Girlie Boxes

Hello Everybody,

As promised a little more about those boxes. It took me all day Tuesday to make the 20 pizza box style, girlie boxes. Well there is cutting out, scoring, glueing, decorating … you probably got the idea. I also had a bit more on than I remembered at the time of accepting the order. It just goes to show; ‘never commit to anything without consulting your diary first’. Well I decided on some designs that should have been quick and easy to make, here they are:

I used diecut shapes as the main focus of decoration. Sometimes they can be a bit bland, try adding some texture and the whole appearance changes. This is especially true for the butterfly box, where I used the budding vine embossing folder to add texture to the background and a dotty one for the butterfly itself. I also like the effect of the organza ribbon which is simply wrapped around tree of the sides, you would never know that it is bright pink, but that’s the beauty about organza ribbon, it adapts its colour to its surroundings.

I am also entering the Butterfly box into this weeks challenge on Out of a Hat Creations which is ‘If I had Wings’. It fits well this week as I am off to the caravan again for a looooong Bank Holiday Weekend. 🙂

Sorry, I don’t have a picture of the box on its own. I took these yesterday when the sun was still shining … which it still is above the clouds today.

Here is what I used:

– Butterfly Box: sahara sand, wisteria wonder and blushing bride card stock, sizzix beautiful butterflies Bigz Die from Stampin’UP!; pink organza ribbon, beads, budding vine and dots embossing folders, crafting wire, corner rounder punch from your local craft shop

– Daisy Box: daisies #2 Sizzix Bigz Die, rich razzelberry, pretty in pink and early espresso card stock from Stampin’UP!; corner punch from Creative Memories; gems, pink organza ribbon, glitter glue from your local craft shop

– Fun Flower Box: fun flowers Sizzix Bigz L Die, wisteria wonder, cherry cobbler and pink pirouette card stock, scallop trim corner punch from Stampin’UP!; pink organza ribbon, gems, brad, dotty embossing folder from your local craft shop

That’s it from me for today. Until next week …

Happy Crafting!!!

🙂

 

Fairies to the Challenge

Hi Everybody!

Last week I went off saying that I would prepare the project for the ‘Out of a Hat Creations’ Challenge. Well what can I say … I ended up preparing for the craft fair last Saturday. There I got an oder for 20 boxes – more about those tomorrow – which had to be ready by today. To top it all we slipped in an extra weekend at the caravan to catch the Olympic torch Relay in Criccieth … oh and the weather was nice too.

I had a busy time and finally I rose to the challenge with a card I made today. It will also be part of my next class as I used the brayer again. Here it is:

I meant to use ‘feather – image – text – beads’ for the challenge. As you can see the text becomes the image and the image (fairies) part of the embellishment. The beads I had were too large, I went for tiny gems instead plus a purple glitzy brad for the centre.

Hoppe you like it, please let me know what you think.

Here is what I used: Fairies, Fairy Spells, tiny mushrooms, bench, leaf and stars stamps all from Lavinia Stamps; white smooth card, white square card blank, DoCraft’s Boofle paper pack, feather, brad, gems, glitter glue, ColorBox pigment brush pad in lilac and black Versafine ink pad from your local craft shop; elegant eggplant card stock, so saffron and elegant eggplant ink pads from Stampin’UP!

Until tomorrow

Happy Crafting!!!

🙂

Birthday Trees

Hello Everybody,

just a quick post to give you a taste of one of the cards we will be making in my next class. I called it ‘Birthday Trees’. It uses one of my favourite stamp sets ‘Lovely as a Tree’ from Stampin’UP!. I brayered the background for the mystical look, something I was inspired to try after watching a demo by Tracey Dutton (Lavinia Stamps) at Aintree. I think this card is well suited for a man, birthday, Father’s Day, retirement, get well soon … to name a few. You can always add more embellishments like cut out stamped leafs or ribbon. Bearing my husband in mind, I went for simplicity, because that’s what he likes. So here it is, judge for yourself …

Hope you’ll like it. Expect to see more mystical magic in the ‘Introduction to Brayering’ class, Saturday 9th June 2012 from 3 – 6pm.

Off now to try my hand on the ‘Out of a Hat Creations’ challenge …

Happy Crafting!!!

🙂

 

here is what I used for the Nature Lover’s card: Lovely as a Tree, Teeny Tiny Wishes and Woodgrain stamp sets; River Rock, Baja Breeze and Bravo Burgundy Inks; Mahagony Distress Ink (Distress Kit); Well Worn Designer Papers from Stampin’UP! – white and burgundy card, cream card blank and squre brads from your local craft shop.

Wow Flower Burst

Hello Again,

We had a real hike in temperature today of at least 10 °C and consequently I’ve been melting. Luckily it has cooled down a bit now and the forecast is for it to stay like that. After Ice cream yesterday it is going to be wow flower burst and washi tape today:

It was sunny too when I took the picture the other day, so it’s apologies for the shadows.

The left overs I used on yesterdays card came from the Tonic Studios border punch I used to creat the border on today’s card. I also stamped the Wow Flower on some white shrink plastic to make the little embellishments.

Hope you like it. Let me know what you think.

Here is what I used: Wow Flowers (retired), Everything Eleanor and Tiny Tags stamp sets, melon mambo card stock, melon mambo, basic grey and old olive ink pads, circle and jewelry tag punches, glimmer brads from Stampin’UP!; gems, white shrink plastic, white card, white card blank, Tonic Studios border and corner rounder punches from your local craft shop; washi tape from Daloni’s kiosk at Towyn Beach

That’s it for today.

