Sunday, 5 April 2020

Hope Butterfly


I belong to 2 different Crafters Companion groups on Facebook and kept seeing cards made with this beautiful butterfly die. Having done some research it was apparent that it was released on HSN in the USA in a special package that sold out and wasn't available in the UK. Loving butterflies as I do I was on the lookout for it. 

I was so very happy when I got an email to say the collection had been added the CC website and went to buy a few of the items straight away.

The Statement Butterfly is 3 dies which can be used separately or layered to make the most beautiful intricate butterfly. The bottom solid layer I cut in silver mirror card, the middle layer in dark purple solid card and then the top layer in a lighter coloured card. The top layer has been sprayed with a Silver Stick and Spray glitter from Crafter's Companion. I stuck together the 3 layers only in the centre and added some gems.

I love purple and was inspired to use the monochrome colour scheme from The Outlawz Tuesday Colour Challenge


The card base is made using a sheet of the dark purple card stock. I added some floral paper from DCVW. The Lace Frame is from the same Nature's Garden collection. It cuts so cleanly despite the intricacy. I was very impressed with it.

The centre of the frame that was cut out was used to back the sentiment. I used a digital one from McMahon Five Designs who retired some years ago from designing stamps. I added some Sakura glitter gel pen to the hearts. I wanted to make a card that I can give to the neighbours that live closet to us to spread some love and hope at this awful time so I plan to make it in different colours. This sentiment seems particularly appropriate at the moment.

I stuck the butterfly down and this then anchored the frame to the card.

I have lots of butterflies in dies, embossing folders and rubber stamps.  It really makes a statement and I am sure will be used in many of my projects.


Card Details -

Size - A5
Digital Sentiment - McMahon Five Designs (retired)
Dies - Statement Butterfly & Intricate Lace Frame by Crafter's Companion 
Colouring Medium - Sakura Glitter Gel Pen
Embellishments - gemstones


I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)

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Monday, 23 March 2020

Mother's Day


It was Mother's day in the UK yesterday and the most sad one I have ever experienced due to the COVID-19 virus. Anyone over 70 has been advised by the Government to stay inside and away from other people and Social Distance. From Saturday morning all pubs, bars, restaurants and cafe's were to be closed unless it was for takeaway food. Of course this has all had a huge effect on Mother's Day for so many families.

I decided to make a box style card. I have seen loads of them but not made one myself until now. Having seen examples online I had a fair idea of how they went together but many seemed to be small. Me being me.... I had to go big or go home.

I started with some card that I got from Lidl a while ago. They had pads of 25 sheets of card all in different colours. They are 270 GSM and 24 x 34cm so quite a bit larger than A4. At only £1.99 per pad I bought one to check the quality and was so impressed I went back and bought a few more. They have been fab for matting and layering but also due to the thickness are substantial enough to make an A5 card or in this case provide the basis for the card shape.

I cut one sheet so it would provide the 3 sides at 11cm each. I scored these at 11cm down from the top to make the flap into a square. The back piece had a tab on each side so I could stick this to the shorter sides. I always use the red line double sided tape from Affixit Craft when making something that needs to be really sturdy. It is super sticky and I have never had a project discolour when using this tape.

The card strips inside the box were spaced 1.5cm apart and this gave me 7 strips in total to attach the decorative elements to. I measured 11cm for the width of the box and 1.5cm each side. Again using the tape I stuck this to the inside of the box. I made sure it would flatten down and then it was good to decorate.


I used 2 sheets of paper from my stash which had the same green mottled background. I cut a panel for the back section and left this with a straight edge. The 3 side panels were die cut using an Eyelet Squares Spellbinders Nestabilities die. 

The image on the front is Giant Mushroom from Sheepski Designs. This is the progressive freebie image for this month from The Outlawz challenges. I coloured with Promarkers and Spectrum Noir, fussy cut the image and mounted onto thin foam squares to add dimension. I used green for the background as I wanted it to look like a garden with fairies and flutterbies flitting around above their heads.

The sides are decorated with a large flower from Papermania and a smaller flower from Craftwork Cards. In the centre is a large yellow gem. This is a bold flower and really stands out against the green background.

