Author: Catherine

Still looking round the craft room at stash that needs sorting out and came across my box of lollipop box club kits…

Decided to make a card using bits from that to send to a friend!

I mean how cute are these papers and embellishments. I also decided to add a bit of hand sewing … because that was what I was as in the mood for!

It is just a mush mash of bits but I think a cute card at the end of it!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I have an a5 box which has a fair few Craft stamper magazine stamps in it …

… which I NEVER think to use so making it one of my things this year to go through and either get rid or put in a more accessible place so I think to use them and this card is the first card I’ve made using them.

And I love it!

I grabbed the Rennie MacIntosh style tile stamp and stamped it in black all over a piece of cardstock and then again on a separate piece which I added colour to. I then cut that out and decided to turn it into a tile by heat embossing clear over it twice so it becomes nice and glossy. I used to do this a lot but I forgot about it until now and suspect I made do this again more often as I LOVE it.

I added a black mat behind this tile and also the piece of cardstock which I trimmed down to be slimmer than the card front.

Next chose to use the Biggest Wish stamp onto the cream card in black which I then fussy cut and mounted onto black and fussy cut that too.

Finished off with some black card candi on the front to embellish.

Inside I added one of the off cuts of the card panel I had stamped and a small strip of black.

Really love how this came out and this made me immediately put this stamp into the keep pile as I can imagine using this again.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

This last week has been busy and what’s more even when I had some time I could have crafted in, the hubby was using the chair in the craft room so it was too much effort to move things around to be able to craft. So today has been my first time of getting to the desk and getting crafty.

Now I am sure this isn’t just me, but when I’ve had a break it’s almost like I don’t know what to do so I always find it sit and stare at stuff a while and the first card I make is a bit of an oddity! And this is one of those cards.

It started by me grabbing the piece of Art by Marlene collage paper and sticking it to white cardstock, then a piece of the leftover sprayed paper from last weekends photography session (see last weekends blogs for explanation). I then created a sentiment and found an embossed sprig from the Natures Prints set already made and then some gold sequins!

As I say oddments … but I actually think it looks ok overall and I like the zingy colours.

And now I’ve got through the initial block on creativity I’m off and ready to create in a more thought through way … so I already know because it’s happened by the time I’m writing this post that two more projects have come together quite easily – one of which in particular I am super super happy with … but you will get to see those as an when I get round to writing them up.

So this next week … and probably the one after that … are likely to be just as busy but at least my hubby won’t need to borrow my chair anymore so if I do get some time I might get some more crafting done for you to see… but be warned there may be a few gaps as life gets in the way!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I made this cute little get well note, not because I needed it but because I had scribbled some promarkers onto the paper and I thought it would look good with a sentiment stamped on it so tried out a new concord and 9th set and this is the sentiment I plumped for.

Now before you remind me that my plan for this year was no spend and then I mention new stamps this was a little haul I bought between Christmas and new year … so hence new… so although they didn’t arrive until 2023 (postal issues) they were paid for in 2022!

Anyway back to the card … I’d done the scribbling during the photo shoot (see the last two posts for more info!) and so not letting things go to waste I decided to use this little piece as the focal point on a simple card.

I did add some splatters too using my black wink of Stella pen too so it’s got a little sparkle as well.

The card is only 3 x4.5 in size so a really cute little one.

Not often I go so small or so clean and simple but this little scribble with promarkers did the job perfectly for me!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

So I blogged yesterday that my daughter had been doing a photo shoot with some of my craft supplies … and whilst playing in the light box she made for the photo shoot she decided to have some sprayed backgrounds to her subject matter. Well I couldn’t let lovely backgrounds go to waste so had a quick play cutting one up and used it on a cute little slimline card.

I used some Concord and 9th stamps to add the butterflies and the sentiment.

I mounted the panel onto black and then used some of the lovely black and white checked ribbon and some black gems to embellish.

I decided to then add to the zingy yellow card stock from the stash which I made into a slimline card base.

Pretty and good use of some paper leftover from the photo shoot. I’ve got a few more pieces so cut them into backgrounds to use at some point in the future!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

So this weekend has been busy with cleaning the house, decluttering and basically being on the go most of the time. Plus the hubby stole my work desk and chair so I couldn’t really craft as the chair is also my crafting chair!

One of the tasks of the weekend was also my daughter doing a photo shoot for her photography a level and so I was the glamorous lighting assistant pointing iPhone torch lights at the phones she was photographing. And her subject matter for the shoot happened to be my crafting supplies!

As you can probably see some painty splotches were made on the bits of card etc which of course I didn’t want to waste so have a few of them now stored away for future projects. But as soon as the hubby vacated the chair I quickly made this card using one of the splotchy backgrounds, some washi tape, stamping and the paper flowers we unearthed as part of the photo shoot!

