The First Christmas Card of 2016

I finally did it.  I jumped in and made my very first Christmas Card of 2016.  I don’t in the least feel anything like it’s coming up to Christmas, but there was a little niggle forming inside me telling me that I really should do SOMETHING,  and I think it was simply because other blogs have all started featuring their own Christmas cards.  It kind of made me feel like I was being a total lay-about.  Like that pupil in school who never turned in their homework.

So I did my first Card for Christmas this year …  but with a twist.  It’s not the normal ‘opening’ card with four sides (front, open left, open right and then finally the back).  Nope.  This one is made on a great big post card (as you can see) which measure 21cm long – or for those of us who still work on the fabulous, can’t be beaten, original measuring system in the UK – that’s 8.25inches.

The Post Card doesn’t open up.  Instead I cut a stand for the back of the card which folds out, and makes the card stand up all by itself.  If you can’t imagine what this looks like …  go back to your school photos, the ones which came in a mount.  On the back of those mounts was a fold out stand, with another little bit to it which then folded down, and locked the stand in place.  Well that’s exactly the same as the stand on the back of this card.

I totally forgot to take photo’s of the making, apart from one .… so this is all I’ve got to show you how it all came together …  so I’ll try to tell you, but if there’s anything I miss or anything you want to know, just ask away in a comment.

I began by tearing up some corrugated card, and then some paper which I’ve had in my stash for a while, pale beige with white snow flakes on it.  I distressed and inked the paper and fixed it onto the card next to the corrugated.  Added some Polyfilla in appropriate places and in order to give it all that frost appearance, I added, to the Polyfilla while still wet, some Mica Flakes;  Chunky glitter, and some very fine glitter dust.

I used a mixture of Polyfilla (yes the type you use on the walls – but buy the flexible Polyfilla in the tube – so that it doesn’t crack and flake) and in some places (along the top) a little dimensional paste, in order to achieve the snowy, icy look I was after.

The Father Christmas ‘postage stamp’ you see in the top right hand corner, is a stamped image, which I stamped onto some brown paper and then fussy cut out.  Then added the white berry twig, twisted into a wreath.

While that all dried I used some Buff It  (by  Pinflair) in red and gold, to the sleigh.

I cannot recommend Buff It highly enough.  It’s a fantastic product, which you use very little of, and mix it with a tiny bit of water.  If, while you’re working on your project, the Buff it on your plate, or tile or glass mat, dries up, you simply add another little tiny drop of water, and it all starts working again.  It dries super quick.  You then buff it with a soft cloth (I use a dried baby wipe) and it positively gleams!  You can find it HERE on the Pinflair website.

Then I began to build up the elements . . .  using the holly and berries (which are made from felt), and the red tinsel (which I curled) along the bottom.   The Poinsettia flower and leaves are made from a set of dies – (which I bought from a fellow blogger about 3 months ago).  I cut the flower itself out of red card, but the leaves were cut from three different shades of green card.

I wanted everything to have that crisp, icy look,  so after I put the flower parts together, I dragged a tiny bit of dimensional paste around the edges of some of the petals and leaves, and using some Tonic Glitter Accent in Fresh Snowfall I ‘iced up’ the flower & leaves.  This Tonic Glitter Accent in their Fresh Snowfall,  is ‘like’ a Stickles (only in a much bigger bottle) but this particular one, in the Fresh Snowfall, is very thick.  Very sticky, and sets hard.

While everything was drying I made some ‘gifts’.  These gifts took me ages!  Bits of paper and card.  Tiny bits of bakers twine. Sticking the paper down without sticking the whole thing to my fingers!  Ugh!  I popped the presents into the sleigh then turned my attention to making ‘snow’.

I found some fabulous little tiny round dots which twinkle like a million stars, in The Range (in the UK – sorry to folks in other places) when I went shopping last week and fell in love with them.  I wish I could show you how fabulous they are but I can’t get a photo of the twinkles.  They look more like sequins in the photos, but they’re really nothing like them at all.  So so lovely, and, would you believe, all made from a tiny bit of plastic.

I added Christmas Red Stickle ‘berries’ to the wreath surrounding the Father Christmas stamp and some Red and Green ribbon and string bows at the left hand side of the card.  A metal silver charm in the shape of a snowflake hanging from the berry wreath, and some more red tinsel around the seating area of the sleigh.  Aaaaand  that’s all there was to it.

So there you have it  … I’ve made my first Christmas Card!  I have no idea who I’ve made it for as I didn’t have anyone in mind while I was making it, I just knew I wanted to make a Christmas Card on a big Vintage Style Post Card, with a sleigh on it and some tinsel.  After that I just kind of winged it!  But have to admit that when I stood back and looked at it once finished,   I loved it  …  and hope you like it too.

Have you made any Christmas Cards yet?  I’ve done a little Christmas Shopping, but making cards just …. well, it still feels too early for me.  Tell me what you feel about it.  I’d like to know that I’m not alone in this feeling … but I’m starting to think I am.  eeeek!

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A ~ K.I.S.S. ~ Card … about Friends

I’ve been trying to K.I.S.S my cards over the past few weeks. No not  ‘Kiss’ – as in ‘kiss on your cheek’.  K.I.S.S.   Right now you might be saying  “What the heck is K.I.S.S.?”  . . . .  K.I.S.S.  is short for:  ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’.

I’m a bit of a lover of embellishments and falderals.  I love those extra little happy touches.  But the problem with these things is that it adds so much depth to a card which means having to make deeper boxes for them, and then that adds to the cost of posting them and … well I told myself that I had to try harder at making cards which were less ‘deep’.  I  challenged myself to make  K.I.S.S. cards.

