November Rudolph Day

Hello everyone.  Well Christmas is definitely getting closer now and hurray, I actually made the deadline this time for Sarn's Rudolph Day and I am definitely in need of Christmas cards so need to concentrate my brain on the fact that time is getting very short!  At least this will make two more to add to the pathetic few I have made so far.

For these two cards I have used a Creative Expressions die and a set of Stamps from  Indigoblu.   

I would also like to give my thanks to Sarn for all her hard work in organising this challenge as she has decided to step down.   It was one of the first challenges I entered when I started this blog in September last year and as you can see from my remarks above I am not one of her most regular players, but funnily enough the first time I entered I won a lovely Memory Box Snowflake Corner die which had been donated by Scrappymo, who is taking over the running of the challenge in January, and huge thanks go to Mo for that. 

I am leaving this post here, but if you wish to see the details of how I made both these cards I am making two separate posts below.

Thank you for looking at my blog today.

Pat x 
 

Framed Noel Christmas

Hi there.  As I said in the above post this is the first of two cards I have just made for Rudolph Day.  I have made separate posts of the cards because it makes it easier if I want to enter any challenges.  This card was made using a die designed by Sue Wilson over at Creative Expressions called Framed Noel and it can be used with or without the outside edge.

I cut the die twice using snippets of dark blue and the turquoise card, with which I cut out just the centre piece, and layered it on top of the dark blue.  I then cut a piece of silver mirri card with the outside edge so that it fits exactly behind.  I then found a snippet of white card and embossed using a freebie snowflake embossing folder which actually is just a strip but by moving it down the card another two times it filled the piece of card nicely and didn't seem to leave any lines which was lucky.  I then coloured it using Adirondack - Stonewashed and Distress Inks - Peacock Blue and Shaded Lilac, and then a bit of Faded Jeans on just the snowflakes to accentuate them a bit more.  I finished by using a Sakura silver sparkle pen round the edge and in the centres of some of the snowflakes to add some extra interest but it doesn't show up much in the photo.  I then layered it on a white square card.

Thank you for stopping by.

Pat x

I am entering this card in the following challenge:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 152.  The aim is to use up our snippets/leftover bits.

Moonlit Santa

This is the second card which I made for Rudolph Day on which I used an Indigoblu stamp set called Here Comes Santa.  I used just the sleigh and the snowflake edge.

I decided on the approximate size of the topper and stamped the snowflake edge top and bottom using Versamark and then heat set it with WOW Silver Sparkle Embossing Powder.  For some reason this did not come out as clearly as it might have done but decided it looked nice and glittery so would go with it.  I then sponged using Distress Inks in Faded Jean and then to darken it even more I went round the edges with Black Soot which muddied it a bit but thought I would carry on and see what happened.  I had left a lighter space in the middle which is where I stamped the sleigh after first removing the mask.  I decided to try some shadows across the moon but overdid it a bit so used some white acrylic paint over it to brighten the moon back up.  This was not easy as I had already stamped the sleigh in place so had to use the white paint around it, and when dry very carefully added one or two more shadows back in.

I finished by layering this on to a piece of light navy blue card leaving a space at the bottom for the sentiment.  This was a piece of leftover card and wasn't quite square so when this was mounted on to the white card it didn't look quite right so cut a piece off the white base card to make it fit better.

I thought this card could have turned out better but as I had spent a reasonable amount of time on it I decided to use it.  I am very self critical as you will probably have noticed, but I always try to learn from problems, so hopefully if I make another similar card it may go better.

Thank you for coming to visit.

Pat x

I am entering this in the following challenge:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.

On Safari

Hi there, and thanks for dropping by.  I have a couple of male birthdays this month and I used this NBUS Deep Red elephant stamp which I have been admiring and decided to take the plunge and buy recently.  It is beautifully detailed and ready cling mounted, and as the name implies is made from very deep red rubber.

I decided to give the elephant a scenic background so I did my usual trick of starting the thing off on the Gelli Plate by mapping out the colours roughly with ink straight from the pad i.e. blue sky - Adirondack Stonewashed and Shaded Lilac near the horizon and keeping the ink quite smooth, then for the ground random bits of Distress Inks in Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Bundled Sage, and at the bottom in the middle for the sort of track I laid just the Spiced Marmalade and some Adirondack Espresso, and rubbed it a little with my finger to spread it around.  I then spritzed with a little water and using a piece of white card pulled the print.  To finish the scene I used a paint brush and some more of the ink used like paint and made some long grass at the front and added more bits of ink where I thought it needed it.  I painted two trees in the distance and some hills on the horizon, and I also added a little darker colour to the sky using some well watered down Faded Jeans Distress Ink at the top.

