UKPC Challenge Card - June Flowers

Afternoon Everyone,

Here's the card I made for the June UKPC challenge - flowers were what was asked for this month.

This was a very quick and simple card but it's special for the topper which the lovely  Kyla, Li'l Pidge Designs, enclosed with her 10th WOYWW Anniversary ATC. Usually I'd have popped it into the box I store toppers in, then it would have been forgotten, and that would have been a great shame because it's really fab image.

The yellow flower patterned paper the topper is layered on to and the die-cut flowers were from a Craftstore card kit that came as a free gift with a recent issue of PaperCrafter Today. I did round the corners on both the topper and the patterned paper - it's something different. I then added some yellow glitter glue to the centre of the flowers and yellow enamel dots to two corners for a finishing touch. 

And that's it. As I said, really quick and simple.

The weather has changed to disappointing up this way. So chilly we've been forced to put the heating on - in June!!!

Hope it's warmer where you are. Take care and keep crafting.

November Card

We're into December and here I am posting a November card. Typical of me! As my gran would say, 'like the coo's tail, always behind'. Anyway this was the card I made for the UKPC November Swap - the theme was not, as you might think, 'November' but the number 'Three' and this is my interpretation. There's three base layers, three leaves on a topper made up of three colours.

Supplies used:

- a white A6 card blank from Docrafts Papermania with matching envelope

- dark brown card - recycled from a photo folder making use of the scalloped edge already there for layering. Leftovers were used for the base of the topper and the leaves

- grey card - recycled packaging- embossed with a Darice folder, Fall Leaf Background 

- scraps of Black Magic Core'dinations Spell Caster trimmed into strips to create the coloured background on the topper

- the leaves were cut using Tattered Lace dies, Lavish Blooms Leaves, from leftover brown card and a piece of white card I'd sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer Rich Gold

- November word cut and layered from one colour of  Core'dinations card and the dark brown card using Tim Holtz Calendar Words from Sizzix

- greeting 'For You' from Winter Wonderland stamp set stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink

- a scrap of natural raffia for bow

I'm pretty pleased that I managed to use some of the Core'dinations card - it's been sitting in my stash for a very long time, forgotten and unused. That's such a shame because it's lovely card. I chose to use the reverse rather than the front as intended because I thought the autumnal shades were just right for this card. 

Time to concentrate on Christmas cards now. Only 23 days to go. And, as I've not made as many this year as in previous years, I have a bit of catching up to do. 

Snippet Monday

Hello Everyone

I have this little card to share with you today. It was made for this month's UKPC Swap for which we were challenged to create a card/ATC/ tag/etc., from some new or as yet unused stash. This card is what I came up with and, as I was able to use several snippets as well, I'm submitting it to Di's snippet challenge on Pixie's Snippets Playground.

As it is late and to keep this post short I won't go through all the steps for making the card. Instead, here's a list of the materials used:

• White card base measuring 4"x 5¾"
• Satin finish card, mauve & scraps of white for die-cutting
• Embossing folder - Crafts-Too Trellis
• Dies - Spellbinders Designer Series, Renaissance Jubilee & Die'sire Edge'ables Mini Victoriana
• Stamp from Summer in the Garden - free with a magazine
• Ink pad - Memento Tuxedo Black
• ProMarkers - Bluebell, Lavender, Lilac, Marsh Green, Pear Green &  Ice Grey1
• Embellishments - Crystal Stickles and purple satin ribbon

This is a photo of the new/unused stash I used.

Having used so much Never Before Used Schtuff, a term coined by the fabulous Darnell,  I'm submitting the card to her NBUS Challenge #10 . Darnell is celebrating her 5-year blog birthaversary - now that's worth celebrating!

I'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself as this is my second post today. I think I need to go lie down in a darkened room now.

Thanks to everyone who visits and if you leave a comment I consider that a bonus.

Take care everyone,

Cardmaking - Snow Capped Mountain Scene

Morning Everyone

Today I have a card made for the November UKPC Swap. It got forgotten because of our really bad December and only rediscovered today when I was tidying up computer files, moving last year's photos into a 2016 folder.

The challenge for this Swap was to interpret the sketch below.

