Shine Bright :D

A Shimmery encouragement card made using the Hot-Air Balloon Die (as an aperture to make a light bulb) from issue 136 of Papercraft Essentials :D I chose to use the sentiment 'Shine Bright' for this card, but 'Who's a Bright Spark' would work brilliantly too :D

This was a fairly simple card to create, I started by choosing my background, and I decided on using this yellow patterned vellum with gold foiling from the Neon Geometric Capsule Collection from Docrafts (I've been wanting to use some of the vellum from the Ultimate Die-cut pack for ages, and I thought it would work perfectly here :D) I then cut my main panel from some white card, and used the Hot-Air Balloon die to cut an aperture (as soon as I saw this die, I thought 'I could use that outline as a light bulb!' I like doodling light bulbs so that's probably why it popped into my head :D) I also cut a mat for this rectangle that's just a tiny bit bigger from some grey card to tie the grey from the light bulb in with the rest of the card. To get your light bulb image, place a piece of plain white card behind your aperture and use a fine black pen to scribbly draw in your outline (I find the scribbly effect much easier to achieve :D) and for the filament of the bulb, you could either just leave it simple like I have, or you could even write a scripty word in it :D ...

To colour in my drawn light bulb I used Scattered Straw, Mustard Seed and Hickory Smoke Distress Inks and just lightly blended them onto the card, I also added some Clear Sparkle Pen, however as Distress is water based it did pull the colour up a bit, but if this happens just squish some of the Distress Ink onto a pallet and pick it up with the sparkle pen :D :D I could have made this a shaker card (but I seem to be a little bit obsessed with them lately lol) so I just added some acetate (to give the effect of glass) but didn't add any shaker elements :D I cut the 'Shine' part of the sentiment from some gold mirri card using the Apple Blossom uppercase and lowercase alphabet dies (I got the uppercase version free with a special issue of Die-Cutting Essentials) and the 'Bright' part of the sentiment was from a Christmassy Apple Blossom stamp set :D The final finishing touches were then a few stars, also cut from the same gold mirri, and I tried to strategically place them to cover up most of the notches that are present on the aperture of the balloon too, now it looks like I used a die that was meant to be a light bulb! (I used gold mirri for this card so that it would tie in with the gold foiling on the background vellum :D) Hope you like it :D

To see the process behind this card, please watch my YouTube video below or on my channel :D

A few close up photos below :D 

Hope you liked the card and the video! If you have any questions please leave them in the comments below :D Thank you!! :D

Love is in the Air :D

I made this card using the Hot-Air Balloon die from Issue 136 of Papercraft Essentials, I love this die, its so versatile, and so to mix it up a bit I thought I would cut into it and use it in a slightly different way :D (I've also used it in more of an abstract way too, and that card will be up in the next few days :D )

As I was creating a scene in this card, I started off by laying out all the dies I was going to use so that I had the rough layout in my head and knew which colours of card I would need to die cut (all the coloured card used is Creative Expressions Foundation Card)... I did also originally cut the balloon from purple card, but I changed my mind as I was making this card and opted for making a heart shaped balloon, and I thought the sentiment 'Love is in the Air' was just the perfect punny sentiment :D :D :D I used my usual favourite stitched rectangle dies from MFT and combined them with a few Lawn Fawn die sets (stitched hillsides, stitched journalling card (for the hearts) and spring showers). The banner die for the sentiment was from an Avery Elle die set and the heart for the balloon is from Creative Dies in their heart shaped nesting die set :D

The first step was to die-cut all my elements, I then started with the main panel, layering up the hills (where I used Twisted Citron Distress Ink to add some shading), the sun (where I used Canary and Gold Promarkers) and the clouds (where I used some Cool Grey Promarkers to tie them in with the other shaded elements) creating my scene :D The altered hot-air balloon was really easy to create I just used a sharp pair of scissors to carefully cut along the top of the three hearts to detach the basket and strings. The way to get the heart balloon to line up with the basket is really simple too, just position the bottom point of the heart in the centre of the middle heart of the basket. It doesn't matter that we can see this through the gap as we will fill in the little heart apertures with pink hearts :D I also added some shading to the heart balloon using a couple of Red Pro and Flex markers... I did change my mind a few times during this card so you'll see a little bit of that in the video :D Hope you like it though :D

To see the process behind this card, please watch my YouTube video below or on my channel :D

More close up photos below :D

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below and I'll do my best to get back to you :D :D :D

