Thank You

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank those of you who have ever sent me anything handmade or blog candy. I really do enjoy receiving them!

Here are just two of my recent prizes, I have created 2 very different cards with them. I wanted to create 2 thank you cards to give back to the senders and try to use ONLY to the items they sent.

CARD 1:

Prize won on 6th April 2012 was 'My Minds Eye Clear Stamps - Wild Asparagus' from Crafty Natalie's Blog

I didn't really own anything with leaves so this was a brilliant prize as I have much more variety now, as these can be used in so many different ways. This was the card I came up with:

All stamps used were from the stamps set, only addition I used of my own were the Inks, card and envelope.

CARD 2:
Prize won on 18th April 2012 was 'Follower-or-Not Candy' which was a selection of goodies; shaped buttons, doilies, ribbons, lace, pens, papers etc. from Craftdee Donna's Blog

Brilliant selection of goodies will come in very useful, this is what I came up with:

All items used were from the items sent, apart from the digi stamp and sentiment stamp, also the Promarkers which coloured the image.

I hope the recipients liked there cards, please take the time to pop over and have a look at their work [links to their blogs are above, thank you.]

Card 2 Entered for:

Penny's Paper Crafty - Anything Goes

I Love Promarkers - Use a Digi

Used Promarkers to colour

Crafter's Companion Monthly Challenge - Time to Embellish

Kaboodle Doodles - Anything Goes

Gift Box Cards [Tealights and Mini Eggs]

Working full time, having to see people, having to go places, hasn't left me with a lot of time to craft lately. So on Saturday 31st March, I saw an opportunity and took it!
But guess what? Yep you guessed it!
3am I looked at the clock and thought maybe it was time to head to bed, that was after 11.30pm when I told my partner I would just be a moment. Whoops! Tehehe!


My neighbour was moving out and wanted to create a gift along with the card but didn't want to give a gift separately. So I decided to give a tealight card ago, as I bought some A3 Card earlier in the week. This was perfect, cut it down to size, scored, folded, cut out the window, added acetate and stuck it all together. Now after the hard part, was the fun part!
I wanted something that would be nice and simple on it's own and not a traditional moving home card, so I went with butterflies, heat embossed them with clear ink and black embossing powder and added a light 'old paper' layer of Distress Inks. Adding some dimension I stamped out some more butterflies but this time on acetate, with Stazon Ink and added a thin layer of extra strong double sided tape down the middle onto the heat embossed butterfiles, bending the wings upwards to form the wings. Finishing off the front with a few gems.
Inside was the same mattered and layered background created with the Old Paper distress inks again, but without the butterflies.

I created a matching box with the DCVW Blackcurrent Cardstock Pack, which I adore!

For my Easter cards I created the same base idea with the gift box attached, but chose different colours to make a set [Inspiration of the colours came from the Cadbury Mini Eggs.]

From the Scraps of paper left over from the cut off A3 Sheets, I thought I would weave them together [Inspiration of the woven idea was from Easter baskets.] Added a Digi stamp from A Passion For Stamps [Far right picture below] that I bought and coloured using Promarkers in the appropriate colours. The sentiment I thought went quite well as it was a Rabbit so Hoppy Easter, another good one could have been have a Chirpy easter because of the Chick.

Two other Easter cards were created using the same colours, papers, card candi and Promarkers but using Digi stamps from Meljen's Designs. All three cards Paper Pack - Sugar and Spice by Dovecraft.

Thank you for reading - Enjoy - Keep Crafting and A Happy Easter to you all!

Happy Easter Bunny First in Photo
Entered for:

Penny's Paper Crafty - Easter
ATCs & Cards with Attitude Challenge - Anything Goes
Card Crafter's Circle - Chocolate Bunny

Edible Chocolate in the Card, Bunny on outside
C.R.A.F.TChallenge - Easter / Spring
I lovePromarkers - Spring Time
Top TipTuesday - Easter / Animals

Cute Card Thursday - I want Candy!

Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge - Four Legged Friends
Incy Wincy Designs - Easter/Pastel Colours
Stamptacular Sunday - Playin With Pastels
The Crazy Challenge - Spring

Kenny K ~ Complete Boy Paper

I was introduced to Kenny K Stamps earlier this year, when I entered and won my first blog candy. I haven’t crafted for a little while, due to being busy and illness so I was delighted to finally get around to using these stamps. I would like to Thank Cheryl from The Ink Trap, for sending me these stamps along with the other prizes.

I have created two cards, both using Kenny K stamps and Complete Boy Paper Pack.

The stars on this card was inspired by someone who very kindly gives me buttons, ribbons and any other bits and pieces she can find or has left over. These stars were punched out with a Sizzix die from a shaving foam box, I would also like to thank this kind lady for thinking of me before recycling / throwing away any treasures she has.

Entered for:

Paper Pretties - Use Punches or Dies [Stars on 2nd Card]
Penny’s Paper Crafty - Anything Goes
Allsorts Challenege - Anything Goes
ATCs & Cards with Attitude Challenge - Anything Goes / Bling [Earring on 1st Card]
Card Crafter's Circle [1st Card Bright Colours and Flower Embelishment]
 

Card Calendar – using a scarf

During the week, I popped into a cheap store and saw a reduced scarf; I loved the look of the fabric and that is where my idea originated from.

Later that day I also saw a small calendar chart and thought that would also work well for a later project.

When I got home I started designing a card using the scarfs fabric, choosing matching papers and accessories that I already had in my stash. The end of the scarf worked great to add texture and movement to the background. I also tied a large bow with the fabric and cut a small section off to create a smaller bow. I coloured in a Lily of the Valley Stamped image with Promarkers, to match my colour scheme. My sentiment was also a stamped image but from a FREE stamp set that came with the 100^th issue of Cardmaking Magazine, which was also one of this week’s crafty purchases.

My Lily of the Valley card was really coming along, but I decided to turn this thank you card into a calendar beings as it is nearly the New Year and after all it was being created for someone special, as a big thank you for everything they have done and given me, so I thought I would give something a little bit different and a small gift back for their love and generosity.

Craft items used:

½ x Scarf

1 x Bronze Teddy Charm

1 x Bronze Jump Ring

1 Small Calendar Chart

1 x Doily

5 x Paper Flowers

5 x Card Candi

1 x Sheet of 8x8 Desert Blossom pack [Double sided]

1 x Sheet of White A4 Card [Used to stamp onto and cut dies]

1 x Kanban Decorative Card and Envelope

Craft Tools used:

Scissors

Eyelet Nestibilities Die

Sizzix Circles and Triangles Border Dies

Promarkers

Thank you Stamp

LOTV Fairy Stamp

Silicone glue

Double sided tape

Stazon Black Ink Pad

Entered for

4 CraftyChicks – Something New

Scarf, Calendar, Doily bought 28^th December 2011

Thank you sentiment Stamp January 2012 issue 100

LOTV Stamp, Shaped Card bought December 2011

InkyImpressions – Something New

Scarf, Calendar, Doily bought 28^th December 2011

Thank you sentiment Stamp January 2012 issue 100

LOTV Stamp, Shaped Card bought December 2011

Crafting forall Seasons – Challenge #17 Fairies

KaboodleDoodles – Angels/Fairies

C.R.A.F.TChallenge – New Year

New Calendar for the New Year

PaperPretties – Ring in the New Year

Not using paper pretties images

Penny’sPaper Crafty - Holiday Gifts

I lovePromarkers – Anything Goes 

Top TipTuesday – Anything Goes 

EverybodyArt Challenge – Anything Goes

The SecretCrafter Saturday – Anything Goes

Creating Matching Papers and Embellishments

If you can’t find any papers or embellishments, you like or to match your product why not create your own?

What you will need:

-White card

-Stamp of your choice [Flower, by Martha Stewart]

-Clear ink pad [Martha Stewart Create]

-Embossing powder [Gold, Martha Stewart]

-Heat gun

-Ink blending tool and Foam

-Distress Ink [Tim holts, Chipped Sapphire]

Paper:

STEP 1: Ink up your stamp and print it onto your card.

