Sunday 28 January 2018

I Just Love You

Morning all, I have actually managed to sneak downstairs undetected by my little (and not so little..) ones this morning so I am enjoying an undisturbed cup of coffee while writing this post. I know this peace and quiet won't last so I am making the most of it.

I am a big fan of the word CASE, in the crafting community it means Copy and Share Everything and I always get a big thrill if someone asks if they can CASE my cards. I am more than happy for anyone to CASE anything of mine they see on my blog, Facebook or Instagram, I'd like it if they mentioned that they'd been inspired by my card but it is not essential. Where I can I will also link back to the original persons work as I feel they deserve the recognition of having inspired someone to create. With that in mind today's card has been CASEd from a card that Jacque Williams created for a colour challenge.

Stampin' Up! I Just Love You

With Valentines Day round the corner I wanted to make a card for Craig that wasn't too girly so when I saw this one on Pinterest I just had to give it a go. I just love this colour combination for masculine cards so I might be making some more using these two colours. I didn't have all of the materials that Jacque used on her card but what I did have was some white glitter washi, some white organza ribbon and my Night of Navy Stampin' Blend. Did you know you could use your blends to colour in washi tape, rhinestones and ribbon? Now you can get your favourite embellishments to coordinate without having to own one in every colour!

Stampin' Up! I Just Love You

One of the things I love about CASEing other peoples cards is that often you learn something along the way, while I knew about colouring washi tape with Stampin' Blends, I didn't know about 'kissing' stamps together. While admiring Jacques card I was wondering how she had produced the small Night of Navy heart, was it a stamp I didn't recognise, had she used white craft ink? I couldn't tell until I read her blog post and realised it was a simple technique that I hadn't heard of before. For the heart on this card you take the small heart in the stamp set, ink it up with Night of Navy ink and then lightly 'kiss' this stamp with the large floral heart. This then picks up some of the floral pattern so that when you stamp it onto card you get a gorgeous patterned heart.

Stampin' Up! I Just Love You

The base card in Night of Navy was not folded into equal halves, this is so that when the right hand side of the inner card has been embossed it can be seen when you close the card. I always forget about my embossing folders, I buy them because I think they achieve lovely results but then they are hidden in my cupboard and I forget about them. I must make more of an effort to use them! Another great reason for CASEing cards, it reminds you of forgotten products.

Stampin' Up! I Just Love You

The smaller background hearts were stamped onto Whisper White card and while you can get matching dies to go with this stamp set, I haven't purchased these (yet!), so I used my trusty paper snips to fussy cut my two hearts which were then popped on using dimensionals. I finished off the outside by adding the embellishments I had coloured and some Lemon Lime Twist self adhesive sequins. I really hope Stampin' Up! bring out more self adhesive sequins, these are so much easier to use!

Stampin' Up! I Just Love You

 Well my coffee is finished and I can hear my little monsters thumping about upstairs which means my short spell of peace and quiet it about to vanish, I hope you like the finished card, please feel free to CASE this or any of my other cards and I'd love to see what you come up with. All of the supplies used to make today's card are shown below and all links will take you directly to my online shop. Happy crafting.

Supplies:

Tuesday 23 January 2018

Just Add Ink Challenge #392

Afternoon all, two posts in one week after two months of nothing, aren't you lucky? He he. It's very wet, dark and cold down in Waterlooville today but I have a nice bright card to share with you today which should help with that. 


I'm not sure how but I managed to stumble across the challenge blog Just Add Ink, I think someone in one of the many Facebook groups I am in shared their entry. It looks like they have some wonderful challenges and I can't believe I haven't found them before now! Their challenge this week was to Just Add Something New, which is perfect for me as I have so many different sets and products that remain unopened and unused as I have a habit of buying far too many new things and don't then give them the love they deserve. Well starting now I'm going to change that!

The something new I decided to break open for this card was my Eastern Beauty stamp set and matching thinlit dies. While the Brushos I used for the back ground are also technically new I have had a little play with them before.

Stampin' Up! Eastern Beauty

The background for this card was so simple to make, first I stamped one of the medallions from the stamp set onto some scrap grid paper and fussy cut them out. I used a bit of masking tape doubled over to stick them into place.

Stampin' Up! Eastern Beauty

 While I have had my Brushos a while I hadn't had much luck with them as I kept opening the lids and trying to sprinkle a small amount of powder out, which didn't end well! When they appeared in the Stampin' Up! catalogue they produced a few technique videos, which included, what now seems a very obvious, tip. Use your piercing tool to poke a couple of holes into the lid so the pot can act like a salt shaker. Perfect! 

