Tuesday 21 June 2016

Brightly Coloured Flamingo Shakers :D



Some more brightly coloured Flamingo shaker cards :D I really loved the one I created a little while back on my blog, and I just had to try some more colour combos!!! Again I made this card using the free flamingo die from an Issue of Papercraft Essentials magazine :D

Distress Ink background colour combos:
Twisted Citron, Mermaid Lagoon and Blueprint Sketch
Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Abandoned Coral
Picked Raspberry, Abandoned Coral and Spiced Marmalade
Abandoned Coral, Picked Raspberry and Seedless Preserves

To create the background I used three Distress Inks and I blended them in an ombre effect. Once blended I used some water and a number 2 round paint brush to create some tiny little splashes of water and then lifted the colour with some kitchen roll... the big flower and leaf stamped in the background, are actually dies cut from funky foam, they are a die set from Sizzix for Craft Asylum, and I got them because I already had the coordinating stamp set (which is where the smaller flower and leaf are from, also a Craft Asylum set). I used one colour for the large flower, another for the small flower and the lightest colour for all the leaves (I really liked stamping the leaves to coordinate with the colour scheme rather than just in green as usual, I really need to remember to do this for future cards!!). I then decided that the background looked a little too plain, so my trusty piece of punchanella was used to create a little extra texture in the background :D. The next step was die cutting, I got the white panel ready using an MFT stitched rectangle stax die and the free flamingo die, then for the background I used my usual large stitched rectangle die from the MFT blueprints 13 die set and I also used the next die down from the one I used for the white panel (this was a brain wave, as I wanted to keep the background I'd created showing through the aperture of the flamingo, and trying to have lined this up would have been a nightmare, but using a small die to cut the centre of the background out worked a treat, and you can't even tell I did it :D). I then stuck some acetate to the back of the aperture and surrounded the rectangle with foam tape (with a few extra pieces to prop up around the flamingo). Now for the fun part of choosing the sequins :D I used a variety of micro beads and sequins for this in coordinating colours :D

Now for the assembly.... my new technique made this sooo easy, you literally just put the smaller rectangle straight over the back of the open shaker, then slot the whole shaker back into the hole in the background (and I added a little sellotape on the back just to keep it together). For the finishing touches I added a bit of white to the background (in the form of a few random white dots using my signo uni ball broad white gel pen), I also added a scattering of sequins across the front, the sentiment Hello Friend (using the same Craft Asylum stamps set and a banner die set from Avery Elle) then finally I also put some Spectrum Noir sparkle clear overlay on the three big stamped flowers in the background and over the sentiment too :D

To see the process behind this card design, please watch the YouTube video below, I also posted this in my previous Flamingo Shaker post:



Lots more photos of the different colour combos below :D








I'm entering this card design into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge 'Animal Magic'
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/

You're so Sweet Gumball Shaker :D


I love this Lawn Fawn stamp set, it is soo cute, and works brilliantly for multiple occasions :D I based this shaker card all around the boldly striped patterned paper in the background (this was from a 12x12 bold spots and stripes paper pad from Papermania) and this gave me the colour pallet from which I chose all my promarkers :D I love being able to make your main focal image match the patterned papers you've used, and I think I managed to get pretty good colour mathces (Promarkers: Khaki, Sandstone, Red, Ruby, Canary, Gold, Forest, Holly, Cyan, Agean, Cerise, Magenta and Indigo) :D I decided to make this a shaker card, and to make it much simpler to add foam tape around the opening, I decided to create the scene on a large stitched rectangle (the largest from MFT's stitched rectangle stax) and then just cut out the middle of the gumball machine, this means you have a really large area to add your foam! :D I also only needed to add one layer of foam tape as for the shaker elements I just stamped and coloured some of the gumball images, I also added a really thin layer of gloss to them too, you can just about see in the photo below :D ... I really enjoyed making this card, and you could easily make it as a birthday card too :D


I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Blog Challenge 'Use Patterned Papers'
 http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/

