Another Landscape Christmas card

Back to my favourite stamp, SU Lovely as a Tree! 

I stamped the trees and did some shmooshing with Distress Oxides for the background, masking off a circle for the moon.  Then I stamped the sleigh (Inkylicious).
A slight problem then was to work out where to put the sentiment!  So I incorporated it into the black mat :-)
I made three altogether, made easy by the stamp positioner, after all if you can stamp one, you can stamp three!!

Lovely as a Tree - gilding flakes

I had what I thought was a brilliant idea ...... using the stamperatus, I stamped the main image on white and ivory card, in black and brown respectively.  Leaving the stamp in position, I 'inked' up the stamp with Flitterglu and applied gilding flakes to the branches.  It should have been spectacular - but - it wasn't!!  Out of 16 images stamped, I got 2 decent cards.  The idea needs re-thinking..... LOL.
However, I am very pleased with the two cards I did make, only one shown here as the other proved too difficult to photograph with the gilding showing up.

Front and side view shown :-)  I haven't made an easel card for ages, but when I noticed that the Back to Basics current challenge is asking for one, this was the perfect thing to do with the topper.
The sentiment is from Visible Image, the trees from SU and the sleigh from Lavina stamps.

Retreat Layouts 2

Two more layouts done at the retreat.

Here be Dragons? - G had made some giant eggs, using plaster and balloons, they looked like dragon eggs and one had cracked, giving it the appearance of something having hatched :-)  I used a Kaisercraft background paper, added splatty stamping and some texture paste "eggshell" through stencils.  The title is die-cut, twice, to give a shadow effect.
Look Up is a photo from a few years back, we had taken our visitor to London for the day and went to the London Aquarium.  Next door was a Star Wars exhibition and the stormtroopers were posed above us as we queued, clearly ready to take over the world :-)

Lovely as a Tree Christmas cards

Lovely as a Tree is one of my favourite SU stamp sets.  Although when it came out, I did read it at first glance as "lonely" as a tree ..... :-)  Though not a specifically seasonal stamp, it does lend itself very well to Christmas cards.

A nice simple card, embossed in silver and gold, on aqua and red mats respectively.  I assembled four each of these at the retreat, but ran out of plain white card blanks and had to use deckled edge ones for the aqua/silver cards.  I think I like them better..... LOL.

Retreat Layouts 1

I got seven layouts completed and a few more partially done at the ADTML retreat.  I hadn't actually scrapped since the previous retreat last April, but it was like meeting up with an old friend, I just took up where we left off!
Here are two:

The photos have come out a little dark!  Silver Birch has a beautiful background paper which didn't really need much adding to it.  I used this sketch from Pinterest, the banners and long strip are punched, the doily is die-cut, as is the title.  It is also straight in real life, not as wonky as it looks, I swear!
The Mad Hatters also lets the background paper do most of the work.  I punched out two different Martha Stewart snowflakes, several times, to make a flurry.  The journalling and date tags at the side of the photo were supposed to be done with a label punch, halved - until I discovered I hadn't packed it!  But in my die folder I had the nestabilities labels four set and it was perfect.  The title is die-cut.

Steampunk candle stand

I was browsing in a charity shop, when something caught my eye - a rather naff candle stand with some plastic 'crystals' suspended from the top plate.

I thought ... I could steampunk that to within an inch of its life!  It was in the half price bric-a-brac sale at £2.50, a bargain LOL.  It did come with a wax pillar candle, held by a spike in the centre of the top plate.  But I knew I wanted to put an LED candle on the top, so that spike had to go.
First I found some MDF cogs and gears, two assorted sizes packs I had bought at a show a while back.  There were two large ones for a base and top plate and some smaller ones for decoration and also to sit over the spike.
I sprayed with a metal primer and then with a matt black.  The base and top plates, plus two smaller cogs were painted with a black acrylic and matt varnished.  The wings were made by die-cutting the openwork wing, then drawing around the solid shape left in the die-cut waste and hand cutting the solid backgrounds - four of each as I wanted them to be dimensional two-sided wings.  The front and back were then joined by a strip of the same heavy black card, with cuts made to each side of the strip so it would bend to the shape of the wing (thanks Sy!).
The decorative trim around the base and the clock face on the top plate were die-cut in the same bronze card as the openwork wings.
I found some metal cogs in gunmetal and copper, fixed two small copper cogs to the 'twirly' bits to frame the mask.  For the small MDF cogs, I used large gunmetal and small copper cogs on top. Then it was time for assembly!  It all came together quite well, though I had a bit of trouble hanging the ornaments from the edge, until I worked out I could turn it upside down rather than trying to fiddle with it from underneath ... duh.  The ornaments are souvenir key-rings from our travels.
The last thing to go on were the masks, front and back - they are tiny fridge magnets from Venice, so cling to the stand without the need to stick them down.
The finished candle stand:

Here it is in its final position :-)

The only thing I had to buy was the spray primer, which will get used for other projects, everything else was dug out from stash.  I absolutely love it :-)

Distress Oxides over white embossing

My PC hasn't flaked out for a while now ..... fingers crossed!
The weekend before last, I went to the ATDML retreat, had a fab time as always and got a reasonable amount done.
I made these cards:

The image is a Woodware stamp, heat embossed in white and Distress Oxides shmooshed over the top.  They look very delicate :-)

So many PC problems.... it all seems to be settled at the moment, at least until the next tech support call with Microsoft, when it will doubtless all go pear-shaped again....
So, whilst I am able to blog, here are some cards made with some new Woodware stamps.

I coloured with watercolour pens, then went over with some Wink of Stella for a gleamy effect - not really showing up in the pics!  Since WoS is also water based, it does cause the colouring to 'move' a little, will try it over alcohol markers next time.
A green mat to finish.  Nice and simple!

Silhouettes over pink ink

I was having a play with inks at the last crop.  The first card has an inked-through-aperture background, whilst the second has a stamped background splotchy splat.  Both were then overstamped with a silhouette image.

The mini stars and tree are from Lavinia, the flowers from Nellie Snellen, the splat and mini bubbles from SU, the sentiments from Stamping all Day and SU.  I matted with silver mirri rather than trying to match the pink, it looks quite elegant :-)

New baby cards

Cast your minds back.... early last year I had to make a last minute engagement card at the request of DH.  The last minute wedding card request followed some time later.  And now ...... tah-dah! ...... the new baby card!  I was prepared for this one and made some variations on pink and blue, at the last-but-one crop :-)  Today we heard that a baby boy has arrived, so congrats to the proud new parents and DH is tasked with writing - and posting! - a blue one.

I made four of each, mixing and matching two embossed backgrounds and two sentiment stamps.  Stamps are from Woodware and SU, the die is from Tonic.
So I am well prepared for any more new arrivals :-)

Beat the Christmas rush - July

For the last couple of months, I had half-done several cards for this challenge, but not finished them.  So in July I have had an almighty catch up, resulting in four sets of five cards!!  The photo shows one from each set, with two white hexagons as they had different sentiments.

To make the hexagons, I used a 6" square blank and a Sizzix hexagon die, with the folded edge of the original blank just inside the cutting edge.  I also went a bit mirri-tastic!!  As always, it doesn't photograph well.....
The white hexagons have a holly wreath die from Tonic, cut in silver mirri, a hexagon frame (Card Making Magic) which is a two piece swirly bit and stitched outline.  The sentiment on the left is from an old set, I have no idea which brand and the right hand one is from Stamping all Day.  Both were stamped/heat embossed with Wow apple red powder.  Just a few 5mm red pearls for the wreath to finish it off.
The ivory hexagons have die-cut gold mirri - the same hex frame, a gift die from Tonic and the sentiment a tiny peel off.
The Scandi hexagons have a huge die-cut snowflake (Kaisercraft) and the same round sentiment as the white, but this time I punched out the centre to make a sentiment polo LOL.  I really like it and plan to make some more little polos in different colours :-)
Finally, the A6 card has a background done by inking through an aperture, over stamping with the tree and sentiment from SU.

Variations on a Theme

I wanted to pack light for this month's crop on Saturday, so I chose one of my Pins - original pin here - and took along various stamps to make variations on the idea.  I die-cut the cardstock to size in white and then some ivory when I ran out of white LOL.  I didn't pack coloured cardstock for mats, but cut those on Sunday and assembled the cards. 

I used silhouette stamps from Lavinia (seedheads), Nellie Snellen (stylised flower stems) and Hot off the Press (feather).  The splats are from Stampin Up and the sentiments from Visible Image.

I do like silhouette stamping :-) 

Beat the Christmas Rush - April (and March catch up!)

For some reason, March just seemed to pass me by .... so for April's BtCR I have made two batches of five cards :-)

I used the stamping platform to stamp the sentiment in alternate red and green and matted with a dull gold.  Very quick to make!

I originally intended to have the white die-cut on the kraft background, but since said background is embossed, it wouldn't have stuck down very well, so I made a mat.  Not sure whether it now has too much red on it, but it's OK :-)

Stamping Platform - third card

Ok, after this week I will stop calling them first, second, third etc LOL.
I was having a look through my card box and finding that they are mostly birthdays, so I have decided to try and build up a stock of 'other' cards too.  The cards I find most difficult to make are sympathy cards, so I thought I would see what I could come up with.