As you can see from this card –  I failed slightly.  I ‘had’ to add a butterfly to it.  Forgive me … I needed some sparkle and joy.  But this butterfly, although on the large(ish) size, it isn’t actually that deep, so it still fits inside a regular envelope! (although … I’d add a little layer of either bubble wrap or line the envelope with extra card to protect it).

This was an incredibly easy to make card.  Here’s what I used:

The stamps all came from ‘Emily’s Garden’ collection from Card-io Majestix Stamps.

Card-io Stamps are such versatile stamps and you can make so much from them, for all sorts of things from Tags to large cards to Scrapbooking,  for all through the year or for a particular time of year such as Christmas.  (I’ll do a post just about Card-io Stamps at some point as I’d love you to ‘meet’ them.).

I chose colours of stamp pads, and got to work.

Using a 6×6″ white scored card, I masked off a section of the card which would be wide enough for the ‘rub on’ sentiment I’d chosen to fix to the card.

Although I have masking tape, I’ve never got great results when I’ve masked off on cards, and have found that it can pull off sections of card stock.  So I now use Washi Tape. (hence the roll of green Washi that you can see in the photo).

Once masked off I then stamp the leaves and ferns – in the green ink pads I’ve chosen.  Wiping my stamp off between changing colours, using a baby wipe.  Then do the same with the flowers (only using the other colours you’ve chosen for the flowers) – again wiping the flower stamps between colour changes.

 

Once done remove the Washi Tape carefully – and the next bit is optional:  Using a Micron pen, I butt my ruler up against the stamping and draw a thin line along it on both sides.  But – again – this is optional.

Add your sentiment – either a die cut or rub on, or sticker,  and Voila!  You can finish the card right there.  Or you can be like me and go on to add a little something extra to make it yours.

This was so SO close to being a K.I.S.S. card.  I was almost there.  I shall try harder next time.

Well that’s me done and dusted.  🙂

I trust that you’re going to have an excellent Wednesday.  If a gremlin gets into your day then just mentally show it the door and be done with it.  It’s just a day … really doesn’t matter what it’s called,   you just have to make the decision that it’s going to be a good one.

Sending oodles of love and squishes to your corner from mine…

Bottoms Up! … in Mr. McGregor’s Garden.

I love making cards for people,  but ‘once in a blue moon’,  the card I made might not feel like it ‘fits’ the person I’d made it for. And that’s exactly what happened last week.

I made a card to say ‘thank you‘ to my blogging friend, Hannah (she of the wonderful hat pins), but somehow the card didn’t feel right to me.  There was nothing actually wrong with the card, but it didn’t seem to ‘fit’ the person I was making it for.  I wanted something which was fun.  Something with a smile.  One that sort of held a visual ‘squidge’ from me, sent in a card, over the miles.  So I decided that I’d have to start again.  I looked around my craft room for inspiration and my eyes rested upon a stamped image held in a big peg, at the back of my desk, and suddenly a  LIGHTBULB MOMENT  happened!  I knew the card to make.

Readers may remember an image I stamped last week, in Part One of the Guide(ish) to Stamping …  this is one of the images I stamped:-

I’d put that stamped image in one of those big fancy looking pegs which holds notes, receipts and ‘stuff’,   and I knew instantly that the card I needed to make was going to be made using that image of the Mommy Rabbit hugging and giving her baby a squidge.

Mr. McGregor’s Garden (from the wonderful  ‘Tales of …’   stories written by Beatrix Potter) popped into my mind as I looked at the rabbits hugging,   and that’s where the idea for the bit of fun I wanted the card to have, came from!

I got my air dry clay out  …  and made four flat backed plant pots and a little trowel to go with them.  The clay is white, so, when the pots and trowel were dry, I chose two colours of acrylic paint for the pots – but instead mixing them together to make one new colour, I kind of swirled them into each other, in a figure of 8 kind of swirling motion, so that when I picked up some paint on my brush, I picked up both of the colours at the same time, in a sort of smudges of each colour way, rather than just one colour.  What I was hoping to achieve was a set of pots which looked as if they were old;  pots that had been through the wars;  a little battered and looked like they really did belong in Mr. McGregor’s garden.

I wanted pots that looked old and a little bit battered.  Kind of like the ones in this photo.

While the paint on the pots dried,  I worked on the stamped image.  It was stamped on snow white card, but I wanted it to sort of suggest that we were peeping and looking at a tender, private moment of the mummy and baby rabbit having a cuddle together (or as my Grandson calls it … “a tuddle.”).  I blended two tones of browns using Memento stamp pads, (one a soft caramel brown and then went in again using a deeper brown colour),  and blended them  around the sides of the card which the image was stamped on so that it drew your eye ‘into’ the image and make you feel that you’re looking through or ‘into’ something … A port-hole?  A window?  Nooo… you’re looking down a rabbit hole of course!

if you scroll up and compare it to the original stamped image on white card, you can see the difference.

Next …  making rabbit bottoms!  (There’s a phrase you don’t hear every day!)  I wanted to do three different sizes of rabbit bottoms,  (ok, this is making me giggle now.  ‘Making Rabbit Bottoms’ … that’s what I should have called this post! LOL)  … and in three different colours.  I didn’t want to do the accepted tan, brown, black or white which you would normally see as colours of rabbits, but wanted to play up the ‘fun‘ so made rabbit bottoms in unexpected colours.  I had to trim down the purple woollen pom-pom for the middle rabbit … and that, I’m tellin’ you, is easier said than done!

Twice I cut through the little bits of wool in the middle which holds the whole pom-pom together!,  (talentless or uselessness on my part I fear), and at this point I had just ONE purple pom-pom left  so the pressure was on!  I had to try really hard to not cut through this last one!  By now my desk was covered in bits of purple woolly fluff, and tons of tiny purple wool fibres floating in the air.  Nightmare!  It was stuck to my hands, to my face, to my eyelashes.  It was going up my nose (and making me sneeze) and . . .  My clothes looked like I was a purple bunny murderer!