Pineapple Shaker Card :D

I made this card using the Totally Tropical dies, stamps and embossing folder set from issue 135 of Papercraft Essentials :D I love the vivid colours of a pineapple and I deffinetly made the most of that colour combo on this card lol :D I started by die-cutting my background panel and focal panel with the pineapple aperture, and I decided just to make the shaker part the bottom of the pineapple, so I only cut out the scalloped oval from the white panel. I then also cut plenty of the foliage, I felt like it needed to be a bit bushier, so layering three together works perfectly :D I cut them from some pastel green card and inked the edges with a little Cracked Pistachio and Evergreen Bough Distress Inks :D For the backer of the shaker, I cut a rectangle from the main background panel (to save card lol) and I inked it with a mix of Scattered Straw, Fossilized Amber and Brushed Corduroy Distress Inks and I stamped the detail of the pineapple with the Brushed Corduroy too :D

For the background, I created an ink blended ombre effect from Evergreen Bough, to Cracked Pistachio, to Scattered Straw and finished with Fossilized Amber :D I then decided to use the stamp from the set which was the bottom of a pineapple, and I used it as a kind of scalloped edge to my focal panel... I ended up stamping all this with my MISTI as when stamping with Distress Inks you often get a crisper impression when you multi-stamp an image :D I then splashed some water over the background to remove some colour, and I also stamped thanks a bunch in coordinating colours (Hero Arts Tide Pool and Butter Bar) as well. For the shaker elements, I used a mixture of chunky glitter, seed beads, micro beads and gold confetti circles (these were actually from Morrison's and were called table confetti)... I used Rich Cocoa Memento ink to stamp the sentiment and to tie this in with the rest of the card, I also used a small flower stamp from an Avery Elle set. Final finishing touches were a few white dots in the background using a white gel pen, and also a little bit of Spectrum Noir Clear Overlay Sparkle Pen :D Hope you like it :D

To see the process behind this card, please watch my YouTube video below, or on my channel :D 

A couple of close up photos below :D

Rose Shaker Card :D

A simple shaker card I made using the Altenew rose stamp and die set from issue 149 of Simply Cards and Papercraft :D I love Altenew stamps, and as soon as I saw you got the stamps and matching dies, I just had to get this magazine :D I love combining dies to make a unique shaped aperture, and I think the rose worked really well for this technique :D This card went through a few changes over the course of a couple of days (you can see part of this in the video below...) but I really like the finished card, I actually made two and I sent one of them to Simply Cards and Papercraft :D

The first step was to do most of the die cutting, I cut my usual favourite (the MFT large stitched rectangle from Blueprints 13) background panel and a stitched square (also MFT) from white card, then I lined up the rose die in the centre and cut this, next I decided on the placement of my 3 leaves and cut them one at a time (it doesn't matter that they're overlapping as when I add in the leaves later I can just tuck them behind the front leaf and the flower too :D)... Next step was to stamp the flowers and leaves, I chose my three colours (Pink: Memento Angel Pink and then Hero Arts Bubble Gum and Ultra Pink) (Green: two pigment inks from Hobbycraft and Green Hills from Hero Arts) and then decided to use my MISTI so I could darken the colours by re-stamping exactly over the previous image :D Top Tip: Keep the packaging and use it each time you line up a layer of the rose or leaves, the layers don't have to be stamped exactly as intended, but having the guide really helps :D I now needed to die-cut the flowers and leaves, they're really easy to line up, however (as you can see in the video below) I kept miss-aligning the leaves lol so to fix this I just used a co-coordinating colour Promarker to add a bit of colour to the side with too much white :D

I then decided what I wanted to layer behind the main square shaker panel, and I ended up choosing some pink patterned papers, so I used the next size up of the MFT stitched square stax :D It was a little bit fiddly getting the die-cuts lined up in the aperture however I found that if you taped (with low tack tape) the white square in the centre of the patterned paper, you could then attach the flower and leaves through the opening in the correct place :D Once I'd done this I then felt like the background panel was a little plain, so I used some punchanella and some Spun Sugar distress ink and lightly blended on a few patches of spots... I still wanted more in the background so I also used a lattice embossing folder from Darice to give some raised detail :D Now for the shaker part, I added a piece of acetate to the back of the die cut opening, and then added some 3D foam tape. For the shaker elements I used some iridescent heart sequins, some 5mm iridescent cup sequins and some large glass micro beads from Creative Expressions :D I made this shaker the other way up to normal, so I added the shaker bits on top of the rose and added the raised aperture above, this was so I could line the white square up in the middle of the patterned paper :D Originally I added a black Thank You sentiment, but in the final photos (as shown above) you can see that I changed it to pink, and I also added some green hearts too, these changes made me like the card much more :D Hope you like it too :D

To see the process behind this card, please watch the YouTube video below, or over on my channel :D

 Here's some close up photos :D

The card I sent to Simply Cards and Papercraft ended up in Papercraft Essentials!! It's soo funny because I'd just edited this video ready to post, and my subscription of Papercraft Essentials arrived this morning and there it was on page 8 :D What a strange coincidence :D Soooo happy :D

Elephant Congrats :D

I've wanted to try repeat stamping an image (in a grid) for a card background for ages, so this was my first attempt. This was a congratulations card for my best friends Danielle and George (aka Mr and Mrs Broad) who are expecting a little baby girl very soon!! The colour combination of yellow and grey was inspired by Danielle :D I started by lightly marking out a pencil grid on my background panel, I used a ruler that was the same width as my little elephant image (from a Craft Asylum stamp set) so that they would fit nicely next to each other, I also staggered the grid too so the rows are offset from one another... I used Flannel Grey Memento ink and Butter Bar Hero Arts ink to stamp the elephants, and started with the grey leaving spaces for the pop of yellow :D Once all the stamping was finished I then erased all the pencil lines (I really love this neatly lined up stamping effect, I will deffinetly be trying this again :D) Next step was preparing the sentiment, I used the Lawn Fawn scripty Congrats die (love this range of word dies!!! and I saw in their sneak peaks that Lawn Fawn is coming out with some new words :D :D :D) I cut two from white card, layered them on top of each other then coloured the top one with a Canary yellow Promarker (for finishing touches later on I also added some Spectrum Noir Clear Overlay Sparkle Pen and a layer of Anita's 3D gloss too)... For the 'topper' element of this card I stacked 3 elephants on top of each other, and I stamped these in the same colours of ink onto a die cut panel (cut with the MFT stitched rectangle stax dies), to ground this panel I added a matt of patterned paper :D The final finishing touches were then some yellow organza ribbon, some sequins and a few tiny Papermania gems (It took me a while to work out how to arrange these lol) :D

To see the process behind this video please watch my YouTube video below or on my channel :D

I hope you liked the card :D 

Bee Happy :D

I really fancied making some bright and cheery cards, the green one's for my mum and the pink version is for my nan :D I thought these cards would put a smile on their faces :D The main reason behind these cards was that I'd just gotten the Xcut die set with this gorgeous honey comb lattice and little bee house in it, and this composition with a watercoloured background just popped into my head :D

I started off by die-cutting all my elements, each honey comb consists of 3 stacked up on top of each other to create a thicker element :D I also cut pieces out of the honeycomb too to give it a more natural feel! (I love this die! it looks like a pristine sheet of graphene, however by cutting bits out of it I've added in some edge, lattice and planar defects lol #toomuchchemistryforacraftiblog :D) :D I then went on to create the backgrounds... for these I used my Gansai Tambi watercolours combining green with teal, and two shades of pink for the respective cards :D I also used some of the silver metallic paint too (this was the first time I'd used the metallic paint in a project, and its amazing!!) I just used a brush to really randomly smoosh some colour down, and flick some colour too, and I did a couple of layers just to build up a messy effect :D For the Bee house I used Cool Grey 1, 2 and 3 Promarkers just to give a kinda faux white wood effect... Now for the bees, if anyone knows me they'll know that I love drawing bees, and this is my signature bee, I always add it next to my signature on the back of one of my cards, and I thought why not draw a few and add them to the front of the card instead :D I used Tulip Yellow and Cool Grey 5 to colour them in, and I roughly cut around them leaving a white border :D For the finishing touches after assembling the cards, I added a scattering of sequins, and I added some Spectrum Noir Clear Overlay Sparkle pen and some Anita's 3D gloss to the bumblebees :D Hope you like them :D

To see the process behind these cards please watch my YouTube video below or on my channel :D

More photos below :D

Thanks so much for visiting my blog, if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below :D

I'm entering these cards into the Seven Hill's Crafts Blog July Colour Challenge :D
http://sevenhillscrafts.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html

Floral Flutter :D

 

The yellow card above was the first version of this card, but I decided to make a video, so I made 3 more (below) in different colour combos :D Its a pretty simple card using the Floral Flutter free gifts from both Simply Cards & Papercraft and Papercraft Essentials :D

