Gingerbread Man Spinner Card :D

Another baking themed card in honour of Bake Off being on again tonight, I used the Gingerbread Man die set from Apple Blossom to create this sweet spinning card :D For my sentiment I combined two Lawn Fawn stamp sets, Baked With Love and Smiles :D and I also used some Docrafts Christmas Bellissima A5 patterned paper :D

You can see in the video below how I was arranging the dies to cut out all the pieces of card and paper to hide all the workings... You will need to cut 4 gingerbread men for this card, I used Kraft card as it looks perfect for ginger biscuit dough :D the reason you need four, is 1. so that the embellishment is nice and thick, it looks more like a gingerbread man that way, 2. so that its sturdy and has enough weight to make it spin nicely and 3. because it makes the process easier!! So to get a super bond of the clear thread between the middle two gingerbread men, I used a combination of super sticky red liner tape and cosmic shimmer glue, I then placed this into a folded piece of paper and ran this through with the cutting sandwich using my Cuttlebug, this ensures that the clear thread is strongly held in place and that both die-cuts are glued together nicely. Doing it this way makes it easier as you can get a lot of pressure on the spinner element without squashing your decorated gingerbread man!! You then need to decorate your two gingerbread men, I used the wiggly icing dies in the set, and the bow tie, and then used some heart dies for the 'buttons' as I knew the word love would feature in my sentiment :D I used a black glaze pen for the eyes and a fine black pen for the mouth. I also used a white gel pen to trace around the outside groove to give him an outline of white icing :D I left these to one side to completely dry while I assembled the spinner :D

Spinner Assembly: take your spinner element and attach it using sticky tape across the aperture in your card blank (to make sure that this spinner doesn't become to saggy over time (as mine always do) I thought of a new trick!) take the top end of the clear thread and wrap this multiple times around the top sliver of the card blank (this might make a little more sense in the video) and secure this with more tape. Then pull the bottom end of the clear thread taught and do the same thing, the action of wrapping this round multiple times stops the thread from being able to pull out of the tape or glue you have used (as this is usually what makes a spinner card saggy) and the great thing about using clear thread is that you can't tell that you've done this, and the gingerbread man looks as though he's floating in mid-air :D You can then attach the white panel to the front and the patterned paper panel to the inside to hide the workings of the card, I also added an extra piece of patterned paper to the inside of the card to finish it off :D Hope you like the card!!

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

A few more photos below and don't forget, please do leave any questions in the comments :D

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge :D
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/?p=6101

Aim High Jelly :D

For this pair of cards I combined the Up in the Air stamp set free with issue 33 of Creative Stamping, with the I'm so Jelly stamp set from Lawn Fawn :D and I tried to be clever with the colours of the balloons, so that when the balloons are under water the original colour has been mixed with blue :D
Where pink and blue will make a purpley colour and yellow and blue will make green :D

I started by stamping out all the images, using a post-it note mask where needed, then I covered the balloons and critters with Pebeo masking fluid (love this stuff) and I also added some splatters into the background too :D I then used a combination of Peacock Feathers, Mermaid Lagoon and Blue Print Sketch Distress Inks to colour my sky and ocean :D To give perspective with the bubbles under the water, I also splatted on a little bit of water and lifted off the colour to give pale blue bubbles to go with the white bubbles that will appear from underneath the masking fluid :D To remove the liquid mask, you first need to wipe a piece of kitchen roll over the top to remove any excess ink so that it doesn't transfer to your masked images, and then you simple rub it away :D

I then moved on to the colouring, as usual I used my Promarkers... Plum, Aubergine, Magenta, Cerise, Pumpkin, Mandarin, Lemon, Canary, Gold, Emerald and Lush Green :D I just did very simple colouring using two shades of the same colour just to give a little bit of shading, and I have a Top Tip for colouring critters, if you don't get a smooth blend between your colours, just add some dots, this hides that the colours didn't blend well, but it also adds to the critters giving them a bit of texture :D The finishing touches were then a little bit of white gel pen, and some Spectrum Noir clear sparkle :D Hope you liked the cards :D

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

A few more photos below :D

We've Moved :D

For this pair of cards, I had this funny idea to make a 'we've moved' card with a helicopter carrying a house, so I used the Up in the Air stamp set from issue 33 of Creative Stamping, and paired it up with a Simon Says Stamp stamp set :D These are a pair of really simple cards, they just require a little imagination and a lot of colouring :D