But …  I got there in the end … in a fashion.  lol  🙂

I added bunny feet in contrasting colours – dotting on ‘toes’ using some fine liners,  and then adding tails made from fibres of the same coloured felt I’d used for their feet – (just cut up a bit of felt into tiny little bits, then chop them as much as you can with tiny snips until eventually they give in and become fluff).  However … the little yellow bunny on the end … her tail was easy to make.  I had enough purple fluff to make purple bunny tails for all the rabbits of the world!

I chose some pretty pink with cream dots background paper from my stash – which began life as a 12″x 12″ sheet, and I trimmed it to size.   It was already slightly vintaged, so all I had to do to it was add some light(ish) caramel brown ink, but with its toes dabbling in a terracotta colour, into the outer edges of the paper.  I added this same paper to the inside of the card too, to carry the colours through the card.

I fixed the bunny bottoms to the pots, and added the pots to the card.  To finish the card off … I added the sentiment, and voila!  A smiley, fun card for my blogging friend.  It was just as I wanted.  Something to say ‘thank you’, and send warm smiles, and a squidge, through the post. 

My blog friend has received the card, so I can now share it with you without spoiling the surprise.

I don’t think I’ve missed anything …  but if I have please do ask about what you need to know, – by just putting your ‘want’ into a comment. I promise I’ll reply.

(Incase you’re new to the blog here: you can post a comment really easily – simply click the little speech bubble at the head of this post – just to the right hand side of the title – and that will take you directly to the comments)

Aaanyhoo  …  Happy Monday, and Happy 1st of August!   When it gets to August my thoughts always turn to …. the dreaded C word.

Yes, you guessed correctly   … Christmas!

But … I shall stop right now  (as the Spice Girls once famously sang)  because before the C word can be dealt with I have a birthday to deal with… or rather …. a couple or so birthdays – so I should concentrate on those first.  (Apart from the one birthday … I never send a card for that particular birthday girls special day because .. well because it’s me and my birthday.  LOL.   Ha!  just when you began to think I was being mean to someone!) LOL  🙂

Well that’s me done and dusted so I shall shut up  –  and you can stop your bottom from going numb.  🙂  ….  are you singing that Spice Girls song now?  “Stop right now, thank you very much, I need someone with a human touch.  Hey you, always on the run better slow it down baby, better have some fun.”.  Well if you weren’t, I bet you are now.  [cackling laugh heard through the corridors]. ut ohhhhh….  I’ve given you an ear worm!  If it gets too annoying start singing the ‘Happy Birthday to you’ song … over and over until you forget to sing it.  And .. if that ear worm comes back, simply repeat the singing of the Happy Birthday song.  Eventually it will push off and leave your brain song free!

May today bring you warm smiles, happy moments and, remember to  . . .  have a memory making moment at some point today.

Sending you ‘tuddles’ and squidges ….

 

 

 

Friday Post:- Things I’ve learned this week!

I’m hoping to begin a ‘Friday Post’, as each Friday comes around (and boy do they come around quicker the older I get!).  Each week I find I’m learning something(s) new and hoping to share these with you  …  if my one remaining brain cell remembers to do this, of course.

Before I branch out into this weeks life’s lessons can I just take a moment to say  ….

Hello and Welcome to a handful of new followers who have joined us.  It’s fabulous to have you joining the team here and so lovely to see and meet new folks.  Please don’t be shy.  Chat to me and the rest of the great team in a comment, so that we can get to know each other.  Talking in blog land is something I heartily encourage as otherwise it’s just like another Facebook – and we don’t need another one of those.  So … in the words of someone famous though sadly not here with us anymore...  Can we talk?

Anyhoo … here’s what I’ve learned this week:

1.  As I’m sat here right now, in my favourite grey t.shirt which is all wet down the left hand side (visibly wet), I’ve learned that I should ensure I put the cap  PROPERLY  on my plastic see through squash tumbler/flask before I tuck it into the crook of my arm and hold it firmly against my body (left br3@st) so that when I bend slightly to pick up the crafting freebies which came with my magazine this morning, the said ‘orange squash’ doesn’t leak all over my t.shirt,  causing me to look for all intents and purposes like a heavily lactating new mother!  (*Dear God, it’s me again.  Can you make sure no one comes the door right now because I look a total mess.  thank you God ~ me. x).

2.  I’ve learned this week not to put my glasses (spectacles) down on my crafting surface, anywhere near where I’ve dropped a small bit of the opaque, removable Scotch tape which I use to keep my dies in place during the cutting process in the machine.  Because … if  that tiny bit sticks to a lens of my glasses, I instantly think I’ve gone ‘wonky’ in one eye and a tiny bit of panic steps in.  (Hey, so much  is going wrong with me over the past .. what?  Donkeys years??  –  yeah, that will do, – that a wonky eye just seemed like another laugh which my body was having at my expense).

3. I’ve learned to stop checking if air dry clay is  …  dry yet?.  . . .  And now?  . . .   Is it ready Now?  . . .  And NOW? [sigh]  Leave the darn thing alone over-night, woman! [double sigh]

4. I’ve learned that there are some of the most incredibly wonderful people in blog land, who turn from blogging pals, into blogging friends,  into incredible blessings in my life.

Mentioning no names   (The Artisan Duck).  . . .  I had a lightbulb moment a few weeks ago when perusing a blogging pals blog, and I mentioned the idea in a comment to her.

She took that idea and had a play around and improved on it, and from that initial play, she produced the most incredible, darling Hat Pins,  which the scrapbookers and card makers amongst us like to use in our crafting.  But .. Hannah’s  whoops I almost forgot I wasn’t mentioning any names – these Hat Pins are different and so wonderful for card makers/scrapbookers because …

• instead of the mile long hat pins (which Hat pins are normally made in), Han  … ‘Miss Maker & Amazing Talented Artist’ makes her hat pins on shorter, lighter weight, pins, so that we crafters don’t face either having to try to cut pins down (a dangerous affair as I know to my cost)
• or trying to work out a way of covering up a huge stem of a hat pin in ways which we really don’t want to. 
• Neither do they weight a card in such a way that they cost more to post,
• nor drag the front of a card forward or even make it fall down because of the weight. 
• Neither are we faced with trying to ‘hide’ the sharp points of the pins so that the receiver or someone in their family doesn’t get stabbed by the point of a hat pin.

In photographs the pins look great.  But in real life …  the pins are little stunners.  The beads and pearls on the pins twinkle and shine and sparkle beautifully, and the length is totally perfect.  More than perfect.  And on cards – they are the perfect length.

How do I know this?  –  My blogging friend sent me the selection of pins to say thank you for the idea . . .

. . .  and a handmade card, made by her herself with two of her pins added as embellishments. 

See the two handmade hat pins?  Aren’t they pretty!

I’ve had ideas popping out of my head and fingers for donkey’s years and I’ve shared them with the folks who I thought might like the idea(s), but this is the first time anyone has ever made me feel like Hannah has. She validated my suggestion, and let’s be honest here, we all need validation sometimes in our lives.  I had ‘an idea‘. Nothing else. Just an idea which I shared with her.  Hannah liked the idea, ran with it, (not while holding scissors) and then thanked me and is thinking of making them and putting them for sale.  (I hope she does because I’d buy these.)

 I know I simply won’t be able to give these particular pins up by using them on cards because … well to me, they’re not a ‘for crafting’ item, these are a special gift, handmade and given to me from a special blogging friend.  No, I cannot part with these, not for all the tea in China.  They’re mine. 

So … I’m wiser (and older) this Friday, but not just for the 4 points mentioned above.

What about you?  Have you learned anything this week?  Do share!  If it’s something funny then you’ll make us laugh.  If it’s something you’ve cried over, we’ll hold your hand and cry with you.  If it’s something which has made you wiser .. tell us and share the wisdom.

[Looks down at her t.shirt]  …..  ooo goody!… it’s dry now!   (Hello God, it’s me again.  You can cancel that last request and let folk come to the door.  The t.shirt is dry now.  Thank you.  ~ me. x)

Wishing you a truly great Friday and promising that normal service (of crafting and making a beautiful mess with scraps and glittery things) will be resumed on Monday.  In the meantime … I’m cleaning my craftroom.  It looks like someone had a right old paddy in there at the moment.  I swear I don’t make THAT much mess when I’m crafting – so it certainly can’t be me! (I bet it’s that cat of mine!) lol.  We also have our own little star coming to stay over the weekend, and although we love, love, love to have him – but we both feel twice our age by the time he’s gone. 🙂

Have a truly wonderful weekend all.

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How could I have forgotten that I loved Anna?

I wanted to make a special card for someone who is such a really lovely person, but I wanted to make it in a way that perhaps she hadn’t seen from me before so I sat and I puzzled over it until my brain got sore and then ….  I spotted a box on a shelf in my craft room and DING!  A big exclamation mark appeared over my head!

I’ve had some Anna Griffin die cuts in a box for quite some time, and, well, you know how it is, you make something, and then another thing, then another, and then you decide that you want a change so you pop things back on the shelf and, over time, they kind of get forgotten.  Well that’s what happened with the Anna Griffin die-cuts.

I sat in my craft room chair and opened the box (feeling a little like Pandora), and it was right at that moment a light inside my brain shone like a Christmas Angel.  “Ohhh dearest die cuts, how could I have forgotten about you, my darlings?  You are perfection” I said lovingly to the die cuts – like some weirdo.

So … I made a card with them!  Other than this (wordy) introduction, there’s not much to say about this card because it kind of tells its own story as you look at the photos, so without further ado …  may I present …  Flowers for my Friend …. [round of applause can be heard as the curtain goes up  …   stops halfway,  . . .  a whirring, grinding noise can be heard,  but then   . . .   with a bit of fiddling,  up it finally rises] . .

I had to hold the card in one of those big peg things,   that’s what you can just see at the bottom there.  It’s not my fingers, ’cause those are fatter than that peg. {snigger}

The outside of the card is a pretty card but it’s also pretty ‘normal’.  However … it’s the inside where the action is, for this card is meant to be displayed open.

When you open the card there’s a lot more going on than you might think from the outside.  {kind of like my good self … only in my case there’s a lot less going on than you hope for}

As you move the card around you get to see different things which you might not have noticed before .

Ta daaaah!  Like magic!  You can now see how the individual layers of how the card works.

Looking from the other side

Slightly blurry in places.  The camera has a self focusing thing and wanted to focus on those pansies.  In the end I gave up fighting with it and let it do whatever it darn well liked, because it wasn’t going to let me win.

And a final look at the front again, just incase you’ve forgotten what it looked like …

See … told you it wasn’t my fingers holding the card! {pulls out tongue and waggles it}

And that’s all there is to it!

Ok … let’s get down and dirty now …

The HEAT.  The TEMPERATURE HERE IS ALL WRONG.  IT’S TOO,  TOOOOOOOO  HOT!!  I feel dirty all the time and I don’t like dirty.   Mr. Cobs thinks I’ve developed one of those OCD things  … I keep washing my hands, and arms, right up to the elbows, because it’s such horrid, sticky weather.

Now don’t get me wrong…  I’m not complaining about the Summer, nor the fabulous Sunshine. But surely there is no need to roast a Cobweb in this unseemly fashion?

I’m sat here with the ceiling fan on at full throttle.  I have a large desk top fan on the coffee table, doing its gentle wave, back and forth, like the Queen waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace.  And … I have a large air coolant machine, (which is darned noisy but worth the noise) in the hallway, facing into the living room, so that all my fur pals can keep cool.