Once I had the cut out medallions where I wanted them I gently shook out some of the Brusho powder onto the card stock. For this card I chose to use Brilliant Red, Gamboge (orange) and Yellow.

Stampin' Up! Eastern Beauty

Brushos are water colour ink crystals so to make the bold bright colours you need to add water to them, for this project I used my Stampin' Spritzer and sprayed the card with water. Where ever the water fell the crystals stared to mix in. The more water you add the more of a blended effect you achieve. I was happy with the more dotty effect but if I hadn't been I was going to use my aqua painter to blend it in a bit.

Stampin' Up! Eastern Beauty

Once dry I took away my masked medallions to reveal my finished background, far better than any of my previous attempts I can tell you!

Stampin' Up! Eastern Beauty

To fully complete my card I used Soft Suede to stamp the medallion images and on a separate piece of card stock I heat embossed the centres and the sentiment in gold. These were then stuck on using glue dots and mini dimensionals in order to vary the heights. Once done I felt it was missing something and so I added a strip of washi tape to the bottom.

Stampin' Up! Eastern Beauty

I hope you like today's card and that it has helped to brighten up this soggy Tuesday. Happy crafting.

Supplies:

Sunday 21 January 2018

Picture Perfect Birthday

Good Morning all, I'm actually quite embarrassed that it's been two months since my last blog post, I was convinced it had only been a couple of weeks not two months! Sorry about that. Well I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a good start to the New Year? Mine hasn't exactly started as planned as my car got flooded near where I work on the 4th Jan so has been written off and this last week I've been ill in bed with the flu! Not exactly what I had planned. 

 Other than the mishaps I have already mentioned this year my creative activities have rocketed so far and I'm hoping this is going to continue throughout. My first card making class was a huge success, it was fully booked, everyone said they had a lovely time and all are returning for the February class. I have now chosen to extend the class to two nights as Tuesday is now fully booked and I still had a couple of people interested. If you'd like to come along then get in contact and I can book you in. The next class with space is the 12th February.

In order to start as I want to carry on I have started looking ahead to see whose birthdays are coming up and so I've made a start on my birthday cards for the year.

Stampin Up Picture Perfect Birthday

This one has been created using the Picture Perfect stamp set which can be found in the current occasions catalogue. If I'm honest when I first looked through the catalogue I saw this stamp set and passed straight over it, however when I attended OnStage back in November this is the set we were all given for free in our goody bag. Since then I have seen so many great cards made with this so thought I would dig it out and have a play. 

Stampin Up Picture Perfect Birthday

The bows in this set are so cute and can be done in a range of colour combinations. This is a two step stamp and as it is photopolymer it makes it really easy to get good results each time you stamp. My favourite from the above combinations was the Fresh Fig and Berry Burst, they just work so well together. 

Stampin Up Picture Perfect Birthday

Once I had decided on the colours I wanted and the fact that I wanted to use the bows in the set I wasn't really sure what else I wanted to do. So as usual when I get a bit stumped I turned to the catalogues and Pinterest for inspiration. This time I found a lovely card created by the amazing Emma Goddard of Coastal Crafter to inspire me, click here to see her original card. Sometimes I find myself spending more time on Pinterest pinning ideas than actually making something but I'm determined to actually make more this year!

Stampin Up Picture Perfect Birthday

Just like Emma I used the wonderfully sparkly washi tape from the Myths and Magic suite to create my candles, I think I might actually be in love with this suite so expect lots of makes from this one in the future.

If you follow me on Facebook you'll have seen a small card made with the candles in this set a little while ago, you can see it towards the back of the below photo of my messy craft desk. My creativity levels may have increased this year but my ability to keep my desk tidy sure hasn't changed!! 

Stampin Up Picture Perfect Birthday

I once again have an online shop to make ordering through me far easier! There are links below to all of the products that I have used to create this card so click on any of them and it will take you directly to my shop. Don't worry you can still message, phone or email me to place your order for you if that is what you would prefer. 

Just a reminder Sale-a-bration is currently running which is one of the best things of the Stampin' Up! year. If you haven't encountered sale-a-bration before, put simply it means you get free stuff! This year there are two levels of freebies, level one freebies can be claimed for every £45 spent, if you spend £90 you can then choose to either claim two level one freebies or one level two freebie.  

****Edit... as the below image was very popular when I shared it on Facebook I thought I would add it to the bottom of this post to help give you some more colour inspiration****

Stampin' Up! Picture Perfect Birthday

Supplies: