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/

Flamingo Shaker Card :D

A simple flamingo shaped shaker card in beautifully bright and cheerful colours (I love this colour combo at the moment :D) I made this card using the free flamingo die from an edition of Papercraft Essentials magazine, I saw this die advertised as the free gift for the following issue and was impatiently waiting for next months issue to land on the door mat so I could make this card :D

To create the background I used Picked Raspberry, Abandoned Coral and Spiced Marmalade 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 Picked Raspberry for the large flower, Abandoned Coral for the small flower and Spiced Marmalade for all the leaves (I really liked stamping the leaves to coordinate with the colour scheme rather than just in green as usual, I will have to remember 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 few of the large sized clear glass micro beads from creative expressions, some pink hearts (which are actually table confetti), some tiny coral stars (which are actually from a nailart set from poundland lol) and some gold shaker mix which is a mix of tiny micro beads and the little circles from the middle of sequins :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) (these were stamped in Hero Arts Butter Bar and Bubble Gum inks and I had to add some Spectrum Noir sparkle clear overlay on top :D) then finally I also put some Spectrum Noir sparkle clear overlay on the three big stamped flowers in the background :D There's few close up photos to follow, they're of the two cards I made, as I actually made a second one to send into Papercraft Essentials, however wasn't lucky enough to get it featured in their readers gallery :( maybe next time :D

To see the process behind this card, please check out my YouTube video:

I have entered this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday blog challenge 'Anything Goes'
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/

Jelly Spinner Card :D

Slider cards seem to be really popular right now, so I had to give them another go, I did my first one about a year ago now, and it had a Lawn Fawn plane stamp that span from one side to the other, I don't think I even took a photo of it as it was a bit of a mish mash lol, anyway, here's my second attempt....  I decided to make two while I was at it, and I couldn't decide on the colour scheme either :D I absolutely love this little So Jelly stamp set by Lawn Fawn, I've made quite a few cards with this set (including a graduation card for a friend that graduated with me last year :D) and I have so many other ideas which I need to get round to trying too lol :D So these are pretty simple cards, I used the MFT Blueprints 13 large stitched rectangle die and 2 Simon Says Stamp double stitched circle dies to create the spinners track... I still need to work on perfecting this type of card, as the track was a bit too close to the edge of the card and its a little difficult to put foam tape around the perimeter of the card, but it still looks 100 times better than my first spinner card lol :D I really love the overall appearance of these two cards, but I do wish they span a little better, but perhaps I'll manage to improve that on my next attempt :D

Here's a few more photos :D

Anniversary Wishes :D

This card was for my Mum and Dad's 32nd Wedding Anniversary, and so I went a little crazy with trying some new techniques :D To create the background I wanted to try getting an embossed resist, but by using a stencil rather than stamping, so I have this lovely damask stencil from That Special Touch, and I ended up squishing my white ink pad through the openings quite firmly so I got a really good coverage of ink, I then removed the stencil and sprinkled on some detail white embossing powder and heat set it :D My original idea was to have a simple emboss resit, so I got out my Gamsai Tambi watercolours (first card I'd used them on!!), and used these lovely vibrant yellow, orange and dark pink colours, I did one wash over the top, let this dry and then did a second coat to intensify the gorgeous colours :D When the second coat was dry, I stenciled on top using distress inks and some punchanella to give the dotty effect.... Something I wasn't expecting was for the paint to stick to the embossing powder (as when I've done this before I've used distress stains, and that seems to come straight off the embossing powder) It just wouldn't go back to the crisp white colour.... so.... I tried another technique! the iron off technique, I've seen this done before, but have always been to lazy to try it lol :D but this was the perfect opportunity for me to try!! (I actually have some more backgrounds I've just done that need their powder ironing off too :D) Next step was the sentiment, also another new technique, I've wanted to try heat embossing on vellum for ages, but didn't think I had any vellum, fortunately I found a little mixed pack of small pieces which are perfect for sentiments :D so I chose a pale gold coloured piece and used this lovely sentiment stamp which was free with a special issue of Die-cutting essentials :D For the focal elements I white heat embossed some lovely flower stamps from a Craft Asylum set and watercoloured them in the same three colours, while I did this I also added the same colours to a scrap of card, and for the leaves I used a Craft Asylum Sizzix die set and Sue Wilsons mosaic leaves dies :D The whole front panel was cut using the MFT Blueprints 13 big stitched rectangle (still my favourite die ever lol) and the vellum banner was cut using the vertical stitched rectangles by MFT (however it was too wide, so I cut a rectangle, then moved the vellum to make it narrower and cut again :D). The final finishing touches were a scattering of heart sequins, and some gold sparkle PVA from Cosmic Shimmer :D I really love this card, and I think I'll deffinetly try the background technique in some different colours :D