Our living room, and leading halfway into the hallway, looks like the aftermath of a murder scene right now.  Four bodies are waiting for forensic Science to come and put white tape around them,  take swabs, and hairs and … whatever else they do in those white J-Cloth suits which they wear.  

Three Cats and one rather rotund Dog,  who has a big, chubby pink belly which I like to blow raspberries on because it makes her wriggle and snuff,  (but enough of my peccadilloes),  are all  looking, for all intents and purposes, like dead things.  I’d love to take a photo, but the minute I turn the darn thing on these four all know that little noise which the camera makes and they all sit up to see what the divil I’m up to now.  So I won’t photograph them, I’ll leave them to rest, because they need it.  If I’m too hot and I only have three items of clothing on, then these wonderful creatures are way hotter because they’re all wearing fur coats!

Oh look at me rambling on.  It’s the heat.  It’s addled that one last remaining brain cell.  I shall shut up – except to say …  Have a wonderful Wednesday.  Do something nice for someone else today.  Give them one of your smiles.  Tell someone you’ve never met before, that they look pretty/handsome/striking/attractive   .. anything nice. Lovely.  Anything to bring them joy.  By doing so, I promise you’ll get far more joy in return.  Go on.  Do something nice for someone else today.  I dares ya!

Have a  blessed day my friends.  Thank you for coming to share a coffee with me round the kitchen table.    Heaps of love  to you and yours ~

 

 

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A Celebration? Put it on a Pin Board!

I made a Pinboard Card for someone a couple of years ago and made it really personal to them.  I resized some photographs and made them small enough to ‘pin’ to the pinboard, along with a few other bits and pieces, so that the whole card was themed especially for this person.

I’ve been thinking about that card recently and remembering how much I loved it when it was finished,  and wishing that I’d taken a photograph of it at the time, (as usual, I forgot),  so I thought I’d make another Pinboard card, only this time I’d make it for anyone.  I’d make it in such a way that it could  eventually  be personalised by adding small photos or a note of love or … well – anything really!

This is a really easy card to make, so easy in fact that I can just give you photo’s with a few details …  you’ll see how easy .…

Made on a white 8″x 8″ white card, of a decent weight, as this has to take a few embellishments.

Mat and layer mirror board to the card, then before adding the next layer, cut your paper or cardstock to size and fix ribbons in place to make the pin board … then .. 

Next …  You have to punch holes through your ribbon and paper/card stock so that you can add ‘pins’ (brads) to the pin board.  If you don’t have a long arm punch (Mine is the Crop-a-Dile Big Bite you see in the picture) you could instead fix the ribbon in place on the cross sections using glue dots or double-sided tape, then put buttons as the pins instead of brads.  …

All my favourite brads are all by Kuretake (and I have a fair old selection of them too!).

I used to live a short distance away from the Kuretake head office and every year they would have one day set aside for crafters to visit them and buy from a large selection of their products all priced at a slightly reduced price.  Ohhhh they were the best ever days!  The people there are SO nice,  truly amazing people, full of advice and help.  Nothing is too much trouble and I can honestly say that because of these days I love the Kuretake Company.  And because of these wonderful days, I have rather a lot of Kuretake products – from specialist pens to embellishments to … brads!, and I love them all.

Aaanyway .. back to the card….   Once you’ve fixed your brads/buttons in place, you can then add your embellishments.

• If the person you’re sending the card to is poorly, then you could add a ‘fake’ little prescription and make a mini box of tablets to fix to the board.
• Or if someone is having a baby .. you could add paper booties (or tiny real knitted ones) and hang them on the board using a button.
• Getting Married?  Put a miniature card on the pin board, of their wedding invitation .. simply scan their invite and then resize it on your computer, print it out and VOILA!
• Engaged
• Anniversary
• …  or anything. (apart from sad occasions – this really wouldn’t work for those days) 

Such an easy card to make and such a versatile design.  You just choose the right colour(s) and personalise it and *there* is the perfect card!

Well now it’s time for a weather report from our new weather girl Cobs:- 

….  as I’m typing this I’m melting like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, who had the water thrown over her.  The weather here is too hot, very humid, very steamy (and not in a good way), and very sticky.  It’s the sort of weather that makes you want to get in the shower two minutes after you’ve stepped out of it.  It’s so blooming tiring too!   I was going to share the temperature with you, but I’m too worn out to walk out to the decking and check the thermometer. tsk tsk! (Is that lazy,  old,  or just heat affected?  Actually,  thinking about it,  it’s probably all three!)

I’ve had a word with God  (“Hello God, it’s me again”   . . .   is the way I usually start off and He doesn’t seem to mind me being so informal) …  and I’ve asked if He could please turn down the Heavenly thermostat which is labelled  ‘Earth’,  and so I’m hoping that things will be cooler tomorrow.

Well that’s me done and dusted, except to wish you a very happy Monday.  May your days this week be gentle, joyous and leave you smiling at bedtime.

Remember to make some happy memories as you go through your days.  Smile,  today.  Make that memory, today.   Make someone else smile, today.  Let’s do it to them before they do it to us  (smiling that is.).

Have a truly blessed day my friends ~

 

 

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Just for You … with Altenew

I will pop the TV on to take a gander at Create and Craft (UK) now and again when I’m crafting up a storm in the craft room, and sometimes spot things that I’ve not seen before. This happened recently when they were showing some new stamps called ‘Altenew’.  A lady was on-screen demonstrating these new stamps (new to me) which I’d not seen before so I watched to see what they were.