As you can see the sketch is portrait but inspiration didn't come until I switched it to landscape. I could then see that it was clearly a mountain scene - snow capped mountains in the moonlight, of course!

Since making the card the list of materials has gone missing and, as it could be anywhere now, I'm going to have to rely on my memory - that will be fun :)

Here goes:

The background, a piece that had been tucked away in my stash for a year or so, was made using cling film and Cosmic Shimmer Mists in shades of green, Meadow Lush & Blue Lime, and Rich Gold. Once it was trimmed to size it was embossed using a Textures Distress folder from Crafter's Companion.

The hills were made using kraft card, trimmed to shape, and heat embossed in the style of Stampendous' Fran Seiford's famous Frantage, only I mixed up my own from a variety of powders already in my stash. They were, as far as I can remember, Papermania Seafoam White, Heat It Up! Gold & Silver, Sheena's WOW! Lime light and I added, for even more texture, a scattering of Flower Soft Sage,

The 'moon' was created using a Clarity Circle Dot stencil and Pinflair Silver Buff-It which has a nice gritty texture with a glittery finish. The sentiment is from Clear Impressions' The Wild & Free stamp collection from an issue of Get Stamping.

Also used is in the background is a stamp of house and trees from the Winter Wonderland stamp set, a freebie from Creative Stamping Magazine, Issue 36. For embellishments I simply used some natual twine stapled into the positions suggested on the sketch.

That's all as far as I can remember but I'm sure to have forgotten something. As I said, I did note everything down at the time. It's probably long gone, a casualty of my frequent tidying sessions. That being so, if there is anything I missed that you want to know more about do let me know, I'll do my best to answer any questions.

In the meantime, take care, stay safe and have a great weekend.

Sunday Snippet Card - Remember to Explore

Hello Everyone

Sunday again and I'm back with this week's snippet card for Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 253. The theme for this month's SWAP on UKPC was to create a project using shades of grey together with a striking accent colour. After much scratching of the head, searching the old grey matter and a lot of hemming and hawing, this is what I came up with.

Happily, I was able to use up a bit of old stash, scraps and snippets on this card - the grey and yellow card is from the snippet mountain.

Here's how it was made.

• The base was made by cutting a 12"x12" sheet of grey card down to 6"x12" which was folded to create a 6" square tent shaped card.
• The front was covered with a Papermania patterned paper from the Chronology 8"x8" pack. 
• The shapes, circles, cogs, etc., were cut from snippets of grey and yellow cardstock (Papermania Textured), using X-Cut's Circles and Spiro Circles die sets. 
• Two large Spiro circles were cut from grey and yellow card by putting one die inside the other. I then cut them both in half and glued the grey pieces to the yellow pieces to create something that, with a stretch of the imagination, might just look like parts of massive cogs. 
• The small cogs were layered together and fixed with 'nail head' metallic brads.
• The greeting, stamped with Memento London Fog, is from Get Stamping's Life's An Adventure. 

I've no idea where the design for this card came from. It was one of those that just started with the base and evolved as I worked on it. And the choice of yellow was a bit of a surprise to me. I'm sure I've said this somewhere on this blog before but I'll say it again, yellow is not my favourite colour. However, I do think that this particularly strong yellow looks well with the gunmetal grey.

Now, I'd better finish. Poldark starts in a few minutes and it just wouldn't do for me to miss it.

Have a wonderful week.

Cardmaking - Dream Big in Paris - Sunday Snippets

Happy Sunday Everyone,

This card was made a wee while ago, for the UKPC challenge for April, but I'm only now getting around to posting it, and as a snippet or two were used in the making I thought I'd submit it to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 227.

The theme for the challenge was Paris (in Springtime) and the idea for the design began with a sheet of lovely patterned paper (from the Simple Stories So Fancy Collection) featuring the Eiffel Tower. However, having chosen the paper, I then was stuck for what to do next until I thought of just taking some of the techniques I like to use when scrapbooking and adapting them for the card. One of the things I often do when making a scrap layout is create clusters of embellishments around the page. Here I made one on the bottom left corner using lots of embellishments ... ribbon printed with postmarks, washi tape, a scrap of bakers twine fixed in place with tiny staples.

