I am an on-the-side and increasingly up front papercrafter who loves nothing more than getting inky and creating pretty things with paper and stamps!
I am also a wife to lovely hubby and mummy to a wonderful 14yr old princess.
Hello! Every month this year I’ve been cutting apart a piece of dsp and then using the elements from that dsp to make a card.
This time it was a very old piece of pretty desp with gorgeous trailing flowers. I took one cut apart floral element and the reverse of the paper as a panel and also added in the bookprint dsp I had left over from another project. I added some lace trim by sewing it long the top of the panel with the floral trailing underneath.
I decided to make a slimline card rather than the usual size of 6×4 so this is 6×3 instead. I made this using the Crumb Cake cardstock.
I heat embossed the sentiment and then added a mat of the Petal Pink which I think works with the pink of the flowers.
Inside the card a strip of the dsp and another floral element … and decided jobs a good’un.
Todays blog is my design team contribution for Creative Knockouts and we are sponsored by Beccys Place who kindly gifted me the Gull on Post image for use on this card.
I printed the image and then coloured with promarkers and fussy cut with a very slim white outline. Then I took some mixed media scraps and stickers and bits and pieces to collage behind the image that I thought worked well with the beach /travel theme.
Next I took a piece of background that had spray ink on it and embossed with the Old Paper 3D embossing folder and brushed over it with an ink blending brush. I didn’t load the brush with ink, just used what was there to slightly colour the raised embossing to make it more visible.
I added a piece of sand themed patterned paper behind the image and then stamped the sentiment on a strip to finish off the front. I also added some brads as wanted to keep it from being shiny and sparkly so it can be used for a man or a woman recipient. You know it is so difficult for me to not add gems … Matt brads are a good alternative!
Really happy with this textural and grungy card and that image is lovely… can see me grabbing that again! (I printed six images at once so I have a few more to play with again!)
I carried on playing with the Avery Elle North Pole friends stamps and the same dsp as I used yesterday and made these three ultra cute reindeer cards.
I kept each of the cards very similar in style with diagonal cuts and the white mat layers to keep them clean and modern. I love that plaid with the darker green paper.
This one I decided to colour the sentiment strips with the Stampin Blend colour I had used for Rudolph’s collar. Then I added them to slightly wider strips of white as a mat.
I added some circles die cut and leftover from the zero waste leaf die and added wink of Stella to them to make them sparkly.
This is the smallest of the images so it needed an extra panel and the dsp is double sided so this worked fine. This time I coloured the sentiment mat layer rather than the sentiment so it had a green layer.
I again added die cut circles as embellishments but these are from gold speciality paper so already shiny!
This one has the two plaid panels sitting on the dark green snowflake paper. Originally it was designed that the plaid panels would be within the layer of the green so it had a border but I realised I got my measurement wrong for the card blank so had to trim down … but I still think it looks good.
Again I coloured the mat layer for the sentiment and added those gold speciality paper circles to finish off.
These are all very flat cards for me although clearly still lots of layers and things going on… but I hope I still allowed those gorgeous cute reindeers to have all the focus!
I slipped up and bought some more stamps but this time from Vinted because they were a bargain and clearly brand new for just £6 including the postage.
I’ve been looking for a cute Santa stamp as I’ve got rid of all the ones I had and spotted this set of stamps from Avery Elle and knew they were perfect for making some cute Christmas cards. This was my first play.
I grabbed some dsp from the stash (think one is magazine paper and the other is SU) and made a few layers onto the card and a piece of white which I had put through the Waffleflower piercing die. Then stamped Santa onto the white and coloured him with promarkers and stampin blends.
The sentiment is from the set too and I coloured some scrap white with the grey promarkers to give a border mat for the words.
I then used some circles I had saved from another project using the zero waste leaf die and added them as embellishments and added some wink of Stella to make them sparkle!
Love the cute Santa and also love this relatively flat and simple card. Think I can see me using him plenty of times for when I want to do cute. I don’t have the coordinating dies but the images are easy to cut out and the colouring is also simple to do with only a few colours needed.
Today I decided to get a bit inky with distress ink and made two similar but slightly different cards.
Both had the same starting point of a piece of mop up paper that I then added a heavy amount of distress ink to with the blending sponge.
I cut the piece into two and for one I ran it through the embossing folder and then ran a little white Kraft ink over the top of the embossing to make it stand out a little.
I took another piece of white and added the distress inks again to be able to die cut the centre element for the stamping.
I had to make sure it was very dry before I then embossed the Joy sentiment.
I had die cut a couple of the Frosted frames from white so used one on each and to one I added some additional sprigs and snowflakes.
This frame I added to the other panel which I had run through the Waffleflower snowflake cover plate die.
This is more subtle than an embossed panel as it just adds pierced details in the background.
Todays blog is the card I made from the panel I die cut the sentiment from for Fridays card…
The panel was watercolour card I had used to mop up distress oxide off the desk with using greens and blues.
I mounted the panel onto black cardstock, popped a sentiment into place that I die cut from black and then added all the middle elements back in too.