Monday 20 June 2016

Hello Geometric Stag :D


A really simple card... I used a couple of stitched rectangles (my usual favourite from MFT blueprints 13 and the largest from the MFT stitched rectangle stax) I used the Neon Geometric Capsule collection from Docrafts, I actually used the A5 paper pack which came free with an issue of Creativity, however both these papers are also in the A4 pack and the Ultimate die-cut pack too (but the scale of the pattern size is slightly bigger!). I also used the hello stamp (which was also free on an issue of Creativity, I think this was a different issue, but I can't remember exactly) and embossed this in Cosmic Shimmer detail gold embossing powder (this matched the gold of the mirri card I used for the stag). The stag is an Ultimate crafts die which I got from Craftstash a little while ago, and I cut this from some Anita's gold mirri card. To finish off the card I cut a matt of gold slightly bigger than the smaller stitched rectangle die I'd used to tie all the gold elements together :D The finishing touches were a scattering of 6 mm gold sequins and some tiny gold gems also from Papermania (Docrafts), and the gold heart (which looks like a gem) is actually a gold heart sequin which I covered in Anita's 3D gloss, and it looks brilliant :D :D



I'm entering this card into:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge 'Animal Magic'
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/
Simon Says Stamp Monday Blog Challenge 'Use Patterned Papers'
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/

Saturday 18 June 2016

Repeated Stag Cards :D


I've been a little bit addicted to cutting out funky foam using my dies at the moment, so I had to give it a go with this beautiful stag die. I cut the die from a piece of funky foam, then stuck it to an acrylic block by adding some Crafters Companion tape pen to the acrylic block, and then pressing the die cut onto it, and it holds it really well. I only used one die cut for all these cards, as its really easy to change between ink colours, you can just use a baby wipe to clean off any excess ink and then dry the surface of the foam with some kitchen roll before applying your next colour :D To get the stags nicely spaced apart I did draw a few vertical lines on the paper lightly with a pencil before I began stamping, that way the antlers would nestle in nicely to the neighbouring stag image :D I used a variety of Hero Arts ink cubes for the stamping, from left to right in the image above, they were: Green Hills, Tide Pool, Pool, Butter Bar, Orange Soda, Neon Red, Ultra Pink, Passion Flower, and finally for the monochrome card on the right I used Wet Cement :D In the photo below, you can see that I added a little sparkle to the happy die cut and the word banner using the Spectrum Noir clear overlay Sparkle pen :D




I'm entering this card design into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge 'Animal Magic'
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/

Father's Day 2016 :D



This is my attempt at this years Father's day card, I based my idea around the free pack of paper on this months Docrafts Creativity magazine, I just had to use it because its called 'Mr Smith's Workshop', and my Dad is Mr Smith lol :D Its a pretty simple shaker card, I used the MFT stitched rectangle stax to cut a rectangle from the faux corrugated card paper, and also used the Ultimate crafts Stag die which I got from Craftstash a little while ago (love this die!!). I then used some of the wood effect paper and cut the large stitched rectangle from the MFT blueprints 13 die set (my absolute favourite die!!!). The happy die is from Heidi Swapp's word die collection and the father's and day are cut from the upper case and lower case Apple Blossom alphabet dies (a brilliant alphabet!!) The gridded kraft card is from Papermania, and it was a 12x12 sheet which I cut down to make a custom sized card blank, roughly A6 size, so that you could still see the grid lines around the edge of the focal panel. I coloured the happy, and around the edges of the two rectangles with a gold pen, I got this from The Works ages ago, and I keep forgetting that I have it lol :D For the shaker elements I used some gold gems (this is the first time I've put gems in a shaker, but I think it really works, you've just gotta be careful to make sure they're round the right way before you seal them in!), some gold discs (which were actually some table confetti I got from Morrison's), some gold star sequins, and finally a mix of gold and silver microbeads :D I filmed the making of this video because recently when my Mum and I have been watching Youtube videos, my Dad keeps getting glued to them and keeps saying things like 'they're using so and so, they should have done this instead' etc pretending like he knows what he's talking about lol So I thought it would be funny if he watches the process behind his Father's Day card :D

To see the process behind this card, please watch my Youtube video below:






I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge 'Animal Magic' 
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/