Checking it Twice

 

Here's a quick card for today - trying to catch up now

and get the last of my cards done for christmas!

I needed to do a male card so wanted to keep it quite simple.

 

 

 

This image is from a company I haven't heard of before - Little Darlings - which caught my eye on my last visit to Oysters in Rochester - love the bunny slippers.

 

I simply coloured and matted onto some papers I had in my stash. Added a swirl and embellished a corded bow and it's done. No glitter! This card is for a teenage boy who would not appreciate being covered in glitter lol - well not in front of his mates anyway!

 

Stamps – Little Darlings Stamps, Checking it Twice. Coloured with Promarkers and the edge distressed with Tim Holtz Old Paper.

 Dies – Memory Box Magic Flourish and Marianne Designs Merry Christmas

Background – Freebie check paper from Crafts Beautiful magazine, Music Paper from Clarity Stamps and Home. Family from my stash.

Embellishments –Silver Bells and Christmas Tree from Live and Love Crafts.

 

That's it for today, off to see my daughter and 1 grandson - hope you have a nice day! x

 

Pan Pastels Workshop with Eileen Godwin

Had a fabulous day with Eileen learning all about Pan Pastels. Had made a conscious decision NOT to buy any of these until I knew how to use them. How many of us have stuff that we've bought and never used? You really cannot beat been shown and having the resources to have a go, make mistakes and then be put back on the right path to success.

We made 7 projects in the day, amazing! Just goes to show if you know the techniques then it opens up a new door in crafting. Eileen's demonstrating was so straight forward it was easy to learn, I came away with a lot of knowledge but need to put in a lot of practice! I plan to follow it up with some more of her workshops (not just Pans) over the next few months.

This was the first card I made, aren't the colours fab! First rule is that these pans are so full of colour you need very little - 2 swipes with a sponge and then on to the card. This one used a linen effect card and I have to say I found this finish a lot easier to blend on than the smooth card we used later. I have a stack of watercolour paper so I plan to use that up. There are just 2 colours in this, red and yellow with the orange created by blending them together in the middle. After stamping we used a Uni Posca white pen (need to get one!) to do the highlights, couple of punched butterflies and a little lady bird and it was done.

 

 

In this one we masked off the sun and applied the blue, yellow and green pastels in the same way as before to create the background. The great thing about pastels is you can use an eraser to lighten areas.

 

 

This card was soooo simple but I love it. You work on the coloured strip only and when finished you stick it onto the blank card.

 

I applied three colours of Pans and blended them. Spray, then I used three ink colours and a clarity swirl stamp. I think it's really effective and has such depth - fab.

 

Then I stamped the sentiment onto the blank card before positioning the coloured strip. And that's it - done. Really useful design for thank you cards etc.

 

 

 

 

 

This one was a variation of the horses card we did, exactly the same principle. Beautiful stamp image isn't it. I used the eraser more on this one to get the cloudy effect. You cannot erase after you've sprayed and if you want to highlight the rocks by rubbing off the colour then don't spray. Wait for the ink to dry and use a rubber to take off the colour.





Had one of those days when you go 'yes - I CAN do this' thanks to Eileen and her fabulous tips and knowledge. Highly recommended! Can't wait to learn more and meet up with my new crafting friends in December. x

Have a Fairy Merry Christmas

Yes - I'm like a bus, nothing for ages then two come together! Been so busy with other crafts I'm afraid I haven't had time to stop and take photos. Also busy at the moment with workshops, did a lovely one with Paul Church last weekend at Oyster Crafts using a Clarity stamp holly and ivy branch. Paul is a fabulous pattern builder and showed us how using pretty much one stamp we could make lots of different designs. Met some lovely crafting ladies and Martine (manager at Oyster's) even kept us entertained with her carol singing. Deep joy!