If you’ve ever stamped with Card-io stamps then these are very much similar to those – although they’re bigger.  But the idea is the same, being that you use a variety of stamps in order to build up a unique picture or scene.  The postage and packaging charges push the prices up of anything bought on C&C so I looked around on the internet to see if I could find the stamps anywhere else at a cheaper price, and as luck would have it I found a small craft shop not far from where I live, called My Mums Craft Shop  ~  link: www.mymumscraftshop.co.uk  ~ who sell Altenew stamps.  They didn’t have the stamps I wanted in stock one the day I phoned, but they were waiting for a delivery, and the (really lovely) lady on the phone told me that they would be there within about ten days, after they’d made it through customs in our country, so I asked to be notified when the stamps were available for sale, and as promised I was emailed just over a week later.  (I can’t quite remember how much this craft shop charges for postage and packaging, but I know it impressed me and I vowed that I’d shop there again).

At the same time as buying a selection of the stamps I also bought two sets of Altenew stamp cubes.  And this post is how I got on with the stamps and stamp pads on my first use and sharing the card I made using the stamps.

I wanted to play with the Vintage Roses stamps, so decided that I’d just do some happy stamping to start with, in order to get a feel for the stamps and see how well the ink pads worked.  The following four photos are images stamped onto some scrap card out of my scrap drawer.  I perhaps should have chosen something a little better, as the ink wanted to bleed on this card, hence the smudgy outlines of the different colours.  But .. I was only playing so wasn’t overly bothered  ….

This ‘2 rose’ image was made using (for each stamp) 4 different stamps.  If we just look at the bigger of the two roses – you might just be able to see that there are actually  4 colours used.  Very pale pink;  a rosy pink;  a deep pink with a tad of purple added;  and finally an almost vintage style red.  All these different colours go onto 4 totally different stamps, (one colour per stamp) which will, when stamped, make up all the layers of the petals of the rose, and add the shadows and hi-lights.

I added a third rose, a rose bud and some leaves, all stamped with Altenew stamps in the same Vintage Roses stamp set.

Same stamps, this time using a selection of 4 different blue inks – from the Altenew Stamp Cubes.

The same roses –  only this time in Yellow.

By this time I’d got the idea, so decided to make a card and this card was the result:

Card made using papers from the Floral Muse range from Dovecraft plus  a sentiment “Just for You” from the same Floral Muse range,  and stamped images using the Altenew Vintage Roses.

I stamped the rose images a few times, so that I could fussy cut them and create a 3D decoupaged image of the roses, building up certain parts more than others, in order to give it the right ‘feel’.

Taken from an angle so that you could see the ‘layers’ of the 3D decoupaged roses.  If you look carefully you’ll just about be able to see the little foam pads between the layers.

I carefully dragged a glue pen around the rose petals and over some parts of the leaves, and sprinkled them with glitter dust, to give them a magical twinkle.

The Butterfly was stamped using an image from a set of stamps in the Floral Muse range, by Dovecraft.  I stamped it using a quick dry fluid chalk ink pad in a colour called ‘Rusty Bucket’.

The wide, pink Organza ribbon was wrapped all the way around the front of the card so that it continued onto the inside.  Added to the top of the ribbon inside was a sentiment stamp using the same ‘Rusty Bucket’ chalk fluid ink pad, – the sentiment stamp is from a small collection made by Jayne Nestorenko.

It needed a box, because I feared that the roses would get crushed in the post, as this one is going to the other side of the world, so a box was called for…

I made up a white 6×6″ box, but then sprayed it using some Lindys Stamp Gang sprays in two different colours, which matched the papers on the card really well.  I stamped another rose and some leaves this time using a different set of Altenew rose stamps, and once I’d cut the images out, I attached them to the top of the box – only this time the rose and leaves are flat against the box lid so making wrapping and posting easier and safer.

After using these new stamps, how do I feel about them?   Well actually I quite like them.  They give me the opportunity to make something unique and to make it personal, and gear it towards the person I’m making it for.  And … it stops all that fiddling about trying to get different colours of ink onto different parts of a stamp.  With this design it makes everything simple!

The ink cubes …  well the colours are nice…  and they’re VERY juicy, but to be brutally honest I did question if they perhaps had been used before.  The edges of the stamp pads were a bit ragged, as if they were old(ish).  After using them I concluded that they were so juicy they couldn’t possibly be old because they weren’t dried out at all, but I was disappointed on how ragged they were around the edges of the pad bit of the ink pad.  However .. they worked in the right way and they did what they said they’d do on the pot.

The blue roses were made using the Altenew Stamp Cubes.  The Red (pinky) roses and Yellow roses were made using Dew Drops ink pads in four different colours, and all the leaves were stamped using Dew Drops.  So if you have the colours already I think I’d say that you can use your own colours of pads – but make sure you have the right amount of different shades so that you can make the rose … or any other of the stamps which Altenew make.  (and they make quite a lot!)

May I just take a moment to say that I haven’t been paid money or given any crafting goodies for sharing my experience of Altenew Stamps or Stamp Ink Cubes.  Neither have I been encouraged, paid money, nor promised products or discounts to share my experience of the craft shop where I found the stamps I bought.  I don’t work for either of these companies.  I’m just a crafter who’s happy to share experiences with other crafters in order to make our crafty lives happy. 

I’ve really enjoyed playing with these stamps and like the card I made for my friend.  I think she’ll like it too.  There’s nothing so lovely as receiving a hand-made card from someone.

Well, Summer seems to have arrived – although we did have some spectacular thunder and lightning storms a couple of days ago, which scared me half to death and had two of my cats hiding under the furniture, and the dog barking her head off.  It sounded like a war zone … or what I imagine a war zone to sound like.  BOOM.  BOOM! …  rumble … rummmmmmble. (rain starts)  BOOOM ~~  KerBOOM  ~~  BOOOOOM!  I darn near joined the cats under the sofa, I’m telling you!

