Fleur De Lis Birthday Card :D

I love Fleur De Lis!! and I finally got my hands on some dies which incorporate them :D This was a birthday card for my Mum and she loves Fleur De Lis too :D For this card I decided to try and recreate my Mixed Media Pebeo Fantasy technique which I've shown in a couple of cards recently (There'll be more to come too :D) the Fantasy Christmas Tree and Also the Mixed Media Hearts too :D However this time, I wanted a medium that wouldn't take quite so long to dry, partly because its always good to have options, but also because I really wanted to give this card to my Mum and I only made it yesterday and her birthday's today lol :D Anyway, the new medium is Cosmic Shimmer Pearl PVA Glue!! and a little bit of Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle PVA glue too :D Luckily I had colours in these to coordinate with the Distress colours I'd used (Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers and Wilted Violet) as I hadn't thought about using these until I realised the card wouldn't have enough time to dry lol :D

So I started by doing all my die-cutting, I cut my base panel, and nine small stitched squares (I cut nine so that for each element I would have three stacked up in the end, this gives a nice well for the paints or glues to sit in and it also creates a nice eye-catching element on your card :D) I also die-cut the Fleur De Lis out of each of the nine squares (if you use stitched squares like I did, it's really easy to line them up so they will be almost identical, because you can use the stitches as a guide when lining up the intricate die :D) I then cut the Fleur De Lis out of funky foam, and I cut a Royal Circle die from Spellbinders from some funky foam too, using a basic circle die so that it would become a ring... For the background I blended on my three Distress Ink colours, and then I used the same three colours to stamps my custom made stamps...

Once my background was finished, I stuck down my three focal elements one above another on the card front (at this point, they are just two stacked together, as I used the third one to cover up any mess I make :D)... Now for the fun part of swirling in the PVA glues, I used Teal Sky, Rich Plum and Cosmic Pearl in the pearly PVA range, and then Plum Sparkle (I'm not sure if that names right...) and Holly Sparkle in the sparkle PVA range :D I splodged in a few dollops of each of these and then simply swirled them together with a cocktail stick :D Once this was dry, I then stamped on my sentiment, both parts of which were from two different Avery Elle stamp sets :D And I also added a few accents with a white gel pen and also some clear sparkle pen too :D Hope you like the card!!! I really LOVE the way it turned out, who knew you could make an old fashioned Fleur De Lis look so modern lol :D :D :D

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

Plenty more photos below :D

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge :D

Customised Thanks :D

A customised thank you card made using a technique I've seen John Lockwood use on Hochanda, and to go along with my custom sentiment, I used the Build-a-Bike die from issue 152 of Simply Cards and Papercraft :D So to do this John Lockwood style technique you use a piece of kitchen roll to clear up your mess after using pigment powder such as pixie powders, and then you let it dry :D You then stick this to a piece of white card with plenty of glue, and then sprinkle in different things, I decided to use three colours of glitter, some gilding flakes and also some gold star sequins :D When I saw John demo this on Hochanda he had used a sparkley glue form Cosmic Shimmer, so that's why I decided to add in some glitter because I didn't have that lol :D anyway, I thought I'd give it a go, and I quite like the result :D

The rest of the card is pretty simple, I cut the bike from some glitter card (this was actually the scrap piece I had gutted from behind my Fantasy Christmas Tree I posted a little while ago) and then I was faffing around about how to frame this onto the card, but I finally decided to go with just a faux stitched white border rather than a solid frame... I also used the Lawn Fawn scripty Thanks die, and again I used my ancient old DYMO labeller, I had to cut down the width of my red label tape to fit in my favourite labeller again... and then I added a few extra stars in a bigger size to finish it off :D Oh and if you're wondering about the funny sentiment 'Thanks for building a wheelie great shed' this card was for my Dad as he just built me and my sister a bike shed for our front garden lol :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

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Powder Power Monday Challenge and also the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Wednesday Challenge :D :D :D

