Author: Catherine

I made this over the weekend when I realised I had so many card stock scraps on the desk that were too small to do much with but would make a fun background for a tag!

After glueing them down I then took a stencil and used texture paste to create the background.

Once that was dry I added ink to the edge to frame it.

I then took some black cardstock and grabbed lots of little stamps and embossed them with white.

This created a fun chalkboard type finish.

Then I stamped and embossed the camera image and coloured in with promarkers. I then die cut the camera out to create the focal image.

I chose some scraps of the glimmer paper and die cut the flourishes out to layer underneath the camera.

I chose one of the coloured scraps to die cut the word smile and stacked it a few times to make sure it was chunky. I glued it in place and then added glossy accents to it to add even more dimension and shiny!

I added some ribbon through the hole in the top.

I also then added the little hearts I had die cut too … these were such a cute little addition!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! Welcome to my blog!

I decided to make up a very different type of card for this Addicted to stamps and more design team challenge from what I have been making recently.

I grabbed the digital image I’ve had printed for a while and coloured it using my promarkers.

I then rummaged round in the stash and found these nautical themed dsp and made the background up from them with little pops of the lime green as mats. Then I added the sentiment and some lime card Candi as embellishment.

The card itself is using Mango Melody … so more bright and zingy for the cherry card!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I had some fun ink blending with the distress oxides and created the background panel with zero plan of what I was going to do with it… just wanted to play.

I then remembered all the purple flowers I had die cut and sewn at Christmas time … perfect for embellishing the card.

I decided to add some white and then the purple card blank.

I chose the sentiment from the die cuts I had already made and die cut many many months ago from scraps. I ended up with just the three die cut flowers but think they are cute and perfect for the card!

Really do love the finished effect of these stitched dies. They make the cards feel really special.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Because the stitched die cuts are quite special I decided to try and keep the card quite simple this time … just the one flower and a simple background…

But of course it wasn’t actually that simple a flower because I went a little crazy and did multicoloured stitching to create a rainbow flower!

Background : I used an iridescent shimmer paper and embossed with the dots. Then a simple rectangle of cardstock for behind the flower.

The sentiment is a piece of rainbow washi on black with a black strip with the sentiment embossed with white. Simple and cute!

Silver gems finish off the card … but in comparison to most cards I made this was super easy!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Well as the first of the month happens to be a Friday this is a combo patterned paper project along with a Festive Friday project.

I took a few pieces of dsp that I had cut down into 6×6 squares and made a couple of cards that are pattern paper heavy!

Because the patterns and colours coordinate they work well even if they are pretty busy and I kept them very similar.

I started by cutting a panel to fit the front of the card blank for both pieces of the paper and then lined them up together and did the same cut across the panel to create the panels I could then put back together with a mix of the papers. Then I took the third piece of paper and created a panel and added a mat layer to break up the patterns.

Then I took a piece of white and created my little scene with some magazine kit stamps I’ve had for ages. Under this I added some die cut elements from the Frosted frames set.

I added some faux stitching doodles around the layers and the same for the little sentiment.

The second one is the same except I used a frosted frames panel to create the scene on so no need to add the additional die cuts underneath.

Kept the layers pretty flat so not lots of dimension to the cards because they are already fairly heavy with the paper and the layers.

So there you go … two cards and two of my challenges done!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! Welcome to my blog!

Todays post is my design team contribution for Creative Knockouts where the theme this fortnight is Anything Goes!

I used this cute digital image called Spring flower from Star Stampz

I decided to do some paper piecing along with using my promarkers to create the girl .. I printed the same image several times on both the white cardstock and the patterned paper.

Then I fussy cut out the pieces I wanted to layer and coloured the rest with my promarkers. I also added promarkers to the skin elements of the image.

This is how I had got it before I actually glued it together.

After glueing together I added some shading to the image and some dots of brighter colour to the flower stamen. Then started thinking about putting the card together. At this point the in progress photos disappear as I get busy creating!

I chose another piece of the crafters companion paper from the stash and had that as the base layer. I edged it with black pen though as I thought the line art on the image was so thick it needed the black line of the frame in contrast to the soft papers.

I did the same black pen for the edge of the image panel.

I added the spellbinders wreath from an old spellbinders set in the Kraft and then used a Sizzix die set to create the flowers.

Again I used the paper scraps from the paper piecing to create the flowers so they coordinated.

