Make a Note....

Hi all hope you are well and nearly ready for Christmas. This note book that I have to show today was made out of two canvas boards, which I have inked, painted and stamped within an inch of their lives. I used a crop o'dile to punch the three holes at the side and then used book rings to form the spine. You may recognise the three disks covering the punched holes as they have come from the centre of some discarded floppy disks that no longer fit in our computer!

Just finished my batch of Christmas cards which I am quite pleased about. Up until last week I had only made 15 but that has now doubled so a few more people will get a stunning Smith work of art lol!

Bye for now and thanks for looking.

Afternoon ladies, the card I have to share today is a birthday card made using a stamp set from Inkadinkadoo. The main image has been stamped and embossed on a spellbinders die cut which I layered over a black die cut. The feather and swril from the same set has been used for the background and Distress Ink sponged around the edges.

I made this card some time ago so have forgotton the exact details as it has long been sent but thought I would post as it has been quite sometime since my last blog entry......oh hum. I wont make any excuses, but will just aim to post a bit more which is always my aim but never happens! Does anyone else feel like that, honestly meaning to do something but really never getting on top of the task?

Thanks for looking and will (hopefully) be back soon.

Happy Halloween

Hello crafty bloggers. Hope you all have a happy Halloween. I made these two cards along the theme of Halloween using a set of stamps from Chocolate Baroque. Really love the set as they are not tied to Halloween and can be used anytime you need something a bit creepy. The inks used are all distress from Tim Holtz apart from the tree in the howling dog card which was some silver Brilliance. I love the howling dog as the silhouette could easily be that of our dog, Ellis, thankfully he is much more well behaved than the dog in the picture!

Butterfly Tree

Hi bloggers, hope your Tuesday afternoon is going well. The card I have to share with you today is this butterfly tree birthday card that I made for one of my daughter's friends recent birthday. All the main images have been stamped using a set from Little Claire. The happy birthday sentiment is from a stamp set from Stamp Addicts and was cut out using a spellbinders die. I coloured the stamped images with promarkers and sponged some pink distress ink around the edges of the top layer and the happy birthday. Its hard to see in this picture but I have added some crystal stickles glue to parts of the tree and main butterflies which adds an extra little sparkle to the card.
Thanks for looking...........

Oriental Lady

Hello everyone. The card I have to share today is a something I made for a friend as she is off to China tomorrow and it was her birthday last week. I think the lady is Japanese but I thought it was close enough and I think my friend appreciated it.....lol.
The stamps I used are all from an oriental set by Michelle Marsden and they have all been coloured with Promarkers. The red ribbon is just a strip of card coloured with the red promarker used in the main image so that it matches. The Happy Birthday sentiment was stamped onto a spell binders die cut and the coins were stamped onto gold card and then cut out with a small spellbinders circle die.
Thanks for looking and will be back soon.

Introducing Ellis

Hello blogger folk. Big apologises for not posting anything crafty for nearly a month but I have a reasonable excuse this time lol! Bloggers that are not Facebook friends will not know that I am now the proud owner of a rescued collie cross called Ellis. We have had him for five weeks now and the time has gone so quick. He is a fantastic little dog but just needs some work when he is out on walks as he is not sure how to greet other dogs. He runs up to them and gives them a doggy sniff but then quickly runs away again while the other dog looks on thinking what a loon! He also loves jumping up at people if they happen to glance at him to give him a friendly smile. Ellis takes this as they want to play and doesn't think to check that this is ok with them before he goes and bounces on them......very embarrassing!

Ellis does not like his photo taken and he does not like the hoover. In this picture he is hiding at the top of the stairs away from the hoover and I go and make it worse by taking his pictures so he is not looking very happy. We can only take pictures of him while he is asleep because as soon as he sees a camera he will look or run away. Obviously not going to be a model then......

One Stroke Painting

Good afternoon. I have something slightly different to show today. These two projects are my first attempts at one stroke painting. I spent the day at Brushstrokes in Wokingham yesterday and this is what I was taught. The first project we did was the picket fence painted onto the front of an A4 folder. I am quite pleased with the way it turned out, however the butterfly looks a bit surprised by something and seems to be trying to stop in mid air lol! The second project we did was the gift bag and it seems the butterfly on this is not much better, but over all I had a good day and picked up some new skills.

