Author: Catherine

Happy Easter to those who celebrate! Hope you have a lovely day!

I thought I would go for something totally fun for my Easter cards this year and use the Kingston Crafts Pet Collection kit which had some rabbit die cuts in the ephemera pack. It was unlikely I would ever use these for something else so why not make them Easter bunnies?

I only ever make Easter cards for my two aunties and my parents so I only make three in a year – and the three bunnies were perfect!

Kept each of the cards simple with the same background paper and card base colour and then the elements from the kit. Simple crafting!

I used lots of dimension for the elements I added. I pulled in twine and the gems from the kit and the second two also had banner stickers which I used by adding them to the orange card and cutting them out for a different texture.

I love that the kits contain everything you might need to make some fun cards.

Including the solid colour cardstock.

So the only non kit elements I used was adhesive and the stamp for the Happy Easter that I embossed on the first card and stamped on the insert for the other two.

Simple and fun cards – I did video the process of putting these together so please do go see that over on YouTube. Apologies about the voice over but this is one of the few projects I managed to do when I was ill in the first week before the exhaustion totally took over – so apologies for the poorly voice. The good news is I am on the mend and hoping that by Tuesday I will be back in the office and able to function for a full day (I managed a full day up and about on Friday! 😀) and then after that may get some crafting done in the next week too as I’ve missed being creative.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I’m back with another project using the Kingston Crafts shimmer spray which was one of my design team projects – but this time I pretty much ignored the spray element and instead did some painting with them.

I wanted to create a fun background for the scrapbook page where I was using a black and white photo of my friends dog Barney.

So I painted five of the colours of the spray across the page. I was quite generous with the painting so you can see there are some spots where the shimmer is quite concentrated. I love this because it adds to the texture too.

Once it was dry I then decided to use the Pet Collection kit to add some fun elements cut out from the paper and some scraps of yellow and orange card to mat the photo.

Apologies that the colour looks a little dull here – no sun for taking the picture!

I decided that the page needed something else to go across so grabbed a die which cuts the bumpy border from Hey Little magpie and cut some brown cardstock. I then used the magnolia spray to add shimmer to all the brown strips so they became shiny too!

I then layered up the page with a few little elements from the Pet Collection kit and added the name and date to the side of the photo.

In the light the shimmer spray does a great job of shimmering fabulously – of course it doesn’t show as well on photos as real life – but I hope you liked this different way to use the sprays – not as sprays!

I was absolutely delighted that my lovely Barney page got shown on tv – and hopefully my friend got to see it too! Here is a pic of Martin explaining about the painting of the spray inks on the show!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I can’t believe we are already at Good Friday – especially as I’ve missed most of April with having been so poorly. I have a few Festive Friday projects already made in advance and this is one of them – although actually I made this when I thought I only had a cold so it was before I totally succumbed to bed rest! It was a simple card really as I was in tidy up mode when I made this card and grabbed the Festive Poinsettia which I had made a few weeks ago but never ended up using at the time.

I decided to play with the embossing folder with the words and added some dark red ink before embossing the red cardstock – this helps the words to stand out – but then I also added some clear embossing to the panel which gave it a cool texture too!

I added the sentiment to a white die cut circle that was already on the desk from another project.

I kept the card quite flat and layered the items only just double sided tape rather than foam tabs!

I added some pale red gems to decorate around the sentiment and then a simple bow using some floss.

Quite a simple but I think dramatic card – I really love the poinsettia stamp – it looks so cool with the messy watercolouring and the emerald green embossing powder.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Back to the design team projects I made … As soon as I saw the laser cut piece of cardstock with clouds I knew I needed to use the lawnfawn plane stamps in some way!

And so I made a Father’s Day card! This isn’t a card for my Dad – it was a sample for Martin to use – although I am pretty sure my Dad would appreciate this card too!

I used the cloud panel and covered the card blank which I made out of the blue card stock in the kit (which I have to say is a gorgeous colour and I wish I had a stack of that colour cardstock to play with forever!)

I then added a panel of the rainbow cardstock and cut it into a banner and raised it up on foam adhesive above the cloud layer.