The back panel has a sentiment which was a digi image from a now defunct site AI Factory. I was on their DT for a time many moons ago...... I die cut this with a Grace Frame Die'sire die from Crafter's Companion. I used the Fanciful Flourish die from Cheery Lynn for the green vine as I didn't want it to look too plain when viewing from the top.

Then I got to work with the decoration inside. I honestly thought I had a little fairy die and having recently catalogued all my dies I was aghast to realise that I had not bought it when I thought I had.... I shall have to rectify that ! Anyhoo, I had some epoxy stickers from Royal & Langnickel that are pretty and glittery too so that was a nice bonus. I added these to acetate and cut round the sticker so it made it more rigid. I also did the same to some butterflies. I have a bazillion flowers so pulled together a selection of paper and fabric ones from my stash in pinks and purples. Some were Craftwork cards, some Ebay finds, some from Poundland. All elements are on 'sticks' of acetate which was recycled from packaging. I added them to the bars and just kept playing with angles and sticking them until I was happy with it.


Once completely assembled I folded it up to make sure it would be flat. Unfortunately it was about 2cm wider than my largest envelope so I had to make one for it using some designer paper from my vast collection.

This was for my Mother In Law and I was able to give it to her on Thursday when I took her shopping. I was able to see her open in when we Face Timed her and her reaction was priceless. I will admit it took me ages to make it. Partly because I hadn't made one before and partly as I underestimated how long it would take to place and space the elements on the bars. However, especially under the horrible circumstances we found ourselves in, it was worth all the time to see her reaction. She absolutely loves it and I am happy to have brought some joy to her at this time.

To anyone who visits my blog and reads this post we I truly hope you and your families stay safe and well. This virus has had such a tremendous effect on the whole world already and I feel that it will do for some time to come. Crafting more than ever gives us a creative release and for that I am tremendously grateful.

Stay safe everybody xxx

Card Details -

Size - 11cm x 24cm Box Card
Image - Giant Mushroom from Sheepski Designs
Dies - Grace Frame by Crafter's Companion & Eyelet Squares by Spellbinders.
Colouring Medium - Promarkers & Spectrum Noir
Embellishments - Flowers, gems, epoxy stickers

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)


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Saturday, 21 March 2020

Party Penguin


It is the 9th Birthday part over at The Outlawz and we have had lots of extra challenges to celebrate. One of the DT Sandra Van Blaricum drew this cute little Party Penguin for us to colour. I decided to make a Christmas card from it.

I used the latest Wednesday sketch challenge for the layout.


I have been taking part in a weekly Christmas card challenge on a Facebook group and one of the ones I need to catch up on has a theme of Black and Gold so I thought it would be prefect to use this image for it.

I coloured the image using Promarkers and a gold Sharpie pen. I then fussy cut this and mounted onto thin 3D foam pads. The base of the card has a paper from a 6x6 pad I got from Poundland. The gold strip has been recycled from an old Christmas card and the snowflake strip is from a Kanban Cards die cut sheet. I cut a layer of gold card using a Romantic Rectangles die. Following the layout of the sketch I added a thin black ribbon through the loops and mounted the image onto it.

The sentiment is a die cut 'ribbon' that has been shaped into a banner. There is a little holly sprig that separates the 2 words so I used this as a little bow tie on the penguin and coloured in the berries with a red Promarker.

Card Details -

Size - 5.5" x 5.5"
Image - Party Penguin by Sandra Van Blaricum
Dies - Romantic Rectangles by Spellbinders
Colouring Medium - Promarkers & Sharpie
Embellishments - Ribbon and Fabric Sentiment

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)
  


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Sunday, 15 March 2020

Ice Ice Baby


Over at The 12 Months of Christmas Link Up it is the Merry Maidens turn to showcase some fabulous Christmas cards.


The optional Twist for this challenge is "Ice Ice Baby" inspired by the prize paper pack on offer for the winner Winter Weather designed by Decosse's Dynamite Doodles.




This month we are sponsored by Bugaboo Stamps who have a fabulous range of images in their store including some lovely Christmas ones. It is no secret to regular visitors to my blog that I absolutely love Jodie's images and she is so generous with free images every week and also mothy subscriber and Facebook freebies. 


