More Joy.

We are into the second week already of the current Butterfly Challenge which is lasting for a total of 4 weeks.  The letter to be used is J for Joy fold and I have now added instructions for how to make this shape (under the card shapes tab) on the challenge blog. 

This is the card that I have used to illustrate  the tutorial.
I have gone with the wheel elements of  Joy Fold/ Jasmine/Jewels/Butterfly.

I have used  the closure as being a belly band as I wanted to show on the tutorial that the whole of the base card can be cut from just  1 sheet of card stock/design paper 29.7cm x 21cm.
Most coloured cardstock comes in this size along with design papers from magazines and digi papers that you down load from the web or cd's.
This is the completed card. I used white card stock and a snippet of a digi paper from 'Pink Petticoats'
Isabelline Dandelions that I had left over from another project and was in my paper stash.  The yellow  design paper is also from my stash and I think by SU.  The stamped butterfly is by 'Stampendous' from their Royal Butterfly SSC 1155 stamp set. I thought it worked perfectly with the dandelion design paper.  The Birthday wishes sentiment is by Woodware.  Jewels from my stash. 

 Below is the card half open.

 Here you can see the whole card open. The butterfly stamp is from the same Stampendous set and the sentiment by Kaisercraft.

Please check out the tutorial for the instructions on making.  I hope you can join in the challenge this month. 

Joy Folds .

Time for a new challenge over on the Butterfly challenge and we are up to the letter for one of my favourite card shapes.

#126 Spin The Butterfly Wheel with J for Joy Fold Card.

Here are my first two inspiration cards for you.

1st Card.
Using Joy Fold/Jute/Juicy Orange/Butterfly

Patterned paper  is a 12"x12" sheet from I think SU.  A  double sided pattern which I have also matched with pale peach cardstock.  Butterfly die cut used is ' Butterflies' by Precious Marieke.

 The belly band was made from a strip of the design paper and brown jute from my stash.  The sentiment was stamped in brown  Distress ink using  a stamp by Kaisercraft. Below is a photo showing the  inside of the card.

2nd Card.
Using Joy Fold/Jade/Jasmine/Juicy Orange/ Jewels/ Butterfly.

 Jade coloured Patterend paper is again 12" 12" double sided . This time from The Works. I again think the Jasmine is by SU.  Stamp is by Julie Hickey  'Petite Flower Frame' and coloured using Distress Oxide inks in the three wheel colours. I also used a gold gel pen for the edging.  Stickles glue for the sparkle and jade coloured  Jem stones from my stash. Setiment is also by Julie Hickey.

 Large and small butterflies are SU punches.  Photo below showing inside of card.

 I do hope you will come and play along. There is plenty of time as this challenge is again running for 4 weeks. I will add a tutorial for the instructions on how to make a Joy fold card over on the the Butterfly blog later today.

Two of a Kind.

These are the other two cards that I made last Friday. I haven't joined in Darnell's 'Twofer' card challenge for such a long time but was determined to manage it this month.  The current theme is Garden. Here is what I made.

1st card for a Birthday.
I still had some of the red spotty design paper (Simply British from Simply Handmade magazine)  left and had a sort through my odds folder of coloured card and found a dark orange oblong that went with it. I had in my mind to make a simple die cut flower  design and used some new dies by Sizzix called Wildflower Stems. The flowers I chose to use were from two different die sets 664163 and 664164. I managed to get two out of the oblong (putting them aside) and backed the negative space with the red spotty paper. My camera is making the orange look peach and the spotty red look orange. The white die cut (Spellbinders Art Deco) was left from another project so I used it on here. The peach slodgy design paper by SU was still out on my desk and I used it as well. Mounted it all onto a base card made from pale peach cardstock.  The sentiment was cut twice using a Crafter's companion die cut.

 I decorated the inside of the card with more of the SU paper and a die cut by Tonic called Happy Birthday Invite Insert Set.

2nd card is a Get Well.
The base this time is made from white cardstock and the remaining peach cardstock. I cut another of the Art Deco frames and  used the two flowers that I had put aside from the card above. I cut the stems down to fit the framework and then cut another two flowers using remnants of the spotty red paper. The Get Well Soon  is by Julie Hickey from her I need every day sentiments.

 I decorated the inside of this card using a peach spotty paper a smaller Art Deco Frame and a further flower from the set.

 Lastly a picture of the ' Twofer' of them together as required by the rules for the challenge.