The ribbon, which as luck would have it has a couple Paris postmarks in the design, was machine stitched in place, wrapping it around the back of the card. The baker's twine was curled round before stapling in place along the length of the ribbon.

.
The greeting was stamped on to a tiny snippet of white card which was then layered on to yet another tiny snippet of pink card before fixing to the top right corner of the card front.

I stapled the tiniest scrap of baker's twine to the top of the Kraft label which is part of the original design printed on the patterned paper and for the finishing touch enamel dots in yellow and pink were scattered around the card front.

The back of the staples showed through on to the inside so, for safety's sake, I covered them up with more clusters made from snippets of paper and washi tape. I also added another largish snippet of white card to the inside to write my message on.






Supplies used:

• Cardstock - American Crafts 
• Designer Paper - Simple Stories So Fancy Collection
• Ink - ColourBox Orchid
• Greeting Stamp - from Life's An Adventure stamp set
• Decorative Ribbon - bought locally, distributor SIL - www.silplc.com 
• Washi tape - words from Papermania All Aboard Collection and pink/white gingham came free with a magazine an awful long time ago
• Enamel dots - Simple Stories DIY and So Fancy collections
• Baker's Twine - from my scrap box
• Tools - Tim Holtz Tiny Staple Attacher & my sewing machine

Phew! Not the quickest description I've ever written on how I made a card but it seemed to need quite a bit of explanation, and more photos too. Hope you like the finished card as much as I do ... I may well make another using the same techniques.

It's a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK and, of course, the weather has been a bit mixed ... sunny spells interrupted by April showers. It was snowing here during the week so I'll happily take the sun and showers instead :) Whatever the weather, I hope you are enjoying the weekend and catching that sun whenever it makes and appearance, however briefly!

Take care and happy crafting,

Flowers Are Poetry - Another Gelli Plate Print Card

Afternoon Everyone,

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

I have yet another card I made earlier, this time for the UKPC August Swap, and once again I've used a Gelli plate print as the basis for the design.

I went a bit wild with my choice of paint colours for the print - blues, pinks, yellows, green and white. The flower design on it was created using a selection of stamps from Kanban's Spring Meadow set to remove some of the paint from the plate before lifting the print.

The allium stamp used for the topper came from the same Kanban set. The stamp was inked up using a mix of  Memento markers - Danube Blue, Rosebud, Cantaloupe, and Bamboo Leaves before stamping on a square of white card. Papermania Textured cardstock was used for matting and Anita's gems decorate the alliums.

The hinged greeting is stamped with Hero Art's Flowers Are Poetry and a couple of tiny stamps from the Kanban set - again, I've used Memento Markers to ink up the stamps.

As usual for me, the inside and the back are decorated with the trimmings from the print. 

That's it ... another quick post from me today.

I'm absolutely shattered after my day out to the flower show yesterday. I must have covered quite a few miles walking round the stalls and in and out the various marquees - all good fun but, in the end, quite exhausting!

To make up for all that exercise yesterday, I've spent a bit of quiet time, pottering in the garden - until the breeze blew me indoors and into the craft room. I've been making flowers which I'm so pleased with I think I'll write up a wee 'how to' tomorrow. For now, I'm off to have a cuppa and a bit of a break before tackling supper.

Happy crafting,

Rudolph Day - March

Hi Everyone,

Happy Monday to you all.

A quick post today - because even though we are suffering bone chilling temperatures straight from Siberia, there's no escaping the polishing and dusting! It's Rudolph Day over at Stamping For Pleasure so here's my share for this month.

And I have to admit I can't take much of the credit for this card because much of the work was already done for me. A friend on UKPC included this beautiful topper of the Madonna and Child in with her Christmas card last year. I've been stroking and admiring it for months now but have finally caved in and created this card with it.

It's pretty much as received - I've just adhered it to a white card base, edged the purple layer with iridescent glue, added more iridescent glue to the halos and finished it off with a length of silver grey ribbon.

Materials used: Kanban A6 (approx 5¾" x 4") white card base; the topper; crystal Stickles; silver grey satin edged organza ribbon from stash.

I said it was going to be quick :)

I hope you all had a great weekend and are enjoying today ... if you did not or are not, then I hope things improve for you over the week.

Take care and happy crafting,