This Saturday I'm off to one with Eileen Godwin (Eileen's Crafty Zone) , who does some fabulous work with Pan Pastels. Haven't used pastels for years and am really looking forward to seeing how they've developed and what I can /should be able to do with them. Then the following Saturday I'm doing one with the lovely Jacqui Dennis (Cat's Whiskers) who is an accredited teacher in using alcohol pens, so looking forward to that as all my colouring is self taught. My head will be crammed with so much information I may have to go and lie down in a darkened room for a while!

Anyway onto todays card -

Again apologies for the lighting, I will have to sort it out but with the big yellow thing missing from the sky and my photography skills being minimal I am struggling. (Maybe I should find a photo workshop to do!!)

I designed this card with my teenage grand daughter in mind, she hopes to study graphics and art when she leaves school so I wanted something a little different for her christmas card.

Stamps – Lavinia Stamps, Have a Fairy Merry Christmas sentiment, Wet Wings (love it!) and Fairy House. Clarity Stamps - miniature santa and sleigh.

Dies – Spellbinders Create a Flake Four.

Background – Adirondack Inks Denim, Stonewashed, Lemonade and Wild Plum. The moon and hills were masked off and then I brayered and blended the inks to create a snow scene. I added the colour to the moon and stamped the sleigh then added some shading to the hills after I stamped the other images and removed the masking.  I used Glamour Dust to highlight some of the snow.

 

Embellishments – Diamond droplets from my stash and silver marker pen by Pilot to highlight.

 

Phew! Hope to get a few more christmas cards done as soon as possible - how are you doing with yours? x

Last Christmas I Gave you my Heart ..........

 Well, not happy with the quality of the picture, really struggling in this gloomy light. If I use the flash it bounces of the mirri and shimmer card, if I don't it can get a bit dark in places. Hey ho - hope you get the gist of this one . This is a larger card than normal (8x8) as I wanted to combine more elements.  I found this fabulous Magnolia stamp with the words of my favourite christmas song by Wham (oh those were the days!). I used it with the Christmas Gift and my three little christmas boys  stamps from LOTV which I adapted by cutting some bits off - don't know why just felt they fitted the picture better.

 

Stamps – LOTV - Christmas Gift, My Little Tree, Cuddling Ted and Delivering the Presents and Magnolia Last Christmas I Gave You my Heart. The images were coloured with Promarkers and glittered and the large sentiment was distressed around the edges using Tim Holtz Old Paper. The smaller sentiment is from my stash.

Dies – Dee's Distinctively Snow Covered Stacker Tree and Memory Box Catalina Wreath.

 

Background – Silver Mirri card with white matting and topped with Shimmer Card from Oyster Stamps.

 Hope you like this one, apologies to all apparently I had comment verification on which had stopped some from leaving comments. Think I have taken it off - hate it when I come across it on other sites sooooo annoying - fingers crossed ! x

The Little Things

This card was made with lots of love, because it’s for my husband.  

It’s our wedding anniversary straight after Christmas so I wanted to get it done so I didn’t have to worry at the last moment (which is what usually happens!). He is my biggest fan and so I wanted to make it special for him.

 

I love the image as since we married 3 years ago he has bought me a bunch of flowers every Friday, nothing extravagant but truly ‘Love is in the little things’. I also saw the larger sentiment a while back and thought it was ideal for him.

 

Stamps – LOTV - ‘The Little Things’ and a sentiment stamp from their set 8 ‘Happy Circular Sentiments’. The larger sentiment is from Clarity Stamps. The image stamp was coloured with Promarkers, glittered on the roses and then all the toppers were distressed around the edges using Tim Holtz Old Paper and Vintage Photo.

 

 

 Dies – Spellbinders Lacy Circle for the smaller sentiment.

 

Background – Wedding Bells papers by Wild Rose Studio matted onto gold card.

 

Embellishments –Crystals from Oyster Paper Craft and Pearls from Hobbycraft.

 

 

Well I can put this one away for a little while, I do struggle with male cards but I'm pretty sure he will love it as it is so appropriate.