Pop Up Twister

The glorious weather has claimed my time this week plus the new Garage door was fitted Monday but we had to call them back in yesterday for a minor fault to be fixed.
Here are my last two cards to show you for the current Butterfly Challenge #102.

First card is a Pop up Twister card and I followed a really good tutorial by 'The Frugal Crafter' though she used a Karen Burniston dies-twist panel pop up mechanism whereas I made my own version up.

Here I have used Vermillion and Vine leaves plus of course my butterfly from the current wheel.

I have used various peg stamps by 'Heyda' to create the border pattern and also a vine leaf stamp that came as part of a wine set from a magazine. Coloured with a combination of different makes of markers. Butterfly is part of a set by 'Kaisercraft' called Texture Butterflies.

 Picture below shows the card partially opened.

 This one shows the card fully opened. There are several versions on You Tube which explain how the mechanism works.  The sentiment stamp was a freebie  from Papercraft Inspirations magazine.

Entering this card into the following challenge:

Double D Challenges #  Butterflies challenge. (I have chosen pink from the mood board).

Second card  uses all seven elements of the wheel.
Butterfly/ Vermillion/Vegas Gold/Violet/Vintage/Vertical pattern/Vine leaves.
The image is called 'Harriet'  by Pink Gem  which I coloured up whilst on holiday quite a few years ago now so the only thing about it that I do remember is that I used Graph'It pens which were all I had at the time. The butterfly stamp is by Kaisercraft and coloured using the 3 colours from the wheel.  Vineleaf  corners were stamped out in olive green ink and coloured in with the same ink and then fussy cut  to look like old picture corner mounts. The vertical pattern was created using the hessian ribbon (which also has vermillion flowers on it) and a strip of old lace from my stash. Sentiment was also from my stash. 

Challenge runs until next Tuesday 8pm GMT. Hope I have given you some ideas.

Candy Canes

Time once more for the girls in the Christmas Card Club to show our next makes. Lorraine set the theme which was Candy Canes /Gingerbread. I knew I had two design papers which had candy canes on them so I fished them  out and made up( not so quickly as it turns out) into two cards.

The first one went like clockwork.

 The paper is a Holly Hobby  from 2012 and came as a freebie in a magazine at that time. Card base is cream which I have layered up with a Christmas Red cardstock cut slightly smaller. Paper trimmed slightly smaller again and then layered on top. The remaining piece of the design paper was just enough to make a further panel up to go across the middle of the card which I raised up on 3D pads for dimension. Die cut sentiment is from Creative Expressions by sue Wilson CED3046.  Job done!

Not so my Second card  which started out life as being a gatefold  but all the layering went completely off kilter so after several hours of trying to make it work  (late last night) I gave it up as a bad job and salvaged what I could to start again.
This time it is an easel card which I eventually finished making this morning and then taking the photos out in the garden. I had to make several alterations to cover up mistakes from the gate fold design  and still not entirely happy with it but time marches on  so here it is.

Design paper is a freebie from a magazine. The ones that are really flimsy and shiny which come as inserts inside the mag so are not ideal for working with at the best of times. The red matting is not showing up but it was first embossed with a Couture Creations  Christmas Collection C0723877 which has  a rather nice stripe effect.It does show on the card IRL.  Sentiment is by Tonic Studios

'Script Merry christmas'.

On the home front things have not been going quite to plan.
The good news  is that The Doc's Aunt is back home now, though with an extensive  home  care  package set up around her.  She was in hospital for nearly 4 weeks and her stubbornness was nearly her undoing as she had Pneumonia and Sepsis of the lung. Hubby  had been trying to get her to go to her Drs ( to no avail) as she had a very bad chesty cough but no,  'Fishermans Friend ' lozenges  would see her right. No need to bother the Dr!! It was also her stubbornness and iron will that got her through the ordeal.
Not been in blogland much this past week as we were having a new front and back door fitted. What could possibly go wrong!!!!!!!!!!!
The front door was fitted Thursday. Right colour, Right design, Right Glass but Wrong finish.
The door should have come with a tongue and groove panelling but the door we  got  came completely plain so out came the catalogue and sure enough there was the door that we had ordered complete with tongue and groove finish. At this point we thought that the manufacturer had changed the spec for some unknown  reason but no when our installer rang them it turns out that they supply all the doors in their catalogue in two finishes  i.e. tongue and groove  and plain but only show the one finish in the catalogue. No where does it state that, as The Doc has been through each page in detail. This  was a bad enough error but they then  compounded it by not saying this when our installer ordered the door from them and they had simply taken it upon themselves to make and supply a plain door so a new door now has to be made and supplied by them at no extra cost.  The door had arrived with bubble wrap on it so you couldn't see the finish on it until  it had been hung and fitted .
The back door was fitted yesterday ( from another manufacturer I hasten to add) who got it exactly right.  Their catalogue states it can be made as a tongue and groove panel.  This is the finish I was expecting to see on the front door as well as the back door. The electric roll top garage door gets fitted tomorrow so stay tuned!!

p.s. I would have added the tongue and groove finish myself but the door wouldn't fit into my Scor Pal!!

