Oh dear . . . .

Is it really more than a year since I last posted one of my cards on here? Clearly it is, as it’s 2022 and most of the world (but not most of Russia) is watching the terrible events unfold in Ukraine.

An aunt celebrates her birthday today and it seemed appropriate to make a card for her using Ukraine’s national flower, the sunflower, in the shape of the Inkylicious Sunkissed Wishes stamps which have been in my stash for several years.

I kept it simple: the flowers were stamped & embossed in white embossing powder on watercolour card, then watercoloured using my Winsor & Newton watercolour set. The greeting (by Clearly Besotted) is stamped in Grey Flannel Memento Ink.

#cardsforukraine

Still Here . . . .

Well, what a year it’s been. I somehow knew when I packed up my real office to start working from home that it would be a while, but even I didn’t think it would be THIS long – a month or two, I thought – but not almost a year. My craft room became my office, and spending more than 9 hours a day in there, working, stifled pretty much all of my creativity. I have made some cards over the last year, particularly for family members who celebrated big lockdown birthdays. Over the coming months I’ll try to catch up on blogging about a few of them.

This was a new – to me, at least – technique called “faux stained glass”, described by Jennifer McGuire here. I found it really simple to do but very effective although the second picture shows the finish much better.

This picture shows the glossy finish really well. Definitely a technique I’ll do again.

It’s Been a While . . .

I’ve neglected this blog for far too long; I still make cards sometimes, and enjoy it when I do, but dressmaking has become my main hobby and I don’t have time for both so the blogging takes a back seat to the creating.

Anyway, without further ado this card for my nephew’s wife was inspired by a Christmas gift from my crafty friend Vicky, which was the lovely set of stamps by Crafters Companion which comes with matching dies. This card wasn’t planned, I just went with whatever I fancied doing. The background was inked with Distress Inks in Broken China and Tumbled Glass, so the stamps were also inked with Broken China. As they’re new and I was using Distress Inks, the images didn’t stamp cleanly, but I decided I liked the effect and just re-stamped where the ink was a little too patchy.

I finished off with a sentiment by Altenew, embossed with Wow! Bright White embossing powder (which really isn’t bright white at all), and some off-white sequins to match.

Flower Challenge

It’s been a long time since I posted here; I’ve been spending my free time on other hobbies as I’ve found they’re better at keeping my mind occupied, but I’ve still made some cards and decided it was about time I got back to occasionally blogging about them. This week’s Flower Challenge is a one layer challenge, and this card fits the bill – I hope the addition of a piece of ribbon doesn’t disqualify me!

The poppies are from a very old stamp set by Artemio, for which I used by Tim Holtz stamping platform to do first, second and third generation stamping. The greeting is by Simon Says Stamp. Here’s a closer look:

 

Flowers Galore!

I’ve only got time for one hobby at the moment and for the last couple of months that’s been sewing, although I haven’t got much to show for it yet. I still enjoy card making when I get chance, and made this card recently which I’m going to enter into this month’s challenge at Stamping Sensations. The theme is “Anything with Flowers”, and the main image must be stamped, for obvious reasons. Well, there are flowers aplenty on the front of this card, all individually stamped.

I took my inspiration from this card but adapted it using stamps from various sets including Paula Pascual & Banana Frog (sadly no longer trading), inked in various brands/colours of inks. The die cut word is by Mama Elephant, cut in normal cardstock then glossed with Anita’s Clear Gloss, and the birthday greeting is by Clearly Besotted. I then added a few gems for the obligatory bling!

Two for the Price of One

Challenges, that is. I’ve combined the challenges at Addicted to CAS, where the theme is leaves and AAACards, where the theme is ink blending.

I die-cut a Nestabilities oval and created a stencil through which I blended Adirondack inks in Cool Peri & Eggplant. I slipped a bit with my sponge so the birds (all by Inkylicious) were to hide the mistakes!

I then die cut the Sizzix leaves out of Docrafts metallic adhesive card, and spent ages with an embossing tool & a mouse mat trying to smooth out the many “dimples” which result from the holes in the die. I decided to keep the greeting very simple, choosing a stamp by Clearly Besotted from their Brushed Greetings II set.

Friends Forever

A quick post to enter this into a few challenges:

• Addicted to CAS
• Darnell’s NBUS challenge number 12
• Addicted to Stamps & More

I haven’t used coloured pencils for quite a while, but this quick & simple card uses my only Polychromos, which worked really well on the kraft cardstock. I heat embossed the flowers from the Clearly Besotted Friends Forever set, which is a recent purchase and therefore qualifies as my NBUS. I kept the card simple (although not very original!) by using a simple stamped greeting (again, Clearly Besotted) on an MFT die-cut flag and a few sequins.

 

CAS Mix Up

I made this card earlier in the week and then almost forgot to enter it into this week’s challenge at CAS Mix Up! The theme for this month is watercolour wash but you also have to include stamping and something else of your choice, in my case diecutting and embossing.

This card evolved as I experimented. I started with the watercolour wash, which I did with my Zigs, but then wasn’t sure what to do next. I wanted to use some new (to me, at least) stamps which I had just bought off Ebay, so I stamped the flowers in Versamark then embossed them in silver. The petals are coloured in the same paint as the background, but I wasn’t sure I could paint over the watercolour wash with another colour so it was a nice surprise to find it worked very well!

Finishing the card was easy: the greeting is a combination of a die cut by Mama Elephant and a stamped word by Clearly Besotted. Thin strips of card at the side added a little extra interest, and I felt it needed the sequins to finish it off.

CAS Mix Up

My missing mojo is slowly returning although sadly the work-related stress isn’t going anywhere. Still, this is one of three cards I’ve enjoyed making today. The inspiration for it was a card by the super-talented Loll Thompson, not realising that she had made it as an example for this month’s CAS Mix Up challenge.  What is it they say? “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”? But it’s with a little trepidation that I’m entering my card into the challenge as it’s a little too close to her inspiration for comfort!

I didn’t have any plain tissue paper to water colour, but I did have pink tissue paper which I scrumpled up, glued to cardstock with Mod Podge then heat embossed with Wow! silver embossing powder.

I then made the frame with dies by M & C Boutique which were a bargain (£5!) in The Works. I masked off an area the size of the frame then stamped the script (by Inkylicious) in Hero Arts Unicorn ink. The feather was die cut from the “offcut” middle of the frame then shaped a little & adhered with dimensional adhesive.

I used by own home made stamping tool (which is a variation of this one) to stamp the greeting (by Clearly Besotted) but then realised that everything was on the right hand side and the card didn’t look balanced, so I added a little bling to fill the gap.

Techniques: tissue paper, heat embossing, stamping, die cutting.

Case This Sketch #229

Still struggling with my missing mojo but this week’s sketch at Case This Sketch provided the inspiration for this quick & easy card. The most difficult bit was working out what size the patterned paper rectangles (by My Mind’s Eye) needed to be*! I also turned the sketch on its side so it would work with the die cut greeting by Mama Elephant, to which I added some clear Wink of Stella for a tiny amount of bling. You can just about see that in the photo below. The birthday word (by Clearly Besotted) was stamped in Versamark & embossed in white embossing powder. A few pearls from my stash finished the card off.

*(Note to self for future ref: 2cm x 4.5cm!)