Afternoon bloggers. The card I have to share with you today is a boys birthday card that was coloured using Promarkers. The car stamp was a freebie from a card magazine but I am afraid I can't remember which one it was :-(. The back ground has been created using a That Special Touch Mica Mask which I ran through my Cuttlebug to emboss the paper before colouring with distress ink.
Thanks for looking......

Hope everyone is enjoying the bank holiday weekend. In keeping with the bad weather we have been having recently I thought I would post the last of the cards I made using the Stamp Addicts, April stamp set. To make it look like actual rain drops I dripped diamond glaze onto acetate and attached it to the card with brads. The scalloped edge around the main image has been created by stamping the little solid umbrella stamp from the set.
Thanks for looking, will be back soon......

Evening folks. Haven't blogged in ages I know but I do have a reasonable excuse as it is the school holidays and we have also been organising our new family member's arrival. He is in the shape of a black and white border collie cross called Ellis that we have got from the local rescue shelter. I will post a couple of pictures later but for now I just have this anniversary card that I made a while back for a friend's 50th wedding anniversary.

Lets go fly a kite.......

Good afternoon. The card I have to share with you today is again made with the April set from Stamp Addicts. I just used the kite and umbrella stamp. As you can see I have used the umbrella stamp to form the butterflies by just inking up the main umbrella part and wiping the ink from the handle and tip of the umbrella to form each wing of the butterfly. The kites have been decoupaged and both the butterflies and kites have been coloured using promarkers. The background was created by using a colour duster brush and stippling blue and white ink onto the card to form a sort of blotchy sky effect. The Thank You sentiment is from a different set but also from Stamp Addicts and has been stamped onto a spellbinders diecut. The sky background was mounted onto a scrap of card that I coloured with the green promarkers around the edges to match the rest of the card and the tail of the bottom kite has been replaced with some wire that I beaded and then attached to the reverse of the kite. To finish off I just added green and purple stickles glitter glue to the butterflies wings and to the kite.
Thanks for looking, will be back soon.

April Showers in August

Hi folks. Hope it's not too wet where you are. It's raining here so thought it appropriate to post this card made with a set of stamps from Stamp Addicts titled April. The background has been created by stamping the little solid umberella stamp in a pale blue and then over stamping with a darker blue. The little girl has been stamped with black memento ink and then coloured with promarkers. A pale blue was brushed around the little girl and then the darker blue was added on top of the pale blue with a scrunched baby wipe. The topper was layered onto a piece of card that I edged with the red promarker that I used to colour the hat and wellies so that it matched exactly.The card was finished off with a little red and white gingham bow which I tried to match with the little girls ribbons by coloruring them red and then dotting a white marker pen onto them. There you have it, hope the sun comes back soon!

Hello ladies. Just back from my hols so thought I had better do a quick blog post. This is another of the many 13th birthday cards I have had to make. The main stamped image along with the chalk sprays used for the background were free gifts for subscribing to Craft Stamper magazine. The Happy Birthday is from a set by Stamp Addicts and the 13 was cut using a quickutz die set. The wooden butterfly charm was covered with distress ink before being glittered using stickles glue. The same stickles was used to highlight the butterflies on the main stamped image and there you have it, another 13th birthday card.......

I found It......!

I found it, I found it! What have you found I hear you ask, well it's my camera cable so that I can finally upload my photos. I tidied it away and then forgot where I put it. So it is true housework is a bad thing as you can never find anything again. At least when everything is out and covering every inch of spare surface you can put your hand on whatever you happen to be looking for! Anyway the card I have to share this evening was made for a 12 year old boy and I used the Psychedelic Grunge stamp set from Tim Holtz. I love this set especially the sun rays as I can see they would be so useful. The inks used were blue and grey versafine for the main images and then mustard seed and faded jeans distress ink was sponged over the background.

Morning bloggers. The card I have for you today is for a 13th birthday. I did say the other day that it seems like all I have made is 13th and 40th cards and it really is true!

This card was made using a stamp set from Creative Expressions. All the bottles of perfume are individual stamps but I have used a mask so that I could stamp them next to each other without overlapping. The sentiment is also from the set and was stamped on a spellbinders die cut. I punched the die cut with a crop o dile and set the eyelet so that I could attach a shrink plastic version of one of the large perfume bottles using jump rings. The bottles and make up have been coloured with promarkers and the background has been sponged with distress ink. I added some clear crystal lacquer to the nail varnish to give it some extra shine. I thought the hand mirror would make a good background for the age which I cut using a Quickutz die and glued it to the mirri card that I cut the mirror from.

Thanks for looking. See you soon.

40th birthday

Hi all. Today's card is another 40th birthday card. I seem to be making 40th and 13th birthday cards and nothing else at the moment!
The main image has been stamped from a set by Joanna Sheen. I love the Diva collection of stamps as they suit all occasions and are really easy to use. I stamped the party girl on a die cut circle using memento black ink before colouring with promarkers. The base card has been stamped with the accessories stamps that come in the set and has been sponged with distress ink. The circular happy birthday is from Creative Expressions and the 40 is a Quickutz die cut. The card has been finished off with a brown ribbon and there you have it, another 40th birthday card.

Hello folks, today I have a 40th birthday card to share. My hubby put in a card order for an ex colleague and this is my offering. As usual nothing fancy. The flowers are stamps from Making Memories which have been stamped onto some patterned NitWith paper. ( a freebie from Home Made magazine) The sizzix die cut tag has been decorated with a Personal Impressions happy birthday stamp, fiskars decorative edge paper punch, and paper flowers which have been finished off with Craftwork Cards candi centres. The ribbon through the tag has been made from a strip of paper cut using scalloped edge scissors and the whole card has had a liberal smudging of distress ink.

Creative Expressions Calling Card Challenge

Hello bloggers hope you are all well. I have decided to enter the Creative Expressions design team challenge which has been titled Calling Card. After doing a bit of research it turns out that amongst other things a "calling card" is an ATC type card that was given as part of contacting like minded people in the early 19th Century. Typical, I thought, as I have never made an ATC in my life as I must confess I couldn't see the point of them. Why would I want to make a card measuring 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches ? But after making the six for this project I am definitely converted as I really enjoyed designing them.

I started off by making the calling card case. For this I die cut 3 Labels 8 nesties. 2 from chipboard and one from black cardstock. The chip board labels were painted with Gesso and then inked with Tim Holtz Distress inks before being over stamped in Weathered Wood distress ink using the cracked paint effect stamp from Words Like Honey. The sunflower was created by using a melt pot, ultra thick embossing enamel, and yellow melt pot dye. The melted UTEE was poured into a sunflower mould and when cool was coloured with latte and gold alcohol inks and then mounted onto die cut circles before being glued to the front chip board die cut using Pinflair glue gel.

The inside of the case was made by attaching lengths of foam board around the edges of the other chipboard die and then painted with black acrylic paint. The inside is covered with black card that has been stamped with the cracked paint stamp using weathered wood distress ink. The outside of the strips has been covered with a length of brown self adhesive ribbon to hide the joins at the corners. For the hinges two lengths of black ribbon were glued to the back strip of the case. The other ends were attached to the reverse side of the front panel (lid). Once the black cardstock nestie label has been stamped with the cracked paint stamp it can be glued to the reverse side of the cover to hide the black ribbon hinges. I cut a piece of black cardstock to fit the inside of the case and stamped it with the cracked paint stamp using weathered wood distress ink.

Here you can see the calling cards fit nicely in the finished case.

The first card was made using a set of stamps from Stamp Addicts. The base card was covered with broken china and mustard seed distress inks. The gazebo was stamped using vintage photo distress ink and then a water brush was used to pull some of the colour out to colour in some of the image. The cross keys have been embossed in black. The two little birds embossed in gold. Correspondence has just been stamped using black memento along with priority. The priority stamp is from Chocolate Baroque. The card has been finished off with black soot distress ink sponged around the edges.

The second card was created by covering the base with broken china distress ink then placing the bird cage mask from That Special Touch Of onto the ATC and then spritzing sunflower glimmer mist over the top. When dry Correspondence and the birdcage and branches from Words Like Honey were stamped over the top using black memento ink. As before the edges of the card were sponged with black soot distress ink.

The butterfly and dragon fly card was created from stamps by Chocolate Baroque. Firstly the base card was spritzed with a red glimmer mist then when dry a leaf mask from creative expressions (That Special Touch of)was placed on the card and then a green glimmer mist sprayed over the top. When dry the butterfly and dragonfly was stamped onto the card using a green and orange memento ink. The detail stamp for the butterfly and dragon fly was then over stamped using black memento ink.