Entering into the following challenge:
Twofer Card Challenge #18 Garden.

Trees

It rained heavily all day on Friday so I had spent the day in my craft room and managed to make 5 cards. Three of them for the Christmas Card Club which I am showing today. Christine set the theme of Trees. I remembered that my stack of LOTV art pads had a pad 'Set 14 Festive Foliage' with decorated trees in it so I found it in my christmas stash and selected three of the images.
I still had some spotty red design paper (Simply British from Simply Handmade magazine) out on my desk which went perfectly with the first image I had chosen to use.

1st card. 

Base card is made with card stock. The spotty ribbon is from The works.  I used my Prescut Stitched rectangle die set to cut the image down and also cut a larger rectangle in the red spotty paper and a larger one still in plain green that matched perfectly.

 I layered it all up on the card front and added a large pearl to the ribbon bow from my stash.  I used the negative parts from the rectangle die cuts to decorate the inside of the card to match. The sentiment had been cut from a used christmas card  that I had kept.

2nd Card

This card was made from a preformed card base that had come in a set of several designs This was one I had left in my stash. The LOTV image fitted perfectly behind the opening. The green frame was the negative from the card above and added a bit of interest I thought  to the front of this card.  Sentiment was die cut using Britannia dies. 

 I decorated the inside of the card in matching colours and used a corner punch to match the shape of the aperture.

3rd Card

Again I have used one of the preformed card shapes from the same pack as above card. This one though had an oval cut out which was slightly bigger than the LOTV image so I mounted the image onto red cardstock and attached to the front of the card instead.  The sentiment was from a used christmas card and the pearls from my stash. 

 I decorated the inside of the  card to hide the oval shape showing and the sentiment is again from an old used christmas card.

I have not been making many cards of late so my Christmas stack is quite low. 3 more to the pile brings my total to 29 for the year made so far. 

More Impossibles.

Here are another two cards using the Impossible card shape.  The first one uses the shaving foam technique with 'Distress Ink'  re inkers to create the random colour designs on the paper.  It is really easy to do as all you need is a cheap tin of shaving foam, a shallow tray (big enough to take a sheet of paper 11" x 8" and your re inkers in several colours. (If you do not have re  inkers then food dies used in cake decorating work equally as well). Squirt enough shaving foam into your tray to completely cover the bottom. Drop blobs of your chosen colour into the foam and stir in slightly using a wooden stick to make a swirly pattern. Place your blank sheet of cardstock down into the foam making sure it is lying down flat. Lift out and you will find you have a unique pattern and design on your card stock. Wipe off the any excess foam and leave the card to dry (which only takes a few moments). The added bonus is that your paper will have a gorgeous  scented smell. . I had some sheets of paper already coloured from a previous play I did last year.

First card. Uses Version II of the Impossible card which you will find the instructions for under the tab Card Shapes over on the Butterfly Blog. 
 Elements used from the current wheel are:
Imperial Red/Inch Worm/Impossible Card/Inks/Butterfly.
Card base using green cardstock and shaving foam technique with red and green inks on white cardstock. Sentiment is by Kaisercraft from their clear stamp set 'Birthday Wishes'.

Second card is Version III which uses a partial die cut for the centre stand up section. You will find the instructions for making this  under the tab as linked in the card above.
 Elements used from the current wheel are:
Imperial Red/Inch Worm/Iceberg/Impossible Card/Butterfly.

 Butterfly die used is by Precious Marieke 'Butterflies'.  Design papers used  are Simply British from Simply Homemade magazine and the sentiment is from the same set used for the card above.
Impossible card is made using a piece of cardstock 6"x 6". Scored at 3" down the middle and the side tabs are each  1.5" wide.  Gems from my stash.

 Back of card showing the partial die cut butterfly element.

The current butterfly challenge has  another week to run. I hope you will come and spin the wheel.

Not so Impossible.

Yesterday was a day not to be repeated!. Started with not being able to get into my Paypal account. I needed to renew a subscription which was about to run out in 4 days time and I only had the option of doing it by Paypal. Talk about putting the  thumb screws on. Finally got that sorted out and then my Flickr account decided to chuck me out and I was on the verge of  losing all my history plus hundreds of photos down the pan as it kept trying to create a new blank account for me. Still is an on going
problem but it completely disrupted my planned day for me. I had spent so long sitting at  the computer that my "Frozen " shoulder kicked in big time so the only thing for it was to call it a day and go to bed.
So now I am on catch up.
It is time for the next challenge on the Butterfly blog.

