Snowy Winter Houses

This is a follow on from the last post, but as I want to play over at Pixie's Crafty Workshop as well, and I'm sure Di will be so pleased that I am not trying to enter just as the gates are being locked for the week, but as I only want to enter this card it is easier to make a separate post to do so.

Do go over and take a look at all the beautiful cards on show, and the lovely cards that Di herself makes too.  For details of how I made this card please look at the last post.  The challenge asks us to use some snippets of paper/card on our entries, and I used snippets of white and blue card.

See you soon,

Pat x

Rudolph Day - May

Hi all.  I can't believe another month has gone by, and May's Rudolph Day is here.  Stamping for Pleasure's Sarn runs this challenge which asks for two cards,  and I am going to try to enter each month from now on.  I started last month as personally I find it difficult to think about Christmas cards too early in the year.

I recently acquired a set of hexagon dies from X-Cut so I thought I would christen them on this first card.  I used a snowflake stamp from Chocolate Baroque called Snowflake Shadow and I stamped it onto a snippet/scrap of white card using Versamark Ink and WOW Sparkling Snow EP, and die cut with the smallest hexagon die.  I coloured these with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and then some cut from plain white card I coloured with a combination of Peacock Feathers and Memento Nautical Blue.  I kept adding the ink until the colour was quite dark, as you can see, but when finished I think they would have looked better slightly lighter in tone, but never mind.  I found a design I liked and stuck them to a square white card.  On the left hand side I used the three deer and tree from the set by Claritystamp, and stamped using the Memento Nautical Blue ink.  I finished by adding some shadows under the deer and tree, and on the snow to give some shape, and added a sentiment with the same Nautical Blue ink.

The second card uses a Cuttlebug Embossing Folder called Winter House, which I have had for several years, but now seems to have been discontinued.  I used a scrap/snippet of white card and then as I wanted to put it on a square card, I cut it down.  I like the monochromatic look in blue, as you can see, so I used some Adirondack Stonewashed Ink which I added with a water brush to the sky and the houses, and then I added a little shadow to the buildings in the Nautical Blue, but it doesn't show up that well in the photo.  To add sparkle and texture I used a Versamark pen and painted some on the roofs and on the snow in front of the houses, and heat embossed with the WOW Sparkling Snow EP.  I then added some Perfect Pearls to the little dots of snow and the smoke from the chimney, and  to the roofs and snow in front as well.  I think it just adds some extra shine, and I also added a sentiment with the Nautical Blue.  I then finished by matting on to some dark blue card, and then on to the base card which I decorated using the snowflake stamp from the Clarity set using the Nautical Blue ink.

I hope you had a good weekend.  Those of you in the US I see had a Memorial Day on  Monday, our equivalent of which is Remembrance Day in November.  If we lived in the perfect world there would be no need to have Memorial/Remembrance Days, but I don't see things changing much for the foreseeable future, so we all remember in our own way all those who have served and are still serving their countries in this way.

Pat x

Heart Overlay Anniversary Card

Hi there.  I have used this Deep Red - Love Bench stamp before for an anniversary card on here, but this time I decided to paper piece the lady's dress and the umbrella, and having seen cards on pinterest with an overlay cut out heart with the image showing through the heart shape it gave me an idea for something just a bit different.

I'm afraid the colour of the image looks blue but I actually stamped it in Jet Black Archival.  The cream square card is turned so the fold is at the top making a tent card, and the image was stamped with the black Archival ink on to a scrap/snippet of white card.  I coloured the bench with Walnut Distress Ink, and then I paper pieced the dress and the umbrella.  The lady's dress was cut from a freebie paper which was white with a very small design in pink and green, but to be honest it is very difficult to see in the photo and it too looks blue for some reason.  The green for the umbrella was also a freebie paper, and this you can see more clearly.  I cut this out which was a bit fiddly especially the thin piece at the back of the seat which very nearly broke and looks a little uneven, but I decided that trying to cut it any straighter would probably just make it worse.  I used a mask from That Special Touch called Funky and embossed a snippet of cream card, and after cutting and adhering to the front of the card, I coloured it very lightly round the edges with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink.  I used two of the dies from a Spellbinders Decorative Elements set called Captivating Squares.  I thought it would look quite nice to use the pink with the cream to give a bit of contrast.

For the final layer I used my  Nellie Snellen Multi Frame Heart die, the largest one in the set and impressed the die centrally on to a piece of card the same size as the base card.  The order using the Grand Caliber is pink embossing plate, silicone mat, card, die then the base plate on top.  Doing it this way up allows you to see where you are placing the card on top of the die, and as long as the silicone mat goes between the pink plate and the cutting side of the die you won't mark the plate.  This way it leaves the impression without cutting through.  I then cut through the centre of the heart and round the inside of it as well.  I then made a crease about a 1/4" from the outside edge of each piece and before sticking with some strong wet glue to each side of the main card I used the Victorian Velvet DI very lightly around the edge of the heart.  The only mistake I made was not to add on the 1/2" total wrap round to the original measurement so unfortunately the card did not meet in the middle, but I decided that as it was going to be seen open to view the scene within, I would  give myself a little artistic license and leave it be. 

