Sleepy Owls

Hi all.  I'm back with a card which I made for my DH as we are celebrating our 33rd Anniversary today.  I found these owls over at Beccy's Place which were a freebie and thought they would make a cute card and combined them with  the sketch which is this week's challenge over at Less is More and I'm sorry that I am a little late as it finishes later this evening.

 

I started by cutting a piece of white card  and embossed using my Cuttlebug Kimmy-Luvs EF which sadly seems to be discontinued.  I had to run it through twice to cover the card and then I die cut with the Simon Says Stitched Square using the second largest die.

I realised that without thinking I had die cut before embossing and some of the embossing had been flattened, so I ran the piece through the embossing folder again twice and thought it was ok, but this morning when DH opened it and I looked in the daylight I realise that the first run through was not lined up quite well enough so there is a little ghosting.  I am rather a perfectionist and was annoyed that I hadn't noticed it last night but he says that he loves it anyway and it only really shows if you look at the photo on zoom, but it is good to catalogue these things so that others won't make the same mistakes.

I then cut round the image with the larger die and stuck this on the base card behind the square aperture before sticking that down too.  I then made a frame to finish the aperture nicely using a snippet of white card and the largest and second largest of the stitched dies which I then adhered  to the aperture.

I finished it with a computer generated sentiment, and as the computer paper is not very sturdy I stuck this to a snippet of card and cut a banner shape with a fishtail at one end.   

Thank you for dropping by today.

Pat  x

I would also like to enter the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 183 where we use up our snippets.
Cuttlebug Mania - Sentimental Journey.

                                                                                     

Steaming Ahead for Christmas

Hi there.  I've made this Christmas card just in time for this month's Rudolph Day which runs until the end of the month, and I think it will fit one or two other challenges as well.

I used this Stampendous stamp called Train Postcard and coloured it using my Spectrum Noir Pencils.  I cut it out and backed it with a snippet of red card.  I then adhered it to a white square card which I embossed using a Penny Black Mistletoe Stencil called Alluring.  I then stamped a Creative Expressions stamp Pinstriped Poinsettia using Versafine Smokey Gray ink on to red card using two different sizes of stamp with two layers for each of the flowers, and after I had cut them out I sprayed them with Crafter's Companion Spray & Sparkle Pearl Diamond to give them a pretty sheen.  I don't have any Christmas foliage so I used my Sue Wilson die from the Finishing Touches range called Trailing Ivy.  I die cut two of these but in the event I snipped them and just used some bits.

I finished by die cutting a sentiment from a snippet of red card using a Britannia word die.

Well this is all for now and thank you for stopping here today, and I thank you all for taking an interest in my card making corner. 

Pat  x

I am also entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 183 where we use up our snippets.
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge - Two Words.
Craft Hazelnuts Christmas Extra Challenge - Anything Goes.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.
                                                                                                                                                                

Making a Splash

Hi everybody.  I'm always in need of lots of masculine birthday cards and the latest Addicted to CAS challenge is entitled 'Splash', so I got out my Sheena Douglass stamps and I particularly like the lighthouse in her A Little Bit Scenic - Sea Scapes set and have used it before and I thought I could make it work for some challenges.

I started by stamping the image using Black Archival ink on to a piece of white card and also on to a scrap of white paper to make a mask.  I cut this out and placed over the stamped image.  I have some tubes of watercolour paint and I put a squeeze of two blues, French Ultramarine and Manganese Blue into a spray bottle and added a little water and then sprayed the white card with this spray and then dried using my heat gun.  I did this several times until I was happy with the colour.  The sprayed colour is quite soft and unfortunately I don't think it is very easy to see the sprayed effect.  I then used some more of my watercolour paints with a brush to colour the image.   It is sometimes quite difficult to glue this to the base card as some warping occurs when using a lot of water, so I stood a heavy book on top of it over night which did improve it significantly.  There was still a bit of a problem with the top edge which didn't stick very well, so I had to pull it apart to add more glue and in so doing I creased the top edge a little which you can see in the photo.  I did glue the sentiment in that area to try and hide it but unfortunately you can still see it a little.