#125 Spin The Butterfly Wheel with I for Impossible Card. 

Here are my inspiration cards for you.
First card uses Version I
I have used  Impossible card/Image/Inks/Iceberg/Inchworm/Butterfly.

 You will find the Tutorial for making this shape card over on the Butterfly Blog under the Card Shapes tab. I found a lovely patterned paper in a pad from The Works which has pretty sprays of  pale blue/grey flowers on it. I new I had a stamp set in my stash that was very nearly the same shape flower so I hunted it out.  (Stamp is by Imagination Crafts.) Stamped with versa mark and embossed with Wow silver embossing powder. Fussy cut several of the flowers out and coloured in pale blue and orange with my alcohol ink  markers. The butterfly is Memory box Isabella and Pipi die cut in orange and pale blue. I just scribbled some of the marker pens onto scraps of white paper and then cut out.

Sentiment are Britannia word dies.

Second  card uses Version II
I have used  Impossible card/Image/Inks/Imperial red/ Iceberg/Inchworm/Butterfly. All seven elements.
Design paper is a freebie from Making Cards Aug 2014 called Patchwork Pals which I have teamed with Imperial red cardstock for the added base.

 The butterfly stamp and sentiment  is by Julie Hickey "Fancy Flutter-bies. Coloured with my Alcohol ink markers using Imperial Red/Inch Worm and Iceberg.

 Hope you will come and have a flutter and try the Impossible card shape out which really isn't impossible at all.

Christmas Wreath

Time for the girls in the Christmas Card Club to show our next makes. I haven't been able to make a card so I looked back on my stored photos not shown and found this Christmas Wreath that I made for a Christmas Fayre 2 yrs ago. I donated it for the Tombola as I knew it wouldn't sell on the stall.
Elizabeth set the theme and wanted to see  Baubles. When I first looked at the photo I thought I had baubles threaded inbetween  the flowers but now I have blown the picture up I can see they are shiny acorns. Perhaps the little bird thought they were baubles. (Note to self, should have gone to Spec Savers.) I'm falling back on the Anything Goes if we have nothing in our stash we can use.

 It was difficult to get a good photo of it and I ended up hanging it on a kitchen cupboard door and standing back as far as I could. Everything came from my christmas stash box except the wire frame that I purchased and then covered in brown crepe paper  string that I unravelled to make it 1" wide.
It took absolutely ages to make as I backed everything up on the wrong side so that it looked just as tidy on the back.  Below is a close up. I die cut the roses using my Spellbinders Rose Die and glitter foam.

Hope this will pass muster Elizabeth.

Hexagons are in!

Week two already of the current butterfly challenge which is
#124 Spin The Butterfly Wheel with H for Hinged Card.

I'm sure this warm weather is evaporating time. 

I have two more cards for your inspiration. Both using Hexagons. 

First Card.
Using Hinged card/Heliotrope/Hexagons/Butterfly.

 My camera is picking up the base card as being blue but IRL it is a lovely rich Purple. The Hexagon dies are all from a set by  Julie Hickey called 'Layers, Frames and Banners Hexagon'. The sentiment is also by Julie Hickey from her Circle Sentiments stamp set. Butterfly is a large and small punch by SU. Design papers are by LOTV Nitwit collections 'Snow Princess' I did use some snippets that were already cut and kept inside the front page of the pad so I can hop skipety jump over to the snippets playground. I will stay off the swings though and the pogo sticks! I don't want 2 naf shoulders.

 I have again used the hinged card method to make the base card. Instructions can be found on the Butterfly blog under the Card Shapes  tab at the top of the page underneath the banner header.

Entering into the following challenge.
Pixies Crafty Workshop #355 Use your snippets.

Second Card.
Using /Hot pink/Hexagons/ Heat embossed/Butterfly.

 Base card is made from hot pink card stock and the largest die from the Hexagon set I used in the card above.  The beautiful Vellum Sunflower is also a stamp set by Julie Hickey called 'Sunflower Bee. I have heat embossed using Wow embossing powder.  The design paper is from a paper pad by The Works.

The sentiment is again from the same set as used in the card above.  (I am loving all things Julie Hickey at the moment. Not so you would notice!) Butterfly is Memory box 'Pippi/Isabella ' Die cut.

Hope to have inspired you to come and have a spin of the wheel. Challenge runs for another week.