It’s also very hot here – humid and sticky and tiring.  I keep yawning – and I actually fell asleep in the chair on Monday afternoon!  I think I need to think like the Spanish and take siestas during the summer.  Ahhhh… just the thought is making me smile.

Well, that’s me done and dusted.  I wish you a very happy Tuesday and leave you with a few words to make your smile a little wider ….

Always remember to forget
The things that made you sad
But never forget to remember
The things that made you glad.

Always remember to forget
The friends that proved untrue
But never forget to remember
Those that have stuck by you.

Always remember to forget
The troubles that have passed away
But never forget to remember
The blessings that come each day.

Have a truly blessed day all.  Remember to stop at some point during your day and smile as you make a memory.

Heaps of love and Cobwebby squidges . . .

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Challenging myself to be Gorjuss!

If you’re anything like me, you will look at the freebies which come with crafty magazines, admire them and tell yourself that you’ll make a card with them, or scrap-booking page or do something wonderfully crafty with them … and you pop them to one side.  From there they make it to a drawer.  Then to the bottom of said drawer.  Then you find them when you’re looking for something else and remember you were going to make something with them, so you put them on one side ….  and the whole thing goes round and round like a merry-go-round.

Well I told myself that I was to actually make something with my freebies from now on, so I began with these Gorjuss images.  Now I’m not a Gorjuss sort of girl.  I like the images and think those little girls are just so pretty and so well drawn.  But they’re not things I would normally craft with as I don’t kind of have a real ‘feel’ for them.  I think they’re kind of ‘too sweet’ for me.  (My daughter is the total opposite.  She LOVES Gorjuss cards etc.).

I sat and looked at the images , telling myself that I HAD to make four cards or I was NEVER  leaving that craft room (not even for a visit to the little girls room).  So I did.  I made four cards.

All the cards are made on a 6×6″ card base, dècoupaged,  matted and layered. 

This first card is dècoupaged (although you actually can’t see that it is in this photo) has the addition of Black Lace Washi tape, and some black Stickles at the corners.  The envelope is decorated up with a bumble-bee on the flap.  I wanted to put a foxes head on the flap of the envelope (as a nod to the fox in the Gorjuss picture) but couldn’t find the darn stamp.

This second card (above) is again dècoupaged, and I simply drew the wriggly lines around the lovely pale mustard layer, to sort of frame the whole thing.  The envelope is decorated in the same way, with patchwork hearts to echo the little heart she has in her hair.

Card three (above), dècoupaged, matted, layered and decorated using a very fine nib pen, and I added some buttons using lilac Stickles to bring out the lilac in the Gorjuss girly picture;   a teeny mushroom picture which I glossed and added a ribbon too.  The envelope is decorated with a dragonfly.  (I couldn’t get the light right for this card.  The pink spotted background is actually more delicate and pale than it looks in the photo).

Finally … card four.   Dècoupage, matted, layered, with the addition of a little ribbon and some Stickles. The envelope has a rabbit’s head on it, to acknowledge that the Gorjuss girl obviously likes rabbits because she’s holding one!

They’re not my usual type of card and I was absolutely outside my comfort zone, but I’ve done my personal challenge and made something with some of my freebies instead of adding continually to my stash.  But I’m glad I challenged myself to do them.  However – the challenge is ongoing.  I still have more freebies stashed away, and I’m determined to use them! (You have been warned.) 

All that remains is to wish you a very Happy Monday, and I sincerely hope that you have a lovely start to this new week.  Make a memory today.  Find one good thing which happened during the day and think about it when you go to bed tonight.  Go on … make yourself smile

Have a truly blessed day, my fellow blogging friends and readers.

Easter Blessings

Since it’s Easter, I thought I’d share a little 5×5 card I made for a neighbour.

Not many people I know send Easter cards anymore – which is a shame as it’s such a lovely custom and a wonderful opportunity to share a loving ‘wish’, caring thought or just to say I love you.  Something to show you care.  My neighbour is such a lovely lady,  and a true blessing to have in our lives so I wanted to make her a card for Easter.   I decided on a clean, simple design, but with enough of a difference to make it handmade, rather than shop bought.

I die cut two crosses.  One in a filigree lace type of cut, and the other a solid cross, in plain, pale lilac.  I chose a gentle yellow colour which kind of had a hint of mustard, for the background.

Next, I typed out the words Easter Blessings on the computer using Photoshop, and found a font I liked, then I duplicated the typed layer, making the front layered words to be a darker lilac sort of purple, and the duplicate layer of words, behind, in a paler lilac.  I printed it out on white card, then die cut it, then used the same shape of die only in a larger size, and die cut a lilac mat for the sentiment.

I went back to work on the lacey cross, and popped it into a spray box (old cardboard box) and sprayed it with some spray adhesive, leaving it to dry a little – so that I could cover the cross in silver leaf.

TIP … If you dust your hands with a little baby talc before you use silver any colour of leaf, it will help to stop it from sticking to your hands.

I glued the silver leafed cross to the plain lilac cross so that you could see the lilac through the cut out parts. And while it dried,  I added the sentiment to the front of the card.

I wanted to make the cross stand a little proud of the card – as if it was puffed up,   somehow raised in the centre.  So I added foam dots to the central area of the back, but used permanent glue dots to the very edges – so that it gave that padded out look which I was trying to achieve.

I left the inside totally plain so that I could write the ‘To’ / ‘From’ and also had enough room to add a hand written message.

On the back …

Stamped using two stamps, both of which came free with a magazine a handful of weeks ago.  They work really well and I’m thrilled to bits with them!

Finally, on the flap of the envelope ….

It was really difficult to try and show the shimmery effect of the silver leaf on the cross and found that none of the photos I’d taken really did it justice, but I’ve lightened this next photo to try and show how it lights up in parts and kind of shimmers.

Happy Easter everyone.  I wish you a peace filled,  care free,  very blessed day.