STEP 2: Cover over the stamped area with your chosen embossing powder.

STEP 3: Tap off the excess powder, poor back into the pot/jar.

STEP 4: Heat over the stamped, embossed area and it will start to heat up and change colour.

STEP 5: Repeat the first 4 steps until your card is covered.

STEP 6: Once you have covered the paper, dab your Ink blending tool into your chosen distress ink and rub it over the surface of your stamped embossed images. If the ink sticks to your embossed images, which it shouldn’t, just wipe over with a dry cloth. If you would like the colour darkened just keep going over until you get the shade you would like.

Your backing paper should be complete.

1 Embellishment:

STEP 1: Ink up your stamp and print it onto your card.

STEP 2: Cover over the stamped area with your chosen embossing powder.

STEP 3: Tap off the excess powder, poor back into the pot/jar.

STEP 4: Heat over the stamped, embossed area and it will start to heat up and change colour.

Step 5: Dab your Ink blending tool into your chosen distress ink and rub it over the surface of your stamped embossed image.

STEP 6: Turn over and add distress ink to the back of the embellishment to match.

STEP 7: Cut around your image, curve the edges.

Step 8: Repeat this if you are creating layered embellishments as shown in the picture.

Step 9: Stick the two embellishments on top of each other with your chosen glue or tape.

Step 10: Finish it off with some added extras I had chosen some rhinestone gems.

Other products used on this card:

-Create and Craft Tape Pen
-Double sided tape

-Art Deco Christmas Decoupage

-Gold matt/mirror card

-Nellie’s Multi Frames [circular] for Die cutting machine

-Gold Best wishes peel off

Machines: Bigshot and Guillotine

Have a Sweet Christmas

I thought this would be a ‘sweet’ idea for a card and keeping the same style yet changing the colours, papers and type of sweets it could be used for virtually any occasion. It doesn’t even have to be sweets/candy in the jars: how about something different like fairies or aliens to suit your occasion and gender needs.

I went for candy canes for a touch of Christmas and some mixed sweet jars to compliment the canes.

Items used:

Stamps – Sweet Jar and greeting outline, the Candy Shop collection by Creative Expressions

– Candy Cane and Sweet stamps, the Whimsy Stamp, See-D Stamps

Inks   - Me to you, Blue nose Ink Pad

- Craft Creations, Red Ink Pad

- Light Green Ink Pad

- Stazon, Black Ink Pad

Products – Acetate

-    Brown wood paper [shelf]

-    Flower paper, DCWV adhesive paper prints pack

-    Stripy paper, Dovecraft, sugar and spice paper pack

-    A5 White card and Envelope

-    Message/Greeting computer printout.

Peel Off ~ Backing Paper

Do you ever have left over peel offs and don’t know how to use them?

Do you ever run out of your favourite papers or can’t find any to coordinate?

Do you just want to try something a little different?

Then this is for you!

I always have left over peel offs especially if I purchase peel offs in packs, there are always some that I would never use. These can come in great use when in need of a background paper especially to match mirror card.

I needed to create a book card but didn’t have any papers to go with it, so I added gold corner peel offs to some plain white card, [as I always have a nice stock of that!] This made a brilliant matching backing paper with a professional look. There still seemed to be something missing though, so I added some border peel offs around the outside of the page to complete the look. The bookmark down the centre of the card was scrap left over from the outside page, so no wastage!

I now had a card base but needed to add some content, the Dufex decoupage matched perfectly and a message was all the card needed.

This card was created using:

The Glitter Girls-Bookatrix Board,

1x Gold A4 Mirror Card,

2x White A4 Card,

1x Sheet of Dufex Decoupage,

1x Sheet of gold corner peel offs,

1x Sheet of gold border peel offs,

1x Printed birthday message,

Adhesives – Foam Pads, Double sided tape

Tools – Scissors, 6mm Embossing Tool