Summer Garden Angel

Hi all.  Things are returning to normal now after a wonderful holiday in France.  I was hoping to be able to keep up with some commenting whilst away, but I'm afraid it very quickly went wrong as wifi was a bit variable to say the least, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

I made this card for one of the younger members of our extended family.  It is another stamp which is getting it's first outing, and I also used some LOTV papers and a sentiment stamp which came free with a magazine.

I used two different snippets of this paper which I backed with Purple pearlescent card, and then cut two mats in purple and white using my S/B Decorative Elements - Labels Eight, the middle two dies.  I cut the purple one as a frame, and then cut the smaller die in the white which makes them fit together like one layer.  I stamped the Angel with Black Archival ink and then coloured using my Spectrum Noir pencils and after cutting the image out adhered it to the mat.  I also used a little Perfect Pearls - Pewter, mixed with water, on the wings and flower centres and on bits of her dress to add a little sheen which doesn't show up very well in the photo, and also the wings look rather dark.  With hindsight I wish I had used just the mica powder and water on the wings so they would have stayed whiter. 

I finished the card by punching some flowers using a very old pair of punches from Dovecraft and some snippets of pink and lilac glitter card.  I used a narrow piece of white ribbon for a bow and then stamped a 'seven' with Black Archival, on to a mat cut from a S/B Labels Thirty Two set using the smallest die, and before  attaching it to the centre of the bow I inked with Distress Ink Picked Raspberry.  I used the freebie sentiment again stamped with Black Archival and inked with the Picked Raspberry, both used snippets of white card.

Thanks for dropping by.

Pat  x

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 143.  I used lots of snippets on this card which means I will certainly be allowed through the gates this week.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Stencils and Stamps.  If I have interpreted this correctly you can use one or the other or both.
Cuttlebug Mania - Anything Die Cut.
Lili of the Valley - Pretty Papers.

Embossed Hearts and Flowers Anniversary

Hello everyone.  This is another scheduled post.  I got the idea for this card from Pinterest and adapted it for this card.  The original had flower shaped apertures with patterned paper behind and this led me to think of circles with paper behind and then hearts stuck within.  I used my Xcut circles  and my Nellie Snellen Multi Frame hearts dies.  I embossed the hearts with a Cuttlebug EF - Divine Swirls, and the outer embossed layer was a Crafter's Companion EF - Regal Damask.

The paper was snippets from a Papermania pad.  The flowers were also punched from snippets of different papers from this pad together with a few white and red punched flowers, and then a Marianne Creatables die - Forest Branch was used for the red and black foliage behind the flowers.  I finished by stamping the sentiment using Black Archival on to a mat made using the smallest die from the S/B Labels Eight.

Thank you for looking at my blog today.

Pat  x
 

Cherrylicious

Hi there.  This is a scheduled post as I'm busy at the moment, so please forgive me if I don't get to visit as often as I would normally.   I have a couple of birthdays coming up and I have this embossing folder Cherry-licious by Crafter's Companion which I haven't used yet (hereafter known as NBUS - coined by Darnell of djkardkreations).  I decided to emboss on to a snippet of white card and then colour using my Spectrum Noir Pencils which are my favourites at the moment.  After colouring I used an Adirondack Pink Sherbet ink pad and some blending foam to gently colour the background.

I then made a frame using a snippet of white card and a S/B Captivating Squares die, the second largest, and I cut out the centre, and then cut the next size die to fit within that.  I finished by stamping the sentiment in the centre using Black Archival ink, added a bow and mounted on to green card then on to the base square white card.

Thank you for stopping by today.

Pat x

P.S  I am back in the blogging swing again and I would like to enter this card into the NBUS Challenge which is running over at Darnell's blog at the moment and has only a few days left to run, so do go take a look.

Vintage Telephone

Hi all.  This is a scheduled post as I am busy still, so please forgive me if I don't get round to visiting quite as often as normal.  This telephone is a NBUS Cottage Cutz die.  It comes as one 4" x 4" plate and as most of it is black I used a snippet of black card across the whole plate, and then the gold bits were a snippet of gold pearlescent card which I ran through the machine after.  I think what makes this so fiddly is that the plate does not have any holes to help release the card from the die, and some of the components are very small.  Anyway I did like the finished result.

The background was a snippet of card which I embossed by running through my machine using a chevron stencil from Creative Expressions, and then inked over it with Distress Inks in Mustard Seed and Mowed Lawn.  When putting it together I thought the telephone merged into the background too much so I embossed part of the stencil again in a snippet of dark green card and then cut out two strips and attached them to the background as seen here.  Finally I stamped the sentiment using a Black Archival ink pad.  The base card is a square cream card, but actually looks more like white in the photo.

Thank you for looking at my blog today.

Pat  x

Hunkydory Celebration

Hello All.  This is a scheduled post as I am busy at the moment, so please forgive me if I don't get to visit as often as I would normally.  I needed an Anniversary card and thought of a set of stamps which I have had for quite a while made by Hunkydory called Celebrations.  I have been practising with my Gelli Plate and decided to see what I could do with a mask I have from That Special Touch called Chevrons.  Here are the results.

