Cattleya

This card nearly never made it to production.  I had intended to make the flower from paper using this ' Cattleya'  Flower Die  from Sizzix which is by Susan Tierney Cockburn but I just wasn't happy with the result. I made another one and that got binned as worse than the first and by now the clock was seriously ticking. In desperation I thought I would try making it from flower foam and sculpt it rather than use a heat gun or iron as the petals need to be quite open and stand up. This is the result. The best bit is the leaves as I got the viening just right on them!!
A new theme  has started  over on the Butterfly  challenge

#96 Spin The Butterfly wheel with the Letter N.

This is my card for you inspiration. I have used  Naples Yellow and Not Square + my butterfly.
I have chosen to make an easel card using my Sizzix Scalloped circle dies to make the shape up. I used off  white flower foam, coloured with a dauber and my Dew Drop ink pads to get the shading I wanted.I applied the red using a promarker pen.

 The  pre cut butterfly, gold stickers and pearl were from my stash

Here is a close up of the flower but don't look too close!!

The challenge runs for two weeks and I hope you will come and join in again.

Foam Flowers

I went to a Foam Flower class last Friday using Leane Creatief  'Foam Flower' and have to say I fell in love with using it even though I do need to use a heat gun/glue gun for some of the process!
We made 3 very different cards in the class and I'm showing you here the first one that we made.

To save time we were given each of the base cards in kit form but still had to cut to the sizes we wanted. The background leaf had been precut so I don't know the make for this but we used Leane Creatief Easy Flower Die 002 and Leane Creatief Leaf Die 001 to cut our own flowers out from the foam in each kit. Once the flowers and leaves were cut we used various ink pads with daubers to ink up the edges of the flowers and to colour the leaves in solid green as we had cut them from white foam. The foam takes the colour very easily and drys instantly. We used a combination of heating the petals using a heat gun or holding (with tweezers) against a hot iron. They curl almost instantly and form into the cup shapes that you see here in the picture. We adhered together using a hot glue gun but then I attached mine to the card using d.s. tape . To finish I used Liquid Pearls in 'Baby Blue' o the flower centres and on the white base card.  I love the result.  I added the just for you sentiment when I got home from a black shinny sticker sheet.  Needless to say I did not come away from the class without purchasing further supplies of the Foam Sheets.

Entering into the following challenges:
Artistic Inspirations #194 Anything goes / use flowers.
Through The CraftRoom Door # Anything goes.
Crafty Creations #360 Anything goes.
Creative Moments #137 Anything goes.
Creative Fingers #143 Anything goes.
Cut It Up #142  Anything goes.
Create and Inspire #71 Anything goes.
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #76 Anything goes.
Pile It On #139 3D embellishments.

All a Flutter.

Gosh it is the second week for the Butterfly challenge and I see that there are 42 entries already! Here is some more inspiration for you.

This first card uses a Tonic die from the current monthly Tonic Craft Kit which I subscribe to. I was so pleased when I opened the box and found the theme was butterflies. The kit makes up into an easel card and there are several elements to the actual butterfly. Here I have used the main die cut piece with the easel base. I die cut the butterfly using cream card stock and then coloured using a silver marker pen which has given it a lovely metallic looking finish. I then die cut 3 further butterflies using  pink, purple and peach cardstock and painstakingly paper pieced the individual waste bits from the die back into place.

 Now I could have used a sticky backed sheet to adhere all the little bits into place but me  being me I didn't and as you can see below I used double sided strips on the wrong side to hold them in place. (I am such a glutton for punishment). I then peeled off the backing  from the strips and adhered the butterfly into place. Having finished the card and photographed it I realised the die actually had pierced holes in the design and after having  carefully pointed out to you all that there is no R in piecing this is very  definitely a case of   'Don't do as I do, but  do as I say'!!!!!!

Second card uses this pretty pastel card board which is packaging material from butterfly stickers. Much too pretty to throw away in the bin so I have been hoarding in my stash and had about nine backing cards when I fished then out. I have used two pieces of the card board here to create this card. There is pink, purple and peach  in the floral design and I die cut enough  Xcut  Parenthesis squares to paper piece over the front of a 5.5x5.5 cream card stock base.  Once stuck in place I went round each one with a gold gel pen. The little butterfly is something I was having a play with a while ago and this was the prototype made from gluing two punched butterflies to either side of a paper clip and adding a sticky backed gem. (It didn't serve the purpose I had intended it for so it has been sat on my desk ever since but works for this card.) Finally I adhered to a peach cardstock base.

