Explore Life's Journey

Its my brothers birthday on the 20th so I decided to make him a notebook instead of a card. I like the wording on the stamp so I started with that...

In my boys themed stamps and paper collection, I have got quite a few maps to hand from various sources and they always come in handy for the men.

Along the journey theme, this is the back inside cover...

And this the front inside cover. I used a Martha Stewart punch to make the border. He can rip out the Happy birthday front cover when he wants to use the note pad.

Front cover which contains a metal strip I made with a Kabuka mould. Most of them are too big but this one works well I think on a 4" x 4" page. I put glass over the vintage picture and edged it in metal then distressed it a bit with a metal wheel (Ten Seconds Studio). Both bits of metal have been alcohol inked in order to tone them down a bit. Then everything is distressed around the edges with distress ink...

All this cheered me up from the disaster of the workshop I was missing today (now that is a very long story...)!

Dogs Day

I hardly ever use the free stamp that comes in the Craft Stamper but something about this cheeky chappy caught my eye.. he just spoke to me... Woof, Woof!

Birthday Blast

I've sold a few of these. People say it is nice for men as well as music lovers. The stamps came from The Stamp Man and the little bellies came from Paper Artsy.

Happy Thoughts of Shoes

I don't usually like anything too modern but something about these stamps caught my eye. The shoes shrink really well on shrink plastic if you go carefully (twice the heel wrapped itself about in an annoying fashion and the shoe was unusable). I know things look better in odd numbers (3's, 5's) but it struck me when making this card that it was rather odd to have three shoes! Oh Well!. All the stamps are Hero Arts and new to me.

Romance isn't dead... yet!

These letters are made from Delight so they are really light. Its rather soppy but sometimes this is called for don't you think?

Go explore!

I just love these little hearts and I'm always stamping them on something and cutting them out. It's good to see a woman in a plane in a Vintage pic, tho' she seems to have mislaid her goggles! The wire rope came from LB Crafts and is lovely to work with - really heavy and very flexible too. The pic sits on a tag produced for ribbons which I recyled - you see... a true crafter at heart!

Mother's Day Cards

Not normally being Hero Arts fan, I was surprised to find some new stamps of theirs that I really liked in a little set. Here are a couple of the cards I made with them for Mum's Day

Here's a few of the cards I made last month. Invevitably, there were a few Valentines Day Cards which I really like to do since it justifies how many stamps I seem to have collected along the love theme. Then I had a request for a vintage card with an "A" for Alison in plumb colours so this is what I produced along with a card for a Gerbera fan who was turning 30.

Christmas is coming!

Well, even though I have about 3 trillion Christmas stamps, I couldn't resist some more. These are new ones from Just Rite which you can get at OAAS. They fit perfectly inside the circular nestabilities. The matted layer is the holly bit, stamped onto Basic Grey paper. The upper layer is stamped first, then the circle cut around the stamp with my Whizzy. I then coloured this using dye inks and a breyer. It made the ink a little softer which gives it a more aged effect. I coloured it in gel pens and it looks better in real life than the photo. The background is using Crafty Individuals paper and a complementary stamp, the image of which is done using perfect pearls and medium to match the paper. The Christmas Tree on the left is a Quick Cutz die which i had left over from last Christmas, with a few diamontes for a bit of Christmas bling. Oh no, I'm getting the mood already... We've been out collecting sloes for the Sloe Gin already...

Waste not, want not!

This card was inspired by the left over black card from cutting out the matting for the card below! I popped it through the cuttlebug embossing folder to give it some texture then covered it in perfect pearls medium and perfect pearls to five it the shiny distressed finish. It needed some contrast to the black so I cut out the shape again with some swirly paper and stuck this to one edge. The paper behind the frame is done with the same swirly technique from below and the woman on the bottom right is from a Crafty Individuals set. Most of the blue flowers were from Once Upon A Stamp from my birthday expedition. The great thing about these little flower is the fact that they already have the adhesive stones stuck on and the were a bargain price - hence the fact that the card is covered in them...

