A blog for cooking and crafts

Wednesday 25 October 2017

Out of the Drawer: Grungy pink butterfly birthday card

Another stamp christened .......


I stamped, coloured and masked the Stampendous butterfly/music stamp, then used various splatty stamps over the mask.  The sentiment is from Stamping all Day.
A narrow black mat to finish it off ........ I am actually not too sure whether I like this one or not, maybe it'll grow on me :-)

Thursday 19 October 2017

Teal butterfly circle birthday card

I was having a play around with some unbranded dies, testing them on cardstock from the scraps box.  This teal butterfly circle looked so nice, I found papers to match and made this card :-)


The backing paper is Kaisercraft Lilac Whispers, I used a sheet from the 6.5" pad.  I was just going to put the die-cut on top of the paper, but decided it looks better on a white circle, which I cut using a Crealies die, the sentiments strip is the same make.  It's a little difficult to get a sense of scale from the photo, the card blank is 4".
Next time I use this die, I think I will cut an extra butterfly to add dimension, but I am very pleased with the way it looks when flat :-)

Tuesday 17 October 2017

Out of the Drawer: Vintage Christmas card

I have had this poinsettia stamp from Hero Arts for over a year, having bought it in a sale well before last Christmas.  It's actually been in my crop bag for most of that time, but I just haven't got around to inking it, until now!



I  made a smooshy distress ink background, then over-stamped the image and a sentiment (SU) in brown.  This was then matted onto a bronze-y cardstock.  I cut a square from Bazzill Swiss Dot Kraft, adhered to a kraft card blank, then added the topper.
I love this vintage look.  But next time I will try colouring the image, though I am not sure which bracts should be red and which green!!

Sunday 15 October 2017

Out of the Drawer - embossed pink birthday card

I have an large number of embossing folders - time to do something with them!
I made a lot of different embossed backgrounds and inked them up with various distress inks.  They were cut to fit, adhered to the card blank .... but then what?  I do always have trouble covering up backgrounds LOL.


So this is what I came up with.
I stamped the flower (SU) three times, coloured and punched out.  Then they were layered onto the card, the first flat to the background, the second with 1 mm foam tape and the third on 2 mm tape.  I die-cut the banner and stamped the sentiment onto it.  The original embossing folder was (I think) from Taylored Expressions.
It is a bit pink for me ..... but a perfect addition to The Box :-)

Friday 13 October 2017

Venice layout

Another layout done at the Merly retreat.  The kit was supposed to be used for a triple photo frame, but the papers fit a photo I had brought with me so well, I went with that instead and the frame awaits another day .... :-)



The Kaisercraft paper collection is Indigo Skies.  The title is cut with SU dies, I also used a KC harlequin die for some detail, it doesn't show very well in the photo.  The punched edge is a PATP set from Martha Stewart.  To finish I scattered a few pearls in blue and yellow to match the costumes in the photo.

Wednesday 11 October 2017

Patchwork bag

I am falling behind a bit on my three-posts-a-week goal.... I'm sure I can catch up two more this week....  LOL.
Something a little bit different today.  I like to cut out projects from craft magazines and store them in display folders 'to make later'.  Well, now I have actually made one!  A couple of months ago now, I forgot I hadn't blogged it.



The bag is made up of 19 x 3.5 squares and some 3.5" strips, some wadding and a lining.  It is quite small, meant for a lunch bag, I carry apples and bananas in it to work so they don't get bruised! The original project has an oilcloth lining but I just used some furnishing weight gingham fabric someone gave me years ago.  There are a few mistakes, but I love it.
Incidentally, I die-cut all the squares and strips, as I can't manually cut fabric straight to save my life!

Sunday 8 October 2017

Vienna layout

Another layout!  This one was done at the Merly Impressions retreat, back in July.  Chrissy's original design involves much more fussy cutting, but I find that hurts my hands so I simplified it :-)


The Wiener Riesenrad is the oldest ferris wheel in Europe and was restored to fully working condition a few years ago.  I had never been on one, it was an interesting experience and the views were amazing!
The papers are from Kaisercraft as is the circles die.  I cut the gears from a selection of my own dies and the letters are done with an SU die set.  For the mats under the photos I used a punch around the page set by Martha Stewart.


Wednesday 4 October 2017

Steampunk-ish layout

I can't remember the last time I shared a layout!  I made this at the April ATDML retreat, but never got around to blogging it.....


I used various papers from Prima, Studio Light, Kaisercraft .... the dies-cuts are some gears from (I think) Memory Box and part of a circle by Tonic.

Monday 2 October 2017

Birthday card: cherry tree on stencilled/stamped background

Although there is no official Blogtober this year, I am going to try and repeat my personal goal from last year - three (or more!) posts a week.
I started this card off with a stencilled circles background in purple.  Then I used a splatter stamp in green over some parts of the stencilling.  The cherry tree is from Lavinia Stamps and the sentiment is from Stampendous, both stamped in black over the background.


Nice simple card this one, quite quick to do and really effective.