Now on my last  card again I wouldn't ask you to ty anything I haven't attempted myself so I have managed all seven elements of the challenge.  I see that 5 of you have managed this too.

1.    Butterfly. (The  negative pink and cream card from cutting the Easel card above).

2.    Pattern papers. ('Sew Pretty' Aspire Crafts / 'Boutique Chic' Paper Crafter Mag ).

3.    Paper pieced.( Using same technique as above  piecing from behind with ds tape).

4.    Pearls. ( Silver pearls from my stash).

5.    Pink. (Pink cardstock adhered to front of card ).

6.    Peach. (One of the colours in the Fun Fur Braided wool used for the trim).

7.    Purple. ( One of the other colours in the Fun Fur along with the papers.).

I wasn't impressed with this card so in an attempt to make it look better I used a silver marker pen to go round the inside of the cut out, colour over the pink butterfly body I had adhered to hide the joins of the paper piecing and glued two cutouts from the easel card in place for the antenna. I still didn't like it but I was by now too far down the line to start again so I glued  some oval  cuts outs from the easel card into place on the pattern paper and coloured silver and then for good measure  along the edges of each paper piecing  to try and marry both sides of the butterfly up which don't exactly but the silver pen hides most of the discrepancy . Finally adhered a silver sentiment sticker from my stash to finish.
The 'Love' is actually the second one I peeled off the sheet. Heaven knows where the first one went to. I looked high and low for it . It will turn up in the wash no doubt.!!

You have until Tuesday 27th Febraury to play along with the current challenge.

A Herd of Reindeer.

Well this past fortnight has certainly sped past quickly unlike January that seemed to go on for ages. Time again for the girls in the Christmas Card Club to show our next makes. Zoe set the theme of Reindeer and/or friends but I had loads of Reindeer themed card fronts to use up so a Herd of Reindeer it is. Was busy last night herding this lot up so had to wait till this morning to get any half decent photos.

First card was a nice easy one as I simply picked two colours from the card front and layered up and then finally onto a red cardstock base. Gold sentiment sticker from my stash

This next card card front is quite small 3.5 x 3.5 so I made larger by layering onto gold cardstock that had previously been cut out from another card I had made a picture frame for. I found a matching plaid design paper a freebie from Making Cards Magazine Nov 2015 and then adhered the panel to more of the gold cardstock to make the basecard. Attached the reindeer panel and more layers for the gold sentiment  (from my stash) that matched the middle reindeer perfectly. 

I originally had planned on making this next reindeer just into a tag but as I began layering it up to make the tag it suddenly got bigger and I found another previously cut out panel to adhere it to. More red paper and then more of the  beige cardstock to make the base.  Britannia die cut used to make the sentiment from a snippet of the green card.  Bit of a story here as the original card was to The Doc from a former work colleague which I had managed to salvage the Reindeer from so it will be going back to the work colleague as this years card with a note inside saying 'Cutbacks' !! 

Next card front I have made into an easel card . It had side panels folded with the reindeer already pre cut out so that it stood up. I cut those off but salvaged the bottom part of each panel and adhered them to the back part of the easel Layered up using a snow flake design paper from a LOTV paper pad called 'Krafty Christmas and plain red cardstock. The Sentiment is a die cut by Tonic cut from more snippets. 

As I was closing the card up after taking the photo I looked at it and thought how much like a red roof line and house front it looked with santa  flying over in his sleigh. What do you think?

Finally my last card again uses an old christmas card front of a wreath that for some reason in my mind just cried out for a Stags head to be added so I did!

The stag is a freebie die cut and stamp set  called 'Magjestic Moments' that came in a Practical Publishing magazine last year. I gold embossed the stags head and it really stands out a treat. Layered up with various brown /beige cardstock to match the wreath.

Another 5 cards to add to my pile which is still lacking behind for this year.  I'm off to see what the rest of the girls have made.

Love.