Doing the Hokey Cokey is what life is all about

This is for a friend of mine that comes ballroom dancing with me so it had to include a dance theme to it. Mentioning the Hokey Whatsit is hardly dancing but never mind... - I love this silly stamp anyway. Apparently, the Americans use the term Pokey instead of Cokey I'm told but I think it makes the card even funnier with our British connotations on the concept of "poking"!

The card was inspired by a chat with Robert from Once Upon A Stamp who was showing me his method of chasing Adirondack Alcohol inks around a shiny card. I took myself off there for a birthday treat and to spend my eBay winnings and birthday money in one. We had a lovely time because we took the dogs off to the conservation area and despite our pleading, they all went diving in the water with great gusto.

Anyway, this is how you do it: You draw a squiggle or two with different colours, spritz a dash of Alcohol Blending Solution then blot it together with another shiny bit of white card and hey, presto, a unique splodgy image. I stamped it up and cut out with the Wizzy, mounted it on to a nestability and ran the rest on the left through the machine using the Cuttlebug swirl embossing folder. The bit at the bottom is a row of fibres lined up side by side and the writing bit is tape from 7 Gypsies. Since I'm fond of my half domes at the moment I felt it could do with a few black and gold ones to smarten things up!

Whizzy Whizz

Having got my new Whizzard, everyting now has a tinge of nestabilities about it. Here is another flower card, using the new stamps from the Stamp Man and coloured using paints from LB Crafts. I worked out that if I measured the little label die at the bottom, I could print lots of sentiments off on the computer then use the die to cut around them. This isn't my usual grungy style I know but sometimes I make stuff for my mother-in-law, Molly and she prefers things to be simple (and definitely "not wordy"!). I like the half domes in black and gold on the flowers and label. They seem quite hard to come by for some reason so I'm glad I've got loads.

I don't have loads of anything else anymore. The imminent move to a 3 bed bungalow from a gynormouse 5 bed house on 3 floors is causing the most massive craft clear out. I think ebay can retire on the proceeds of my listings right now! Its funny that having less room means I am crafting more (not that you would know it, given how little I post). I feel I know more of my stash since it is all to hand now. I've re-filed things and sold everything that doesn't come into these categories because I know I'll never use it...

Flowers

Here is a quicky card based on a crafty individuals stamp. Purple and orange are at opposite ends of the colour wheel and make great complementary colours in my opinion. I made a few of these in different colours since they were so quick to make. The embellishments on the bottom right are a circular paper clip (I think probably from Paper Artsy ages ago) and some ribbon made of wire mesh from LB Crafts.

Little Bethany

With the fever of my newly stencilled paper, I made this card for my little niece Bethany. Sweet little lady and I think a sweet card to match? This time I put the railings style template upside down and over stamped it with a nice daisy.

I got the flowers from the Artsy weekend - you can never have enough paper flowers can you? The images came from the Crafty Individuals pad and I cut the face out with a punch because cutting circles by hand isn't my forte - is it any ones? The word "presents" features strongly since I think this might be on a little one's mind at Birthday time!

Vintage Fairy

This card was made for my second Mum, Minki. She loves fairies but not the fluffy kind so of course she had to have a little vintage fairy for herself on her birthday. I used a brad from W-R memory keepers, the letters are cut from Tim Holtz papers as is the background to the tag.

The gold border is Paperartsy German Scrap and the birthday message is typed then stamped and glimmer misted.

Nothing is ever finished in my book unless it has a flower on it, and there you go!

Tim Holtz' new masks

I bought my first of Tim Holtz' stencils (large mask) at the recent Artzy Crafty weekend that Lin and Leandra put on last weekend. It was a fellow kind customer that told me they were brill and I think they are too! I can't wait to collect some more...