Heaps of love …

🎼 ♩ ♫ Daisy, ♫ Daisy ♩ ♫ ♪ . . .

. . . .  ‘give me your answer do.  I’m half crazy …..’  . . . .  come along now.  join in!

Aw what are you like?!!  What a place to leave me hanging! – “I’m half crazy”  indeed!  Mind you,  it’s about right.  fnar, fnar.

Well, since last we met for coffee together,  many things have taken place here at the Cobweborium, amongst them:

• I had a Birthday.
• Mr. Cobs had a Birthday (it’s jealousy. He’s copying me.  He does it every year! pfft.);
• My littlest furry purry puddy-tat has been in a fight with we know not what or who, but the end result is a chewed ear, injuries on the top of her head and under her poor little neck.  However – she’s now proficient at detecting me approaching her by stealth, whilst holding cotton wool with antiseptic on it in order to bathe said injuries.  Boy oh boy can she MOVE!
• . . . and . . . my craft room computer died.  The Beast is deaded.  Totally.  Even the computer whizz kid son-in-law failed to give it the kiss of life.  I sat for days, in misery, mourning the loss of this wonderful machine.  It was the best computer I’d ever had.  SUPER DUPER fast – it knew what I wanted and had found the page before I’d finished typing the words in the search bar.  But …  brace yourself,  here’s the stoopid  …  I hadn’t backed up my stuff. [sigh – yes I know what you’re thinking because I’ve already thought it myself].  I’ve lost everything.  All my photo’s of family and friends, and pictures of things I’d made, and stuff I was working on.  Stuff for my albums, waiting for me to decorate up.  All gone.  There is a very small chance that I might be able to recover some things – and I will get some investigation done into that possibility.

I’ve now got a new computer which is an OK(ish) machine – but it’s not The Beast.  I’m loading things onto it and fiddling with it, trying to make it work for me in the way I like a computer to work.  I’m sure I’ll probably love it, one day, eventually, however, for now, it’s just a piece of machinery and I’m trying to make friends with it.

Anyway, – that’s what’s been happening in my corner of the forest –  and you’re not here to read about that, you’re here to see something crafty orientated, so I shall zip the lip and share some photographs of a card I made to keep myself out of mischief.

The Daisy, Daisy card

I started with white cardstock, cut & scored – but didn’t fold straight away, so making it easier to work on a flat surface. (This is to be an Easel Card – so an extra score line is added at the half-way mark on what is going to be the front of the card.).   I used some papers for the background which I’ve had in my stash for a good while, and printed out various bits from a CD Rom: Shabby Chic by Katy Sue – (I used the daisy set on the cd).

I fussy cut some of the daisies and a ‘postage stamp’, so that I could give depth and dimension to the card.

 Top tip  for fussy cutting:  Buy a DECENT pair of manicure scissors and use those instead of regular scissors.  The blades curve at the bottom and so you don’t end up cutting into your image.  You can hold the scissors curving in, or out – so can use them according to the ‘bit’ you’re cutting.

I got to work sticking and fixing. I ‘built’ the front of the card on a separate piece of 6″x6″ card stock, which matched the exact size of the card, but was flat and totally un-scored.

I added some cream cotton lace, in two designs and two paper doilies, and also cut a piece of grey/blue card stock, just a little larger than the postcard size, and embossed all around the edge, in a sort of scratchy, scruffy way. in gold embossing powder – in order to pick up the warm lemon shades in the papers, and also to give a nod to some Stickles, which you’ll see I’ve used, a little later.

In the ‘assembly’ stage, I added, from my stash,  some blue twine, buttons, a little wooden blue frame (from Docrafts),  and some paper butterflies cut from old book pages.

Once everything was in place, I then mounted this now made ‘front of card’ to the card itself.  But glued it only to the bottom half (below the score line I mentioned earlier) of the front of the card – in order for it to be an Easel Card.

I added Stickles – in a warm yellowy orange colour, to the centres of all the daisies (see the photo above) – to make them ‘ping’.  Once dry, it was time to work on the inside of the card.

Then, using some of the ‘daisy’ backing paper, again from the CD Rom,  I loaded it into Photoshop and copied and pasted a yellow based postcard [from the cd] onto the daisy paper.  I wanted a postcard so that the ‘greeting’ could be written on it, but I didn’t want to add depth, so doing it this way worked perfectly – as you see below: (you can click on any of the photos here and they’ll open up big size so that you can see them better)

To the bottom (roughly) third of the inside I added a strip of mottled card – again printed from the cd, but this time I fixed it in place with foam tape, so that when the easel card was opened, it would give the front of the card somewhere to buff up against, and keep it open.

The blue ribbon is rayon seam binding, the button was from my stash, and the beautiful white butterfly is actually an embroidered one, which  [I think]  I bought very cheaply from The Works (Britain’s leading discount book store – which also sells a variety of crafty things, amongst other ‘stuff’).

Yay …. an easel card is born!  Now to make a box for it to go into….

A matching daisy box – but with a difference.  I concentrated on more yellow tones for the box so that it ‘talked’ to the card, but was just different enough to make it special in its own way.  (Actually … after taking this photo above, I added a few more fussy cut postage stamps to the box, sprinkled around, in different sizes – which I felt gave the box a little more character).

Well, that’s me done and dusted.  What about you?  What have you been making or doing in the last three or so weeks?  If you’ve made a post on your blog that I’ve missed, then please add a comment to this blog post with a link to your creativeness (be it crafty or ‘bakey’, or written word) so that I can get straight to it and have a good ol’ read/look!  (And other readers can come and visit your blog too!)

Thank you SO much for coming and sharing a bit of your time with me.  I am, as always, very grateful to you for coming and when I say ‘thank you’ to you here, I really do mean it.

Sending love and squidges your way ….