This is the card I sent The Doc for Valentines Day.
It was challenging to say the least to get the jigsaw piece to match exactly. I used an MDF heart shape to draw round and then cut in cardboard covered with the design paper which  was an unknown sheet from my stash.  Jigsaw die is by Xcut  and the ' Foryou'  sentiment by Tonic which I die cut four times and glued together for the 3D effect. The red hearts, string and the 'From Me' circle were all in my stash.
I created the  wording  and printed out ,then adhered to cardboard and die cut with the jigsaw die. I distressed the edges of the jigsaw pieces and the heart  with distress inks in red and brown to get the shading that I wanted. 

Entering into the Following challenges:
Crafty Cardmakers #205 Love and Romance.
Use Your Stuff #299 Love is all around.
Deep Ocean Challenge #174 Love is all around.
Die Cuttin Divas  #356 Valentines Day.
Crafting By Designs # Be my Valentine.
Crafty Gals Corner #159 Add a Heart.
Creative Inspirations # Love is in the air.
Craft Rocket Challenges #45 Love.
Cut It Up Challenges #141 Layers of love.
Card Mania #101 Red and hearts.


Norm forgot to send Sammy a Valentine card.  Offering her a piece of his Yorkie Bar as recompense did not go down very well either! Their romance could well be on the skids!!!!!

Oh dear. I fear Norm has a lot to learn about us Women.

P is for Peach and Purple

We are now on the 2nd challenge of Spin The butterfly Wheel and the new letter is P.

#95 Spin The Butterfly Wheel with the letter P.

These are my inspirations to wet your appetite.

First card is using  Peach and Pearls + a Butterfly which is on the stamp.

Andrea (KandA) was having a declutter of stamps and goodies that she no longer required and my name came out of the hat for this gorgeous  Penny Black Stamp called Jubilant.  I couldn't wait to stamp it up and colour as soon as it arrived in the post. Thankyou Andrea I love it. I stamped onto watercolour card 250g - 115lb using distress ink and then coloured using distress inks and my Marvy LePlumeII pens with a water colour brush. The stamens and wings of the butterfly I have enhanced with a gold gel pen.  Green design paper is by Couture Creations from their 'Vintage Rose' garden collection.  Iv'e used two die cuts from Crafts-Too Rectangle die 'Stitch Hole' PCD98 to create the frame work and mounted straight over  the image and then adhered to the front of the card to one side. Sentiment is a Crafters Companion Diesire die cut 'With Love' using a left over snippet of the peach coloured cardstock used for the frame.  Square pearls are from my stash.  I think I might be colouring up this stamp quite a bit!

Entering this card only into the following challenges:
Little Miss Muffet #182 Anything goes.
Ally's Angels #2 Flowers.
Crafty Girls Creations #44 Anything goes.
Create and Inspire #71 Anything goes.
Emerald City Crafts #8 Anything goes.
One Crazy Stamper # Anything goes.
Stamping Sensations # Anything with flowers.

Second card is using Purple and Patterned Papers + Butterflies  in the cream strip of dp.  I used a pre scalloped card blank for my base and layered up with  plain purple card stock. The design papers were all first adhered to thin cardboard (discarded cereal boxes are good for this) and then distressed round the edges using my handy Tim Holtz gadget. Then layered up in decreasing size.  The sentiment is by Clearly Besotted from their Elegant Butterflies stamp set and die cut using a  shape from  Sizzix 659733 set of dies. (I think this shape looks a bit like a wrapped bon bon ). The gems and flower spray are from my stash.  The butterfly paper is an unknown source but the other two are freebies from Making Cards magazines  during 2015.

I hope you will come and join in again.  Challenge runs for a fortnight again. Next week I will show you cards made using the last two elements from the wheel and I will also attempt to use all 7 elements. Will I manage it or not. Wait and see!!

Entering the above card into the following challenges:
Southern Girls # Mix it up 3 or more patterned papers.
A Bit More Time to Craft #61 Anything goes.
Dream Valley #172 Use 3 patterned papers.
Crafting By Designs # Anything goes.
Crafts Galore #Anything goes.
Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge # Anything goes.
Love To Craft #19 Anything goes.

More Mail.

