This little piggy

Hello and thank your visit to my blog

Yesterday I had a great day.  In the morning I went to Loobi Crafts to do some cardmaking with friends.

This is one of the cards we made.  I think Lisa called it a 'slide' card.    When it's folded closed the pig disappears and the card will fit into an A6 envelope.

The pig is stamped onto the white card, then again onto fancy paper and cut out - minus tail.  The pig is paper pieced.  a strip of brown card was scored on the Hougie board and a slit cut to accommidate the pig image and two embossed strips of card were attached (one is only visible when the card is closed.

The pig stamp is a set by Woodware which includes two sentiments "this little piggy..." and "hogs and kisses". The Best wishes and spotty circle are from a sentiment set by Paula Pascal.  All sentiments sit comfortably inside the circle.  Of course I bought the sentiment set and the piggy - plus a few other bits and pieces, as you do ...

I have several stamps which will work really well with this type of card.  I know I'll be doing more. Again my photography has let me down, I'm afraid, as although the white card fits into the card properly it looks a bit wonky unfortunately.

Then to finish off the day on another very positive note Harry Kane played in his first footie match for England AND scored a goal in 80 seconds.

What I Used (1 of 5)

Hello and thank you so much for visiting my blog.

This is the free gift that arrived with my Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine on Saturday morning.  I was very keen to play with them and this is what I chose to use:

Three colours of alcohol inks plus pearl metallic alcohol ink, a jet black Stazon inkpad and the foil seal from the top of the spread that I used to make our morning toast ...

I'd like to share with you how I made my card.

Good Old Stazon (2 of 5)

I tapped the alcohol inks all over the back of the foil and then put it into the embossing folder and ran it through my Cuttlebug.  I then lightly swiped the Stazon inkpad over the raised areas and dried with my heatgun.

Which would you use? (3 of 5)

I stamped several butterflies with versamark onto pieces of black card and scraps of vellum then heat embossed with clear silver and white embossing powders.

Almost Done (4 of 5)

I embossed a small piece of white card for the oval and trimmed it to fit then added one of the sentiments from the set and 3 gems.  After mounting the topper onto white and black card I attached it to my card then cut out all the butterflies and moved them around until I decided which one I wanted to use.

Which would you choose?

I've saved the others for future projects of cause.

Finished - Alcohol ink card (5 of 5)

Well here's the finished card.  I hope you like it.

The foil lid embossed well but was rather delicate to work with after it had been embossed.

I'm going to play with yoghurt pot tops and other metallic packaging again.

Happy crafting

My first 'Bokeh'

I watched a video explaining the bokeh technique on a blog I often visit and decided to have a play.  This is my first attempt.  I was quite pleased with how it turned out so I trimmed it down to make into a card.

Three colours of Distress ink were blended onto a piece of white card then I spritzed with a fine spray of water and dried with my heatgun. White Brilliance ink was blended on through a handmade mask of diecut circles.

I  matted it onto black card and stuck it onto a 5" square white card. I used a small star stamp to lift some ofthe white paint off the white dots.   It looked incomplete so I added a few silver star peeloffs.

The sentiment is a Hobby Arts wood mounted stamp.  It's one of my favourite birthday sentiments and is out on my desk all the time.   Here's a link to one of  Dawn Griffith's blogs with the bokeh video (and many other great tutorial videos too)  Dawn's Stamping Thoughts.

Wellies

I  bought this stamp when I went to Loobi Craft recently.  It's by Woodware and I thought it would work well for making cards for both men and women.  This is the first time it has been used. The sentiment is also from a Woodware set.

I don't remember where the green paper came from.  After stamping the boot twice I coloured the soles and trim with a dark green Promarker pen then cut the boots out.  The front boot is raised on double sided pads.

 The  background paper is actually from a free Christmas pack by Hunky Dorey that I got as a freebie at a show a year or two ago.   I distressed the edges a little and rubbed with Distress ink.
  I  really don't waste very much....

Nothing wasted!

Well here's the proof that I don't waste anything.

After cutting out the wellies you can see that there wasn't a lot of waste.  I used the small leaf punch to cut out the leaves that are on the right hand side.  I think there were about 20   leaves that went into the jar of bits that I use regularly.

I keep this punch together with a couple of small flower punches and a small heart punch close at hand all the time.

The leaves on the wellies card are kraft card and were from this jar of punched bits.

B is for Beautiful Babies

 We've just got back from our holiday in Gran Canaria.  We had a lovely time and now it's time to get stuck into the laundry ......

I've just been over to the Alphabet Challenge blog and want to send congratulations to Chanya, Sarn & Elizabeth on winning the last challenge.  Well done Girls.  They are all lovely cards.

I've made this card for my charity box which I will be sending off at the end of the month.  I would also like to enter it into  the challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog.

The topper was made with an old Nellie Snelling brass stencil which I embossed with my little lightbox then coloured with chalk inks whilst keeping the stencil in place.  I made a couple of holes either side of the stork's beak so that I could attach the craft wire with the word beads on.  I tore one side of the white card, inked round the edge with the blue chalk ink and scribbled a bit of grass at the bottom to ground the bird.

The blue lace paper which I've had for a long time is from a pad by Joanna Sheen. I think it's so pretty and fresh that I use it sparingly.  I punched the top left hand corner with a corner punch and added the three punched hearts and finally a gold peeloff sentiment.

Since the beginning of the year I set myself the task of using up my stash of peeloffs, some of which  I have had since I began card making some years ago now.  Still loads to go ..... watch this space!

Mix and Match

It's just a quick post  as I'm off on holiday  later today. We're staying with friends tonight then off to the sun with them in the morning.

I recently  received three sets of new dies as a gift when I subscribed to a craft magazines.

I was keen to have a play and see how the flowers, in particular, looked when they were cut out.  So I cut some out from the yellow card with little attention to position.  Noticing there was room for a sentiment at the bottom I decided to cut some more out of  red card.

Both red and yellow cards were trimmed to size and matted onto some black card.  I placed the die cut- outs where I wanted them, added some glitter glue to a few places and a button & thread to the yellow card.

Voila!  I had two quick cards for my charity box.

Bye for now.

A is for Apple

As someone very new to blogging I thought it would be a lot of fun to take part in some challenges.

As my very first challenge I'd like to enter this card in the Alphabet Challenge Blog.

The apple topper is made from the centre of my previous card which was iris folded.  Don't we just love to use everything!

I coloured the apple with three colours of Distress ink then dabbed it with a Versamark inkpad before heat embossing three times with clear embossing powder to give it a good shine.

The background is kraft card which was put through my Cuttlebug with a woodgrained pattern embossing folder.  the circle behind the apple was diecut and embossed with the Swiss Dots embossing folder then wiped over with Shabby Shutters Distress ink

The sentiment is from a Printworks sentiments set and both snippets of ribbon from my stash,  I attached the green dotty ribbon with a staple.

Back to Basics

Good Morning!

Today I decided to go back to basics.

Iris folding was one of the first techniques I learned. It's something that really excited me when I was first taught to do it and started me on the road of the wonderful adventure that is paper crafting.

I sorted through some of my old stash to make this card.

Although I live in a small village we are really lucky to have two craft clubs.  Our Monday morning club meets in the village hall and is particularly well supported with both men and woman from here and nearby villages.  People do a variety of crafts including quilting, jewellery making and spinning as well as card making. Gill, who is deeply involved with several charities, often gets us knitting for various good causes.

The smaller club which is held in the chapel once a month on a Wednesday evening was started by Wendy Stenton who many of you may remember from Create and Craft.  She used to demonstrate most weeks but since she went off to Spain we've kept the club going ourselves.  We have both new and more experienced crafters so we decide what we'll be doing the following month and take turns to lead workshops .

Well that's it for this post.  I have my next project in mind so will be back later ....

Harry's Baptism

We went to our Grand Nephew's Baptism at the weekend and this is the card I made for him.

I started doing parchment craft after watching Christine Coleman demonstrating on Create and Craft several years ago.  It's something I enjoy doing a great deal when I am in the mood.  I generally only make parchment cards for friends and family for special occasions because of the hours they take to complete.

As I didn't have a pattern for a Christening card I had to give it a bit of thought before I began.

 The border is from a design in a book which I bought some time ago.  The corners are drawn with a silver pen and cut out.  For the picture of the church I used an old Kanban Christmas stamp which I stamped onto a scrap of paper.  I put the stamped image underneath the parchment and moved it around until I was happy with the position then traced it and embossed on the back then added a little colour.  Finally the words were done on my computer, traced and embossed on the back.

I backed the parchment  with dark blue card and attached the corners of the parchment to the card with small silver and pearl brads which I've had for several years.  They were from Papermania.  The ribbon was then added and an insert put inside.

I really had fun making this card for dear little Harry. We  enjoyed a lovely day with family and friends.

