Buy it & Use it - Christmas text die

I had umm'ed and ah'ed over this die for a while and finally gave in last week.  It's a Memory Box Grand Happy Christmas die.  I have made two cards with it so far and will be making several more!

The papers are from Craft Creations.  I think this die would be suited to masculine cards, depending on papers used.  Very pleased with this purchase - there is also a Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday in the range ... roll on payday!

Snow 2013

I have a terrible habit of leaving things half finished .... you may have noticed :-)  With scrapbooking, I will usually start off a layout at a crop, then decided to finish at home - mostly it's the title and journalling which causes this procrastination.  I have dozens of such half-finished pages, so I need to make a bit of an effort and what better excuse than Blogtoberfest???

It seems strange to post another snowy page so soon after the Throwback Thursday one, but this was a quick one to finish, the title was actually already cut (hangs head in shame).  So all I needed to do was to die-cut the banner for the letters to sit upon and then punch the three little banners at the lower side, it doesn't really need any journalling.  Yes, that was it.  Really.

Luckily there was a piece of the paper with the manufacturer's strip still attached, so I am able to tell you that it is My Minds Eye "Lost & Found 3".  The fancy squares are done with an old Creative Memories punch, the large banner with a Die-namics die and the small banners with a Stampin Up punch.  The letters are silhouette-cut, I think the font is Polo.

One down ..... goodness know how many to go!

Out of the Drawer - gilding flakes

Out of the Drawer is where I will be attempting to use some previously bought item, never used and languishing unloved in a drawer!

Today's item is an Indigo Blu gilding flakes starter kit.  I had waited for a decent subscription gift for a magazine and this was suddenly advertised, so I thought "Ooooooh! Must have!"  But in spite of all that excitement, it has sat in the drawer for a couple of months.

The flakes are very easy to use - though they fly everywhere - the comprehensive instructions did recommend using tumble dryer sheets to combat the static, I can certainly endorse that!  The colour blend included in the kit was Autumn Dawn, mainly silver with a few other colour inclusions.  I had seen a demo table at The Glitter Pot (didn't have time to stay and watch the actual demo!) and this stamp was on the table there so I thought I would try it .... though I was a bit doubtful as it is very detailed.

It gives an amazing effect, all the detail is picked up.  DH did mutter something about couldn't I get that effect with embossing powder ..... to which Sy and I answered No!  LOL.

It's also very difficult to photograph as it changes with the light.  The two pics above are the same card, but it looks more gold than its real silver colour, the mat is actually blue-green :-)  I have now bought another six Indigo Blu colour mixes, plus a Cosmic Shimmer one called Mulled Wine, well how could I resist that??

Looking forward to trying all my new mixes :-)

Cross stitch disappointment!

A few months ago, I started stitching for 10 or 15 minutes every morning, sitting in my car before work.  I have already blogged the Sun Dragon made in this way here, but there was a piece before that, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment :-(

It's quite simple, lots of squares in various colours - it was a chart from a very old issue of Cross Stitcher magazine, I think.  After I had finished it, I made the mistake of not taking it off the frame immediately and it was left in its carry bag for about three months.  When I came to take it off and frame it, I discovered two things.  One :- the frame had marked the fabric, quite close to the stitching.  Two :- the dimensions of the design would not fit into any standard sized frame.  You would think I could have noticed that whilst stitching, but there you go :-)

So my options were limited - I couldn't cut the whole piece of fabric to a standard size because of the frame marks on the fabric and I couldn't fit just the stitching with a narrow fabric border into a smaller frame because it wasn't a standard size.  I ended up cutting a piece of self adhesive mountboard to size, attached the stitching to it, then attached the whole thing onto another piece of standard frame sized mountboard covered with toning paper.  Then I put it into a frame so that it was protected under glass.

And ... I don't like it.  The design of squares is a nice idea, but I don't like the colours, I think the overall impression of them is too dark, even with some light colours in there - which I did notice whilst I was stitching but only towards the end when it all came together and I persuaded myself that it would be fine, really :-)  Then there is the size issue ......

I think that what I will do at some point, is re-chart the design, expanding it into a standard size and using different colours.  It's not going to be soon, though ......

In the meantime, Sy likes it, so she received an unexpected gift LOL.

Pin-spiration: Circle wall art

A few months ago, Sy showed me Pinterest and I have spent many many hours a bit of time browsing through the  many boards and pinning ideas for cards and other craft projects.  I decided that I should probably stop Pinning and start actually doing something with the ideas! 

Ok, I haven't stopped Pinning, but I have done my first completely Pin-spired project.  A few days ago, I blogged the decorated caddy for my work colleague here, and I did intend to hand it over on Monday.  But I thought I would also make her a surprise piece of wall art, which I started at the weekend crop, but didn't finish in time for Monday.  The original Pin is here, and this is my version of it:

Close up of some detail:

It was very easy to do, at the crop I brushed paint in three colours (two oranges, one yellow) randomly over a 12 x 12 sheet of white card, making sure that there were brush marks and random bits.  Then I used a Paperartsy splotches stamp and stamped/embossed in gold randomly over the whole sheet.  Then it was just a matter of punching circles which had really good bits of pattern on them.

I stuck 12 circles down on a piece of 10x8" card in as neat a grid as I could manage - thank goodness for my centering ruler! - and I think it looks fabulous.  I am definitely going to make more of these in different colours.

But I must be honest ...... this is my second painted sheet of card - the first one went horribly wrong!  I stamped a background pattern in white ink and dried with a heat gun before adding the gold embossed splotches.  It turned out to be not so dried as I had thought and the background pattern picked up the gold embossing powder as well!  Far too much gold for how I wanted the finished item to look ...... so I cut it into pieces and it will appear on a card soon :-)

This afternoon I handed over both the caddy and the artwork to my colleague and she absolutely loved them - what a relief :-)

Throwback Thursday - White Easter

For this week's Throwback Thursday, I thought I would share with you the only layout I have ever submitted to a magazine, back in 2008.  The challenge theme was "collage", which I interpreted to mean multiple layers, different textures and the odd embellishment here and there.

I didn't win :-)  Not that I really expected to, but I was quite annoyed to see that some of the winning entries couldn't really be called 'collage' at all - that seemed a bit unfair on all of us who had done what was asked.  I have to say it put me off submitting anything else!

But I do still love the layout in my beloved aqua and white colourway.   I seem to remember that the papers were Provocraft and Basic Grey, with silver mesh (attached with brads), ribbon and resin snowflakes.  The large snowflake was stamped and embossed in white on vellum.  The title was robo-cut and the edging strips around the photo were done with a border punch.  I am actually amazed that I can recall such detail from 2008 LOL.

If I were to do it again today, I don't think I would have such a harsh straight line between the Basic Grey snowflake paper and the rest of the page and maybe I wouldn't have split the background exactly in half like that.  Apart from that, it's not too bad :-)

Christmas cards - Aqua with white hanging baubles

Two Christmas cards to share today, both basically the same, just a slightly different sentiment on each one :-)

I cut a background panel from Bazzill 'Sparkle' and used my south-west corner punch for some tiny detail.  Then I die-cut the hanging baubles (Memory Box die) and stuck them down .... this is easier said than done, the die is so delicate it stretches a bit when you're trying to stick it down!  I actually cut four, but only got two finished cards in the end :-)  I have bought some glue pens to try next time, my usual Herma just doesn't deal well with intricate dies.

I do love the aqua/white combination and this is a nice simple card - if I can get the things glued down more easily ...... more experimentation needed :-)