Since You've Been Scone :D

Another baking themed card in honour of Bake Off being on again tonight :D With this one I made up my own punny sentiment, although it depends on how you say the word scone lol if you pronounce scone like phone like I do, it doesn't work lol, but if you pronounce scone like gone, it works perfectly lol :D For this card, I used the Sprinkled with Joy Stamp set from Lawn Fawn, I love this set, and I have a few ideas of how to use it, so you'll probably be seeing it again for my baking themed cards :D But on this card, I wanted to make it look like some scones are baking in the oven so that I could use my homemade punny sentiment :D

This was a really simple card to make, and you can see in the video how I drew everything in pencil first and then went over it in pen, which makes it really easy to draw in your own elements or alter part of the stamps, or even write out your own sentiments too :D For the colouring, I used my Promarkers as usual... Burnt Sienna, Walnut, Cocoa, Sandstone, Red, Poppy, Mint, Vanilla, Blender, Cool Grey 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and Black :D For the final finishing touch, I added some clear gloss over the oven window, the LCD display and also the controls :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

To see the other cards I've made with a baking theme, check out my playlist below :D

Lots more photos below :D

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Anything Goes Challenge :D

Congratulations Heart Using Scraps :D

I made this card using the scraps from yesterdays African Sunset card, and also a bit of the yellow DYMO tape left over from my Helping Hand card :D I made a card a little while ago where I did this kind of technique, but I wanted the stripy heart, and I kept looking at the waste part think, this would make a great card, so this card was born :D I used the scraps of card cut off from the panels I had used colourburst and pixie powders on for yesterdays card, they looked far too pretty, especially the pieces with the gold mica on, so I couldn't throw them away, I had to think of a way to use them and I thought this was perfect :D

The video is pretty self explanatory for this card, but basically, I started off by using a Pritt Stick to cover a piece of scrap card, then I laid down my scraps of coloured card onto this, butting them up against each other. I then used two nesting heart dies to cut my main focal element. I raised this panel up with foam tape, and added the smaller heart back into the aperture. I also added a little bit of doodling with a black pen to tie in the black ink I'd used on the sentiment :D Instead of leaving the main white panel flat, I decided to use an embossing folder on it, but you need to remember to make sure you've added all your stamping and doodles before you emboss it lol :D The finishing touches were then a few extra thin strips of gold glitter card (this was actually the bit I had gutted from the matt I used on my Fantasy Christmas Tree card from a little while back :D) and then I added some white die-cut hearts and used some Cosmic Shimmer Golden Sparkle PVA on top of them :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

The video below shows where I got the scraps from that I used for today's card :D 

 Plenty more photos below :D

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Powder Power Challenge :D

Colourburst African Sunset :D

A bright and vibrant sunset created using Ken Oliver Colourbursts and Cosmic Shimmer Pixie Powders, using solid silhouette stamps in black for a dramatic contrast :D I started off by spraying some Lemon Zest Dylusions (this is in a different bottle because I dilute mine down so I get 8 times as much ink :D) and also some water, I then tapped on some Tangerine and Fushia colourbursts to create my sunset effect from yellow to orange to pinkey red :D I also added in some Rich Gold Pixie Powder from Cosmic Shimmer, this contains pigment and mica, and this gold colour is fabulous!! I already have 6 colourbursts and 4 brushos, which are flat colours, so I thought I would invest in the gold and silver versions of Pixie Powders so I can mix in some mica pigments too :D I use a cheap washing up bowl to do all my spraying in, as it can get a bit messy and I get annoyed if all the surrounding stuff gets splattered lol, this is also why my fingers are blue, as I just cleaned the bowl before filming lol :D

I took these two backgrounds out of the bowl, and left them to dry, and then I used some kitchen roll to wipe out my bowl, and I have another card coming using this John Lockwood style :D I then used my MISTI to stamp my silhouette images so that I could stamp them multiple times for a solid impression, and I also stamped my sentiments too from two different Avery Elle stamp sets :D I used white frames to make the scenes pop on the card, and I cut these using my MFT stitched squares and rectangles :D I also have another video coming soon showing how I used all those pieces of inked card which I cut off when I created my two backgrounds :D Hope you liked 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

