Author: Catherine

Happy Easter to all those who celebrate!

I made these two cards for my aunties as their Easter cards, but then our plans took a turn as the whole house has been poorly with a bad cold so they didn’t get posted in time to teach them for Easter but they should receive them next week instead! Better late than never I suppose!

For both I chose the patterned paper that I think was called Sycamore Street or something like that. It’s been on my desk for a while waiting to be used up after I used some for a scrapbook page I made … and the colours of those ‘&’ made me think vintage Easter so I went with it!

I started by embossing the wreath from Arrange a Wreath with a gold colour over the top of Distress oxide walnut stain – this gave it more of the vintage look than a bright gold.

Then I added speckled egg and the walnut stain onto the background more randomly so it is very vintage looking.

I did both backgrounds at the same time but one piece of paper was slightly larger than the other and so the positioning was slightly different for both cards.

I mounted the background onto the green cardstock for both which adds a little pop of extra colour.

Then I took the egg stamps from the set and stamped them six times on the leftover patterned paper – fossilized amber, worn lipstick and cracked pistachio. I then die cut them all out.

I then stamped the box image in speckled egg but decided it wasn’t quite bright enough so went over it with the cracked pistachio. I fussy cut out the box and edged it with the walnut stain.

I arranged the eggs in the box with one at the front of the box and stuck them together and added a piece of foam behind to add dimension.

Next I stamped and fussy cut the sentiment. I added some gold thread behind the sentiment and stuck it down onto the box.

So quite a fun pair of easter cards and a bit different for me in terms of going vintage … maybe watching Tim Holtz has worn off on me!

Joining in with the challenge of Spring at Stamping sensations and the Easter challenge at Daring Cardmakers

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I went on a bit of a journey watching Amy from Prarie Paper and Ink last night on YouTube whilst I made tea and then afterwards I decided to join in with the Color Throwdown challenge this week … admittedly the videos I watched weren’t for this challenge but it reminded me about the challenge itself and so went to find out the colours for this week…

How delicious do those doughnuts look?

Anyway I grabbed some scrap paper I had wiped up some distress inks with and it was a creamy pink so perfect starting point! I then decided to have a hunt through old stash to have a play with something a bit different and came up with the Visible Image stamp set with these butterflies and text clusters and made my panel using Distress inks in Vintage photo and Picked Raspberry.

I added a border of the Kraft cardstock and then using the same Kraft I decided to die cut these tiny butterflies using an embosslit i have had in my stash forever! I think it might have even been the first thing I bought when I got my first die cutting machine!

It embosses the butterflies as it cuts them!

I added those and then decided they needed shimmer so coated them in wink of Stella and also added some ‘puddles’ of the shimmer onto the background too. They should have been splatters but I got a little heavy handed!

Next I stamped the sentiment using the Altenew Splendid Bouquet bundle and die cut and stacked it up three times.

I added a scrap of the pink ribbon at the top of the topper panel and then stacked that a few layers too so it had dimension off the slimline card I chose to add the panel to.

Pleased with my cream, brown and pink card and also pleased I used some really old stash for the first time in ages!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I made two slimline cards using up some dsp that I was gifted some time ago.

The plaid and the poinsettia patterns made me grab this magazine stamp that I’ve used many times to use as the focal point.

I decided for the first card to add two flowers underneath the sentiment that was a die cut and coloured them using the Derwent Inktense pencils.

I didn’t do a brilliant job of colouring because the paper wouldn’t stand up to lots of water but they blended enough for me to just go with the flow and use them!

I used the die cut from Tonic and added some layers of the cream to go with the card base.

The second card I coloured using promarkers. I don’t have a great selection of greens or reds so ended up with some interesting tones to the flower but again it worked well enough that I could use the image on the card.

This time I stamped the sentiment onto the cream and added a hand drawn border so the black line art was in keeping with the panel.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello again!

Today’s blog is another Design team contribution for Creative Knockouts where the challenge is Birthday Wishes. Now as I make a lot of birthday cards this really doesn’t count as a challenge!

However we were gifted this image from The Paper Shelter and as it came as a pre coloured image, black and white image and a background panel coloured my challenge was how to use it!

The excellent news was as it is so cute you don’t need to do much – especially if you decide your colouring couldn’t possibly be better than the pre coloured version!

So I printed out the background and the image in colour. Cut out the image including the three free floating balloons and added them to the background with a bit of dimension using pinflair glue gel. I also added gold thread to the balloons and some wink of Stella to both the balloons and gifts to give them a touch of sparkle.

I decided to add to the balloon theme using the waffle flower balloon builder stencils on the background card panel. I used teal and green ink for this to keep in with the colours on the image and background.

I also added little white highlights to the balloons to keep them looking dimensional.

I finished off the card with the heat embossed sentiment which I fussy cut and the pink puffy sticker hearts I found in the stash which I thought went well with the cutesy image!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

The new Altenew stamps and dies came out to play again this weekend … I ended up making a card for my parents for Easter.

I started with a piece of paper that I had already stencilled onto using texture paste … I had previously got too much texture paste out for another project and didn’t want to waste it so used it on this piece of paper and left it to dry.

It wasn’t pretty but I knew I would eventually get around to using it!

First I took white gesso and gave it a coat of that to take away most of the colour and give the paints something to stick to.

I took some acrylic paints and coloured the whole piece in a peachy colour … you can still see some of the blue tones on the stencilling but I thought they worked well together.

Then I rummaged around to find my sparkly paints and added a little gold to the background and splattered some pink.

I decided this would do perfectly as a background to a more subtle version of the Altenew flower. I heat embossed the line art with gold and then used the final stencil layer and some old paper ink to add that.

I added a little colour to the stamen of the flower too using a watercolour pencil.

Then I die cut it out.

I cut down the background panel added the flower on top and trimmed off the top and bottom where I hung over.

Then I added a piece of the Sycamore Street text pattern paper behind which I had added a little subtle inking to using distress inks. I added foam behind the mixed media panel and then stuck this all together.

I then grabbed a sentiment and embossed it in gold and then cut it out and inked it.

I added some metallic thread behind the sentiment (this is one of my new favourite things to do) … and called it done!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I made a separate card for Hannah for us to send (the one I shared yesterday was for Maya to send to her friend).

I decided to go with a big cake and greens and blues for this card so it doesn’t coordinate with the other one but I went with the mojo at the time of making.

I used the waffle flower stencils and dies for the cake. I then made a panel with the stars stencil for the background.

I also added a strip of the marble dsp to coordinate.

I also added the silver numbers and the sentiment embossed in silver.

Hope Hannah had a lovely birthday yesterday.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

It’s a busy few weeks for 18th birthdays here … this is the one I made for Hannah who we’ve known for so long (13 years!) and what a lovely young woman she has become.

I went pink and peach for this with stencilling and ink blending.

I added a ribbon and die cut panel. I then die cut the sentiment too and the number die cuts.

I then found some pink gems for embellishment.

Just love how the Concord & 9th inks blend.

Happy birthday Hannah! Hope you have a lovely day today!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Posting early today as I’ve got the day off work and am not running around like crazy for a change and instead thought I would get some blog posts written, starting with this! Feel like the last few weeks have been a whirlwind and so it’s nice to take it slow for a change.

I still had some scraps of paper on my desk from the projects at the beginning of the month using patterned papers so decided to use them up.

I teamed the papers with the crumb cake cardstock panels and then some darker Kraft coloured card for the mounts of the sentiments and the stamped trees.

The stamped trees are from a Paperartsy Darcy set and I think they are so cute!

I stamped in memento and then watercoloured with the different green inks.

I kept the layouts similar but not the same and for each I chose a different way of embellishing.

I think this second one is my favourite with the gold thread and the gold enamel gem.

Simple to put together and a cute pair of cards for the stash completed!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today is the final card to share from this batch I made at the weekend …

I went back to the water colouring the image loosely and then embossing technique…

I didn’t use watercolour cardstock so the colours didn’t blend as well but I still think the effect I got was lovely.

I used the concord and 9th inks again and this time the very vibrant pink ended up being a little more overwhelming but I think when I added in the darker colour on the leaves that helped to balance it.

I chose an old stencil for the background and used a mix of the greens and also inked up the edge of the card base to frame it.

I stacked the floral image with three pieces of the cardstock in total to give it strength as the water colouring had warped the paper quite a bit. Stacking it made it stronger and helped give it more dimension.

I added some gold gems for finishing touches to surround the sentiment.

So that’s all four cards I made using this fabulous bundle of products from Altenew. I’ve got loads more ideas for using them – just need to find the time to do it! Also I didn’t mention it but these were slightly smaller than my usual size of card because I had bought some card blanks in a sale and so had to work with slightly different dimensions than normal … made me want to also make some slimline cards using these products too so I could mix up the usual way I make things!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! Another day, another design team contribution. Over at Addicted to stamps and more our challenge is Any Occasion… but I went with birthday again for my card.

I chose to grab those gorgeous hanging houseplants stencils and make a collection of pot plants as my main focal element for this green and brown card.

After stencilling the plants and their pots I created a cluster of patterned paper scraps from the stash (these are very old bits of magazine kits – thought they worked well with the colours of the plants and pots) and some scraps of Kraft and created my card topper.

I added this to a panel of wood grain embossed white as again I thought the natural element of texture worked well with the images and the papers.

I then created a sentiment panel using the Treat Yourself stencil and stamp set from Altenew and the Biggest wish stamp.

I decided to embellish with three brads in different brown and greens … all three are different sizes and thought it looked quite cool.

Finally a mount of Mossy Meadow and a little bit of hand drawn lines on the Kraft to finish off. Perfect! Well that’s that I think anyway! How about you?

Happy crafting!

Catherine