Shaker Anniversary

Hi there and welcome.  I needed an anniversary card and had seen some shaker cards on Pinterest which gave me the idea to try one as I haven't made one before.  I used my usual Nellie Snellen hearts dies which are very useful as they have two scalloped edged and three plain edged dies within the set so there is plenty of choice.  I also used a freebie embossing folder for the background which has some very pretty butterflies and flowers.

I started with a snippet of white card for the background cut into a square slightly smaller than the card base and embossed with the folder, which I had to put through twice to cover the square piece of card. 

I then cut out both the scalloped heart dies with another snippet of white card and laid these two cut pieces together with one heart centrally over the other and fixed them with a piece of removable tape whilst I cut out the smaller plain heart in the middle, also fixing the die in place with some tape to ensure it stayed in the right place for cutting.  I then cut two of the large plain hearts, one from acetate and one from another snippet of white card.

I assembled the heart by fixing the acetate to the back of the scalloped heart with double sided tape, then fixed some foam tape to frame the smaller heart aperture.  I then filled the space with a few pastel coloured sequins before removing the foam backing and adhering the white plain heart to this, which then encases the sequins.

To finish I mounted the embossed background on to the base card and at this point decided that it needed a bit of colour so I took three colours of Adirondack ink, namely Sunshine Yellow, Pink Sherbet and Stonewashed and applied the ink with a dry wet wipe.  I find this is a good way of applying ink to the raised surface as with this over the finger it makes it much easier to apply the ink just where you need it, but even so looking at the photo now I can see I didn't get quite enough down the righthand edge but never mind.  I added the shaker heart on top and then used a sentiment inked with the Adirondack Stonewashed ink on to a small oval die cut, the smallest die from the Spellbinders Floral Oval.  As this was my first shaker card I was really pleased with the finished look.
 
Thank you for stopping by today.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 208 and 209 where we use our leftover pieces/snippets of card, paper etc.

My Favourite Five Christmas Cards of 2015

Hi there.  Debby over at A Scrapjourney has run a challenge at this time of year for a few years now where we choose our five favourite Christmas creations, and she has decided to run it again this year, so thank you Debby as this is always fun and sometimes quite difficult to choose just five, although she does say an extra one or two is OK, so here are mine:

 
                                                                      Winter Tree

                                                                       Poinsettia
                                                   

                                                                   Winter Fenceline

 

                                                             Penny Black Mistletoe

Snowy Landscape

I hope you like my choices and thank you for stopping by to take a look today. 

                                                                                                                                                                     

Pat x

Heartfelt Christmas Greetings

Hi there to everybody.  Before anything else I would like to wish you all a Happy Christmas and a happy, healthy and creative new year.  I have had a most enjoyable blogging year, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who follows, or who drops by regularly, or even just occasionally, as I really appreciate your continued interest in what I do.

I have used this Serendipity stamp called Winter Fenceline once before, but last time I changed it to Autumn.  That is the beauty of this stamp as you can make it any season you like by varying the colours.

I stamped the image on to a snippet of white card with Versafine Smokey Gray ink and coloured using Distress Inks and a brush and some water.  The colours I used were Stormy Sky, Tumbled Glass, Seedless Preserves, Walnut Stain and Mustard Seed.  I did water the colours down well, especially the Seedless Preserves and the Mustard seed as I wanted it to be quite subdued.  Afterwards I did add a little more yellow using a Spectrum Noir yellow pencil as the sun needed a little more colour and the pencils are more controllable for finishing touches I feel.

I cut the image using a Simon Says Stitched Squares die set and then added a mat from a snippet of dark blue.  I then decided to back it with some embossed snowflakes using a Crafter's Companion Snow Flurry embossing folder and another snippet of white card.  I also added three die cut snowflakes again cut from another snippet of white card using Craft Emotions Snow Crystals die set.  I finished with a sentiment die cut from another snippet of dark blue card.

Thank you for  visiting today.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 208 and 209 where we use up our snippets of card and paper etc.
Happy Little Stampers Mixed Media Challenge - December 2015. 
Happy Little Stampers CAS Challenge - December 2015.  My favourite technique which I have used here is watercolouring with inks.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Winter Wonderland.
                                                                                                                                                               

Snowflakes and Tartan for Christmas

Hi all.  I have another Christmas card to show you today using some green tartan.  I love the look of tartan and I managed to find some papers which had red and green tartans which are from Dovecraft and the pad is called The Twelve Days of Christmas.  I also used a Spellbinder set of  Curved Borders 1 dies and some Craft Emotions Snow Crystals die and also a set of MFT Basic Stitch Lines dies which I used to put the stitching round the edge of the tartan and the white layer.