This was the card I sent to our youngest Grandson along with animal jokes which started with the letter O so we were on Owl jokes.
I am still using up the  pre-designed card blanks in my stash which I  uncovered in my recent Craft Room clear out. Also another of the  Daisy & Dandelion ready stamped designs which came free in Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine a while ago with some cat images in amongst them. The card base had green and gold  triangles in the design so I coloured  the image up accordingly using  my promarker pens and pearlescent chalks. I die cut the image using a First Edition Pinking Edge Nesting die.

Just two of the jokes I enclosed  for your delight.

Q.         What do you call an Owl with a sore throat?
A.          A bird that doesn't give a hoot.

Q.          What do you call an Owl wearing armour?
A.          A Knight Owl.

Sorry folks they don't come any better than that!!

So on that happy note I'm entering into the following challenges:
Pixies Crafty Workshop # 319 Use up your snippets. (last one in the pack of that design)
Through The Craft Room Door # Anything goes.
Crafting By Designs # Anything goes,
Creative Moments #136 Anything goes.
Penny's Paper Crafty #366 Anything goes.
Jo's Scrap Shack #220 Anything goes.
Love to Craft #19 Anything goes.

Spin The Wheel Again

Second week of  spin the wheel on the Butterfly Challenge and here is some more inspiration for you.
Please do not stress out on the colours. Miss Di is all a flutter over the colour of cornflowers and Janis is in a tis was over the colour Crimson. Just general shades of the colour is all that is required. I went onto Wikipedia and checked out the colours and then used my promarkers/graph'it pens and Copics to match as best I could. 
On this card I have gone with the last combination of Butterflies/Cream/Charm.

I have used pale cream cardstock to make the base card and adhered a blue/cream design paper by Papermania From their Chatsworth Vintage  Collection that has been in my stash for years. I love the linen texture of the paper.  Cream lace from my stash and the patterned cream card is actually part of some packaging that I salvaged as too good to be thrown away. Cream flower and cream tag also from my stash along with the silver butterfly charm. Sentiment is by Stampography punched out using my SU punch then coloured cream and edged with blue to look aged. 

Entering this card into the following challenges:

A Bit More Time To Craft #61 Anything goes.

Crafting With Friends #60 Anything goes.

Sweet Stampin # Anything but a Birthday (Stamped sentiment on card)

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #75 Anything goes.

Crafts Galore # Anything goes.

Crafty Girls Creations #44 Anything goes.

Emerald City Crafts #8 Anything goes.

One Crazy Stamper # Anything goes.

Now on my second inspiration  I wouldn't ask you to ty anything I haven't attempted myself so on this card I have all seven elements of the challenge. 

1.    Butterflies. (A NBUS stamp by Clearly Besotted Stamps with a check design on it).

2.    Charms. (Created from beads attached to wire and then onto a  slip ring).

3.    Checks. Check design paper and checked pattern on butterfly stamp).

4.    Corner. ( Britania Die 'Lattice Corner).

5.    Cream. (Cream cardstock for base card and corner/cream bow/cream felt edging).

6.    Cornflower blue. (check design paper/ Flower design paper/ butterflies blue ink).

7.    Crimson. ( Ready made crimson rose and red crystal bead on charm.).

I actually had two goes at this card. The first time round I had a tiny red check paper behind the cream felt edging  and blue ink edging on the corner die but it just wasn't sitting right. After several days looking at it I decided that the red check jarred with the roses and the blue edging had  no real purpose and drew the eye away from the main design so I replaced both segments and now the card has cohesion and I'm happy with it. 

The flower design paper is from simply Homemade craft magazine (a freebie) Called 'Simply British' and the sentiment stamp is by Stampography. I have a couple of Anniversaries coming up so thats one card done and dusted.  The challenge closes on Tuesday 13th February. I look forward to seeing what you can come up with  and can anyone else match my use of the seven elements?

Entering this card into the following challenges:
Creative Knockouts #231 Flower Power.
Fussy and Fancy# 204 Fussy and fancy.
Pile It On #139 3D embellishments. (butterfly is layered up using 3 diecuts also dp is layered up.)
Ally's Angels # Flowers.
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge # Anything goes.
Crafty Calendar # 2 or more layers.