I popped this all together with the flowers coming from behind the panel but also overlapping the edge.

Then I decided to go bold and added the sentiment heat embossed on the sweet sorbet card and then needed to add a pop of the red on other parts of the card … so I inked up some white cardstock with the sweet sorbet ink and die cut the tiny flowers and also added the dots using a dot from Artistically inked stamp set to the background.

I think this added enough to tie it all in together.

Inside the card (it’s a 6×6 card blank) I added one more of the flower die cuts that I made, this time in full.

Love this cute card and saving it until September for my cousin’s daughter as I think it is perfect for her (so shhhhh keep it 🤫 secret!).

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I had another frame in my room I wanted to put something in that I had made and so I decided to use another challenge from the Hey Little Magpie Facebook group to spur me on to do some more scrapping.

I started with a few little pics from the trip to Dunham Massey at Christmas time and then played with mixed media and stitching and some old dsp till I got to this …

I went a bit OTT with the texture paste and it wasn’t the cleanest of stencilling jobs but I think it was perfect for the messy painty background.

I enjoyed the bit of stitching I did for the added circles and then the paper teamed the two parts of the page together with the bits of text paper too for the colours of the photos.

I did some doodled lines round the patterned paper and then stamped those trees to either side of the page. I did mount it onto Kraft but you can’t see that in the frame on the wall so I need not have bothered but I suppose it also gives the page some strength as the white was quite warped by the time it was finished.

Happy to have scrapped again … who knows when the next urge will strike.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Yes even though I only just shared the bee from January I am already onto playing with the new kit from February.

This is a fabulous set of dies to create a full card panel. But actually there are a few dies in the set so you can keep the panel totally flat or can cut out the individual flower. I went for maximum die usage on this first try!

I decided to keep to a soft coral and ochre colour scheme and then added an embossed sentiment at the bottom so you get the full impact of the die cuts and stitching.

Love love love!

I did add some ink to the flower die cut pre sewing so you can see some gradient in the colour on the petals.

Genuinely can’t get enough of these stitching die kits.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

When I saw the Spellbinders stitching die kit for January I couldn’t wait to get the bee and stitch… however it took weeks before I got round to diecutting it and stitching it!

I die cut the yellow from cream card I added yellow ink too which gives it a more gradient finish.

I decided to use the same colour of thread for the whole of the bee 🐝

I then chose to die cut the wings from some shimmery cardstock rather than the usual cardstock. I also chose to use gold metallic thread for the wings. My goodness this metallic thread is so much more tricky to work with than normal silks.

Once I had stitched all the elements I then had to work out what to do with the bee. I decided to keep it really simple with a stitched frame and a black mat layer.

I didn’t add a sentiment and kept it as it was especially as the bee is so spectacular!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today’s festive Friday started with a piece of dsp I cut into four panels and embossed the Snow Crystal on … two white embossing and two clear embossing. Then I took two panels and made two cards. I ran out of time for the other two so they’ve gone back into the box for another time!

I decided to make two cards with the same set of supplies but make one clean and one grungy!

Sorry the colour is a little washed out in them though … the sun was just going down by the time I took pictures!

I started with the grungy one … I inked up the panel with different green inks to give contrast to the embossed snowflake in the background.

I also stamped the snow Crystal again using a dark green ink. It is all quite subtle because the paper is already quite dark but it gives some interest to the back of the card. Then I inked up the strip of the checked paper (this is the reverse of the dotty paper and I had a few 1” strips left from cutting up the panels).

I added that to the background and then used a piece of white cardstock to emboss with the word folder. I then inked it with the different greens.

I added some ink to the bakers twine and made that more in keeping with the background before adding that in a messy twist underneath the Paper Doll image.

I then inked up some strips and added the stickers as sentiments.

Think if I was to do this again I would remember to splatter as I completely forgot until I type this now!

Now the clean version no ink was added to the background papers, only to the embossed piece of white behind the image.

I decided to wrap the bakers twine (without inking it) to keep it cleaner and no ink on the sentiment strip either.

I rarely use the paper dolls but I think they worked well on both these cards as a fun vintage element with the dotty paper and the plaid with the gorgeous snow Crystal image.

I think that the one I prefer out of these two is the inky grungy version … but I do love that white snowflake too! What do you think?

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Managed to get better photos today …