I started off by stamping out my scene, everything is really simple as there was no masking involved... however I did alter the house stamp, the stamp I had was too big for this card, so I only inked up the top two thirds of the stamp, then once I'd stamped in the windows and door, I completed the bottom of the house with a fine black pen :D I also added a little letter box to the front door, a front door step, a planter with flowers in, and also a string and bow attaching the house to the rail of the helicopter :D I then decided that I wanted a blotchy sky background, so I used some Pebeo masking fluid to mask off everything in my scene, leaving the background uncovered so I could add some colour :D I used Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and a mini ink blending tool to create my sky effect, I then wiped off any excess ink from on top of the liquid mask (this is so that it doesn't transfer to the image you were masking when you rub it away!) and I then rubbed of the masking fluid :D

As usual, I used my Promarkers for colouring, I used Red, Poppy, Bright Green, Forest, Pine, Caramel, Cinnamon, Umber, Powder Blue, Warm Grey 1, Warm Grey 2, Warm Grey 4, Gold and Purple :D And as a finishing touch, I added some Spectrum Noir clear overlay sparkle :D And I also added my own custom sentiment of 'We've Moved' I could have used stamps, but I was being lazy so I just wrote it out, I really like mixing up fonts at the moment whether its handwriting or stamps, I think it makes the card look more interesting, and it makes it look like you've pieced together the sentiment yourself :D Hope you like the cards :D

To see the process behind this pair of cards, please watch my YouTube video below, or over on my channel CRaFTi PoTeNTiAl :D

A few more photos below :D

Shaving Foam Flamingos :D

In this video I combined the Flamingo Die from issue 132 of Papercraft Essentials, with the sentiment stamps included with issue 153 of Simply Cards and Papercraft :D I then used the 'Shaving Foam Technique' in a slightly different way to how I've seen it done before :D :D

When using shaving foam through a stencil to create a coloured image or pattern, it is important to first colour your shaving foam so that you get a defined image! I use my Dylusions spray inks (I water mine down, I saw Joggles.com do this years ago, and its so worth doing because it makes your sprays go sooooo much further!!! I tip about an eighth of the bottle into an empty spray bottle, and then I top it up with water, and to be honest I don't think that there's much difference from the original colour :D) for the blue cards I used Polished Jade and for the pink cards (which I made off camera) I used Cherry Pie :D The whole process is very easy! and slightly addictive, hence the 6 cards lol :D I find that any time I use shaving foam, I like to use analogous colours so that I can keep re-using my foam and I won't get a muddy colour! plus for me I prefer the more mono-chromatic look rather than complementary colours for a technique like this :D

To get my flamingos, I used the flamingo die to cut some acetate to make my own stencil, I use heat resistant acetate as its much thinner than most other acetates, I still struggle to cut it in my Cuttlebug, but its much easier than trying to cut thicker acetate! Top Tip, I've found if I put a piece of printer paper underneath my acetate it cuts more easily :D To keep my stencil down flat when spreading the shaving foam over the top, I use Crafter's Companion Stick and Spray (this is extremely helpful for the little triangle between the flamingos legs!) To create my 'marbled' effect I used a combination of re-inkers, Brusho (I was experimenting) and mica powders :D and I just used a ball tool to swirl around my colours, I was also only working in a small glass bowl, as for this technique you are only scooping the foam out, not laying your card into the container, and I found that a glue spreader was really handy for smoothing off the top surface of my shaving foam :D

I used a scraper tool I got years ago to spread my shaving foam through my stencils, but you could just as easily use an old gift card too, and all you do is scoop up a pile of marbled shaving foam and place it on top of your stencil, you then use your scraper tool to pull the foam across your image, much like screen printing. Try to remove as much of the excess as you can, then remove the stencil, I then take a ruler and scrape off the remaining foam, this does smudge some of the colour, but I think that adds more to the effect so I don't mind that this happens :D When you've finished doing all your focal elements, you can then move onto the backgrounds, on the ones where I was experimenting with Brusho and mica powders, I didn't even add anything to the shaving foam I just pulled the colour I had over the top of the stencil :D I felt like I wanted a little more detail in the background, so I used a tropical leaf stamp, I stamped these in Hero Arts inks in Tide Pool, Lime Green and Bubble Gum :D One of the flamingo toppers was quite light in colour, and I felt like the flamingo wasn't defined enough, so I simply placed the stencil back over the top and then blended a little bit of Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink over the top :D

