Smile - Take Two

Afternoon Everyone

I hope you are all well and enjoying your day. Here in Ayrshire it's not bad at all ... the sun is out and the sky is blue, the clouds are white and fluffy, but it's freezing! The EM had to dig out his tin of anti-freeze this morning and defrost the windscreen ... winter, here we come!

Today's share is another card made using the inky technique I describe in yesterday's post.

As you can see it's much the same, with just a couple of changes. The stamp has been placed so that the inky stripes of colour are going the other way, i.e. landscape instead of portrait, and the plaid patterned paper is from Darling Dear, a Six By Six pad from My Mind's Eye. It's an old pad, from last year, but it's been a favourite - Christmas themed but with an unusual colour palette, and quite of few of the patterns, like this plaid, suitable for any time of the year. I believe it is still available from several sources online should you be interested.

Despite it being perishingly cold here, the EM, intrepid gardener that he is, is over at our new home clearing a small area with the intention of planting some daffodil bulbs ... something cheerful to look forward to early next year :)

Me, I'm staying cosily at home, albeit still busily packing away stuff that we've been leaving to the last ... only 11 days to go now!!!

Better get on with it.

Take care and happy crafting,

Inky Topper Backgrounds - a how I did it post

Evening Everyone,

I hope this finds you well and enjoying the weekend.

I've been trying out a new, for me, inking technique for making backgrounds for toppers and I thought I'd show you how it's done ... just in case you've never seen it before and might like to give it a try. This one is easy :)

First, here is the card I made with the finished topper, and sentiment.

Step 1: here's the materials required ... a scrap of white card ... mine measured 3.75" x 2.5" (10x6.5cm) ... and some Memento Dew Drop ink pads ... here I've chosen the colours Love Letter, Pear Tart and Danube Blue. Dew Drop pads are the perfect shape but I'd say that almost any pad that is shaped to have a pointed end would be just as good.

Step 2: drag the pads down the card, more or less in a straight line, to create a striped effect ... it doesn't have to be perfect, in fact, the less perfect it is the better.

Step 3: the stamping. Choose your stamp ... I chose Inkadinkado's Camera for this, my first, attempt ... and decide which way the stripes are going to go ... here I've stamped portrait, but it could just as easily been landscape.

Step 4: trim the stamping down before matting ... I used black card, another scrap, for the mat ... and construct the card.

The base is a 5"square black card from Craft UK, the patterned paper is from Pebbles Sunny Side 6x6 pad and the green and red card candy is from stash.

Step 5: going mad with all my dinky ink pads and scraps of card. I tried out a variety of scraps ... matte, shiny, smooth and even gold 'pearlescent'. The latter didn't work well, 24 hours later the ink still hadn't dried! I also discovered that newer, wetter pads give the best results.

You can really had fun mixing up the colours. I now have some very useful backgrounds for card toppers ... all except the gold one which had to be binned.

Some snippets, quite a few in fact, were used up in the making of this post so I'm off over to Di's playground ... Pixies Snippets Playground - Week 97 ... to submit my card and see what the other Snippeteers have been doing with snippets too.

I hope some of you found this way of using ink pads of interest and if you decide to try out it out for yourself, do let me know - I'd love to see what you do with it :)

In the meantime, take care and happy crafting,

CHNC Week 148 - Music

Good Evening Crafters,

I hope you are well and that Friday has been fabulous for you.

The two cards I have to share with you this evening were made especially for a challenge I do my utmost, and often fail miserably, to enter each week ... Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Card Challenge. Hazel has given us the theme of 'music' and this is what I came up with.

At first, I confess, I was at a loss as to how to introduce music into a card but after rifling through my box of Christmas papers I stumbled on what is left of another paper pack from last year, Traditional Christmas from Paper Cellar which includes this music themed paper. 

Once again, I must mention the quality of the photographs in bad lighting ... the colours are much more vibrant in real life! So frustrating not having my Ottlite!!! I thought I'd wait until we'd moved into the new house, but no, I can't wait a moment longer, a new lamp is ordered and on it's way!!! 

The base of the card is 'kraft' from Papermill Direct, one A4 (US Letter equivalent) sheet cut in half. Just a smidgeon was trimmed of the length before creasing and folding in half to measure a 4.25" x 5.75" tent shape card. On both, the lower 2.5" was embossed with Snowflake Swirl (Darice).

The patterned paper panel is made from 2" wide strips cut from the sheet of paper and edged with lengths of paper ribbon trim, from another sheet found in the same paper pack.

The topper was created by cutting the little snowman image from the paper and matting him on to some black card (also from Papermill Direct). The pompom on his hat was blinged up with Crystal Stickles and his eyes and buttons with Black Diamond Stickles.

The final embellishment is some brown string (Docrafts) wrapped round and knotted at the top of the card.

 

More paper ribbon trims the inside and the back.

So that's it - two cards that were quick and easy to make. Having limited time is certainly concentrating the mind and I'm having fun dreaming up projects that can be made in a jiffy :) 

I am also linking this into Hazel's Monthly Extra Challenge for November, where, as always, anything goes.

The EM and I have had an fun day trawling round the DIY stores, studying wallpaper and paint charts, and checking out bathroom accessories.  Right now there are two paper swatches draped over the sofa while we decide which one will grace the recesses in the lounge ... decisions, decisions, decisions :)

We also popped along to the new house again and this time I remembered to take photos of the garden. I aim to keep a record of what it looks like month-by-month through the first year and in time create a scrapbook ... perhaps a project life style album. 

Okay, better hop over to Hazel's before it's too late.

Take care and happy crafting,