Category: Art and crafting styles

Last night I realised I hadn’t got a card ready for todays Festive Friday – so I immediately went to my box of ready made backgrounds – in this case a gelli print – and found one I could work with!

I added the stamped and embossed Snow Crystal to the background using Oxides and clear embossing powder so it had some subtle colour.

Then mounted the panel on a piece of scrap cardstock I thought worked with the colours in the background.

I grabbed a pre die cut tree and inked it with peacock feathers and faded jeans distress oxides and spritzed some water on it to give it a fun finish.

I then grabbed a ready stamped and die cut sentiment and then glued these all in place.

Then I added it to a premade card blank and added some gems.

Took me less than 10 mins as a result of all those elements being made in advance! Now I know that not everyone makes cards for challenges like this where they need to be quick but just think if you had a few things ready done and when you suddenly realise you need a card for someone’s birthday you’d forgotten – how simple it is to just grab some bits and do a little assembly and then they get a handmade beauty in less time than it would be for you to get to the shop! So I urge you – especially when mojo might have disappeared – to do some die cutting of things you know you often grab or pre stamp and die cutting sentiments in bulk so they are ready to go – or grab paints and inks and get some backgrounds ready to play with!

I promise it makes it so much easier!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today’s card I made a little while ago using up some of the premade backgrounds that were in my box. It started with the gelli print that’s on the left hand side of the card and then the Dylusions background that’s on the right. I used a couple of rub ons onto the Dylusions panel and then decided to go with the large Splendid flowers image for the focal point. I then decided this would be my card for the Addicted to stamps and more blog for my design team contribution.

I went for blue flowers for my focal point and loved adding all the inks through the stencils. It makes colouring the image so easy.

I added blue thread in a nest behind the sentiment which is also stamped in blue and stacked up. I added a little banner die cut behind to frame it and then added the white sequins for shine!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today’s blog is a card where I went back into half made projects for the Festive Friday! A while ago I used this speciality cardstock to make some card blanks and had a bit left over!

I grabbed the panel of green from my scraps and went a little mad with embossing powder to do some green on green images and embossing the edge of the panel too! I used a Spellbinders stamp for this.

I then grabbed the ready die cut wreath which I stacked two together for stability and dimension and adhered that to the green panel.

I found the sentiment in my pouch of ready stamped and die cut and stacked sentiments using Waffleflower sentiments – it was stamped in a dark green and coordinates well!

I added some little gems to the wreath and decided this was done! It’s a slightly slimmer than normal size but still works perfectly for a standard envelope!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Our challenge for Creative Knockouts is use your favourite embellishment and mine is always something shiny or something sparkly – sometimes gems are the thing I grab but sometimes I sequin – in this case because I had colours that worked well with the colours I had used sequins won out!

The challenge is sponsored by Paper Shelter and the image I used from them is Cheerful Snowman which is just so cute!

I decided to have a play with my Dylusions inks for these cards to create fun backgrounds behind the snowman and also for his scarf and hat.

I am not a big fan of the mess of Dylusions sprays so this was a challenge to me but I love the bold colour and the way the colours work.

I actually printed the image six times … once for the background, once for the hats and scarves and once for the snowman body and the snowy ground.

This first one was a spray background combining the blue and teal. The hat and scarf I added the ink with the end of the tube to the areas I wanted and then added water to blend them.

For this one I splattered the inks using the tube on the sprayer and then sprayed with water to wick the ink. For the hat and scarf I did more intense amount of the ink to fill the area.

Both of the backgrounds and the hats and scarves required drying time as all had a lot of liquid on them!

The bodies of the snowman I coloured with my Stampin Blend alcohol markers and then when the other layers were dry I fussy cut the body and then scarf and hat and paper pieced them.

On the teal/blue one I didn’t adhere the hat straight away as I knew I wanted it to peek out the top of the frame. I die cut the images and some additional white cardstock with the same dies to create the frames.

I added a few layers to the frame on the purple themed one to give dimension.

I then took a little stencil to ink the card base with the hearts using blue on one and purple on the other. I just used ink already on the brushes so it kept it soft.

Then adhered the images. I then chose a die cut sentiment which I again stacked for dimension.

Finished off with the sequins for embellishment – as per the challenge!

So some cute cards for the stash made and also I pushed my comfort zone to get some Dylusions used too!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I had this paper leftover on my desk from the cards I made using pumpkins as the focal feature that I shared in yesterdays blog and decided to use the papers but change up the focal image for the leaves from Splendid Thoughts.

The first card I layered the two papers onto the background then used the Fern embossing folder to emboss the whole panel. Then I stamped and embossed the image a couple of times onto white card.

I inked up the image using a couple of colours that I thought would work with the papers and die cut them. I also die cut the long thin leaves from brown along with a couple of labels to go under the sentiment.

I stuck the leaves down and then used some waxed thread through the label and tied a bow and adhered it into place.

I embossed the sentiment on the scrap of orange and die cut it using the smallest circle die from the stitched framelits.

I added the little flowers from the stash with the beads as I thought they worked well and then added it all as a panel to the orange card blank.

The second card I changed up a little with the book print as the base for the stamped leaves and this time rather than ink blending I used the stamps in the set to add two colours to the leaves to ‘colour’ them.

I took the sentiments from a Lawn Fawn set mixing up the stamping for the strips on the yellow and the coloured ink on white for the die cut. I die cut the word four times to stack it so it’s very chunky!

