Out of the cage

Oh how fantastic to be creating again! It was wonderful to have a complete rest but I really do miss it when I don't craft. I'm still trying to catch up with everything but the challenge over at Make My Monday really caught my eye. It's to make a card on the theme 'things with wings' using this beautiful inspiration photo.

Come and see what I've done with it:

I rather liked the white and pink against the dark background so the Always Artichoke card stock was my starting point along with the gorgeous birdcage from Nature Walk which I embossed in white. I stamped leaves (from the tree in Hopeful Thoughts) over the top to add a bit of detail to the background.

I needed a bird as my Thing With Wings and what better bird than the one from the hostess set Silhouette Sentiments! She's also embossed in white giving her a dove-like appearance. You can see in this photo how I added a little So Saffron ink to the top of the Artichoke card stock to tie in with the photo, and can you see the pearl embellishing the top of the cage? I used a medium one from the Basic Pearls sheet for that and some of the tiny ones to decorate the centres of my flowers.

I am a huge fan of this flower punch from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack - and here's another way to use it: snipping between the petals gives the flowers this delicate, dimensional look. I was also rather pleased with the subtle sort of lacy look at the bottom of the Artichoke panel - it's been sponged with Whisper White craft ink and then over-stamped with an image from Baroque Motifs.

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Nature Walk, Hopeful Thoughts, Baroque Motifs, Silhouette Sentiments, Happy Moments (retired sentiment)

Ink: Always Artichoke, Basic Black, So Saffron, Whisper White craft ink, versamark ink

Card stock: Whisper White, Always Artichoke, Pink Pirouette, Pretty In Pink, Regal Rose

Other: Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, Basic Pearls, white embossing powder, heat tool, piercing tool, mat pack, white gel pen

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593 and I'll be happy to help.

Don't forget today's the last day to get your free gift with an order of £75!

What on earth has happened to the weather? I have been wearing boots and jumpers since I got back from Devon and yesterday the heating went on - although that probably had something to do with a certain young person leaving the door open!

Thanks for visiting me today. I'll be back tomorrow and would be very pleased if you'd join me again!

Layered Butterfly

Hello! I've just returned home from the most relaxing holiday in Devon - my shoulders, which were up around my ears before we left have now dropped a good six inches! Difficult to feel tense when you wake up to this...

and this...

We've been staying with some lovely people who have made our visit truly special and now I'm ready for action again.

I got back a little late to get my crafting things out but I know you'll be wanting to see a card and I've been meaning to show you this one for a while now:

I was experimenting with layering different shapes and textures when I made this one, adding a tone-on-tone Top Note shape to the card base and a stamped and pierced Crumb Cake layer with this dusky pink designer paper from the Springtime Vintage range.

The Top Note is attached to the card front using dimensionals and the layered butterfly adds to the dimensional effect.

The butterfly is made by layering die cut butterflies - the larger one from the Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die and the smaller embossed one from the Beautiful Wings Embosslits die. I fixed them together with a glue dot and wrapped a little linen thread around them to make the body of the butterfly.

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Fine Flourish, Trendy Trees (sentiment)

Ink: Crumb Cake, Rose Red

Card stock: Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Rose Red

Other: Piercing tool, mat pack, linen thread, Springtime Vintage designer paper, Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die, Beautiful Wings Embosslits die, Top Note Bigz die

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593 and I'll be happy to help.

Well, there's a definite feeling of things coming to an end - the holidays, summer and, of course, this month's special offer. If you've been thinking about taking advantage of this and getting your gorgeous cosmetics bag, reel of striped Rich Razzleberry ribbon and that fabulous clip assortment, then you have two days left to contact me! The offer ends at the end of tomorrow. 

Do forgive me if you've left me a message in the last week or so and haven't yet had a reply. I shall be looking forward to catching up again this week.

See you tomorrow,

A recycled garden.

Today I'd like to show you a card that was rescued from the bin! No! Please don't go! It's not too bad I promise! Look:

This was supposed to be a one-layer card I was making for a challenge but unfortunately I placed the mask on the card base wonkily and the card looked as if it had been made under the influence of strong spirits! But I loved the mask, which I made by folding a piece of scrap paper into four, cutting with the decorative label punch and then opening it out. And the sponged garden was rather pretty. I thought it was a shame to waste it.

I love making one-layer cards but there's no denying that they don't always go according to plan! The good news though is that when they don't, you just turn them into layered cards! Cutting the sponged image out straight and mounting it onto Basic Grey card stock was easy and I even found one of my vellum butterflies in my snippets box which made itself quite at home on the card!

All it needed now was a sentiment to match the butterfly (two sentiments, two markers and a stamp-a-majig took care of that!) and mounting on a Whisper White card base. And I actually prefer the final card to the one I'd had in my head first time around! I hope this post has encouraged you not only to try one-layer cards but also to use the ones that don't work out!

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Baby Blossoms, All a Flutter, Just Believe and Thank You Kindly (sentiment)

Ink: Always Artichoke, Old Olive, Bashful Blue, Pacific Point, Soft Suede, stazon black

Card stock: Whisper White, Naturals Ivory, Basic Grey, Vellum

Other: Decorative label punch, markers, stamp-a-majig

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593 and I'll be happy to help.

If you've paid me a visit this week and left a comment or maybe emailed me a message, thank you - I love reading your comments! My posts this week were scheduled as I've been on holiday, but I shall be back this weekend and will be looking forward to catching up with you as soon as possible. Have a wonderful weekend!

Pocket Silhouette roadside cards

Do you remember me saying that I'd show you some cards made with the punches from the Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack? Yes, I know it was a little while ago but I have two to show you today! These cards were inspired by my travels up and down the English countryside just lately - the roadsides in summer can be absolutely beautiful! Come and have a look:

Both cards are made using the emboss-resist technique but I've stamped more and gone heavier on the ink on the right-hand one. I can't decide which I prefer. I really like the layout though and will definitely be using it again.

Here's a close-up of the paler version.  First I masked off the bottom of the card base. Then, for this one, I inked up the plant image with versamark, went over just the stems on the stamp with an Always Artichoke marker, then stamped and clear-embossed. After cleaning the stamp, I stamped a couple of the plants in Pear Pizzazz ink and then sponged over the top of the stamping in Pear Pizzazz ink then Bashful Blue above it.

Here you can see the background and the punched flowers on top. I gave the flowers a simple centre with a Poppy Parade marker. You can also see the bits in the Confetti card stock - I love the way these add to the natural look of the design.

The sentiment is stamped in Poppy Parade too - it's such a lovely, summery red! I scored lines above and below the sentiment to add a bit of detail and to give the sentiment a good home!

This is the darker card. It's made exactly the same way except I didn't keep the seed heads and the stems separate but just stamped the whole plant image into versamark and ink before clear embossing. (I'm not making much sense am I? Please do ask me if you want to know any more!)

This close-up shows that the background is a bit more detailed than the pale one. Oooh I do love those four-petalled flowers over the top!

And the sentiment is the same as before except that it gets only one scoreline above and below the sentiment.

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Pocket Silhouettes, Just Believe (sentiment)

Ink: Pear Pizzazz, Always Artichoke, Bashful Blue, versamark

Card stock: Confetti White

Other: Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack, markers, clear embossing powder, heat gun, scoring blade for Fiskars trimmer, stamp-a-majig

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593 and I'll be happy to help.

I woke up last Wednesday morning with these cards in my head and dashed downstairs to make them and see what they'd be like. I could've spent hours coming up with different flowers, different colours, different layouts... but of course I was supposed to be getting ready to go on holiday! I shall definitely come back to this though.

Thank you so much for popping in today - I've really appreciated your visits this week. Don't miss tomorrow's post when I'll be showing you how I rescued one of my disasters from the bin! Hope to see you then,

Sea shells on the sea shore - to sell!

Today I'd like to show you the last in my series of seaside-inspired cards made for the St Lukes Charity Card Challenge. I've so enjoyed making these and it's great to know that when I bundle them up and post them off to the address given on the site, they'll be used for a great cause. All cards sent to the address are sold to raise money for the wonderful St Lukes Hospice in Sheffield that provides such a valuable service to those with incurable diseases and their families. I hear they'll be having another of their sales at the end of August, so do send them any spare cards you might have.

Here's the card I made:

The seaside always reminds me of ice cream colours so the Bashful Blue, Pink Pirouette and Very Vanilla card stock came out again! And what better to make the sand with than the Sandy Speckles wheel?! I used So Saffron, Bashful Blue, Pink Pirouette and Basic Grey speckles and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.

The shell image from the Nature's Nest stamp set is so beautiful - I love it! Here, it's stamped in Basic Grey and coloured in with Pink Pirouette using a blender pen - it's not very clear in the photo but looks very delicate in real life. The scallop border punch on the edge of the blue card stock adds a bit of detail and I've used a great sentiment from Thank You Kindly. This would be a good card to give to a neighbour who's looked after a pet while you've been on holiday, or to a holiday home owner who's gone the extra mile to make your stay comfortable.

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: Nature's Nest, Thank You Kindly, Sandy Speckles wheel

Ink: Bashful Blue, So Saffron, Pink Pirouette, Basic Grey

Card stock: Bashful Blue, Very Vanilla, Pink Pirouette, 

Other: Scallop border punch, blender pen

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

My days of lying around on a beach with a good novel belong to my twenties and shell gathering has been a much more likely activity in the many decades that have passed since then! I remember smiling to hear my youngest son as a tiny tot talking about 'olympets' - the word limpet had somehow got mixed up with the olympics games which were going on at the time! He did this a lot - I obviously said "oh dear!" quite a lot when he was two because he said it too - only he said: "oh deed!"

I hope you've enjoyed the seaside fun here for the last couple of days. Do check out the challenge site and join in if you can! See you soon,