I also dug out some old embellishment tins and found a little sparkly one for the centre of the flower. I decided to also add some die cut leaves to finish off the flower as it looked odd without them.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Firstly I forgot how much I loved this combo of the jar of flowers stamps and the jar punch… but I also forgot how fiddly working with vellum can be if you don’t like seeing adhesive through the vellum! So let me explain what I did for this card.

Well I started with a cream base and used an old Memories and More card I had in the stash to make the background because that has some distraction just in case I needed it when it came to adhering the jar of flowers!

The flowers and stems I stamped, coloured and fussy cut from cream cardstock. What you can’t see is that I didn’t line them up to meet as I knew I would be adding the jar ‘lid’ so I skipped a bit and that helped me extend the length of the stems a little. But I actually ended up cutting them short in the end as they didn’t look right as the longer length! Ah well.

I then punched the jar from the vellum. Stampin up vellum is a nice weight of vellum to deal with and I would not want to do this with a lighter one as it would not sit as well on the card and may curl upwards or not emboss well.

I stamped and embossed the lid. Now I know if the jar did have a lid you wouldn’t be able to put the flowers in but I decided on artistic licence because I needed some part of the vellum jar to not be see through so I could use that part and the part where the twine was to add adhesive.

So once I had heat embossed I added glue behind the stamped element and then added the flowers. I then also tied the twine round so it went round the flowers as well as the jar.

Now I wanted to raise them a little off the background so I added some scraps of cardstock behind the flowers and then a little behind the stems in the jar this allowed the jar to slightly angle as I had more dimension behind the flowers than the stems which I hope means that the jar is less likely to bend upwards as I am not adhering the bottom as such!

What I did do to add to this though was to place a sentiment on both the jar and the background to try and anchor it in place further down.

I then added the little gold flower sequins as embellishment and called it done! What do you think?

I’ve made a lot of cards using the jar of flowers combo and still get pleasure out of doing so … so you can probably tell this one is staying in the stash for a little longer!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

This card was inspired by this video of Jennifer’s and I wanted to use my Butterfly Brilliance dies to recreate it a little.

It was also inspired by the case that Michelle did of Jennifer’s original card … I don’t have a tiny thin frame die so just put a chunky one in instead!

Ok mine looks nothing like theirs … but they were what inspired me to create my rainbow background to die cut from and then add the white die cuts over the top.

So I created the background using Stampin Write markers onto mixed media card stock and then I die cut the solid shapes from the Butterfly brilliance. Then I die cut lots of the more intricate butterflies from the white card stock and stacked them up to give them dimension over the colourful background butterflies.

I took a piece of white cardstock and ran it through the chevron embossing folder then cut myself a black frame.

For the sentiment I added some rainbow washi onto black card stock and white embossed the sentiment. I then cut the banner shape and raised it onto foam to add to the card.

The card is a black base and this works well in framing the colourful butterflies and the monochrome base.

I decided to add some multi coloured bling from the stash as my finishing touches.

Love how this ended up. Not quite the brightness of the cards Jennifer and Michelle made but definitely had fun and pleased with the end result.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I always like to send thank you cards after Christmas although these days it isn’t really about thanking people for gifts … but still I like to acknowledge and thank my parents for their presence with us at Christmas and how much it means to us.

This is this years card.

I started out with the stamped panel of vintage French print which I stamped in cherry cobbler. This is a wood mount stamp and I got it a few years ago as a good mixed media/journaling type stamp. As I am assessing the usefulness of all my crafting supplies at the moment I wanted to see how well this stamped… and as it turned out well I thought it would work for a layered element on a card and this then became the thank you card!

I made the card base from cream and then made a layer slightly smaller that I could add as the background. I decided to ink up the Old paper embossing folder with what a sand for a light contrast to the texture.

To be honest I inked up the wrong side and also embossed the panel as portrait not landscape in error but as it’s not a distinct text and was just forming a background I decided it would be fine. Sometimes you just learn to live with these things!

I decided I wanted to use the Splendid Stems as the focal feature and also grabbed a piece of the wide striped ribbon from the stash to add some different texture.

The stamped stem I added colour using stampin Blends pens in cherry cobbler and then die cut the other stems from black and the Kraft.

I also added in a scrunched piece of Kraft which I had added some white pigment ink to just to add something a little different.

I then chose to use the Artistically inked set for the sentiment which I fussy cut out.

I did add some scrap card for dimension under both the background layer and the cherry cobbler stamped print piece but this is less raised than if using foam so a little more subtle.

Then I added pearls as finishing touches.

Whilst that’s taken a while to explain how I made it it actually didn’t take too long at all to make and came together very easily.

Happy crafting!

Catherine