Christmas Star Wreath

Hi there.  It is Rudolph Day again and I have made a card with that in mind.  It is now being run by Maureen at  Scraps of Life by Scrappymo and it runs from 25th until the end of the month.  I also took into account the theme over at Merry Monday which is Stars, and the colours are from the photo below for the challenge at Inkspirational, and it also fits the sketch over at Happy Little Stampers.

I decided to try and make my own embossing plate for the background of my card and I used a snippet of good quality acetate and a NBUS  set of stars from XCut the smallest die.  I randomly cut out the stars one at a time across this 6" x 6" acetate sheet.  This did take a bit of time as I had to pass it through two or three times for each star in order for it to cut through, and I wasn't sure that it would actually emboss, but luckily it did work as you can see here using a snippet of white card to emboss it on to.

I also used the same sized die from the XCut set for the wreath and using snippets of white, black and silver mirri card, I heat embossed the white ones with WOW Sparkling Snow, and the black with WOW Black Sparkle Embossing Powder.   I finished the card with a piece of silver ribbon which came as part of a prize from Debby over at A Scrapjourney, and the sentiment is from a set of Indigoblu stamps which I stamped using Black Archival ink which I then heat embossed with WOW Clear EP. 






I have a new follower who is Connie and you will find her blog here.  She is a lady of many talents, so please go and take a look.


Thank you for coming to visit today and I hope you have a good weekend.

Pat x

I am also entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 165.   Using up snippets of card and paper.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - No Rules.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - Feb. 2015 - Anything Goes.

Fuchsia Birthday

Hi there everyone.  I originally made this card with the Time Out Challenge in mind, which was to case a card by Kylie, and you can find her post here but unfortunately I have just checked and the challenge has closed.  At the moment cardmaking and I are not good friends as nothing seems to have been going right lately!  Anyway here is my card and Kylie's card is on the right.  

I used the fuchsia leaves, flower and buds from a Clearly Besotted set which I got free with a magazine recently.  I stamped the leaves first on to a snippet of white card using Memento Bamboo Leaves Ink and then added the fuchsia flowers using the same green on the top of the flower and the rest of the stamp I stamped with  Addirondack Eggplant Ink and then masked the flowers and added the buds using the Bamboo Leaves .  I then coloured the flowers with a waterbrush using the Eggplant and some Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry,  and then the buds with Bamboo Leaves and  I got out a few of my Spectrum Noir pencils and added some extra shadows and highlights.  I think the buds would have looked better with less green and a little more of the open flower colours but I did add a little pink from one of the pencils to change the colour a bit.

My twist on Kylie's card was to use a woodgrain embossing folder for the top half instead of the stripes, and a piece of ribbon instead of a couple of embossed lines.  I also decided to make the topper a banner shape and then I added the sentiment  on the bottom of the background layer.  I did wish that I had added the sentiment before putting the card together because needless to say it didn't stamp at all evenly so I stamped it again on another snippet of white card and cut all round the edge of it and attached it over the top.  It probably would have looked better if I had made a mat out of it but because the sentiment was quite large there wasn't really the room for it so did the best I could.  I think I should have deconstructed it but suspected the topper would probably be ruined in the process and the thought of starting again didn't really appeal greatly.   I also managed to mark the topper so decided to get creative with a few pearls.

I hope I am over this cardmaking slump.   I'm sure I am not alone in going through a bad patch of creativity and nobody wants to listen to me bleating on endlessly about it, so thank you for visiting today because as always your interest is very much appreciated!

Pat x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 164.  I used two snippets of white card, and a snippet of ribbon.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Add A Little Texture.
Happy Little Stampers - CAS Challenge - Embossing.
Penny Black and More - Anything Goes except a digi.
Stamping Sensations - Anything Goes.
Addicted to CAS - Mask.

Floral Heart and Rose

Hi All.   As this is the season of hearts and flowers, here is another romantic offering.  I have become a member of the Claritystamp Stencil Club,  which is now running alongside my Stamp Club membership, so every month I receive a new stamp and a stencil to have a play with.  I got this in January but have only just got around to having a play with it.  I also used a rose stamp which was part of a freebie set I recently got with a magazine and added the sentiment and small butterfly which were also part of this set.