Owl - Easel Card

Well I've had another go at photographing this card and it's really about the best I was able to manage ...

I've used the same papers for this owl as the previous card and have now still got 3 more owl images to make into cards.  The background paper is from my stash and was a similar colour to the colour on the owl's heart.

I used a few leaves that were laying about on my desk for embellishment and added some self adhesive gems to give the card a bit of sparkle.

I'm off to Colemans Warehouse at Rushden with 3 friends  tomorrow morning to do some parchment craft so just off to get my stuff together.

'Owl' Friend

On Wednesday I went out with 2 friends to Leighton Buzzard.  We had a wander round the town, coffees in Costa but best of all visited Loobi Crafts.  I've not been there before and it's really well stocked with craft stuff .... Heaven!

Anyway I finally got this patch owl that I've been after for a while.  It is by Woodware.

Yesterday I stamped the image on 5 different 6inch  papers from a DCWV pad.  I think the colours are really pretty.  I cut the 5 owls out then today began making my 5 cards.

This is the second of the cards - I haven't yet managed to get a good photo of the easel card I made - but I will keep trying.

Anyway, I stamped the owl image in black ink onto 5 different backgrounds and set about paper piecing them.  It's a technique I really enjoy as I'm able to cut out the pieces  in front of the tv in the evening.

This background paper is from my stash and quite plain so I stamped the swirls onto it with a sepia ink then rubbed round the edge with Cordruoy Distress ink and finally edged with black.  I mounted it onto a black mat that was cut with a Tonic matting die.

I was about to attach the matted image to the card when I realised there were several marks of Distress ink on the white card.  I'd not done the best job cleaning up my craft mat.  So - I put a small amount of the cordruoy ink onto my craft mat and with a damp babywipe that was on my desk dabbed all round the edge of the card, then put it all together.  I was pleased with the result - just another happy accident.  I do seem to have quite a lot - accidents that is, they're not always happy though.

I added the card candy to the corners with silicone glue as I felt it needed something more.  The small sentiment and several others came with the owl but the main sentiment is a wooden De Nami stamp that I bought last year on a visit to Stamp Addicts.  I finished by putting glossy accents on the beak and little heart.

Negative Lady

Good morning everyone.  It's a lovely sunny day here today.  I hope you're enjoying good weather too.

My card today is again A6 size but this time folded lengthways.  I don't have any envelopes this size so for these cards have to make my own.

For the silhouette I used the "negative" waste from a Marianne die that was cut from gold mirror card.  I matted it onto black card.  I punched a hole in a strip of white card that had been embossed with my Cuttlebug and matted it onto black card then finally trimmed the bottom with fancy scissors.

The self adhesive gems that I used for the necklace  were coloured with my peeloff marker pen to match the colour of the heart.

The heart is from Hobbycraft and I bought 4 packets for under 50p each some time ago in their sale.  They came on a big sheet with lots in different colours.  You'll see them turn up often on my cards.  I really don't know why I didn't buy  more at the time ... oh well!

The sentiment is from a  set of  Hobby Art sentiments.

A Special Time

Here's my card for today...     I began by putting a black mat onto my white A6 card.  I then embossed the clock face with black embossing powder, cut out the image and rubbed Tumbled Glass Distress ink round the edge before adding a small silver brad to the centre.  I coloured the silver brad with a brown permanent marker pen from a set which I use for colouring peel-offs.

The panel was made with distress inks dabbed onto my craft mat and spritzed with a fine spray bottle which had water and some mica powder in and swiped the card into the ink.   Unfortunately the shimmer from the mica doesn't show up well in the photo ... note to self  (practise photography skills!)

I used a round Spellbinders die to cut a circle out from the side of the panel and then trimmed a small amount off the left hand side before mounting onto the black mat.  I kept the circle to use on another card.

The clock face and sentiment are both from a set of Hero Arts clear stamps.

Aunty's Cup Cake

This is my very first blog entry so I thought a cupcake would be a good  thing to celebrate with ....

I made this card for my husband's Aunty Stella.  She's Aunty Stella to me too as Bruce and I have been together since we were 15 years old.

The stamp is a grey rubber and unmounted.  I'm not sure of the make.  The background paper is by Papermania and has been in my stash for a long time.  I embossed it first in my Cuttlebug.  I paper pieced the frilly part of the image and 3D'd the heart and put Glossy Accents on the cherry.    The sentiment is from a Hobby Arts set which I use a great deal and the ribbon was from my stash.