   
As you can see the one on the left is rather pale.   I used Memento Lady Bug which is a nice bright red but didn't come out red at all.  I think I layed the stencil on the Gelli Plate and inked through the stencil before removing and pulling the print.  On reflection I think the other red I have, which is Distress Ink Fired Brick, might have come out darker.  The middle sample I coloured after printing using three different shades of red Spectrum Noir Pencils, and then the right hand one I used the Lady Bug with Memento London Fog and I think I inked up the stencil with the first colour, layed it on and brayered over it, lifted the stencil pulled the print and then did the same with the other colour making sure before pulling the print that the card was replaced in the same position but the other way up so the chevrons overlap each other.  You do have to be careful that you don't mark the Gelli with anything sharp as the marks will obviously pit the surface and leave the marks on any subsequent prints.  The thing with the Gelli is that the results are quite random and you can never be quite sure what will happen, especially if you are using several colours.  Although you can use dye based inks I do think acrylics give more dramatic results, but at the moment I don't have any so am going with what I have.  It is certainly fun to use.

The print I went with in the end was the reverse of the third sample which I made by covering the Gelli Plate with the Lady Bug ink and then inked the stencil, layed it on and then I think I dabbed through the stencil with a tissue to randomly remove some of the ink before lifting the stencil and pulling the print.  I decided to cut round the chevrons to give it a shaped edge and then backed it with black card.  I used the champagne glass stamp and using a snippet of white card I stamped with Archival Black ink and and as it stays wet a little longer I used the clear holographic embossing powder which I'm afraid does not show up in the photo.  I stamped two of these and coloured in parts of the image using a red Spectrum Noir pencil and then cut them out.

As a finishing touch I decided to make a small tag for the sentiment and attach it with Baker's Twine to the stem of the glass before adhering it to the card.  I also wrote the sentiment by hand.  I have some of the small nibs which attach to the Promarker Pens which made the writing fine enough, but I have to admit it took several goes before I was happy with the writing.  I cut the label shape by hand using another snippet and punched a hole in one end and rounded the other with my Tonic corner rounder.  I assembled it using my usual square white card.

Thank you for dropping by.

Pat  x

CAS Flowers

Hello there everybody.  I saw this sketch over at Less is More and I thought as I am a bit short of time at the moment it would make a nice easy card.  I used  a Chocolate Baroque set of stamps called Poppy Meadow, one of the smaller stamps in the set.  I have used this stamp before, and in similar colours.   I don't know why, but with this flower  just seems to draw me to orange, red and blue.

I used a smallish rectangular shaped snippet of white card and stamped with Black Archival ink and then coloured with my Spectrum Noir Pencils - Primaries.  I made the background using the same set of pencils.  I mounted this on to a piece of gold card, and then on to a piece of dark blue.  I stamped the sentiment using the same Black Archival ink on to a snippet of white and then mounted this on to another snippet of blue card.  I used a Gold 7" x 5" card and shaved approximately 1/4" off the length and the width which I felt made it look more balanced.  In real life it is actually a bright pearlescent gold colour but looks rather beige in the photo.

Thank you for dropping by today.

Pat x

I am entering the following challenges:

Less is More - Week 186 a sketch challenge.
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 139 where we use snippets of card or paper, and I have excelled myself as every single piece was a snippet!
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.

  

A Great Pear or Two

Hi there.  Hope you are having a good weekend.  I need an anniversary card shortly and I saw this card design on the Clean and Simple Challenge Blog here.  It just appealed to me, and isn't the sort of anniversary card I would normally make but I liked the sentiment too - just thought it was amusing and a bit different.  I searched around for an image I could use and eventually found a free digital image at Beccy's Place, and there is also a tutorial on how to use Copics, but I have used my Spectrum Noir pencils to colour it.  Colours include Yellows 10 and 12, Greens 50 and 52, Browns 96, 99 and 104 and Reds 27 and 33.

I printed the image on to some inkjet paper I use for inserts which I wasn't sure would be thick enough, but trying to get a printer to take card is not an easy task.  Anyway I started colouring and it seems to have worked fine.  For the background I decided to use my Tim Holtz Honeycomb stencil which I hand embossed.  I laid a scrap/snippet of my inkjet paper over the stencil and using a fairly large ball tool rubbed over the stencil to get the impression.  It worked fine and then I inked it with Distress Ink using Walnut Stain, Spiced Marmalade and a little Mowed Lawn round the edges.  I finished by printing the sentiment on to the same inkjet paper and using one of my Xcut Nesting Hexagons dies I cut and then mounted on to a snippet of dark green card.  I also tied a piece of black ribbon round the top of the two pears tying them together.  This was recycled as I cut it out of a new top which I bought recently, and didn't seem to be necessary for hanging the garment up so I found a better use for it.

I have to say that the gremlins struck again.  I cut out and mounted the pears using my Pinflair Glue Gel which I thought would give them just a little more shape.  After I had glued them down I noticed there was some of the glue showing through, probably because the paper wasn't that thick and maybe it could have been something to do with the pencils which are quite waxy, and maybe it reacted to them too.  I just hoped when dry it would just disappear, but unfortunately it didn't.  I have to say the air was a little blue as I had spent quite a bit of time on the colouring, which, I hasten to add, I did enjoy.  I decided I would have to do two or three of the leaves again and place over the top as it was the leaves which were the worst.  The pears themselves escaped apart from some quite small marks which I have left as pears do have blemishes so that's what they are.  I stuck the new leaves over the top but this time used my Collall Photo Glue which is fine.

Thank you for stopping by and I look forward to being here again soon.

Pat x 

I am entering the following challenge:

Clean and Simple Challenge 303.
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Week 139 where we use up snippets of card and paper.  I did use up a snippet of inkjet paper for the background.  Not much of a snippet but hopefully ok for the challenge.
Spectrum Noir - August Challenge.