Author: Catherine

I decided to give myself an easy task today by using the pre die cut and inked moose as my topper and a pre foiled and die cut sentiment.

I then chose two pieces of patterned paper and a bit of foiled cardstock to make my card!

I started by just putting the two papers together with tiny strips of the foiled cardstock on either side of the red to make it look like a mat.

Next die cut the label from the foiled cardstock and then embossed it with an old magazine kit folder. This distressed the foiling but I think it looks great with the white peeping through the shine – especially as I knew most of it is covered by the moose die cut.

I added the moose with glue and then stuck something heavy on top to let it dry as it was sticking to different textures and levels.

Then I grabbed my sentiment and edged it with a brown promarker to add some definition to the edge. This helps it stand out as I was adding it to the brown of the moose at one side.

I added foam tape behind the right hand side of the sentiment and then glue on the part touching the moose to all for the layers that were raised up.

I then added some dots of the glitter glue to the moose accessories for a bit of extra fun!

With all the Kraft and browns on the focal points I thought this worked best on the Kraft card base and decided nothing else was needed.

Forgot how much I loved that painted christmas dsp that is the background – it’s so pretty!

Well I only have another 10 days and then I will be off on the Christmas in July challenge where I will attempt what I managed last year – 31 videos of festive themed projects! I am getting ready for it in the background at the moment – and yes I’m getting a little nervous about how much there still is to do – but sure I will get there!

But for now – it’s festive Friday number 25 done! ❤️

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! Another design team project to share with you for Addicted to Stamps and More! And this fortnight the theme is Die cuts / Stencils.

I was playing with scraps from the pouch and foiling some of the Dina Wakely feathers – also a small square of white and then another scrap of the diagonal stripes too!

And from that little play came this card!

I die cut the feathers out with the coordinating dies. I also stamped, embossed and die cut the sentiment so that’s the challenge element.

The foiling on the feathers is using the gorgeous rainbow foil on the dark purple cardstock – it’s so pretty!

I then used the satin gold for the two other panels.

Then I grabbed the peacock feathers embossing folder I bought in the sale at Spellbinders and did the full background panel with that.

I edged each panel with a lilac ink to give some definition. With hindsight I wish I had gone for a slightly lighter colour ink but never mind! Still looks good.

I didn’t add any foam for dimension as I thought the textures provided enough.

I did add three of the gems to finish off though as I felt it added a different texture to the card.

Kept the base simple with a white card blank.

Yes it is official – in case you hadn’t worked it out by now – I am addicted to foiling!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! Here is my round up of this weeks index cards for #dyicad2025

Day 8 – I went fishy mad! But isn’t this the cutest? As I had a little more time on my hands (weekend) I pulled out all the colours and that helped build this lovely pattern – I think this would make a lovely fabric to make a skirt or dress for the summer!

Day 9 – this one was inspired by the sentiment sticker and so I took an old magazine kit stamp and did the colouring with the promarkers and then added the glitter glue to the veins in the leaves to create the glitter element. Also love the shadow I created for the leaves so they look like they are floating above the doodled background.

Day 10 – decided to not stamp over all the card this time – not sure I like this but hey – it was an experiment and like the sentiment says – you learn by doing!

Day 11 – back to loving it! Big bold stamp for the leaves and stems and then echoed the design (the talented Darcy designed the stamp) with my doodles – went for a green theme! 💚

Day 12 – another Darcy stamp from Paperartsy this time created a patchwork effect and went full on with colour! Had to do this over two days so was a little late in posting this one! But it is so cute! Love it! Again can imagine this being a cute fabric!

Day 13 – subtle colour this time and very much inspired by the card I made on day one but with a different floral and the addition of a pop of light yellow! I like how this looks – and doing those background doodles is really fun and calming so suspect we will see a lot of these over the 61 days!

Day 14 -I almost forgot day 14 as I had a really busy Saturday – so just as I was about to go to bed I remembered and grabbed the first stamp set to hand and made this one – very much more about the colour than the doodles!

The last card I did break from the sticker sentiment as I actually stamped this onto card from the same stamp set and then adhered that as if a sticker! It is easier to do a sticker but on this occasion I couldn’t be bothered to stand up and get one! Total laziness at 11pm!

Wonder how this series will progress …

I think as I own so many floral stamps that this will become a common go to in my cards if I stick to the stamp, doodle, colour theme! but hey let’s see how it goes!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there but especially to my dear Dad and my lovely hubby.

This is the card I made for my Dad. I kept it quite plain and went with a tree theme (be aware I’m going to revisit this theme later this month for the Make it Masculine series).