To start, I cut my panels of white card using the large stitched rectangle die from MFT blueprints 13, I then chose my colour of ink, I used Hero Arts Ink Cubes, for the yellow I used Butter Bar, the blue version was Tide Pool, the pink was Ultra Pink and the orange was Orange Soda :D I chose these colours to go along with the papers I had decided to use behind the butterfly aperture (I got these papers ages ago, literally 10-15 years ago, and I really liked them, so logically I had to save them and not use them lol, so I have finally used some of them now lol). I then stamped the background panels using the Heartfelt Thanks stamp (I could have added pencil lines to the card so everything was on the same angle, but as I was going for an all over effect, I just decided to go free-hand :D) Once I'd added the sentiment stamp, I decided it was a little too empty so I also used the small flower stamp to fill in the gaps :D

Next step was die cutting the butterfly aperture, I used both dies together so I could in lay in the thin frame around the opening. I then decided to use the border embossing folder too, and added that just along the bottom, however with all the background stamping I felt like it got lost, so I carefully traced over the design using a coordinating coloured promarker :D Canary for the yellow, Mint Green from the blue, Cerise for the pink and Mandarin for the orange...  To finish them off I added Spectrum Noir Clear Overlay Sparkle Pen to all the small flowers (both the stamped version and the embossed versions) and also to the thin frame around the butterfly aperture too. I added five 5mm clear sequins to each card in the centres for each of the larger embossed flowers on the border, and for the final finishing touch, I went round the thin frame on the perimeter of the butterfly aperture with some Anita's 3D gloss (in a fine applicator bottle, to make it easier) :D Hope you like them :D

 

To see the process behind these cards, please watch my YouTube video below, or on my channel :D

More Photos below :D

Lacy Mint Heart :D

This card was made using the free gifts from issue 7 and issue 12 of Die-cutting Essentials, I especially love the issue 12 gift which was the Sue Wilson die which I have used along the bottom of this card, I love Sue's dies, but often they're a little to big for an A6 card, but this one was the perfect size!! :D

I started off by using my favourite large stitched rectangle (from MFT blueprints 13) and I used it to cut a piece of Pastel Green Creative Expressions Foundation Card stock. I then used the same die to cut a panel in white, then lined up the heart aperture where I wanted it, and re-aligned the stitched rectangle to make a smaller stitched shape (you can see what I mean in my video below :D). I then cut the Apple Blossom Flourish Heart die and the Sue Wilson die from some more white card, and an Apple Blossom butterfly from some more of the Pastel green card :D. To add a little pattern to the background, I cut the butterfly die from some funky foam, mounted it to an acrylic block using a little bit of Crafter's Companion Tape pen, and then I used Cracked Pistachio Distress ink (this colour coordinates perfectly with the Pastel green card) to stamp a few of them all over the background (I seem to be a little obsessed with cutting dies from funky foam and stamping with them at the moment, I'm sure you'll be seeing much more of this from me in the future :D). So that I could raise both the heart aperture panel and also the lacy heart off the card I used a piece of coloured vellum behind so that they became one element which I could then add some 3D foam to :D The final finishing touches were then adding in the little elements which the lacy heart die also cuts (I did also add a few of the tiny hearts which came out of the middle of the little flowers within the pattern of the heart too) I also added some Spectrum Noir Clear Overlay Sparkle Pen and a scattering of sequins too :D

To see the process behind this card, please watch my YouTube video below or over on my channel 

I sent this card along with another, and a photo of my Jack Russell Lilly to Die-Cutting Essentials magazine, and they picked me as their star letter!!! :D Sooo happy :D :D :D Here's a photo of the page in the magazine, Issue 13 :D

Some more photos below :D  Including the tiara card and a couple of Lilly :D

Striped Stag :D

I made this card a little while ago, and the inspiration for the colour combo actually came from a pair of socks! I was wearing them, and I looked down at my feet, and thought, 'that would make a great background on a card lol' :D This was quite a long winded process but I started with the grey stripes, I used Hickory Smoke Distress Ink and for the stripes within the stripe I used a Prima stamp. For the coloured stripes I used Cracked Pistachio and Abandoned Coral Distress Inks, and I combined them with a Tim Holtz stamp, I really like this stamp, it kinda looks a little like barbed wire in my head :) I used my favourite large stitched die for the background panel, and a smaller one for the focal element, and I combined it with this stag die which I got from CraftStash, it was called Prancer, but that doesn't mean you can use it for a birthday card :D For the banner I used a Spellbinders banner die and for the sentiment, I used this little peg stamp set from Tiger, but any small alphabet stamp set would work, this was just the smallest font that I had :D Finally I added a Lawn Fawn heart die cut which I blended with Abandoned Coral, then covered in Spectrum Noir Clear Overlay Sparkle Pen and then added a layer of Anita's gloss gel. This is a pretty basic card, but when you add in a background made from scratch it makes it look more unique (but to save time you could always use a patterned paper too) :D

 To see the process behind this card, please watch my YouTube video below, or on my channel :D

Here's a close up photo...