As the black card was only thin I die cut it another couple of times to stack them up until it was the same level as the thick water colour cardstock.
Next I took some leaves I had die cut from the glitter cardstock scraps using the Zero Waste leaf die and added those to the space underneath the sentiment. I wasn’t sure what central element to add but then remembered all the yellow roses I had already stamped and die cut so used one with two leaves to finish off. I did have to add some foam under the centre of the rose as the leaves are also stacked die cuts and it was wobbly otherwise.
Then I found these sparkly green gems in the stash and added them.
Love how this was made from leftover ink and the remainder of other projects and makes a dramatic but beautiful card with the artsy background!
Played with one of the other sets of stamps and stencils I bought … this gorgeous floral one.
It’s a really simple two layer stencil and then a single stamp for each of the floral sprigs.
I used a mixture of yellow and orange and red inks for the flowers and then used a dark blue green for the leaves.
I stamped the line art in black and then mat the full piece onto black and then the pearlescent vellum.
I added a strip of black across and white embossed the sentiment.
I then stencilled and stamped a single floral sprig and then cut that out and then added that with some die cut leaves from the Splendid thoughts dies.
Love how this looks… admittedly it’s a very big card for a thank you card but still I enjoyed making it and I am sure I will find a use for it at some point!
I saw Jennifer McGuire using the zero waste flower die and thought it looked great but when I saw there was a leaf one I decided this was more useful as already have a fair amount of flower dies and plus more likely to use stamped images as the focal point than the die cuts … so I bought the leaf version instead.
I’ve used it a couple of times already before I made these but it didn’t cut brilliantly with my Big Shot (my Big shot has lost a lot of pressure so need extra shims and lots of pass throughs to get some dies to work) so although I could use some of the leaves and the circles it wasn’t a full cut of the whole panel.
So I learnt from this and made sure I gave it plenty of pressure and a few gos through the machine for each cut needed.
I die cut a piece of mop up paper that I had added distress oxides to. It was very watery though so not an intense colour.
I separated all the pieces and then die cut again from white a few times. I used one of the background pieces as a template straight onto the card blank and washi taped it in place and then like a puzzle I added the pieces back in using white for the first layer. I didn’t add all the circles (I got bored quickly as it was quite fiddly). Then removed the background and added a second layer of the white and then the third layer I added the colour pieces. I added a few extra circles of the colour flat onto the card blank as that was easy.
The inked background piece I added to dark cardstock and left that to one side for another time.
I had mopped up ink onto watercolour cardstock too so I took the Happy Birthday die and die cut it from the panel and inked it a little more once it was die cut as I wanted it darker… but then I also decided to add pearl embossing powder which made it change colour and get darker too. This gave it enough difference from the leaves. I stacked it twice on the watercolour cardstock for more dimension then adhered it using strong adhesive to the card front.
Then I added a few green gems and called it done!
I really love how this turned out and how pretty and delicate it looks although actually there is quite a bit of dimension and texture still.
It is quite fiddly to do but not impossible and a great way of using papers that have been inked as part of a mop up or to clean brayers … I think that might be my next use of this style… on a painty piece!
I still have the background to use … and also the piece I die cut the sentiment from as I saved all the pieces and purposefully cut it in the middle of the panel so I could put it back together again too!
Today is the first day off of a ten day break from work. Not had this long off since last summer and really looking forward to giving the brain a rest. I’ve got a few days away planned but in between I hope to get some crafting in… in fact I’ve already allotted myself at least a 90 min play time this morning.
But todays blog is from the playtime I had last weekend …
I played with the Waffle flower stacking cake stencil and dies to make another 18th birthday card.
I didn’t give much thought to the final card when I started but instead just added ink and enjoyed putting together a cake.
So once I had a cake (which I layered up three times to create a sturdy cake because no one wants a floppy cake).
So once I had that made I looked through the stash of ready made backgrounds/pieces yet to be finished and found this mop up piece using another new stencil (a piece I’ve not yet finished) and figured the pastel would work well with the cake.
Grabbed balmy blue for layering and then a white piece for the background which I embossed with a dotty embossing folder.
I then grabbed some more white and added ink with blending tools and then used the number dies to cut out 3 18’s so I could stack them up and then embossed with clear embossing folder and this made it into a lovely embellishment to finish the card off.
Good morning from my craft room … and today I have the design team contribution I made for the latest ‘birthday’ challenge at Addicted to stamps and more blog.
I grabbed a painty background that was already made (back when my daughter did a photoshoot with my art supplies!) … and made this cute painty graphic bird card.
I actually used the other painty piece that was left to do some paper piecing for the bird for the wing and head and the birthday part of the sentiment.
The bird, branch and flowers were from a magazine set but the stamped words in the background came from a Funky Fossils stamp set.
The bird paper pieced elements I actually embossed with a pearlescent powder over the black to give a little extra shine and dimension.
Then I added black gems as accents to finish off.
I mounted the panel onto black and then onto a Calypso Coral card blank.
Inkyfingeredcat 