself on saturday I had a play with the 'That Special Touch Mask - Wings & Words' stencil that I got and one of the stencil brushes. I broke out the Distress inks and stippled through the stencil with Crushed Olive, Peacock Feathers and Wild Honey inks and Black Soot of course for the words and body details on the butterfly and wasp.

Once I'd laid down the colour with the stencil, I removed it and used some Distress Markers in the colours mentioned above but scribbling on to my glass media mat and then picking up the ink with a water brush and 'colouring in' the white areas around the stencilled parts. Once the colouring was done I gave the butterfly and wasp a coat of shimmer pen to add some sparkle and set to work making the sentiment. In my head I was going to make a 'Butterfly Dreams' kind of card, but it turned into a butterfly nightmare, when I got to the sentiment and assemble stage!

I carefully die cut 7 white pieces using a Crafters Companion die from their new Enchanted Forest collection the die is from the 'fairy Wishes' set. After I'd cut them all out I glued them and stacked them together, all good so far! I let the stack dry and decided to colour it with a Peacock Feathers Distress Marker, it was a good idea, that went badly wrong lol! I must have had glue on my fingers which transferred to the top die cut, and that acted as a kind of resist and the die cut went all patchy. Si came in to see me and I did a dramatic "It's ruined now!" thing and chucked it in the bin and stomped off out of the room and went to play Skyrim lol!

An hour later an idea popped in to my head so I went back upstairs, pulled the piece out of the bin and covered it in embossing ink, sprinkled on some gold embossing powder and heat set it. A vast improvement but the colour didn't pop off the card, so I inked again and this time reached for black embossing powder, that was loads better, it popped but it didn't sparkle. So I took out some sparkly black embossing powder and inked, sprinkled and heated again and TADA, it worked! It didn't pop still as much as I wanted it to so I die cut a piece of gold vellum to add to the front and stuck the words on to that and then glued the vellum behind the words to attach to the card.

I started out with a white card blank but decided to colour it, this time I remembered to cover the back of the card with post it notes so they didn't end up covered in distress ink YAY! I used some Mowed Lawn Distress Ink around the edge and brought it in by about an inch, no point in covering the whole card as only the edge would be seen! The finally touch was to give the butterfly piece a gold mirror card fancy edge which I think set it off nicely and I stuck it all together and we're off with the first card of 2019, plus I used 1 couple of items from the new stash!

I tell myself that I really do need to stop buying more craft things, then Tim Holtz does a Facebook live showing new stuff from his new Sizzix range and I caved and bought 4 of the new die sets. He's still got to do the Stampers Anonymous and Ranger sneak peeks and there are going to be more Sizzix products launched at Creativation 2019 later this month! I am hoping for some new colours of Distress Inks or some Distress Oxide pens, I can hope lol! I really am beginning to believe that meme that's been circulating that says buying craft stuff and using craft stuff are two separate hobbies lol! I need to focus more on one than the other and my purse is crying, use the stash rather than spend the cash lol! On that note I'll go an make something to eat and then look at organising the cardstock by type and making space for the new stash. Have a fab week, stay safe and well and I'll chat to you soon!

Post Birthday Post

Last Monday was my birthday, and I had a fab few days celebrating it, on the Saturday before my actual birthday Simon took me to Coleman's Craft Warehouse. This has become something of a birthday tradition since I first discovered Coleman's back in 2016 and every year now I go along and find goodies to bring home and I end up with lots of bargains due to the fact that the Coleman's January sale always happens around my birthday.

During their sale they have yellow sticker items with reductions from 35% to 70% and their non-sale items or white sticker have 30% off for two days. They also have free cake and coffee, so you can shop, take a break and then shop some more! There are usually some demos occurring on the second floor as well from cardmaking to patchwork and stitching and a whole host of other things.

I skipped the demos this year, mainly due to the fact that there had been a bad accident on the M1 on the way to Coleman's which meant that we were delayed nearly 2 hours, so instead of getting there around 13:30 like we'd planned it was 15:30 when we arrived and they closed at 17:00 so there was only shopping time (although I did fit in a 5 minute coffee and cake break lol). I was thrilled this year to discover that Coleman's are now stocking Lavinia stamps, so I picked up a few of them with my birthday spends. They were white stickered so I got 30% off each of them :)

l came home with some fab bargains as you can see, I realised after taking this photo that I'd left some stuff I bought in a bag on the bed but hey ho, you get the gist lol! This year I've vowed that I will actually use what I buy, I bought goodies in 2016 and 2017 that are still in their packaging and never been used! The space to store craft stuff in my room is shrinking as I bring in more goodies, so I have to use what I buy, their isn't space to buy and not use!