I then added one of the stickers (the sun) onto the banner panel and then added the plane and banner image which I had stamped, coloured and cut out.

I then added another sentiment from the same set adding it with a mat of the blue cardstock.

Just love how this worked out – such a fun card with that cloud background which makes such a special touch!

You can probably guess what I’m about to tell you about this card too … yes it is an ‘as seen on tv’ project! Here you go …. This is it on my actual tv! 🤣

Happy crafting!

Catherine

When my Betterpress arrived a few weeks ago I decided to have a little play with the Betterpress and some gelliprints I had in my stash and created two cute notecards. I am still learning how to use the system and what works best so these were part of my trial and error sessions.

Both gelliprints were ones I pulled where I had torn edges to create just a central panel of print on a piece of white cardstock. I remember many years ago watching Barbara Gray doing this on Create and Craft when gelli plates first came out and I love the effect this gives.

I decided to use the floral plate that came with the betterpress and the betterpress ink. I did the same plate in either corner so I could flip the panel and then ended up cutting down the panels into these small squares.

The red one I did do a tiny shift on the plate when I inked it so the image isn’t super clear on the top print but the bottom one is very clear and detailed.

The second one I only inked and ran it through the once so the black isn’t as dark.

For both cards I then took the glimmer plate that was in with the glimmer machine and foiled just the word hello and added that as the sentiment.

I then added just one gold gem to finish off the outside. I added a panel of white on the inside with one of the off cuts from the front panel to finish off the inside.

Simple cute little notecards. I love the mix of the gelliprint background and the detail of that press plate image. It was also fun to play with the gelliprints again – I have been watching a few mixed media videos recently so it’s making me want to play with mediums again!

Of course it’s now been a few weeks since I made these and I’ve watched so many YouTube videos since then so I am desperate for the energy to have a real play with my supplies but at the moment it just isn’t possible. Fingers crossed soon though as my energy levels were a little better yesterday and this morning so think I am slowly getting better. 🤞

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today I am back with my design team projects for Kingston Crafts using the rainbow shimmer sprays and this time I made a little set of notecards.

I die cut some simple shapes and use them as masks on the coloured cardstock before I sprayed the shimmer sprays through.

This gave me some shiny shapes on the coloured panels which I could then use as a base for some little die cuts and the Tim Holtz sticker sentiments.

I made three … a dragonfly, some tropical leaves and the pretty sprig leaves.

I added some doodled borders and then added the labels to some 4×4 notecards.

I also painted some of the shimmer sprays on the die cuts to add that little more colour and shine!

These sprays add so much shine – and although subtle on the coloured cardstock it adds such a fun effect.

All three of the notecards were shown on tv over the two shows that Martin did last month so I can say … ‘as seen on tv’ once again! It never gets old! 🤣

I am so grateful I still have DT projects to share and things I made a while ago as I’m still fairly bed bound with what we’ve decided must be Covid – it’s been a really horrible few weeks – in fact it will have been three weeks this coming Thursday of feeling generally rotten and zero energy. By lunchtime today I’ve managed to do 90 mins of being upright which is progress compared to yesterday when I slept for most of the day and was only fit for a bit of reading and scrolling on my phone for the rest of it. I feel so guilty for missing work as I know how much work there is at the moment but I can’t get back to work until I can at least get through more than two hours of being awake and functional at a time. feeling thoroughly fed up. At least some of these cheery projects can make me smile whilst I build up my health again.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today was my parents 48th wedding anniversary – and here is the card I made for them.

I decided to grab that gorgeous laser cut paper from the Kingston Crafts Pet Collection kit and also the blue from the same kit.

From this I made the background and die cut that blue frame. I was going to add some fussy cut hearts from the heart paper but instead decided to grab these spellbinders flower dies and use them instead cutting different colours of the leftover bits of solid cardstock from the kit.

I added some red ink lightly to the flowers to give some shading but otherwise kept them to the orange, red and yellow and two shades of green.

I grabbed two of the spellbinders press plate sentiments that I then glimmered with the gold and added those – and then the gold gems to bring more gold out.

I think those die cut flowers are so pretty and against the funky laser cut background they look amazing.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I’m still counting this as #3 as it is a follow on from the one sheet wonder I shared a week ago – this is the remaining five cards I made.

Here is the template I made for it …

And so I made the final five cards – all on video of course so check out the YouTube video – I’ve started it as a playlist so you can check out all the videos I make using this kit.

As with the other four I used the gorgeous hummingbird as the focal image for each. I had used different techniques to colour them so each one looks a little different.

On this card I also pulled in the embossing folder and although the embossing on the embossing didn’t quite go to plan I really love how it looks peeping through the circle.

I used lots of different colours of cardstock and bits of foiled cardstock to make up the frames and mats and card bases. It was fun on this one to add inking and splattering and stamping – I think this is my favourite from these five – just lovely to have the grungy elements to go with the patterned paper.

Also love the bright pop of pink of the card base.

This one I went to town on with my corner rounder punch – it was fun to pull this out of the drawer and I love the look of those slim panels with the rounded corners.

This final card also made use of the strip of the patterned paper which I hadn’t included in the one sheet wonder template as I knew it would be torn from the paper pack – but it made a perfect element to frame the panel of squares.

So five cards for this post but nine in total for the one sheet wonder template…

Just gorgeous!

Whilst I enjoyed making these I must admit I get a little bored by the time I finish this many cards that use the same supplies – it will be fun to see what I do next with the magazine kit – I know already it won’t be a one sheet wonder! 🤣

Happy crafting!

Catherine

It’s Saturday so it’s time to share a scrapbook page I made – I made this in one of the hours I managed to be awake and upright this past week but then ended up back in bed for a few hours from exhaustion – apologies for those listening to my voiceover on the YouTube process video – I am sorry you had to listen to that – but if I didn’t do the voiceover close to the recording I know I wouldn’t remember to do it!

I started with the piece of paper from the Expressions in Ink dsp from Stampin Up that clearly I’ve had a while but finally it got its moment to shine. I love these papers so much but think it might be the first time in using them to scrapbook!

I teamed it with some other old papers from the stash to mat the photo and create a base for the embellishment cluster but mainly the paper for the background is the focus!

I then went through the February and March embellishment kits from Hey Little Magpie and added in some bits from those and then went through the Bramble Fox and Lollipop Box Club kits I have to add in other elements.

The title and the perspectives of the smiley faces were from Bramble Fox club kits.

The vintage cameras I fussy cut from one of the other old papers I had – I thought the colours went well with the swimming costume I was wearing on this very old pic of me – I’ve guessed that it is around 1988 and it is from one of our holidays on Menorca. I love that island so much.

I love adding in the little word and phrase elements to my pages so it was good to bring those into this page too.

A bright and summer page – perfect for the photo 📸

I added the journalling after I took these photos … I popped it just under the top cluster of embellishments next to the photo.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Once again I am glad that my Festive Friday was a little ahead – I actually made these when I was feeling a little unwell with a cold – except that’s now turned into two weeks of barely being vertical with what we think is Covid! Yesterday I managed to stay awake for six hours before needing a sleep so improving but pretty fed up! Anyways here is the blog post all about those cards I made almost two weeks ago!

I know I’ve been doing my magazine kit challenge recently so I am not really surprised that I then decided to pull out the Christmas magazine kit that I got a few months ago and make some more cards from that for todays Festive Friday – I just went with some of the papers I had already cut into and then some of the cut apart toppers and decorative elements. I ended up with a few cards as a result. So that’s a couple of Fridays on the run I’ve shared multiple cards! Definitely well on track with my makes for this year!

I mixed in some lilac and grey card stock for both the bases and sometimes mats. I tried to pull in any scraps I had to not cut into new card where possible.

I sometimes added in some dimension too raising elements up on some foam tabs.

Bits of scrap ribbon also got pulled in where I had used a tag – after all my friend Helen says “can’t have a naked tag”!

So there you go – four cards – all pretty much cut and stick type of designs – but cute and fun to make. And only a few scraps left of these particular papers – although loads left of the actual paper kit so expect to see more of these cards at some point!

Happy crafting!

Catherine