Lots more photos below :D

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Powder Power Challenge :D

Thanks for Lending a Helping Hand :D

A lovely lemon thank you card using a baby themed die set in a different way, I thought that this hand die would go perfectly with the sentiment 'thanks for lending a helping hand' and I have another good idea for the foot die too :D I also used my newest technique in this card, my mum and I came up with this together, and I've NEVER seen anyone else do it before!! laminating sequins!!! to give you acetate that has sequins floating within it!! It's sooooo cool, here I've used it just for a window card, but I have some more ideas up my sleeve using this fantastic new technique :D :D :D

I started by die-cutting my main panel, and then three hands into that, I also lined this panel up with my card base and cut the hands in the exact same place to create a window that lets you see all the way to the inside of the card :D as well as using my new technique of floating sequins in acetate, I also added some vellum behind the windows too, to give two layers of interest :D For the background, I did my other favourite technique of cutting the die out of funky foam to make my own stamp, and I stamped these multiple time using Pastel Yellow, Lemon Yellow and Butter Bar Hero Arts Inks :D This die set is from Fuzzy Lemon, this is the first die set I've brought from this brand, and they're great! I'm not sure if they're exclusive to CraftStash like Apple Blossom is, but I love the way they come with a generously sized magnetic sheet to store them on :D

I sandwiched the acetate between the front panel and the card base, and then added my vellum panel to the inside of the front of the card. Now for the sentiment, I used the Lawn fawn Scripty Thanks die (I love this die!!! its been used sooo much!!) and then I wanted to use my Dad's old DYMO labeller again, however I didn't have any yellow tape the right width for that one so.... I cut a length of the 9mm matt yellow tape I had (also an ancient roll, that's probably older than me! I know the labeller deffinetly is lol) and I trimmed roughly 3mm of the width of the tape, this then fit in my favourite labeller :D I think I did this before years ago with a different colour, but as always I end up forgetting cool useful things that I discover lol :D The to get this to be slightly raised, I stuck part of it to the thanks sentiment, where it was overlapping, and then turned it over and added tiny slivers of foam tape :D The final finishing touches were then some Clear Sparkle pen on the thanks die cut and also some Golden Glitter PVA glue from Cosmic Shimmer (this stuff is fab too :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

Plenty more photos below :D 

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge :D

Happy Isle of Wight Day 2016 :D

Today (24th September 2016) is Isle of Wight day!!! I love the Isle of Wight, so I wanted to make a card celebrating today :D I have drawn my own stylized outline of Wigit (my nickname for IOW) and filled in the shape with buttons, pearls, gems and microbeads :D My original idea was going to be to use a frame from £land, which is just plastic but looks nice and ornate with an oval aperture (I love these frames, and the rectangle aperture ones too, I must have up-cycled nearly 20 now lol) and I was going to do this same idea of the button and gem IOW and then fill in the rest of the oval aperture with my Pebeo paints, however I kind of lost track of time and only started making this this morning... but I LOVE the way this has turned out so I will definitely be making one in a frame in purples and silver for my lounge :D

I started by sketching out an IOW shape in pencil, and then I moved on to paint the background :D I used Broken China Distress Stain and a flat brush to create multiple horizontal stripes across the panel... Once dry I drew around my IOW shape with a black pen to give it definition, then the fun part :D I flooded an area of the outline with Cosmic Shimmer glue (I love using this glue because it dries clear and matt!! so its great if you end up making a bit of a mess lol) I then proceeded to add in a mixture of buttons, pearls, gems and finished by coating any excess glue in green microbeads (these have a mind of their own! They go everywhere!! However my little tiny pot is still pretty full :D)... For the sentiment I used a Heidi Swapp 'Happy' die and I finished the sentiment off with my DYMO labeller (I use my Dads really ancient one that he gave me because I love the spacing of the font and also the narrow width of tape too)... the final touch was a few die-cut L:awn Fawn hearts and then some Clear Sparkle Overlay pen :D Hope you like the card!!! I really LOVE it and I can't wait till I have the time to make my purple one in a frame for my lounge!!! :D :D :D