Happy Crafting!!!

🙂

Just an afterthought:

Burbo Bank Extension

I normally don’t post links for e-petitions, but this is one I care passionately about. Dong Energy are planning to extend the existing Burbo Bank Windfarm which is off the coast of Hoylake/Meols. The catch is that the turbines are at the same distance as the existing ones, but they are much higher so will be even more visible.

The aim of the petition is to get the turbines built further out to sea to minimise the visual impact. For this reason it is not a petition against the windfarm as such.

Also if one can put some pressure on the developer to create good jobs for local people, even if they have to be trained, we will all be in a win-win situation. (The developer currently says that there aren’t the skilled people needed in this area to build the windfarm)

We need to get 100,000 signitures to get a chance to have the matter debated in parliament.

When you click on the link, you will first get to read the text of the petition before signing. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/34283

Thanks for considering this.

Delicious Ice Cream

….. that’s all I could dream of for the best part of the last two weeks. I was sruck down with ‘Dehli Belly’, just that we didn’t get it from an Indian restaurant, I picked it up somewhere else. Sorry if you thought I’d disappeard or so. On the up side it was a wonderful detox and my skin is really peachy now. 🙂

To ease myself in I thought I’d show you another one of my creations with this wonderful ice cream punch, that Aintree bargain:

It makes me think of sun, summer, beaches, holiday ….

Maybe just as well that the weather has picked up!!

It is not my normal type of colour scheme, but I quite like it. I wanted it to be a bit candy coloured and, as I was rooting through my stash, I cam across these papers which were simply exactly what I needed.

I also made some clever use of punching offcuts: the scalloped edge is made up of crescent shapes stuck to the bak of the topper, the sprinkles on the ice cream are also punching ‘left overs’. If you want to know where I got them from you will have to wait until tomorrow.

In the meantime, enjoy the sunshine and ice cream!!!!

Happy Crafting!!!

 

supplies: Tonic Studio Border punch (for left overs), white card, white card blank, ribbon, glitter glue from your local craft shop; eyelet border punch from Stampin’UP!; ice cream punch from Every Craft’s a Pound; papers were free with ‘simply cards & papercraft’ and ‘papercraft inspirations’ magazines

Brayer Creative

Hello Again!

Going to Aintree last week, inspired me to try using the brayer a bit more often. In my last post you saw the background I created by simply applying ink with a brayer to a sizzix texture plate, placing a piece of card on top plus the ‘sandwich’ to go with it and then putting it through my Cuttlebug. For today’s card I’ve taken this a step further by blending the edges in, using a brayer. It is faster and less messy on your fingers than using sponges. See for yourself:

Sorry about the long shadows on the picture, but I had to be quick, work is calling in a few minutes and then we’re off to Wales again for the weekend.

If you wonder how to make one of these, the class in june will be on using the brayer to create backgrounds, blending etc.

For the card I used:

white card blank and card stock, ribbon, glitter glue and perls from your local craft shop; island indigo and pool Party ink & cardstock, Island i digo Stamp’n’Write Marker, Butterfly punch, Flight of the Buttterfly and Just Believe stampsets from Stampin’UP!; texture plate from Sizzzix; Sentiment ‘with love’ from Craftwork Cards

for the tag I used: Everything Eleanor stamp set, Island Indigo and Pool Party inks from Stampin’UP!; white card stock and ribbon from your local craft shop; sentiment stamp from Dimension Stamps

Hope you like it. Have a great Bank Holiday Weekend!!

Happy Crafting!!!

🙂

Monochrome & Lunch Inspiring Creativity

Had a great Crafting Swap last night with Dianne and Fanny. Many thanks to the two of you for your inspiring ideas!

Today is ‘Challenge Time’ for me. This week’s Out of a Hat Creations Challenge is based on a picture, now here is what I made of it:

… a card to say ‘hi’. There were many aspects I liked about the picture: the softness of the fabric, the funky patterned paper, the almost hidden circle -a lampshade maybe- the seventies feel and last but not least it was all in one colour – orange! Whilst I find it a bit of a challenge to work in shades of one single colour, my last crafting win as you well know was due to a one colour challenge. Oh by the way it is one of the winning entries published in the current issue of ‘Quick Cards Made Easy’ (page 10). Nevertheless at some point I got stuck in a creative block, luckily, due to the time of day, it was lunch to the rescue, and, after a little break, I quickly finished the project.

For the background I used what I tend to call the emboss-stamping technique which simply uses an embossing folder/texture plate to stamp and emboss at the same time. The withe vellum -looking a bit peachy here- re-creates the softness of the fabric from the original picture on  Out of a Hat Creations Challenge . To creat the lay out I got some general ispiration from Keren Baker’s blog. Please let me know what you think.

Here is what I used: cream card blank, gem, glitter gel pen, cord, tonic studio punches (small flowers), crop-a-dile, vellum, Martha Stewart Border punch, brayer and PSX Sketch Box Lower Case Creative Characters (an alphabet I got ages ago) from your local craft shop; texture plate from sizzix; peach parfait, tangerine tango and cajun craze cardstock, tangerine tango and cajun craze ink, circle and large flower punches from Stampin’UP!

Back soon. Until then …

Happy Crafting!!!

🙂