I started with the stone coloured cardstock – cut a card blank and also a panel smaller on the front and added some ink to it to create different shades. Then I added the little bit of script stamping on the sides and then splattered with the brown ink.

Then I worked on the focal cluster. I die cut the tree trunk die from Altenew from a dark brown and added some ink to that too so it would have variation in the colour.

I then took a panel of a peach cardstock and inked that too. I rubbed the brown over the Fern embossing folder and embossed the panel so again there was some variation in colour for this textured piece.

I used a small layering stamp set from Altenew to create the tree and different inks to create the cute little tree. I fussy cut it out and layered up some scraps underneath to be able to give it some dimension as a focal point.

The sentiment is an old one from Crafters Companion – I stamped it in brown and embossed it with clear to give it a little shine and then cut the sentiment into a strip and inked the edge.

Finally I added the glittery gold gems to finish off – a bit of shine but not too glitzy to keep the masculine theme!

Love this natural looking card. Hope my Dad liked it too!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today my Scrappin Saturday post is one I made last weekend of the picture of my daughter that her friend took of her in Paris back in February.

I chose these elegant papers from the stash that are old Stampin Up ones.

The idea for the page came from an old 30 days of sketches sketch I spotted but now can’t work out which it was …

My lovely friend Helen has worked it out – @scrappy_faith on instagram designed the sketch for 30 days of sketches 14 day 5 – well done Helen!

… it was basically the idea to have strips of patterned paper down the sides. So that was what I went with, taking full advantage of the double sided papers!

I added the rub ons from 49&Market to both the background panel and some of the strips too!

I added scruffy sewing using my machine down each side and also on the photo cluster.

Then I added lots of die cuts from the Songbird collection from 49&Market to the photo cluster and raised that up on foam to give it some dimension.

I then added the sewn flower embellishments I got from Hey Little Magpie and also some sequins.

This added some lovely different textures.

I chose the title from the die cut pack as it fit with how happy she was on her trip to Paris. Jealous would be how I felt! 🤣

I added the journalling to the bottom of the layout under the photo.

I love how well that sand coloured cardstock went with the papers – the cardstock is actually a sneak peek of the Kingston Crafts pastel cardstock coming soon to Hobbymaker 🤣 don’t tell anyone you saw it here first! And seriously considering buying it when you see it – it is both gorgeous and excellent value for the size of the pack you get!

Love how this came out – a fun design (thanks to the mystery sketch designer who gave me the idea!) and if you want to see this come together I did video it all so check out my YouTube .

Happy crafting!

Catherine

So I thought I would challenge myself to make a card without using the glimmer machine or even something that had previously been foiled – and ended up going OTT with the embossing powder instead! 🤣 apparently I can’t move away from gold and shine!

I created the card blank and a panel to go on the top from green cardstock from Kingston Crafts (perfect for exposing the core with a distress tool to create a bit of interest!) and then went to town with the More Wishes stamps that I love so much but actually haven’t used anywhere near as much as I expected! I added them across the panel with versamark and then added gold embossing powder!

In some of the gaps I added the leaf images from Tidings and Trimmings and this added a softer feel.

After embossing the full panel I added inking and splatter to the panel – this gives it a little bit of a different colour to the base and the other die cut green elements but it’s only subtle to it works.

I then die cut the star from the Tidings and trimmings set from the green and those sprigs (which are from a spellbinders set).

Next I embossed a panel of the leftover green with the gold and once it had cooled and set I die cut the fancy star to layer on the background star.

I then added a sentiment that was already embossed and die cut – it is in a lighter green than the rest of the card but I think that works ok.

The red gems I added as a nice contrast to the rest of the green and gold card!

Loved how this ended up – and no foiling – but major amounts of embossing instead!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Not had any posts the last few days as life has been so busy and not had much time to create (apart from my index card moments) but today I have managed to get this sorted and uploaded from my latest play with the magazine kit. So check out YouTube for the video of me putting this together.

The last card I made using the kit I stamped two of the fuschia images and never got round to using the second image so I had to use that for the next card in the series – mainly because I needed to use the stamp platform and couldn’t whilst the stamp was still in there in the right place for stamping embossing after colouring!

So I coloured the image with watercolour pencils and then embossed with the gold. This time I decided to die cut the image out with the oval stitched shape die rather than use the coordinating die from the kit.

I then took the same patterned paper as last time but the reverse side and decided to add texture and the text with more gold embossing. I then tore the edges of the panel for a different look and edged it with the navy.

I then adhered that to the base which I had made from a lilac cardstock.