The stencil has the positive and the negative and I laid the negative over the card and placed the heart into it to add the Distress Ink.  My grey ink has decided to dry out so I used Black Soot but applied it very lightly so that it wasn't too dark.  I removed the inner piece and then added some Adirondack Pink Sherbert Ink to add shadow to the white areas and also used pink round the edge too.

The freebie stamps are by Clearly Besotted  and I stamped the rose using a snippet of white card and coloured the flower with Picked Raspberry DI using a brush and a little water, and some Mowed Lawn DI for the leaves, sepals and stem, and after it was dry cut it out.

I finished by adding the sentiment and a little butterfly which came with the same set.  I used second generation ink for the butterfly and added a little pink using a Spectrum Noir pencil.  After adding the rose to the card I decided to add Glossy Accents to make it stand out better, and I also added a little extra pink to the flowers and some of the leaves too, and a little grey pencil round the outer edge for definition.

Thank you for visiting my blog today.

Pat x

I am entering the following challenges:

Less is More are celebrating their 4th Birthday with a Colour Challenge using Pink and Grey.  Many congratulations to the team .
Pixie's Crafty Workshop where we use up our snippets.  I hope I am allowed to go through the gates as I have only used one little snippet of white card.
Cas-ual Fridays - Challenge 136 to use some watercolouring.  I did watercolour the rose with inks so hope this is ok for the challenge.
Simon Says Monday Challenge to use red and pink or just red or pink.
Sweet Stampin' - Add a Heart.


For some reason my blog has suddenly decided that I have extra followers.  For a little while there has been a discrepancy of one but now all of a sudden it appears to be three. Now I don't think I have anyone new or that I have actually lost anybody, but if you should notice that you should be there and now you are not please let me know.

Hearts and Butterflies With Love

Hi there.  Here we are at the start of another month and a month closer to the start of Spring.  I know I shouldn't wish my time away but this time of year seems to make my card making grind to a near halt and I seem to spend more time thinking and looking than actually doing, and when I do 'do' nothing seems to go smoothly.   I am not totally pleased with the finished result but at least it's a card.  Right, that's enough of that moaning and groaning, so here it is.

I based the card on this week's Freshly Made Sketch but unfortunately I have missed the deadline for entries, but anyway this is the sketch.

For the background I used three different Jennifer Ellory patterned papers from a freebie pad which came with a magazine a while ago.

For the topper I used a snippet of cream card and cut a circle using a set of Xcut Circle Dies into which I embedded the red and blue hearts.  The red heart was embossed with a Craft Concepts Embossing Folder More Dots, and the blue heart with a Cuttlebug Embossing Folder D'Vine Swirl.  To embed the hearts I cut and embossed them first using  a set of heart dies from Nellie Snellen the smallest of the straight edged hearts in the set.  I then used the die to cut the first heart shape in the cream circle.   I put the first heart into place and put the heart die onto the first heart and then cut again which took a piece out of the first heart and cut the shape into the cream circle at the same time.  I placed the blue heart into the space and glued it all together with the paper doily behind.

To finish I added the sentiment which was part of Sue Wilson's Framed Noel die.  There are four different words round the frame, and I had experimentally cut them out when having a play before Christmas and they had been sitting on my table ever since.   I thought the 'love' was perfect for the card so I also used a little butterfly, which I cut out of one of the patterned papers, to embellish the sentiment, and an extra butterfly of my own design, embossed with the More Dots EF.  I used some  Pearl PVA to embellish them and also used some on the blue heart and in two of the corners of the square white card.  This last idea was initiated by the fact that I managed to get some of the Pearl PVA on to the bottom left had corner of the card so I thought this might cover it sufficiently.  I didn't get the dots terribly straight, and I managed to smudge one of the dots at the top too so left a mark there as well,  but it did sort of work.  I told you it hasn't been going well lately ..lol. 

Thank you for looking today.

I am entering this in the following challenges:

Butterfly Challenge - No. 23 Butterflies + V is for Valentine.
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 162 where we use up our snippets of paper and card etc.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - H is for ....  in this case 'hearts'.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.