For the sentiment I used a snippet of white card sprayed with the blue paints and then dried with my heat gun.  I need the sentiment to be a bit darker so I put some of the French Ultramarine and a tiny bit of Alazarin Crimson on to my glass mat and added a little water and swiped the piece of card through it several times until I was happy with the colour, and then I cut it out using a Britannia sentiment die.

These paints have been stuck outside in the garage for years because I did do a little watercolouring a number of years ago, but since we moved to our present house we are so limited for space that they stayed outside in the garage, but as I have decided to give watercolour painting another go, DH searched them out for me and they have now taken their place with the rest of my creative clutter ..lol.  I thought they might have dried up but they seem ok and I thought as I needed to spray some paint, and as I don't have any bottles of ink to do this with, that this would be a good alternative.

Thank you for stopping by my blog today.

Pat  x


I am also entering the following challenges:
 
Happy Little Stampers - Sprays/Mists.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Sprays + Mist.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.
CAS on Sunday - One Layer.

A Touch Of Summer

Hi all.  Oh dear, I've done it again.  I made this card for a birthday and also with Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge in mind but the challenge had already finished by the time I made it!  This seems to be becoming a habit ..lol.

I used a NBUS Peony stamp from IndigoBlu, and a NBUS Sunflower doily die from Xcut, and also some NBUS Papermania Butterfly stamps. I also used two Sue Wilson Creative Expression dies, Finishing Touches Trailing Ivy and Petite Vinery, and Configurations Collection Elegant Laced Edger, the corner die.  Behind the doily I also used a Simon Says Die Stitched Circles which is another NBUS set of dies.

I started with the background which I made with Clarity gelli plate card which takes the water very well, and then used the smooshing technique with Peacock Feathers and Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks.  I then stamped the Peony all over the background using the Peacock Feathers.  When dry I cut it to fit the square base card and darkened the edges by sponging some more Spiced Marmalade DI around the edges with blending foam. I adhered this base layer to the white card.

When I had cut the doily using a snippet of white card, I filled in the doily a little more with the stitched circle which I embossed on to another snippet of white card, and I cut with scissors on the outside line of stitching which made it slightly larger so that it fitted the space up to the outer edge as you can see, and then glued it to the under side of the doily.  Using more snippets of white card I die cut the corners and the Petite Vinery flourish using just one of the two dies and cut the flourish in half so that it would mix in with the Trailing Ivy which was a left over piece cut from dark green card a month or two ago.  The last things I did were the peonies and the butterfly which I stamped using the Peacock Feather DI and coloured with two shades of blue and a yellow Spectrum Noir pencil.  I then cut them out with scissors and inked the edges of the flowers and the butterfly with some more Peacock Feathers DI to darken and define.

I finished by inking a snippet of white card with some more Peacock Feathers DI using blending foam and went over it until it had a good coating of the ink and then die cut the sentiment using a Britannia Word Dies set.

Thank you for dropping by my blog today and thank you for all the interest shown in my little corner of blogland.

Pat  x

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - where we use up our snippets. 
Penny Black and More - Wings.
Stamping Sensations - Dies and Punches.
Butterfly Challenge - Butterflies + F for Flowers.  How lucky as the new challenge started today and my card has flowers.  Mrs A I've made it this time.

Electric Guitar Birthday

Hi there everyone.  As you can see I made this card for our DS's birthday.  I was trying to find something different and I came across a free template for this guitar and thought it was quite fun, so here is the card.

I used snippets of red and black card for the sections of the body and I heat embossed them with Clear Gloss EP, and then the silver pieces I made by covering some snippets of black card with Brilliance Starlite Silver Pigment Ink straight from the pad all over it and dried with a heat tool.

The background is two stitched squares die cut from snipppets of white card and embossed using two different stencils and then I put a little of the Brilliance silver ink on to a dry baby wipe and inked the embossed pattern to give it a bit of definition.

The sentiment plate was made with one of the stitched square dies for the white layer and to make the black layer I embossed with the die and this Simon Says Stitched die has a line of stitching inside the cut line and another outside the cut line so I layered the white on to the black and then cut with scissors beyond this outer line of stitching which looks quite good.  I used a fine line Micron pen for the strings and the peg board, and the sentiment is computer generated.

Thank you for taking a look today.

Pat x

I am entering the following challoenges:

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes.
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 180 where we use up our leftover stash.
Words 2 Scrap By - It's a Man's World.