I die cut the two ovals (I used ovals on the pumpkin cards so they were sitting there saying use me again!) to sit behind the sentiment to give it a base and some definition.

Again added the flower embellishments – oh and a nest of the waxed thread behind the sentiment cluster for some different texture! This second card I did as a swap card over at UK Stampers Forum too – so it is leaving my house this week for a new home!

Cute autumnal feel cards (and you can probably guess who the second card is for!)

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I decided to use up the mop up background I created a few weeks ago to create this weeks Festive Friday project.

I teamed it with the Waffleflower Poinsettia stamp and die set I had bought in the sale. This is a layering stamp set and although a bit fiddly to use I love the image it creates!

I trimmed down the background panel that had the Waffleflower poinsettia background stencilling on it and ran it through the embossing folder with Christmas words on it. I brushed over it with my blending brush just to enhance the writing a little.

I added the panel of the claret coloured card and then the die cut string of lights as a fun additional element.

I then added the stamped and die cut floral element and then the banner and the embossed sentiment.

Love how this came out – so interesting to combine the different elements.

Once again I remembered to stick the video on whilst I was creating so there is a process video over on my YouTube channel.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I made this tag for the UK stampers forum swap using a mix of Concord & 9th and Altenew stamps and stencils and lot of embossing!

I actually started with some inky backgrounds that were from previous sessions of gelli printing and messing with inks. There are two backgrounds used on this as the tag was too long for the panels I had. However because I then stencilled and added the stamped and die cut pieces on top it’s not so obvious that there were two panels.

I used the leftover of one of the panels to then stamp and die cut some flowers, another one for the rest of the flowers and then a green themed inky panel for the leaves.

All the leaves were stamped and embossed with green powder and the flowers with an orange powder.

I actually started however with the stamped sentiment direct onto the background on the tag using that orange powder to emboss. This was from the Garden path stamps from Concord & 9th.

Then I took the stencils from that set and added flowers and leaves with ink and the final stencil with the pearl accents to add texture and shine.

Then I did the stamping and die cutting using the Smile More Altenew set.

I added the flowers and leaves on top around the tag to create the texture and with all the colour in the gelli prints they are stamped on and the shiny embossing they make pretty funky flowers and leaves I think!

I just added the pink trim for the top then and called it done!

Really enjoyed putting together this floral but autumnal tag!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I’ve been a little more absent on the blog recently – life is just so busy and finishing projects has been challenging. I did however manage to finish this so here we go…

Todays blog is a design team contribution for Addicted to stamps and more where our challenge is Birthdays!

I decided as I was running a little late on this project to just look at what was on the desk and go with that and had these papers left from a few scrapbook pages and thought why not make the card with those!

So it’s a patterned paper heavy card with fussy cut elements and a few panels of the pattern in the background.

Of course it’s in the title of the blog challenge ‘stamps’ so I did include a stamped sentiment – one of the Altenew ones that I had already made and die cut and stacked! Perfect!

I added some thread below the sentiment to add texture and then the sequins to finish the front!

Inside the card more paper and another fussy cut flower to finish off!

Loved this and it was so easy as the papers all coordinated and everything was ready to play with!

Now I must tidy the desk and have a think about other projects I am behind on getting ready! 😂

Happy crafting!

Catherine

It’s the beginning of the month so it’s patterned paper play … and as the weather is telling us it is very much autumn I grabbed the Scenic Pumpkin Patch stamps again to make these cards using old Making Cards magazine papers for some cute autumnal themed cards.

I did stick the camera on to record so if you fancy watching them get made please check out my YouTube channel.

This one is so bright and cheerful but clearly still autumn themed with the pumpkins and the leaves on the paper. I was struggling with this one a little until I brought in the yellow and then I was happier with the combo.

I did some sewing on both cards – just fancied adding a little hand sewn element on each.

I also added card Candi to both with the dotty Candi which I thought was cute.

I used stitched framelits for both cards – particularly liked choosing the ovals for this – not a shape I use often – so it makes a nice change.

On this one I inked the edge of the base cardstock for both the background and the die cut topper element in green which was a nice contrast to the orange elements on the papers and pumpkin images.

I also chose to create a scene for the focal point.

For both cards I used a sentiment from the Beautiful Flowers SSS set which I just love as it’s simple but classy!

Love my cute little autumnal cards – they were good fun to make and nice to get some more of that old paper used up!

Also confession time – I made these a few weeks ago and thankful I did because it has been crazy busy recently and not managing to get to finish projects recently!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Hello! Today I’ve got a video showing the process for making these notecards up on my YouTube channel …

I made three notecards using the Altenew Be Strong stamp and die set focusing on those cute little cactus and the light strings and using up scraps of card and patterned paper.

Whilst this first one is slightly more traditional with the stamping on white and colouring with the stampin blends to create both the focal images and then the plain panel I created in the background of the string lights…

… I also stamped and coloured the images on the coloured cardstock too which I used for cards two and three.

The base colour changes the colouring of the alcohol blends but still looks fabulous and you can still get variation in the colouring to give the impression of depth/shape.

I added different pieces of scrap patterned paper to each card along with other pieces of leftover cardstock from other projects.

Love how cute they all are.

Really love in particular though the first one with that sentiment cluster and the bigger panel of the stamped background.

Wish the stamping on the sentiment was a little cleaner but sometimes these things happen!

Happy crafting!

Catherine