To finish these cards off I added a sentiment stamped in black to each, and then I added some black splatters to the background so everything tied together, and I also used a positive die-cut of the flamingo to mark in the eye and as a guide for drawing on a black beak :D It did look fine without, but I think these little details just bring everything together as bringing in the black just makes it all coordinate well :D :D :D Hope you liked the cards! I will deffinetly be doing more techniques with shaving foam! You can see the size of the can I brought, so I have plenty to play with lol :D :D :D

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

Plenty more photos below :D

Hello Lovely :D

I made this card using the left over hexagons from the Bee Happy cards I posted a little while ago, I thought they would go perfectly with this sentiment as its also hexagonal in shape :D This was a really easy process of simply sticking down a pattern of hexagons (I started by properly tessellating them, and then they start moving slightly further apart, and I also left gaps to give more of a whimsical feel :D)

I used my Gansai Tambi watercolours for this card, I combined 3 shades of blue to give a nice ombre effect across the panel, and I added in splashes of blue, silver and white to add a little bit of visual texture :D To pick out a bit of detail, I added some tiny white and black stitching around a selection of the hexagons, this helped the sentiment look more at home, as without these extra stitching details it looked a little stark having a harsh black and white sentiment :D Hope you like the card! It's very simple! and its also technically a free card, as the main elements were the waste from another card :D :D :D

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

 

Here's a couple more close up photos :D

Woodland Winter Birthday :D

A bright and vibrant birthday shaker card made using the Woodland Winter stamp and embossing folder set from Issue 137 of Papercraft Essentials :D It just goes to show that nothing is ever as it seems lol because here a birch tree has become a stripey pattern :D

When I started making this card, my initial thoughts were, I want to make a shaker card, and I want to use the birch tree as a stripey pattern :D   and this is what I created :D First of all I roughly planned out what my idea was by laying the dies and stamps onto my piece of card, I then went on to die cut out my aperture using a stitched circle die :D Next step was to create my stripey pattern, I used my MISTI tool so that I could get crisp and solid impressions really easily, and I used Hero Arts Ink cubes for my stamping, Lime Green, Tide Pool, Soft Pool and Charcoal for the wreath, branches and sentiment :D Now it was time to create my shaker backer, I originally stamped this in black, however I re-stamped it as I felt the black was too harsh, so I went with the Charcoal instead :D I also decided that the card needed to be balanced with a bit more of the Charcoal colour, so I added some branches over the top of the stripey pattern (this wasn't in my original idea in my head, but I think it works well as it also allowed me to add some gems as berries outside the shaker too :D)

I used some light blue cardstock to cut a narrow frame for the inside of my aperture, I used a plain edged circle this time as this was closer in size to the stitched circle I'd used previously so it gave a nice narrow frame to pull in the light blue colour :D I used a few green Promarkers to colour in the leaves on the wreath, and I decided to add some turquoise gems to the berries within the wreath too :D (just make sure the glue on these is dry before you assemble your shaker :D) I then added a piece of acetate over the aperture and I also added a double thickness of foam to the perimeter of the shaker... for the shaker elements I used large glass micro beads from Creative Expressions, tiny turquoise micro beads, flower shaped sequins and some chunky glitter too (Top Tip: when using glitter in a shaker card, make sure to add plenty of anti-static powder to the inside of the acetate otherwise you end up with a window covered in glitter!)... I ended up embellishing the branches on the front of the card by stamping and colouring some of the leaves from the stamp set and sticking them randomly on the branches with a scattering of the flower sequins and some gems as berries too :D The finishing touch was then a little bit of Spectrum Noir clear sparkle, and a little dab of glitter glue in the centre of the flower sequins :D Hope you like the card :D

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

A few close up photos to follow below :D 

Woodland Winter Merry and Bright :D

For this card, I used the lovely Woodland Winter stamp and embossing folder set from Papercraft Essentials issue 137, and I used my Gelli plate to create a reversed image so I could have two deer facing each other on my card :D

I started off by planning where on the card I wanted my two deer to go, and then I stamped the actual stamp onto the right hand side of the card panel.. to get a reversed deer, I inked up the deer stamp (but not the antlers) and I stamped this onto my Gelli plate (this works really well for transferring a reverse image, however, I now have a deer on my Gelli plate lol) I could then turn my Gelli over and place the second deer where I wanted it on the card :D As you will be able to see in the video, the transfer image isn't perfect, however this is easily fixed with a fine black pen :D I wanted to extend the antlers on the left hand deer (hence why I didn't stamp them for the reverse image) so I sketched out how I wanted them to look (using the original antlers as a guide) in pencil first, and then went over in pen... TOP TIP: I went a little bit a skew when I was tracing over my antlers and some of the rest of the deer, so I used this to my advantage and gave both deer this effect by going over more of the stamped image :D