Flower Girl

It is a new challenge over at the Butterfly Blog.
#102 Spin The butterfly Wheel with the Letter V. 
I have two cards as  inspiration to show you.

First card uses Vegas Gold for the  hair and the butterflies with a touch of vermillion in the flowers mingled in between the strands of  hair.  The image is by Aurora Wings 'Girl flower butterfly'.
I teamed it with Vintage Style.

Coloured using promarkers, Graph'it and Spectrum noir marker pens.  I have also used a gold gel pen and a silver gel pen but they are not showing up in the photo. The cream embossed panel is by Crafts-Too  CTFD 3108. The flowers were in my stash left over from other projects. The small pink ones were made with a small punch and the dark red rose from my spellbinders rose die. Card blank is a ready made scalloped edge from my stash along with the various ribbons and gems.

Second card uses Violet and Vertical pattern along with a butterfly of course.

 Stamp is by Studiolight  JBS06 and coloured using my Marvy LePlume II water colour pens. The silver butterfly sticker and sentiment from my stash.  The vertical panel is a die cut from Memorybox called Tessatina Border and I sprinkled a few of the out cuts amongst the flowers.
The challenge runs for 2 weeks and ends on July 3rd so hope you will come and play. I will show some more cards next week with the other options.

In love.

I thought I would show another card sent to my grandson who loves receiving post and loves cats.

This one is another digi freebie from Sliekjestamps and is No 370.  Coloured with my promarkers and a silver gel pen. The silver sticker and the ready made base card from my stash. I added another cat jigsaw puzzle for my grandson.

Ok I'm getting to it. Have patience.

Q.    How do you know if there is an Elephant under the bed.

A.    Your nose is touching the ceiling!

Music Play On

Time is speeding by and I have a further two cards to show you for the current Butterfly Challenge.
#101 Spin The Butterfly Wheel with the Letter M
I have already shown you Moss Green with Musical and Medium Blue with Metalic last week so on my
1st card I'm showcasing Mint Green and Marble effect. It was a sunny day so I took myself off into the garden and had a play with shaving foam and distress inks and made some marbled paper. I used green and blue inks in different quantities to get the colour effect that I wanted. Each sheet of paper is unique in it's design . Added bonus is that it smells divine!
To make marbled paper give your tin of shaving foam a good shake (with the lid on) and then squirt an even layer into the bottom of a shallow container and spread to cover the entire base. Drop small quantities of distress ink in the desired colours randomly into the foam and stir in lightly with a thin stick.  Have your sheets of paper ready cut to size I used water colour paper and also 160 gsm white card stock and both covered the same.  Lay a sheet of paper on top of the foam and press firmly down. The foam will squidge up around the sides of the paper but this is ok. (Wear a pair of plastic gloves as you will get staining on your fingers otherwise from the inks). Take up the sheet of paper and use the thin stick to remove the foam and place back into the container to use again.  I got 7 sheets of A5 card size and coloured both sides from the one lot of foam. The card surprisingly will be dry and doesn't curl at the edges. Leave to one side and continue with the rest of your papers. I added different inks into the mix and got  several variations of colour mix for future use.

The stamp I used is a Penny Black (Thankyou Di) and I love it to bits.  I have used blue and the mint green for the leaves and then used my silver gel pen to highlight the stamping.  Die cut is my Xcut ovals. Butterflies were in my stash and are from various punches. Whenever I have a small quantity of scrap paper over I punch out butterflies so that I have a constant supply of them and can always find the colour that I want to use.  Sentiment is a silver sticker from my stash and I used negative bits left on the page to decorate the butterflies bodies. I had an almost identical sheet of marbled paper so used it for the inside of the card along with a slightly larger butterfly.

Second Card uses all seven elements on the wheel.
Medium Blue/Moss Green/Mint Green/ Marble Effect/Musical/Metallic/ not forgetting the Butterfly.
I had to take the picture of the card laying down (the card not me) so that the olive green marbling showed up and not the dirty sludge brown I got from standing it upright!.

The stamp set is by Dimension Stamps called Musical Moments and designed by Nina. The butterfly stamp is by Inkylicous Flutter 2 stamp set which I coloured with my Graph'it pens and then fussy cut round. Attached to the card using3D foam. Metallic element is the two fancy borders. Card base is blue cardstock with mint green card attached and then the marbled paper cut down to size.

Do hope I have given you some food for thought and that  you will pop on over and join in the challenge which still has a week to run.

Anything but Square.

A bit short on time so I only managed to make one card for the Christmas Card Club . The Theme was set by Sylvie who asked for Anything but Square.  I knew though that I had just the used card front in my christmas card box that would be perfect. Trimmed the straight edge very slightly and adhered to a dark green cardstock square base. Fussy cut round the fancy edge of the card. The original card had been one that flapped over so I left that part loose on the card but it is quite hard to see in this photo.