I die cut a few more of the ovals from the lilac and stacked them under the floral oval to give it some dimension.

I then chose to add a foiled and die cut sentiment from the stash rather than using the kit – mainly as I was short on time making this card so went for the grab and go element instead!

I added some pink glitter gems from my stash to then finish off.

All that embossing in the background gives interest to the paper and of course ties in with the embossed focal element. Love it!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I decided to carry on with the magazine kit as I was a little inspired when I started working with it for the card last week but have delayed blogging releasing the video over on my YouTube for this series until now as had other projects to share.

This time I focused on one of the stamp images I had yet to ink up – and I went for the usual messy watercolour and embossing technique I use quite often for floral stamped images as it’s just so easy and always looks good!

I decided the dark green was a good colour along with a panel of the patterned paper for this one. I used an old spellbinders die cut to give a base for the focal point and then also added the embossed sentiment to the top of the floral element.

I added sequins to finish off the card – and I like the fact I distressed the edge of the background panel to give some additional texture.

I also added some splattered shimmer ink to the whole of the background so the whole panel has some shine and shimmer when it catches the light!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Once again I decided to join in with the #indexcardaday challenge for June and July. Last year I managed the full year – who knows if this year I manage it – but hopefully if I keep things simple I can!

To try and keep simple I’ve decided to concentrate on stamps and doodling this year and although I will try to post daily on my instagram I will only post weekly or thereabouts over here on my blog.

I’m not following prompts or anything like that although the prompts are fun to see when you see how people interpret them – but I’ve decided to keep it really simple and just focus on pattern and colour instead!

I started with an Altenew stamp which was on the desk – one of the lovely florals from the Smile More stamp set. Stamped it in versamark and then coloured the background area and the centre of the flowers with grey promarkers and then had fun doodling the background area. I then added the Art By Marlene sticker as my sentiment and doodled the edge of this as a frame.

Next I used a very old wood block stamp of an eye. I doodled a connection between the eyes to create some wavy lines across the card. Then coloured the background with the two alternate colours of promarkers. Again a sticker sentiment from the same Art by Marlene set.

For day three I used one of the stamps Darcy designed for Paperartsy for the hearts as a repeating image, then doodled the background elements and added the colour with three greys and the claret colour using the promarkers – definitely feel like this worked the best so far. But then added the sticker sentiment and chose to colour that – not a fan of how that ended up but hey ho!

On day 4 I chose one large stamp – Splendid Bouquet from Altenew.

I doodled inside the petals, thickened the outline and then coloured the leaves with grey … wasn’t entirely sure about it … so chose the sentiment sticker accordingly. Now I quite like it but it took time to grow to like it!

A bonus on day four was that I also made the cover card … again Paperartsy stamps and then doodled the background elements and used my promarkers to colour. I chose some stickers to finish off for the ICAD part.

Quite pleased with how that turned out!

Onto day 5 … this time I did my card over the course of two sessions – one before and one after work!

The circles were stamped using a Kim Dellow Paperartsy stamp and then coloured with my promarkers and then I doodled the wavy lines and added some doodles to the circles – and of course the sentiment sticker!

Day 6 I changed it up a bit by stamping the flowers using different shapes and with the Purple coloured distress ink.

I then went back to stamping in black using the versafine for the centre of the flowers. Then I used promarkers to outline the flowers. I added the doodles and then coloured the background with the dark grey promarker.

Love the mottled and varied depth of colour in the flowers from using the distress ink. So pretty!

Day 7 I did a lot more doodling – the benefit of it being a non working day! I also chose a different style of stamp for the focal image with this old stamp from Stamperia.

Loved this! I also delved into the sticker stash and chose a Tim Holtz one to change it up from the Art by Marlene ones I have been using!

So that is week one done and dusted … I’ve just finished day 8 … so will start off the blog post for next weeks collection in a minute ready for sharing next week.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hi

I’ve not done a Scrappin Saturday project for a while that wasn’t made weeks ahead of time but today I had nothing made that I could blog – so it meant when I got back from the hairdressers I had to get scrapping. But I was struggling to work out what to do – so I decided to go easy on myself and do a page kit.

I buy my page kits from Hey Little Magpie and love that they have everything there ready for me to choose a photo and get creating. Usually I don’t stick to the kit but today I did just that and pretty much followed what Sarah had designed! So she absolutely gets all the credit for this lovely page!

I did stick the video on so if you want to see me put this together (along with a little bit of a waffle) check that out over on YouTube.

Love the gingham style paper and the clever use of the sentiment strips ❤️

Happy crafting!

Catherine