First I used butterscotch and cranberry adirondack spray mists along with apple and a red glimmer mist over the fence looking one on a 12 x 12 paper that was very boring to start with. Pleased with the resulting few papers, I cut out a piece and attached it to a tag for a background and stamped the numbers on the top left and the railings (B-Line stamp available from Lin). I then added one of these We-R memory keeper big brads and a few fibres. The woman and girl are cut out from a lovely little book by Crafty Individuals.

On the right of the tag is the little computer typed message. I'm going to give this to my sister Frances for her birthday in May. Then I added some cute little flowers which I got at the weekend too and the girl image which I got from Lin ages ago. The gold edging is from Paperartsy. The tag looked really weird on plain card because it was so busy so I distressed the edges of the card with a little red and espresso Adirondack ink then used the stencil from the same mask kit to make the soft background using lettuce, butterscotch and espresso. This seemed to busy up the background for the tag to share the same style. This card makes me feel like spring and it was good to fish out my old Adirondack mists and not just do glimmer mists all the time. Its nice to add to the usual sludge colours of vintage work with a few brighter things at this time of year but whenever I work with warm sludge colours I think of Lin. I must do this in some pinks and purples immediately before she thinks I am converting!

Season's Greetings

I made 5 of these jolly christmas cards over the weekend. I started with two bits of white card which I ran through the Cuttlebug to create the snowflake background and the snowy words embossing. I inked the snowflakes with Cranberry, Stream and Stonewashed Adirondack inks using a sponge, spritzed it Bubblegum Pink, Sea Glass Glimmer Mists and dried it then drew around it roughly with a black pen. I did try adding Pearl Glimmer Mists but this made it too wishy washy and I was a bit lighter with the Glimmer than normal which looked better. The words are dabbed with the sponge with just the lighter Stonewashed and cranberry in a soft way.
Then I stamped, coloured and cut our these lovely snowmen and mounted them on to the words with large foam pads. A little Sparkles glitter glue polished them off nicely. I mounted the words on to black then silver matts, drew round the whole card (A5 in size) with a silver pen to create a frame, then mounted the snowmen and popped on the greeting with a black matt and a lovely flower in the corner. I really like these petals which I got, along with all the other materials from L B Crafts, as usual.

Thinking of You

This really quick card is made using Dovecraft fairy papers. I placed the Thinking of You sticker on a small acetate, secured it to the lovely pink papers with 4 brads, including the paper flowers on the left hand corner. I don't know why it always has to be the left hand corner? If I was doing this again, I wouldn't use the brads because the paper and acetate were "crunkled" by them and it would have been better to secure the acetate with glossy accents and put a small crystal over the top to hide it.

I found 3 pretty matching buttons, placed these on matching paper along with the shiny organza ribbon. This card is a little twee for me (and there is no paint in sight) but I was thinking it would be a good card to send someone who is having a hard time - not too over the top expensive looking...

Happy Holidays

This card is really quick to make. Its a tall black card which I ran through the Cuttlebug to emboss the snowflake design (any would do). I sanded that slightly then smoothed bright sliver brilliance ink pad over it to give the silvery sheen.

I used a small sizzlet die to cut the baubles out of card I had in my stash. The top one is pre-textured paper which I painted using pearly paints. I ran the other two baubles back throught the cuttlebug to create the embossed design. The one on the left is from the parcel set and has nice small snowflakes to it, the other is the larger swirl design. I sanded these and decided not to ink them to leave a more distressed impression.

I tied on the lovely organza blue ribbon so I could see where to lay the baubles out without interrupting it. I bought this ribbon from LB Crafts, my favorite craft store at http://www.lbcrafts.co.uk/

Then I found the organza ribbon. The baubles already have a nice opening so I threaded a piece of organza through this hole and secured it with tape, then ran the organza piece from the bauble over the top of the card. Lastly, I stamped my new happy holidays stamp on the bottom in silver brilliance ink and put in an insert to hide the ribbon inside.