When I had decided the scene was set I used a snippet of white card and stamped the elephant using Memento London Fog ink and then using my Spectrum Noir Pencils I added some grey in various shades and then some orangy brown because elephants like to coat themselves in a layer of mud to protect their skin.  Unfortunately it doesn't really show very well in the picture.  In this instance I think the elephant would have been better painted with the inks rather than the pencils but I don't have enough of the right colour inks to do it.  I then cut it out and attached it to the background and fixed a sentiment.

I do enjoy setting the scene and hopefully you think it works ok.

Thank you for stopping to take a look.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenge:

Penny Black and More Challenge - Anything Goes.
Sweet Stampin' Challenge - Birthdays.
Addicted to Stamps and More - Make Your Mark. 
Allsorts Challenge Blog - No Design Papers Allowed.

My Mind's Eye Birthday

Hi all.  I needed a card for a female relation and with Mrs. A's Butterfly Challenge in mind I used a sketch  I found over at Fusion Challenge.

I used the sketch and the pretty blue in the photograph for my card.  I found some My Mind's Eye freebie papers which I thought would work, and also a Lily flower stamp from a set by Sheena Douglass called A Little Bit Floral.

I stamped the flower on to a piece of the paper twice using Black Archival ink.  I cut the whole flower out and then on the second image just the three largest petals,  and used my white gel pen to fill in the lines on the stamp and the stamens as I thought this would tie it in better with the rest of the card.  After I had shaped the petals and stuck the flower together I added a centre  using a hole punch and a snippet of white card.  I shaped the pieces with a ball tool and attached them in the middle of the flower.

I made the tab shaped topper with another piece of the paper and backed it with a piece of blue card which was a snippet which had been dry embossed originally, but I thought that as very little of it would be visible this would look fine with the patterned paper.  A tip which I have found useful when trying to make the shape at the bottom is to line up both pieces  and after snipping the 'V' shape slide the top layer up as far as you wish and then cut the excess off the top.

The background layer is the third of the patterned papers with a snippet of the pink either side because it seemed to look better with the pink flower and harmonised the design.

I don't have any butterfly stamps only a couple of dies, one of which is very large, and one very small, so I decided to draw and cut out one of my own design.  I did look at a few different shapes and just sketched one, made a paper template.  I cut out a butterfly using a snippet of white card, and used this together with a freebie star stamp which I got recently with a magazine, and stamped the design from the stamp on to the butterfly using Picked Raspberry Distress Ink and also blended some of the ink on to the butterfly using blending foam.  I finished the butterfly with three of the white punched pieces shaped as above.   

The stars were a freebie stencil which I got with the same magazine and I drew round it and cut it out using a snippet of white card, and then stamped the design with the same star stamp using the Picked Raspberry and also blended some over the stars.

I finished by stamping the freebie sentiment from the same set on to the bottom corner using Black Archival ink.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Pat x

As well as the above challenges I am also entering this card at:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 151. We have to use up our scraps/snippets.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge  - We're Seeing Stars.
Country View Challenges - Bugs, Bees and Butterflies.

Optical Pattern Birthday

Hi there all.  I hope your weekend has started well.  A few days ago I needed a male birthday card and I was musing about what I might do and was just surfing the internet when I came upon this optical design by Julianna Kunstler which you can find here.  I was completely bowled over by it and just had to grab a piece of paper and follow her instructions for making it, to the best of my ability anyway.  I really thought that it would probably end up in the bin so chose a snippet of inkjet paper that had a sentiment which had been printed wrongly on one end so I cut this down to round about 51/2 inches square.  With hindsight it would probably have been better on something a bit more substantial.  Something like this is completely therapeutic and apart from cooking dinner and then eating it, I was determined to sit and finish it.  I must admit that by the time I had completed it my fingers were aching somewhat but I was quite happy with the effect.

She suggests you start with series of vertical wavy lines and then put one wavy line across the middle, and this is where you start pencilling in the segments so that all the lines curve towards the centre.  I will say at this point that when I mounted it I twisted the whole thing round by 90 degrees so the tubes are running horizontally not vertically.  You can use a fine line pen but I decided to pencil so I could erase and change anything I didn't like.  After all the lines were done  I started to colour with my Spectrum Noir pencils.  I started with the two plain tubes thinking this would be easier to achieve, but frankly after doing two plain ones I thought it would look more interesting if I alternated the colours.

I didn't at first think that this would work as a birthday card, but once I had mounted it on to a snippet of black card and then adhered this to the square white base card I began to think that maybe it was ok.  I finished by adding a strip of black card on which I added the sentiment.

Thank you for looking today.