Folk Floral Hello :D

I made this card a little while ago, and I was inspired by Leonie Pujol's new range of stencils and stamps, and I just couldn't wait to have a go. This was my second attempt at this style, I posted the first a little while ago on my blog (I do have a video filmed for the previous version as well which I need to get round to editing lol) :D However for this version, instead of cutting a word die from some thin acetate and using it as a mask, I used pebeo masking fluid on this hello stamp which was free on an issue of Creativity :D So first step was to apply the masking fluid with a brush to the stamp, and then stamp onto a piece of card (again cut with my usual choice of the large stitched rectangle from MFT blueprints 13), it didn't give a perfect impression, so I did use a small paintbrush to fill in any gaps too... then wait for it to dry (it doesn't take too long). Then onto the ink blending, I used Cracked Pistachio and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Inks (love this colour combo), this step is just to give the word a bit of definition and to add some background colour, it also (i think) makes the whole card come together as the stamping almost blends into this background haze :D For the stamping I used the Folk Floral stamp set from papermania and Pool, Cornflower and Tide Pool Hero Arts ink cubes. I also used my MISTI for the stamping, as I wanted to make sure the images were crisp, and it also means you can stamp multiple images at the same time without having to worry about one of them not stamping properly :D (It saves time too :D) The final touches were then some Spectrum Noir Clear Overlay Sparkle Pen over the word hello, and a mix of Cosmic Shimmer glitter PVA and some stickles :D

To see the process behind this card, please checkout my YouTube video below, or on my channel :D

Thanks so much for watching!! There's a close up photo below :D

When I'd finished this card, I liked it so much I decided to post it to Docrafts, and I was extremely surprised to see it in the star letter section of the current magazine (Issue 72). I was flicking through, and thought 'I recognize that card, hey someone's pinched my design, oh wait, its mine! IT'S MINE!! :D :D :D'  I was sooooo happy, I can't wait for my prize to arrive!!! :D

Where Flowers Bloom :D

A simple card using a die to emboss a focal panel :D I used the Floral Bloom free gift which came with Issue 133 of Papercraft Essentials for this card, I really love the way you have the outline and the solid section, its kinda like a layering set, and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to use the rock and roll inking technique for the solid coloured section of the flowers and leaves :D I started off by cutting a panel with my usual favourite, the large stitched die from MFT blueprints 13 die set, and then I used an MFT stitched square stax die to emboss a focal panel :D I used my Cuttlebug to do this, and for cutting the main panel I used the usual sandwich of A, B and C, but for the embossing of the die, I used A, B, then 3 sheets of printer paper folded in half to A5, then the junior size Spellbinders tan mat, then my card front, then the stitched square die cutting side face down (without any tape otherwise you would see this indented into the card as well) and then finally another B plate... (please have a watch of my video below in case this explanation is unclear :D)

Next step was all the stamping, you don't really need to, but I decided to use my MISTI (I had only just gotten it when making this card, so couldn't resist using it :D) I started by stamping the sentiment in the embossed square, and then I used a fully sticky post-it to mask off the area. I then stamped the outlines of the flowers and the leaves, then chose my colours for the solid parts :D I used all Hero Arts ink cubes, Green Hills and Field Greens for the leaves, Butter Bar and Soft Cantaloupe for the yellow version and Cornflower and Pool for the blue version. I used the rock and roll inking technique for the solid sections, this is where you ink up the whole image in your lighter colour, then you rock the stamp (I chose to do one side of the leaves, and around the perimeter of the flowers) in the darker colour of ink :D (TOP TIP: I used pigment for the black outlines, and when  I stamped over the top with a colour, it picked up a little of the black ink, so between re-inking your solid stamps make sure you stamp off on some scrap paper so the black doesn't transfer to your coloured ink pads :D). I then used a few Promarkers to colour the flowers within the sentiment, I used Forest and Pine for the leaves, Canary and Gold for the yellow version and China blue and Midnight for the blue version :D

The final finishing touches to the card were then the addition of a few sequins (some ended up being strategically placed because I had a few little marks of ink in places lol :D), the addition of some Spectrum Noir Clear Overlay Sparkle pen :D and also a 3mm black pearl from Creative Expression, just to finish the centre of the flower in the sentiment :D

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

I was lucky enough to get my card (the blue version) in the Readers Gallery (Page 79) of Issue 135 of Papercraft Essentials :D So happy!!! :D I took a photo of the page below :D

A few more photos of both the cards to follow...