Beat the Christmas Rush - August 2019

These cards have taken a while to come to fruition ..... I actually started them in January, by making the double gate-fold card blanks and adding the paper panels using old freebie magazine papers.  And there I was stuck!
I bought the sentiment stamp from Inkylicious a while later and realised it was perfectly sized for the inner panel.  So I stamped / heat embossed five images in colours to match the papers, then die-cut using a stitched square.  It turned out that the red didn't match one of the papers as well as I had thought it would, so that square was put aside.  When I went back to it, I used gold instead, but couldn't be bothered to dig out the die again, so used a circle punch.
There seemed to be something missing, the cards needed some detail on the front panels, so I put them aside (again!) waiting for inspiration.  Eventually I decided on some SU snowflake stamps, stamped /heat embossed those and used their matching punches to cut out.  It's a little difficult to see in the photo, but the snowflakes run under the image on the inside panel, as well as on the front.

They have turned out rather well (eventually!) and I actually prefer the circle inside the card to the squares, so that's something to remember for next time!

Beat the Christmas Rush - March

UK Scrappers is running the Beat the Christmas Rush again this year here.  The cards below are white heat embossed on kraft, matted onto an embossed kraft background with a very thin gold mat.

The snowflake and sentiment are from an SU set released a couple of years ago.

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.

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!!!

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 :-)