The reason why I wanted to extend the antlers, was so that one looked male and one looked female (hence the addition of eye lashes on the right deer) and I also wanted one of them to have baubles hanging off their antlers, I thought the little bauble stamps in this set looked so cute! and I loved the inspiration on the back of the packaging having them hanging from a word, so I thought why not have them hanging from the antlers :D and again I made the strings holding them on look a bit sketchy too to tie in with the rest of the stamping :D another TOP TIP: when making a mask for your reversed deer (so you can stamp the baubles), stamp on the sticky side of a post-it, then when you stick it down it'll be the other way round :D (You can see what I mean in the video) :D

For the colouring I used my Promarkers as usual: Caramel, Cinnamon, Cocoa, Walnut, Henna, Gold, Pumpkin, Cool Aqua, Warm Grey 1, Red, Crimson, Forest, Pine, Dusky Pink, Normal Blender and the Brush Blender :D In the background, I wanted a diffused falling snow look, so to achieve this I used the Brush Blender pen, Warm Grey 1 and Cool Aqua... first I drew a circle of blender (bigger than I wanted the snow dot) then I added either a small circle of Warm Grey 1 or Cool Aqua (adding the blender down first helps the ink to have a diffused edge, and you can always add a bit more blender over the top too to give a more subtle effect :D) I used a similar technique to this for the snowy hills, but used lines rather than dots :D The final finishing touches were then the sentiment, also from the stamp set (LOVE the 3 big scripty words in this set!! my two previous cards I've posted both used the Merry :D) and some Spectrum Noir clear sparkle pen :D Hope you like the card :D

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

A few more photos below :D

Have a Sweet Birthday :D

I just got the Baked with Love Lawn Fawn Stamp set, I just had to have it, anyone who knows me knows my cupcakes, so this set is perfect for me :D Plus the new series of the Great British Bake Off is starting tonight, so I thought this would be the perfect time to post this card :D I combined the Lawn Fawn set with the Avery Elle We R Family stamp set, just so I could mix up the font of the sentiment :D I also used Sue Wilson's Auriga Gemini die as a lacy edge to kind of emulate a doily :D

There was lots of masking involved in this card, and the majority of the scene is one layer, however the cake stand looked as though it was floating, and the left hand side looked too empty, so I added a couple of extra cupcakes on top :D I decided to colour the icing to look like vanilla (as this is probably my signature cupcake flavour... well its the one I've made the most :D) and I thought it would look quite cute to have one cupcake un-iced with the full icing bag waiting to add the perfect swirl of buttercream :D I'm also a big fan of green and pink together (it's the colour combo of my craft room :D) hence the colour choice :D I love the mixer in this stamp set!! It's one of the main reasons I got it!! and I'm contemplating altering the image to look like my Kenwood K-Mix and then adding the stripes on the top (I have the fire cracker one :D)

I used Promarkers for my colouring, I'll try and remember all the colours I used :D Magenta, Cerise, Vermillion, Cool Greys, Leaf Green and Bright Green, Caramel, Sandstone, Cocoa, Walnut, Vanilla, Pastel Yellow... I think these are roughly what I used :D and the pink card is Raspberry Foundations card from Creative Expressions :D As usual I also used my favourite large stitched rectangle from MFT Blueprints 13 too :D

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

A couple more photos below showing the sparkle of the icing and the shine of the 'metal'

Merry Christmas Heart Wreath :D

For this card, I combined the Merry Christmas sentiment from the Woodland Winter stamp set which came with Papercraft Essentials issue 137 with the Berry Sprig die by Sue Wilson and the Sparrow on a Branch die from Couture Creations :D When watching the video below, you may notice a background that doesn't feature in the final card, this was the one that I didn't think went with this card, and it ended up being the Mixed Media Bee Happy card I posted a little while ago :D

In the end this ended up being a really simple card, however it was a bit time consuming because of the amount of berry sprigs needed lol :D To get the base shape for the heart wreath, I used a Creative Dies nesting Heart die, and then I cut around this aperture with scissors to leave a narrow border roughly 5mm (this is what we will stick the Berry Sprigs to to build our wreath) For the Berry Sprigs, I used some Pastel Green Creative Expressions Foundation Cardstock and roughly blended some Twisted Citron and Lucky Clover Distress Inks over the top just to give a bit of variation in colour, I then proceeded to cut out quite a few of the Berry Sprigs (the great thing is that this die set comes with 4 dies, and you have the left handed and right handed version of each, which is perfect for getting the curvature around the perimeter of the heart shape!)...