I chose Little Penguin Decorate Tree to work with. I loves me a Christmas tree and as we needed to feature ice or snow I felt the image would lend itself to this very well.

Digi Singles,Little Penguin Winter - decorate tree,Bugaboo Stamps,

I coloured the image using a combination of Promarkers, Spectrum Noir and gel pens. I followed a tutorial on Beccy's Place of how to colour the night sky to add stars and snowflakes to the background. Beccy's instructions were so easy to follow and I am so pleased with the finished result. The ground has loads of irridescent glitter and is textured with glue 'snowdrifts'


I have used the latest Stella Says Sketch 806 from the Catch the Bug blog for the layout.

As I don't have access to a colour printer at the moment I have scanned in the image and used it to make a digital card.

I use a program called Affinity Photo on the Mac and created an A5 landscape card. The base layer is Abstract Frost, and I have created 3 panels using the Snow Swirls and Let it Snow papers all  from the Winter Weather paper pack by Decosse's Dynamite Doodles.

I have added a snowflake from Decosse's Dynamite Doodles. 


I then added some blue brads in different sizes to highlight the snowflakes. This is from a digital kit I have had on my computer for many years and I don't know who the designer is.

Finally I added the sentiment from Decosse's Dynamite Doodles. I think it may have been an old freebie Lisa had on her blog a long time ago.

I do hope you will take part in our challenge and look forward to seeing your creations.

Digital Supplies Used :  

Image :  Little Penguin Decorate Tree from Bugaboo Stamps
Coloured with Promarkers & Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle pen & White Gel Pen
Papers - All from the Winter Weather pack from Decosse's Dynamite Doodles
Embellishment - Glitter Snowflake 1 from Snow Much Fun - Decosse's Dynamite Doodles


I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)






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Friday, 13 March 2020

80th Birthday Celebrations


Paul's Mum & Dad were divorced many years ago and his Dad re-married over 30 years ago. It is his wife's 80th birthday later in the month and they are going on a month long golfing holiday to Mauritius next week as they usually do at this time of year. They go to the same golf resort twice a year for their birthdays and they really spoil them. I am sure as it is Noreen's 80th she will be treated like a queen.

Edited 18/03 - They were due to fly today and their flight was cancelled on 16th due to the Coronavirus :(

I have made this card using an image from the Champagne digital stamp set from Beccy's Place. I felt this would be a perfect image for this special celebration. It has been printed out quite large and I created a decoupage layer for the strawberries and champagne glasses. 

I coloured the image with a combination of Promarkers and Spectrum Noir pens adding a gold Sharpie for the foil on the bottle and a much finer nibbed gel pen. I added an 'N' to the bottle for Noreen and a clear glitter Spectrum Noir pen to the glasses to create a sparkly lustre. You can see the close up below, it looks really lovely in the light with a subtle sparkle. 


The image has been matted onto red cardstock and the decoupage layer mounted onto foam pads for dimension. It was very fiddly cutting thin slivers for the glass stems though....

The card base is an 8" x 8" pre-bought scalloped one. I added a layer of black card and then some metallic Happy Birthday text card I have had in my stash for a million years. I think it might be from a Dawn Bibby kit I had from QVC at least 10 years ago! Go me for using up some old stash :)

The sentiment panel is a cool one from Spellbinders. You get the outside shape, a circle die, a little heart and numbers 0-9. As it cuts the lettering around the circle it is quite awkward to mount on 3d foam so I have cut this out 3 times in black card. This makes it a bit like a 'thicker' sticker and much more stable. I cut out layers of hearts and circles and then the number 80 is 2 layers of card thick. Finally I added heart gems from the wedding section of The Range and some tiny gems to emulate champagne bubbles above the glasses.  

Card Details -

Size - 8" x 8"
Image - Champagne by Beccy's Place
Dies - Happy Birthday With Numbers - Spellbinders Shapeabilities
Colouring Medium - Promarker, Spectrum Noir, Sharpie, Pentel Gel Pen
Embellishments - Heart gems from The Range, Docrafts self adhesive gems


I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)


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