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

Here's a few extra photos :D

Floral Congrats :D

This bright and cheery card is mostly inspired by Leonie Pujol's new stamp and stencil range and also by the MFT colour challenge #43. I saw Leonie demonstrating her new products on Hochanda last week, and loved the concept, so I give it a try with things I already had... I started off by cutting some really thin acetate with the Lawn Fawn scripty Congrats die, I then sprayed the back of this with Crafter's Companion Stick and Spray so it would stay in place on the card. I cut a piece of white card using the large stitched rectangle die from the MFT Blueprints #13 die-namics set (absolutely love this die!!!) and stuck down the congrats die cut. I then pulled out three Distress Inks, Mustard Seed, Twisted Citron and Broken China (as these went with the MFT colour challenge) and I blended these onto the background, starting with Mustard Seed, then Twisted Citron then Broken China (however most of the broken china has gone a little bit green :D). I then pulled out the Docrafts Floral Folk stamp set which contains tonnes of little stamps with are perfect for this technique!! I chose Butter Bar, Tide Pool and Cornflower Hero Arts inks for the stamping as I wanted to get a crisper impression than using Distress Inks, I also used my MISTI so that I could easily and quickly stamp images multiple times to get a good impression :D I then peeled off my homemade congrats mask, and the edges weren't as crisp as I wanted them to be, so I ended up cutting a Congrats out of white card and layering it on top, although the stencil didn't quite work the way I wanted, it was good to have there as it gave you an anchor for all the little stamps :D The final touches were adding a little bit of white pen detail and also some glitter, I think I used Crystal and Turquoise Stickles and Scattered Straw Distress Stickles...

I'm entering this card into

The MFT colour challenge #43
 http://www.cardchallenges.com/2016/04/theres-still-time-mft-color-challenge-43.html

The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge - Make it Girlie
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-make-it-girlie/

Springtime Steampunk Card Duo :D

For the first card of this card duo I was inspired by the MFT colour challenge #43, the colours to use were white, yellow, blue and green, so here's my attempt... I love this stamp! it was from a really old Kanban stamp set, and I wanted to try and use it in a completely different way than I have before, and thought this colour combination would be a perfect time to try it :D I started off by stamping the image (onto a piece of card cut with the large stitched rectangle die from the MFT blueprints #13 die-namics set), and then I painted over it with Pebeo drawing gum (this stuff is brilliant!!!!) and I also added some splats of it in the background too. I then let this dry and used Broken China distress ink to gently blend around the image giving a soft almost sky effect, to add to this I used the cogs stamp from the same set and stamped that in a pale turquoise pigment ink from Hobbycraft and also in Tide Pool Hero Arts ink to give extra depth. Once the background was finished I peeled up the masking fluid with my finger (making sure I removed the excess ink from on top of it first) to reveal the white image underneath :D The next step was colouring the image, I did this with promarkers, almond, blush and vanilla for the 'skin', soft lime, lemon and canary for the yellow parts and meadow green, leaf green and bright green for the green areas :D The finishing touch was the sentiment, I decided to go for Happy Birthday as I seem to be running out of Birthday cards, and for the sentiment I used a cute little set which I got in Tiger where each letter is separate and you press them into 'pegs' which enable you to stamp them :D I'm really pleased with this card, and I'm so glad to have used an old stamp set again and to have used it in a completely different way than I have done before :D

I'm entering this card into:

The MFT colour challenge #43
 http://www.cardchallenges.com/2016/04/theres-still-time-mft-color-challenge-43.html

The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge - Make it Girlie
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-make-it-girlie/

Here's the second card of this card duo using the other stamp from the Kanban stamp set, I did the exact same thing for this card, however I used the following Promarkers for the colouring... almond, blush and vanilla for his 'skin', cornflower, china blue and midnight blue for his jacket, cool aqua and marine for the turquoise accents and cool grey 3,4 and 5 for all the grey areas :D I'm also really pleased with this card too, I and expect I will be experimenting with different colour variations too :D

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

Thanks for checking out my blog!! :D