Once the wreath was finished I used the heart die-cut from the aperture (used to create the wreath) to stamp my sentiment onto, as this would then fit perfectly behind the wreath :D I decided that to show off the wreath, this card needed a really simple background, so I die cut a white rectangle, and used a border embossing folder from Darice to add some texture to the bottom (I used the deboss side for a change :D)... For the focal element on top of the wreath I used the Sparrow on a Branch die, I ended up cutting this out of Taupe Foundations card, however I decided that black would make more of an impact and go with the black sentiment, so I used a black Promarker to colour it in :D The final finishing touch was then the addition of some Spectrum Noir clear sparkle :D :D :D Hope you like the card :D

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

A couple more photos below showing a bit more of the subtle detail :D

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge :D
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-make-for-the-border/

Merry Christmas White Dove :D

I just had to try using my Gansai Tambi watercolours on my Gelli plate, and I thought it would make the perfect background for this gorgeous Dove die from Apple Blossom, this was the free gift on issue 143 of Simply Cards & Papercraft, and the sentiment is from issue 137 of Papercraft Essentials (which is out on Thursday 25th August) :D

This was such a simple card to create, I just added some watercolour paint onto my Gelli and pulled a print, I then added a slightly darker tone and did it again etc etc.. I also added some white and some silver Gansai Tambi too :D and I just kept adding different layers until I was happy with the effect :D For the focal element in the background (the shield) I used Cosmic Shimmer detail Silver Shine embossing powder, and the gorgeous stamp is from Tim Holtz in the stamp set called Sketch :D I'd had my eye on this set for a while and ended up getting it for an extremely amazing price from Craftstash in one of their sales :D :D The banner was cut from the Avery Elle dotted dies set (except this one isn't dotty lol) and the sentiment was also stamped in the same silver embossing powder :D For the dove element, I cut three for each card and layered them up to make a thicker embellishment, and then of course I added some Spectrum Noir clear sparkle :D :D Final touch was just adding a few white dots in the background with a gel pen, I find this helps unify a card sometimes, often a little extra white just balances the design :D :D :D Hope you like the cards!! I certainly love using watercolours with my Gelli plate :D

To see the process behind this pair of cards, please watch my YouTube video below, or over on my channel CRaFTi PoTeNTiAl :D 

More photos below :D 

Bird Crazy Splashes :D

Some brightly coloured cards with a mix of occasions made using the Tim Holtz Bird Crazy stamp set combined with the Prima Splashes and Drips stamps :D again much like the 'You're a Classic' card from a little while back, I was going for a really arty look for these cards, I used stamps to create this effect, but you could also use watercolours or water down your distress inks and splat colour on :D

I used Hero Arts ink cubes for all the stamping, Cornflower, Green Hills and Tide Pool for two of the cards, Butter Bar, Orange Soda and Bubble Gum for another and Passion Flower, Pool and Cornflower for the last card with a few additions of Grape Jelly Memento too :D (TOP TIP: because Hero Arts inks are designed to soak into the paper, I've found that whatever black ink I use with them, it always bleeds because of the nature of the Hero Arts inks (even if I've left it for 24 hours!!), so I have found that if you stamp you're images first, with any black ink, and heat emboss in clear, this protects your black line images and then you can just stamp your coloured splats over the top :D
After heat embossing the outlines, and before stamping the splats, I also added a little bit of Pebeo masking fluid to the eyes and beaks, my idea was to create the look that the birds had also gotten covered in paint as well as the background, but I thought it would look wierd if they're eyes had the splashes on them too :D All the sentiments, some of the little splats and the brush strokes that each bird is standing on are from an Avery Elle stamp set called Brushed :D Hope you like the cards :D

To see the process behind this set of cards, please watch my YouTube video below, or over on my channel CRaFTi PoTeNTiAl :D

Lots more photos below :D :D

I'm entering these cards into:
The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge:
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-make-for-the-border/
The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge:
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/?p=6097