Christmas Card Club

Time again for the girls in the Christmas Card Club to show our next makes. I did have all these made ready to post last night but had to wait until day light to get good pictures. It was Granmargaret's  turn to choose the theme which is Angels or Fairies.
Now I didn't have any Angel dies, stamps or digis to hand or used christmas card fronts. Also didn't want to make fairy cards again so I pulled the ace from out of my sleeve that we decided to use for this yr which is Anything Goes if you can't follow the theme.
Whilst having my massive sort out of my Craft Room  (which took most of January up and it's amazing/shocking  what stash you find hidden) I came across a bundle of unfinished cards from at least 4 yrs ago when 'The Craft Barn' had it's bricks and mortar shop and I used to go to a lot of their craft classes. This particular day was to use one stencil only and as many different mixed media elements as possible to make a card with. We managed to do eight cards each but had no time to finish off each card so we were given the card blanks, design card and envelopes to take home with us and finish off at our leisure. Oh well better late than never. Here are just four of the offending/said cards.

I'm really pushing the boat out here to remember exactly what we used on all of the cards. This first one used the Imagination Crafts 'PS Wisteria  (used on all of them) and gilding flakes glue and Gilding Flakes rubbed over the stencil. I see here though I had the stencil turned the wrong way round. Oops!  Card base is dark brown card stock on a cream card blank. I added the star gold stickers and the sentiment to finnish.

Second card used vellum over pale blue card stock on a white textured card blank. We used White Glitter glue (stencil right way round this time) and then a random sprinkling of Beadazzles whilst still wet.  Winter Wishes sentiment  was part of a set that came free in a craft magazine. Punched out using my SU Extra-Large Modern label. 

Third card uses Imagination Crafts Sparkle Medium on Acetate. Firstly we coated a panel thinly with white sparkle medium which we left to one side to dry whilst we started on another of the fronts.  Once the panel was dry we laid  the stencil over the top  (sparkle side up and oopsy the stencil is the wrong way again) and spread with green Sparkle Medium.  Base is white card blank  with  emerald green cardstock panel underneath the acetate. The sentiment is a left over from christmas makes and uses a die and sentiment by Tonic on silver card stock raised with 3D pads. (It shows up clearly IRL) 

Last card we were given a precut bauble die on thick Kraft  card stock and a matching silver die cut for the hanger. We coated first with Turquoise sparkle medium left to dry and then used just part of the Wisteria stencil to make the design on the bauble using white medium. Again left to dry and then liberally coated in Ultra Thick embossing powder. I do remember that we gave our baubles several coats until the surface was totally smooth so we probably made this one first and went back to it several times during the course of the day.  I simply attached to the front of the card with 3D pads and added the silver sentiment sticker to match.  

Here they all are together so another 4 cards to add to my 2018 pile.

The Twins are One.

Goodness how did that happen. Our neighbours twins are one yr old today. It seems like only yesterday that I was making the proud parents a Welcome to your New Baby Card .
For their Birthday Card I decided to keep to the same formula and make a 3 Fold Card by matting two card blanks together..
The digi stamps are  all from DigiStamp Boutique but only come as a black and white version so I have coloured them using my promarkers and a silver gel pen.

Here is the card folded closed. I also made a matching envelope as the card is quite bulky and needed extra room.  I spent ages going through the digi stamp company's looking for just the right images. I was pleased to see that Mr Bear was holding two balloons as I could then colour one up pink and the other blue for the recipients.

 This is the image for Ella. The pink polka dot paper was a magazine insert freebie. The multi dot by Alison Butler .

 I was really pleased to find that the images had the girl and boy holding their teddies in the opposite hands so I could easily make a right and left section up on the card with them.

 Here is the image for Henry

The blue polka dot paper was a freebie in Making Cards June 2015 and the flag paper is again by Alison Butler.

 Lastly the card showing the 3 fold opened up to show The Twins.

Entering into the following challenges:

International Art & Soul #25 Do something digital.

Crafty Gals Corner #158 Anything goes.

Inspiration  Destination #143 Anything goes.

Penny's Paper Crafty #365 Anything goes.

The Paper Shelter #324 Birthday.

C.R.A.F.T. Challenges#453 Three of  a kind (3fold card).

Cute Card Thursday #515 Anything goes.

Little Miss Muffet #181 Anything goes.