The lotus is a multi-step stamp set from SU, the sentiment is from my collection, possibly Woodware?  I kept to purple, black and white, with a touch of silver on the first one - that whole frame was to cover up a little mark which mysteriously appeared on the card after I had assembled it!!  It looks quite effective and I'm not sure which one I prefer. Purple for sympathy cards always seems appropriate to me, it was the Victorian colour of mourning.
Having set up the lotus on the stamp platform, I thought I would do a batch, but getting back to birthday cards!

It's fun playing around with colours to see what works :-)  Yellow and two shades of orange for the first, then pale pink and two purples.  The sentiment is from Stamping all Day.
The mats and stamping background are all die-cut, using Rare Earth dies, which fit an A6 card perfectly.

Stamping Platform - second card

I was hanging on for the stamping platform to arrive as I knew it would be perfect for the February Beat the Christmas Rush challenge over at UK Scrappers.

I used two SU images, both of which are multi-step stamping.  After setting up the stamps on the plates for the first card, duplicating it for three more cards was a piece of cake!  Perfect for batch making.  The handwriting sentiment is from Visible Image, the other is from my sentiment box so no idea of the brand, sorry.
So that was 8 cards made in not much time at all, I also die-cut the mat and stamping background for an even more streamlined process :-)

Stamping Platform - first card

I have just got the Stamparatus, the new stamping platform from Stampin Up.  I have been thinking about getting a platform for a while and this one has two plates instead of the more usual one.
My first attempt was somewhat disastrous as I also tried some new inks, and they did not like polymer stamps!  So I went back to trying one new thing at a time LOL.

A simple monotone card, the balloons and sentiment are both SU, and there is also a matching punch so I was able to punch out masks and stamp the centre balloon.  I have had the balloons & punch for some time and not christened them so this is an OotD project too :-) The platform makes placement so easy and the greatest thing is - you know when you stamp a sentiment and it just misses one of the letters?  With this tool you can re-ink the offending letter and re-stamp in exactly the same place.  This is going to be so useful for me, the number of times I have tried to re-stamp by hand and it doesn't quite work, well I couldn't count them!
Further cards to follow during this week :-)

Layout - Find your Happy Place

This is the page I made about the ADML retreat last April.  I haven't done a double layout for a long time!  It was quite difficult to photograph the whole thing in one LOL.

The papers are from stash, but I am fairly sure that the two main background papers are from Marion Smith.  I used a Kaisercraft die along the edges of the chequered connecting panel.  The journalling panels are either Kaisercraft or Bo Bunny and the Art quote stamp is from Deep Red.  I die-cut the title with a stitched alpha form Dienamics.
The photos are of the amount Karen and I pack into the car, the crop room and a group photo :-)  Looking forward to doing it again this year!!!

Heart balloons birthday card

This is a rescued card .... I had embossed and distress-inked the background, die-cut a butterfly design and assembled with a peel-off sentiment.  But the more I looked at it, the less I liked the look of the butterflies against the inking.  It sat around the craft room for a while, as I tried to think how to fix it.  Then this unbranded heart balloons die dropped through the letter box....

I use repo Herma, so was able to pull off the butterfly die cut.  But I couldn't remove the sentiment without damaging the background, so I decided to cut the balloons in gold mirri to match it.  The bow to finish off the end of the balloon strings is a Sue Wilson die, quite fiddly to make up but it looks lovely :-)
I like it much better now :-)

Peacock box

I have a huge stash of wooden items to use up and so I decided to decorate a box for Sy's Christmas present - I had forgotten I hadn't blogged it!

I took all the hinges and clasp off the box and put them safe to one side.  Then I primed the box with gesso and painted with a teal paint from Cosmic Shimmer.  The stencilling, which isn't - ahem - quite perfect ...... never mind, was done with silver acrylic paint, I can't remember the brand of stencil.  It wasn't quite wide enough to go over the entire box, but I liked the borders at the side, just needed to find something to give them a 'finished' edge.  A strip - or four - of nailheads did the trick, making certain they would stick permanently by using cosmic shimmer glue on the integral adhesive strip.  A coat of varnish to protect it and left to dry  overnight.
Tine to re-assemble the box.  Now bear in mind that this was the Saturday morning before heading off to the crop where I was going to give the gift.  I dropped the last tiny screw on the floor.  Could I find it?  I had to find another blank box with silver screws and discovered that all of them except one had brass fittings LOL.  I have now bought a whole selection of tiny screws, in various finishes, to make sure that never happens again :-)

Cocktail Hour

This is a layout done at the Littlegreen retreat in Arundel at the end of January.  A whole page started and finished at one retreat, imagine that!!  Actually I managed to complete 10 pages and work on 7 partial ones, a good total for me.

This page is about our friends coming to visit and deciding to make cocktails.  To save on trips to refill glasses, Gary and John decided on Pina Colada by the pint :-)
Papers are from stash, although I think the woodgrain background is probably Kaisercraft.  I cut the title twice on the Silhouette, using the darker orange as a 'shadow' under the lighter one.  The leafy swirls and the pennants are die-cut, Cheery Lynn and Die'sire respectively, with the pennants also cut twice for a shadow effect.  The journalling lines are done with an SU stamp.
I wanted a beachy tropical feel, but didn't have any suitable papers, so I think this has done quite well LOL.