 By a happy coincidence  I found a sheet of design paper in my stash that had an almost identical  Father Christmas image  on it which I trimmed down and attached to the inside of the card. The paper was a freebie in Making Cards Magazine December 2015 called Traditional Christmas.

Close up of the  paper. What do you think?

 Just got time to see what the other girls in the club have made.

Musical Butterflies

Oops. Should have posted this on Wednesday but a lot has been going on with The Docs Aunt and something had to give. There is a lot of organisation needed to be done even before she can come out of hospital.

Time for a new challenge over on the Butterfly Blog.
#101 Spin The Butterfly Wheel with the Letter M.

Here are my first two inspiration cards to wet your appetite.

Card One   using Butterflies/Moss Green and Musical. I decided to make an easel card. The stamp set is by Imagination Crafts from their Decoupage Stamp Range. I have coloured using my Graph 'it and Promarkers. Decorated with Tonic Nuvo Vanilla Delight Pure sheen sequins. I made the base card from white card stock and layered the image up with Moss Green and Peach card stock along with the row of butterflies which are the retaining wall for the card to stand up.
I have chosen to use a stamp with  musical notes on it but of course you could use sheet music for instance. musical die cuts  or even musical instruments!!

Card Two using  Butterflies/Medium Blue/Metallic. This stamp set was a freebie with Paper Crafts Essentials and came with a matching embossing folder. The stamps are basically a build your own flower and have several flowers/leaves in different sizes and 5 different sentiments.  Here I have just used the largest daisy like flower and two different size leaves.  I have kept the design fairly simple as I wanted the flowers to take centre stage.  I used my graph'it pen on the flowers and promarker for the leaves. I edged everything including the sentiment with a silver gel pen which looks nice IRL. The base card is made using silver pearlescent  cardstock.  Metallic butterflies were from my stash. The corner chomper is by Woodware.
I chose to depict the metallic element using  the silver gel pen, silver pearlescent cardstock  and the metallic butterflies.  Other metallic elements that spring to mind are  metallic thread,  silver metal charms, metal corners.

So hope I have given you food for thought and that you will find the time to come and play along. The challenge runs for two weeks and closes 19th June. I will  show you some more inspiration next week  using Marble effect and all 7 elements on the one card.

Dads Workshop

 As  I have used lots of  odd snippets of card below I'm  linking to Pixies Crafty Workshop # 327
I haven't played in such a long time. Slap on wrist.

I had a request for an 80th Birthday to be made for a friends Dad. The brief was to depict carpentry as that had been his profession.  I'm always up for a challenge so this is the card I made for him.
I decided to make the front of the card look like a workshed and used my score pal to create the tongue and groove effect. The keyhole was a brad from my stash. I created the door and window frame adding acetate behind the window. The windows were made using a small square punch. Hinges were made from brown cardstock and cut to  shape. The 80 numbers are from a Tonic numbers die cut. I cut out 3 times each one and glued together and then finally to the door. Sign says Dads Workshop which I created in word and printed out.

 Here is the inside of the card depicting a carpenters workbench with all his tools of the trade + his trusty cat for company.  The tools are a stamp set by Card-io called Drills 'n'spills. I stamped them out onto white card stock using various colours of inkpad and a promarker for the detailing, then I fussy cut them out.  A few were too tiny to do that so I stamped them directly onto the work bench.
Tools hanging up are attached with french knots to represent the hooks they are hanging up on. Cans of paint are all stacked up and attached to the back of the card with 3D pads. Oops one of them spilt whilst I was doing that and left a stain on the wooden floor !! I used a piece of hessian for the mat on the floor and had a few bits of the string from creating the fringing so wound them into a small ball of string which is on the work top. Sentiment is by Woodware From their 'Just to say' clear magic stamp set.  The cat is from Gorjuss Ruby stamp set by Santoro. Oh and I left the door key on the workbench so who ever is last out can they lock the door please!.

I had to make the card last month in time to give to my friend for her Dad's birthday  this weekend. She was frilled with it and said her Dad would love  it.

Foam Flower Card

This is the last card I made when I went on the foam flower workshop and not shown yet. We used a white card base and added colour around the edges with a mauve ink pad and dauber. The coloured card was cut down just smaller than the base and we added colour to it with a supplied stencil so do not know the name of it.  Attached to the card base and then we die cut our flowers and leaves. The leaf is Lea'bilities Leaf 45.36.15and the flower Easy Flower Die 001. We used Lea Cree Design flower foam in mauve and using our daubers added extra colour to the petals. I used a heated iron to shape and mould the flowers then added micro beads to the centres. I have not added a sentiment until I know the occasion the card will be  needed for.

I love how soft the foam flowers feel and how flexible they are.

STOP PRESS
For all my english readers.  My daughter  Faye (aka Fluff)will be on Create and Craft  (Freeview 23) on Saturday 2nd June demonstrating Copic Pens and how to colour at the following times.
11am and 6pm.  I will be watching.  Mother hen preening her feathers here.