African Elephant Birthday

Hi all.  I needed a masculine birthday card this week and I also saw that there were two CAS challenges where the theme was relevant.  The first is over at Less is More where they are asking for something with two or four legs, now this of course doesn't specifically have to be an animal, it could of course be a person, a bird or perhaps a chair or a table, but my elephant definitely fits the bill.  The other is over at Addicted to CAS where they are asking for an animal.

I used a Deep Red stamp called African Elephant.  I used the stamp here on the blog a while ago and I made a background scene, but this time as it is a clean and simple card I stamped using Versafine Smokey Gray ink on to a snippet of white card and coloured using my Spectrum Noir pencils, and then cut the image out using a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Square die.  These dies are different in that the stitching pattern is on either side of the cut line, so if you cut an aperture you get a nice line of stitching all the way round.  The dies are well made and cut beautifully but I did find that they were not the easiest to get apart as the 'pips' or tabs that hold the dies together in transit were so solid that they did not come apart very easily.  Maybe there is a knack to this, but in the end I used a fine small tipped buffer on an electric manicure set which I ran over and over each one, and finally they did come apart.  I don't know if anyone else has found this or perhaps the two sets I bought came from a particular batch where the tabs had been manufactured a little too thickly.

I finished the card with a couple of flourishes from a magazine freebie set by Sheena Douglass, which I stamped on to the base card using Brilliance Starlite Silver pigment Ink, and when dry I used an orange and a green Spectrum Noir pencil to highlight which I thought gave them the look of long dry grass.  I then added a die cut sentiment cut from silver mirri card.

Thank you for looking at my blog today, and thank you also for your continued interest.

Pat x

I am also entering the following challenge:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Make it Masculine.
AAA Cards Challenge - For The Guys.

May Rudolph Day Challenge

Hi there.  Hurray, hurray, I am so pleased that I have managed to make the deadline for the Rudolph Day Challenge over at Mo's Blog where we have from 25th to the end of the month to submit a Christmas card.  I think I have only entered once since the beginning of the year so haven't done very well up to now.  I have been greatly hampered this time by the fact that I made the card on Wednesday, and was just thinking about writing the post and putting it up when our telephone line ceased working, and so not to be thwarted here I am two days later in the local library writing it up.  I was hoping that by now all would be fixed but seems that it might not be put right until early next week and it won't be a moment too soon as you don't realise how much you miss it until it isn't there!  I was determined that as I had made this card specially it would be posted. 

Anyway on to the card.  I used a Penny Black stencil which I was lucky enough to win a while ago and a snippet of a gelli plate creation which was left over from a card I made several posts ago.

I transferred the stencil outline on to the card using a fine Micron pen and then watercoloured using Momento Bamboo Leaves and a little Pine Needles Distress Ink on the leaves and a little DI Walnut Stain on the stems, and to emphasise the leaves a bit more I used my Spectrum Noir pencils, just a light brown and a dark green, and then I used a mid colour blue and went round the edges of the image in places to make it stand out a bit more.

I have just bought a new Sue Wilson die from her Configurations Collection called Elegant Laced Edger and consists of two dies which as the name suggests can be arranged to make different borders and frames.  I mounted the topper on to a piece of green card and then cut the die cut frame and sandwiched this between the topper and the textured gold card behind.  I also cut a piece of soft green ribbon and layered this between the gold card and the frame.  I also embossed the base card with the stencil.

I finished by adding some pearls to the corners and dotted the 'i' with one also, and added a die cut sentiment, and as a last thought I decided perhaps some glossy accents would look nice on the berries too.

I hope this all makes sense as I have had to rush somewhat to get this posted in the time they allow you on line in the library, but hopefully normal services will be resumed at home next week, and so I will catch up with everyone then.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to stop and take a look, and all your interest is much appreciated.

Pat x

p.s.  Here we are less than a day since my library visit and out of the blue a gentleman has arrived and corrected the phone line fault so will be catching up on visits shortly.  So pleased to be back in proper contact with the outside world again!

I am also entering this card in the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Weeks 178 and 179 where we use up our snippets/scraps of card and paper.
Cuttlebug Mania - Bling.  I have used some pearls.
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.