Pat x

Birds on a Branch Anniversary

Hi all, and here is an Anniversary card I made for some good  friends whose 20th Wedding Anniversary was towards the end of November.  When it comes to Anniversary cards my mind seems to go down the same routes all the time, so had a look around for fresh ideas and found that the pair of birds idea came up quite a bit, and I don't think I have used birds on any of my recent cards.  A particular bird punch by Stamping Up  kept appearing, and as I don't own this punch and needed the card in a hurry, I decided to try making a bird of my own design.  It does look a little similar but the punch gave the bird just one wing but I have given mine two and the tail shape is a bit different.   I tinkered about a bit and finally drew one I was happy with, so just reversed it for the other bird to make a matching pair.

I used my Gelli Plate and Distress Inks in Tumbled Glass and Victorian Velvet with a snippet of white card applying the ink direct from the pad to the plate, and in this instance I think I mixed them together with my finger and then misted with a little water and pulled the print.  I think I may then have added some more Victorian Velvet  to random areas of the plate and misted then put the card back on the plate and pulled the print again just to darken the colour a little.  I then cut the background to size and ran it through a Card Concepts EF called More Dots.  I had to extend the pattern as the EF was rectangular not square, but with this simple pattern it proved quite easy to do.   I finished the background by inking a little more round the edges with Distress Ink - Faded Jeans.

The heart topper was made from another snippet of white card and using a Nellie Snellen Multi Frame Heart die, after which it was embossed using a folder by Cuttlebug called Birds and Swirls.  I then cut the birds from snippets of pink and blue paper from a pad of plain papers from Dovecraft, and cut the wings separately and ran them through the CC folder and attached them to the birds and pencilled an eye on each.  I decided to add a little shading to each bird with some Tumbled Glass and Faded Jeans on the blue, and Picked Raspberry and then to darken the wings a little of the Faded Jeans.  The branches were made using the Sue Wilson die - Petite Vinery.  I inked up the veins of the leaves while they were still in the die using Faded Jeans, and then I cut each branch a little shorter and coloured with the Tumbled Glass and Victorian Velvet inks.

Finally after assembling the card I ran off the sentiment on the computer and then made a mat for it using Spellbinders Decorative Elements  die Labels Eight.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Pat  x

I am entering my card in the following challenge:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 150 where we us up our snippets of paper and card.

Under Sail

Hello fellow card lovers.  Well, I took my life in my hands and changed my blog a little, just the fonts anyway.  I am always a bit nervous of changing the look of the blog in case anything goes awry.  What prompted me was a post by Di about blogger and its problems which you can find here.  I left Di a comment thanking her for bringing this site to our attention and said I was afraid to change anything in case of problems.  Afterwards I thought "come on Pat, it really should be ok, just give it a go".  Well I did and everything appears to be alright.   The only thing that is slightly bugging me is that when the blog first comes up, and before it is fully loaded, it seems to flash up the old heading, but because the sizing of the new heading is a little different it flashes up the old heading on two lines before it finally loads and then puts up the heading with its new font.  I know this is just one of blogger's little foibles, and hopefully over time it will stop doing this.

Anyway, here is another male birthday card with a watery theme.  I enjoy making cards with a sea theme and I found this image that I thought would make a nice card and I used it in conjunction with my Gelli Plate and Distress Inks.

I covered the Gelli plate in four different colour Distress Inks, namely Faded Jeans, Tumbled Glass, Shaded Lilac and Peacock Feathers.  I swirled the ink straight from the pad over the Gelli Plate starting with the darkest colour, Faded Jeans, at the bottom, then the Tumbled Glass, then a small area of Shaded Lilac, and then the Peacock Feathers at the top, and then spritzed with a little water.  I made sure there weren't too many areas of white left and then pulled the print using a snippet of white card.  The print was quite good but decided to add some Shaded Lilac, again spritzed with water, to the bottom two thirds of the plate, put the print back on and was happier as the lilac had lightened and filled in the gaps.  I then decided to add  some Faded Jeans to approximately where the horizon line would be, and again added some water and pulled the print for a third time.

After printing the image, then colouring and cutting it out, I glued it in place.  It was a bit difficult to cut out as I had to cut off the lines attached to the sails which in turn were attached to the boat as they were too thin to cut out successfully.  After glueing in place I took a Spectrum Noir pencil and put the lines back in as accurately as I could and also added the birds at this stage.  The lines could perhaps have been a little sharper, but I went over them with a pencil to give a bit more definition, and decided not to chance my arm any more and just left it there.

I cut the finished picture down a little to give a good edge and mounted on a piece of dark blue card which in turn was mounted on to a square white card, then added the sentiment.  The only other thing I did was to create shading under and around the boat so it looks as though it is in the water and not on top of it.  I am fairly pleased with the result, and at a distance the horizon line seems to have morphed into a bit of distant coastline which is an added bonus.  The thing with this printing is that the results are quite random and unpredictable and if you'll excuse the pun you have to 'go with the flow' as it were.

Anyway, thank you for stopping by today.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 149 where we use up our snippets of card and paper.  Only a couple here - a large leftover piece of white and dark blue card.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.