On the Sunday before my birthday it was a stay home and chill day and I watched movies and did some gaming and had a relaxing day. The day of my actual birthday started when I awoke and Simon presented with a big bunch of flowers and a card, he doesn't normally do this so I was very touched. I got some amazing cards from friends and family including several from some of my amazingly talented card making buddies, their talent and creativity never ceases to amaze me, this year I also got my first ever Nanna card, and yes I cried happy tears haha! After opening all my cards and having had breakfast Si took me off in to town, where I got some new trainers, some clothes and some pretty magazine style storage boxes for the craft room - I use them to store A4 stamp sets and card stock. As a treat we went into Marks & Spencer's for afternoon tea which was lovely and helped refuel me for a spot more shopping.

The last shopping trip of the day was to my local Hobbycraft to spend the £5 birthday voucher they sent me for being a member of their craft club. I made a beeline for the sale aisle and was blown away to find a Tim Holtz Butterfly Duo Bigz die that had been on my wishlist for a while for just £5 in the sale, I was over the moon!

I also picked up some new B Plates from my little Hobbycraft die cutting machine and a dinosaur die and stamp set plus a cut and emboss folder. Finally we picked up some Thai food, I usually have an Indian meal or a Chinese but this year I wanted to try something different, so Thai it was, and very yummy it was too! This year I decided not to have a birthday cake, instead I bought a selection of fresh fruit and made a lovely fruit salad and we had that with some yogurt instead.

Having reached 55 years and deciding that the life long battle I've had with my weight (well since my teens) will end starting this year, my birthday kicked off a new chapter in my life, tackling the weight issues and moving more. The day after my birthday I went to the doctors to pick up my regular prescription and plucked up the courage to ask if the clinic ran any weight loss schemes. Turns out they didn't but they had contact details for Live Well Derby a free 12 month programme run by my local council, having decided on my birthday that this year I would get healthy and thinner I walked back from the doctors and filled in the online application form.

2 days later I received a phone-call to say that I'd been accepted on to the programme, it doesn't start until the 4th of Feb though so I have a few weeks to wait. To start there are 4 x weekly meetings to get you on track, at the first meeting they take your height, weight and measurements, and test your blood pressure and find out your general level of fitness, then from week 2 you are given more tools and chances to experience things to get you on the road to fitness. After the first 4 weeks and for the remainder of the programme you get regular support and encouragement to help you self monitor weight, eating and activity levels. There is also an 8-week weight management course to take part in and the team arrange from you to take part in a wide variety of exercise classes from Clubbercise (dancing to 90's club anthems), Spin Classes, Circuit Training and they even get you running and doing the Couch to 5K!

I am so thrilled to have been accepted and I really do believe that with the help of Live Well Derby I will be a totally different person by my birthday in 2020 and that this time I will succeed, instead of the too many to count times where I try, and at best lose a couple of stone have a small set back and pile it all back on and more besides. I also had a sobering moment over the new year, and I realised if I want to be at the wedding (assuming they get married) of my niece and nephews, and my Granddaughter. Then I have to take better care of myself, losing weight and ensuring that those weight related illnesses don't happen to me is a huge step in the direction of living to a ripe old age (I plan on 100 or more!) so its a no brainer really.

My health has really begun to suffer recently, some of the problems are down to the menopause, some of them are weight related, I'm having trouble bending over, get back pain and knee pain and things I won't mention publicly all of it has been having a knock on effect on my self esteem and my mental health. So I've started as I mean to go on and started walking again, I was doing 9,000+ steps a day 6 months ago, but it fell by the wayside and my health deteriorated, I get out of breath going upstairs for example. I started back at 5,000 steps and I plan on increasing by 500 each week until I'm at 10,000 steps a day, I've stripped back calories and I'm trying to make healthier choices less junk and more fruit and veg. So far its working and I have a long, long way to go but little and often will win this race this time. I'll do an occasional post as I progress, I've taken some before photos and when there is a difference to see I'll share them. What I do know is next year, the only thing that will be repeating around my birthday is the trip to Coleman's and not the annual I'm fat I need to be thinner 3 day diet! I CAN DO THIS!