Finally I stamped the sentiment on to a a snippet of cream card using a S/B Nestabilities Classic Ovals, the second smallest size die, with Picked Raspberry DI, and then I used some Victorian Velvet DI around the edge and adhered it to the front of the card.

By making this extra heart layer on top of the tent card you then have a card to write inside of rather than having to write on the back of it, and I do like to use an insert for writing on too.

I hope this all makes sense, and although it took a bit of time to achieve I think it looks just that little bit different, and as my cards are usually the boring square variety I thought it was a change to try something new.

Have a good weekend, and hopefully I'll be back during the coming week. There seems to be so much going on that I have been finding it difficult to find the time or the energy to craft much over the last two or three weeks, but I have managed to get round to most of my regular ports of call, but if I have missed yours then please except my apologies, and I will try to do better, as I do love to keep in touch and see what everyone has been up to.

Pat x

At the very last minute I am entering this card over at Pixie's Crafty Workshop as I used snippets of pink and cream paper and cream card.

Bluebells in Springtime

Hello all.  Well after rather a long time I am back with another card.  I have been rather busy of late and card making has had to take a back seat, and when I have had the time Mr Mojo has been pulling faces and telling me not to bother.  I have so many ideas whizzing through my head that I sometimes cannot make a decision which way to go, and if I am not feeling creative then my crafting space feels like a disaster zone.  Oh my word I know it sounds like it but I am not really a crafting diva, and hopefully this silly phase will soon pass.

Anyway, back to business.  I have a Sheena Douglass bluebell stamp set from her Fantasy Floral range  which I have never used, so decided to make a watercolour scene with the bluebells taking centre stage.  Sheena's stamps are quite large and this sometimes makes it quite difficult to get the perspective right, and I do think the bluebells look rather giant sized, but I suppose I could be down on my hands and knees right up close looking through them.  It didn't help when my DH on looking at my finished piece announced they looked like a herd of elephants marching across the front, but thought this could not be right as everything was far too green and lush .. lol.  I did forgive him because I must admit with one eye shut the shape of the flowers with the sort of upward curl at the bottom do look a little like elephant's trunks.

I decided the two thirds, one third rule should apply.  I put some Adirondack ink in Lettuce and Sunshine yellow, and a touch of Bottle, and also some Memento Bamboo Leaves randomly on to my glass mat and spritzed with water and laid a piece of  damp watercolour paper about six inches square  over it and moved it around through the inks until I was satisfied with the mix of colour making sure to keep the paint to the bottom two thirds of the paper.  To speed up the drying process I used my heat gun to dry it off.  I then used Adironack in Stonewashed with a touch of Spun Sugar to give a slightly lilac tinge to the sky which doesn't show up very well in the picture, and again dried it with my heat gun.  I think I did add a little Adirondack in Butterscotch and Bottle with blending foam on to the grass at the end to give it a bit more interest and also added some shadows with the Bamboo Leaves and a water brush.

As I could not find a stamp with the right sort of foliage for a flowering cherry tree, I used an embossing folder which was a recent freebie with a magazine, and inked the raised side of the folder with Memento Tuxedo Black.  Instead of running it through the machine to emboss it, I kept it open and just laid the background over it where I wanted the foliage to be and rubbed over it with my fingers so the ink left an impression.  I did this several times and this left just enough of an outline for me to colour using my inks and a water brush.  I think the colours were Adirondack Espresso and Spun Sugar, Memento Bamboo Leaves and Distress Ink Picked Raspberry.  I then stamped the bluebells with the Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with Stonewashed ink mixed with a little Picked Raspberry, but unfortunately the background colours muddied everything a bit, so I got out some old Sakura Gelly Roll pens and found a colour which was a bit dark but with the white as well worked reasonably well and gave a glazed finish which also doesn't show up terribly well.  I know when using water based ink to colour you should stamp with a waterproof ink like Stazon or Archival, but it seemed ok in this particular instance, and I must admit I don't always stick rigidly to the rules.  You may notice that the shape of my bluebells does not correspond with the shape on the stamp.  I decided to ink only some of the bells as I like the arching stem look to a bluebell and because they are right at the front I only used about half the length of the stamp.

I finished the scene with some black outlines in places using a Letraset fine line pen, and highlighted a bit with a white gelly roll pen.  I found another freebie embossing folder with clouds on and decided to use one of the clouds cut out for the sentiment for which I used a snippet of white cardstock sponged with some Stonewashed ink.  I also put some birds in the sky with the fine line pen.

I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend, and that our friends in the US enjoyed their Mother's Day.  We of course had ours in March which seems ages ago now.  Thanks for stopping by.

Pat  x

I would like to enter the following Challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Spring Flowers
Pixie's Crafty Workshop where the challenge is to use scraps.  I hope I will be allowed to enter the gates this week because I have only used a very small scrap/snippet of white card for my cloud sentiment, but hopefully that will be sufficient.