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

Plenty more photos below :D

Merry Christmas Polar Bear :D

A really cute Christmas card using the Cute Christmas Character die set from issue 138 of Papercraft Essentials :D I love this Polar Bear sooo much :D I want to try a similar version of this card in different colours for the Snowman and the Penguin critters that you can also make using this gift as they are both adorable too :D

I started with the background for this card, I used the inside die to cut some funky foam, and I used the two pieces that are meant to be the Snowman's arms as a snowflake, I mounted them opposite each other on my acrylic block, so all I had to do was stamp this four times and I got a fantastic looking snowflake :D I used Weathered Wood, Broken China and Faded Jeans Distress Inks, and I used a combination of first and second generation ink :D I also repeated the process of stamping in the three colours with two of the dots that I had also cut from the funky foam, I just felt like the background needed filling in a tiny bit more :D To make the background extra Christmassy, I spritzed it with water, and added on some Silver Dream Pixie Powder (I literally just got this this morning, I started making this card before lunch, and then my CraftStash order arrived, so I just had to use it on this card :D)

I then die-cut and assembled my Polar Bear, this is sooo adorable!!! If you did it in browns it would make a great teddy bear too :D I felt like he was getting a little bit too lost in the background, so I added a die-cut panel of vellum to mute down the background a little :D I then used the Merry Lawn Fawn Scripty die along with a Christmas stamp from the Apple Blossom Merry and Bright stamp set to create my sentiments, and my final finishing touch was then three beautiful delicate silver snowflake sequins :D I REALLY love this card!! I love it when the card you imagine in your brain actually comes out in the flesh :D

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

Lots more photos below :D

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, as I've been listening to Christmas music already, and this is the result lol :D

I'm also entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, as I think receiving a handmade Christmas card always feels like getting a gift to me :D

Happy Bird-Day Peacock :D

A fun character card combining the new Christmas Character die from issue 138 of Papercraft Essentials, with the Peacock die that came with issue 147 of Simply Cards and Papercraft a while ago :D Combining the two allows for you to create a peacock with its full fan shaped tail :D I'm not sure if I'm that keen on the end result of this card, but it think its a fun design that'll put a smile on anyones face :D And I just love using punny sentiments, so I thought 'Happy BIRD-Day' would go great with this one :D

I started off by die cutting all the elements, I cut five of the Peacock tales from the Peacock die to give a nice full effect, I partially die cut the head of the Peacock so that I could create my own body shape so it looks like you're seeing it from head on :D I also cut one of the base pieces from the Christmas Character die set, and I cut what are supposed to be snowmen arms four times to use as the legs (I did trim these down a little bit too, so they look a bit more like bird feet :D)... To colour all of the elements, I used Distress Inks and an Ink Blending tool, for the main body I used Blueprint Sketch and Chipped Sapphire (I did in the end go over this with Royal Blue and Indigo Promarkers, however I think it would have coordinated better with the glitter I've used if I'd left it as it was...) And for the feathers, of course I used Peacock Feathers, with a little bit of Evergreen Bough and some Pine Needles, and a teeny bit of Twisted Citron too :D I also used a Cool Grey 4 Promarker to colour the legs :D

I felt like as this card features an elegant Peacock, there needed to be some glitter, so to make the Peacock look glittery, I used Crystal Stickles and I dotted some on and then dabbed it around with my finger... I also added some ultra fine glitter to my card, I used some of the Cosmic Shimmer Polished Silk glitter, I'm not sure what the colour name is as I got it reduced in my local garden center and the price label pulled the label off the bottom lol :D and I used double sided tape to create a border along the bottom of my card, and around a layering panel too :D For the sentiment, I used the tiny Happy word from the Lawn Fawn Cutie Pie stamp set, and for the custom bit of the sentiment I used an ABC set also from Lawn Fawn :D The final finishing touch was then a tiny little googley eye just to make it a bit more fun :D Hope you liked the cards :D

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

 More photos below :D