Silhouette birthday cards

Quick post today .....
I had a little play at the crop, with some shmooshy distress ink backgrounds, over-stamped with a black silhouette image.

The gears are from Paperartsy, the flower heads from Nellie Snellen and the seedpods, fairy and stars are all from Lavinia stamps.  The sentiments are both from Stamping all Day.  Adhered onto a thin black mat, then onto a white card blank.  Very pleased with these :-)

Layout - #selfie

It's not often I get a good photo of myself........ but this one of DH and I at Wakehurst Place came out rather well and the title was obvious LOL.  I originally made this page with just the photo, a little stamping and splattering and the title.  But it seemed a little too plain, so I added the die cut frame.

Made the world of difference!
The paper is from stash and already had most of the random mottling on it, I added the splatters and cog stamps, which are a little more subtle than I intended, but never mind :-) 
The title is cut on the Silhouette, the font is Segoe script which comes with Windows and welds together really nicely.

Geometric shapes - card challenge

Over at Kool Kitty, Nat has set the February prompt for the challenge.  This month it's geometric shapes - yay!
Here is my circle based card:

I used distress oxide inks through a Clarity stencil, in pink/purple/green combination, directly onto a card blank for a CAS card.  Then I stamped the SU sentiment and the Dali Art butterflies.  All went well until I removed the masking tape - it tore the card - eek!!
What to do?  I cut around the stencilled image to form a sash, laid it onto a new card blank, but then decided that it just looked too plain.  So I cut a trellis circle with a Tonic die and put it under the sash.  The corners of the card were rounded to echo the circular theme.
I actually like the way it has turned out much better than my original plan :-)

Beat the Christmas Rush 2018

Sue is running Beat the Christmas Rush over UK Scrappers this year.  Five cards a month and by the end of October, you'll have fifty!  You can miss a month and jump back in the next month, it's up to you.
Here are my five for January:

You may notice there are actually six! - I made these at a crop and I happened to have six of this particular colour of card blank with me, seemed a shame not to use them all :-)
The papers are from a Sara Davis 6" paper pad and the large sentiment die is from Memory Box.  The snowflakes are made with a Martha Stewart punch.  Initially I just had the sentiment, but it just seemed to need a little something more, hence the snowflakes :-)

Another Sea Breeze birthday card

Although made at the same time, this didn't fit the challenge of the last post, so I thought I would blog separately :-)

I covered the card blank with the wood grain paper in the Kaisercraft 6.5" Sea breeze collection pad, then made triple panels from the tiny flower paper.  The die is unbranded and I cut it twice to get a second butterfly, which is attached leaving the wings free.  Then it was matted onto a plain stitched circle in white and the sentiment was stamped/embossed and die-cut out.

2018 card challenge - January

Kool Kitty Nat is running a card challenge this year, with a monthly theme and a goal to use old and new stash.  Which goes very well with my own Buy it - Try it and Out of the Drawer :-)  January is 'Fancy Words', where the sentiment or other text is the focus.

I used a 6.5 paper pad from Kaisercraft, Sea Breeze I think, as the 'old' element and the large HB die from SU is the 'new'.  The other sentiments are also SU and are stamped/embossed in metallic Teal from American Crafts.

Wall art Christmas presents

Now the pressies have been given, I can share :-)

The brief was 'flowers and blue', 'unicorns' and 'cats'.  I found some dies in the Hobbycraft sale, 'Intricut' which I had not seen before, but they had a unicorn and a cat (and a couple of others...!) so it was worth a try :-) The packaging states that they may need a shim - there is no 'may' about it, they do!  Three passes through the machine and finally I had my cat and unicorn.  The background papers are from Craft Creations and the white box frames are from The Range.
A word here about Stick It die cutting adhesive sheets - I loved this product when it came out three years ago, but it seems to have some real quality issues now - I used it because the dies are so intricate, but they wouldn't stick to the background paper. I had to run over the back with Herma repo adhesive, the Stick It did at least stabilise the die-cuts so that the Herma didn't distort them, but I am very disappointed, this was exactly what it is supposed to be used for, but it just didn't work.  I'm sure it was stickier when it was first released.
The flowers are done with an SU stamp and matching punch.  Each one has three separate layers, so that was 27 flowers stamped, punched and coloured!!  Not counting the test ones LOL.  The centres are pale green Card Candi.  I had a devil of a job getting the grid right, but it came out OK in the end!  The frame is a Ribba from Ikea, it's a 9" box frame, my intended 8" frame was just too small to get the 3 x 3 grid.