I cut the tartan paper to fit my square card and used the stitched border to all four sides, in fact I need not have bothered with the top as that is covered by the top layer which is a snippet of white card to which I added the curved scallop border.   I cut the four snowflakes from the white layer using the large one twice and the two smaller ones once each leaving the negative shape, and then finished the edges off with the MFT stitched die to match the under layer.  I then cut some more of the snowflakes from a snippet of gold card and attached over the negative space using foam pads for a bit of height.  I finished with the die cut sentiment which was cut from another snippet of gold card. 

Thank you for dropping by.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 208 and 209 where we use up our snippets of card and paper etc.        
Simon Says Monday Challenge- Winter Wonderland.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Die Crazy.

Snowy Landscape

Hi everybody.  I made this card with the intention of entering it in the Crafty Individuals latest challenge but unfortunately I missed it, seems to be a bit of a habit of mine ...lol, so I put it to one side and posted an anniversary card instead, but I have decided to show it now so here it is.

I started with a snippet of white card and using a piece of torn copy paper to mask the edge of the sky I then brayered with Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky Distress Ink.  I inked up the Crafty Individuals Winter Trees with Adirondack Espresso ink and placed the trees.  I didn't want the dark bit on the bottom of the background trees stamp so I used a piece of paper placed on the horizon line and then stamped them in place over this.  I added the late afternoon sun and its reflection on the snow with a little Mustard Seed DI on some blending foam on the tree and watered down using a briush on the snow.   I watercoloured with a little Stormy Sky and Walnut Brown DI  for the shadows and then added a little more of the brown in the area of the trees, and also some Mowed Lawn along the horizon to suggest some more distant greenery.  Florence who is a designer over at Crafty Individals made a card for the challenge which I missed, and she stencilled her sky area by laying the stencil and using some water to bleach out the design which I thought was something a bit different so I gave it a go and it worked, not as well as Florence's card here but you can see it a little in my sky.  Unfortunately I should have done the bleaching out with the stencil before I stamped the trees and the water bleached out some of the brown in the trees as well, but I think it just looks like a little mist in the air so decided it was ok.  I finished by adding the birds with a little brown ink on a fine brush.  I also added a little extra white on the branches of the trees.  I also added some on the ground around the trees with a white gel pen to make it look like the snow when it goes icy and starts to melt away, but I'm not sure that this worked very well, and then finished with some dots for falling snow.

I then die cut a sentiment from a snippet of silver card and also used another snippet to mat on to a white base card.  I did cut back the finished piece which is why there is only a small section left showing of the background trees.

Thank you for dropping by today.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 207 where we use up our snippets.
Through the Craft Room Door - Anything Goes.

Poppies and Butterfly Anniversary

Hi there.  I have an anniversary card to show you today so have interrupted my Christmas cards to make this, unfortunately still a lot of Christmas cards to make but never mind.  I adore poppies and I have a new/NBUS Memory Box die called Row of Poppies which I thought I would use for this card and I included a butterfly and four little hearts so it would qualify for Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge but I miscalculated and unfortunately it closed last Wednesday when I thought it was open until next Wednesday.  It just goes to show that time passes a lot quicker than I think!  Anyway, here it.

I lined my white square card with a piece of red tartan paper which I love, and then using some linen look card cut about an inch smaller all round, I cut the Memory Box die out of the left hand side.  I then stuck the white card down and placed the die cut poppies into the negative shape and stuck down all the extra little pieces which form the negative shape and then lifted the poppies themselves away when the glue was dry to leave the shape exposing the pretty red paper.

I then cut a heart using my Nellie Snellen Multi Frame Heart dies and stuck the sentiment to the heart as you can see with the heart on its side.  I found some little sticker hearts and coloured them to match my sentiment, and after sticking the die cut heart next to the poppy shape I added the four little hearts randomly around the card and sticking one on the heart itself.  I was going to leave the card there but then decided to make a sort of shadow effect with the positive piece of the poppy by placing it just a little to the right and draping it over the heart just a little which I think works quite well.  I finally added the little butterfly.

                                                          OOOooooOOOooooOOO

On to another topic briefly.  I in common I'm sure with a lot of other people have been doing a bit of colouring.  The colouring books have become so popular over the last six months or so and in July when I went away on holiday I thought I would buy one to have a go at whilst away.  I bought one called Relax With Art which comes out once a month I think and has a facebook page which you will find here.   I like it because the outlines are not thick and heavy and the pictures are not produced back to back so that if you do use markers or press a bit heavy with pencils it wont spoil anything.  I have used just colouring pencils so far but personally if I did use markers I think I would still put something in between the pages to be sure that no stray ink spoils anything.  I only get time to do it occasionally and have totally completed just two images so far and thought perhaps you might like to see them.

Thank you for looking at the blog today.

Pat  x

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 206 where we use up our snippets of card and paper etc.
Shopping Our Stash - No Stamping.  (I'm so excited that this card made the top 3)
Beccy's Place - A card or Papercraft  Project.