The clocks ATC card was made the Time set of stamps from Creative Expressions, however I must confess that I have lost the stop watch from my set so had to substitute it for a very similar stamp that I found in my stash ooops! I covered the card with a dab of colour in stone from Stamps Away and then some pumpkin dab of colour. I stamped the stopwatch in blue Versafine and then placed a mask that i had cut from a sticky note over the top of the stopwatch. I then stamped the clock background to the top half of the card using the blue vesafine and then in brown memento I stamped the sentiment. I have used Promarkers to colour in the edges of some of the clocks and gears. The card has been finished off with edging the card with ocean Dab of Colour.

These last two ATC's were sponged with stone dab of colour from Stamps Away before being stamped with Darkroom Doors playing cards. The queen of hearts has been stamped using red memento and the hearts have been glittered with red stickles. The edges have been embossed in black. The urgent stamp from Chocolate Baroque has been stamped with black memento. The Ace of spades has been stamped using black memento and then sponged a bit with black soot distress ink to create the smudges. The edges have been embossed by mixing glitter red and black embossing powders together.

So there you have it one finished project.............

Butterfly Fantasy

Evening crafters. The card I have to share with you this evening is another teenager's card. It's all I seem to be making at the moment lol. The stamps used are from Inkadinkadoo and the circular background stamp is from Hero Arts. I have added a dab of crystal stickles glue and glossy accents to some of the design and the 3 butterflies at the bottom of the card have been clear embossed and mounted on the card using 3d foam. Simples....

Ooops better late than never.....!

Oh dear, blog has been a bit neglected of late, must try harder....... Anyway here is the father's day card I made for my daughter to give to hubby. I think he liked it, neither Katie or myself were up when he opened it as he got up at stupid o'clock to go and watch paint dry, sorry, cricket at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. The stamped image has been coloured with the usual promarkers and distress inks.

Thank Ewe

This is one of the cards that I made for Katie to send as a thank you for the birthday presents that she was given. I have never used this Papermania stamp before, so as I have had it for ages I thought I had better get some use out of it!
The card has been coloured with distress ink and promarkers and the "Thank Ewe" was added with the Xyron design runner.

Hi crafty people. The quick little card I have to share today was made in 20 minutes with no mistakes so quite a miracle really. The outside edges have been stamped with Teeny Weeny Meadow stamps from Chocolate Baroque and the wheelbarrow and sentiment are from PaperMania. The flowers and grass have been coloured with Promarkers and the whole card has been sponged with sage and old paper distress ink. Card is now sealed and in the post within the hour.

Heart Hanger

Good day to you all. This heart hanger that I have to share with you today was made for my daughter's recent birthday. I have had the chipboard hearts for eons and done nothing with them other than inked or painted them and then they were left discarded in my cupboard. So I decided to take pity on them and use them for what they were intended! I had already coloured this in lilac ink and paint and stamped the background swirl stamp all over it, but I then added the faux pen stitching and glued the gold and white cord around the edge. Once the glue was dry I added the beads using a beading needle and nymo thread. The letters, heart, crown and flower have all been cut on my trusty Cricut and the hanging ribbon was found buried in my ribbon box. I finished off the hanger by gluing a blank chipboard heart to the back. I have to admit that I was quite pleased with the finished product.
Thanks for looking and will be back soon.............

Gift Card Bag

Evening peeps. I have something slightly different to share this evening, not a card, but a gift card holder. As part of my daughter's birthday present we gave her some gift cards which on their own are completely boring so I made this little holder to try and cheer them up a bit. I started off with two blank chipboard bag shapes which I got from Craftwork Cards and then covered them with patterned paper. I smoothed the edges with sand paper and then went over them with a silver marker pen. The flower embellishments were cut on the Cricut and a few beads added for interest. I then cut down some small envelopes and stuck them back to back to form the little card holders and then attached either side to the inside part of the "handbag"

I have to be honest and say that I completely stole this idea from Julie Hickey, when I saw her at last years Newbury show, but until now had not had the need to make one.

Thanks for looking, will be back soon with another birthday make.

13th Birthday Card

Evening, the card I have to show is my daughter's birthday card. I really didn't know where to start with this. I had a pair of old jeans that have been left on the side of my craft room for ages just waiting to be used for "something creative" so I decided that time had come! I cut a small piece of the denim and attached it to some floral paper with some double sided tape. I then made the lace holes with a crop o dile and set the eyelets before adding the cord. The elements of the card have been cut on the Cricut and attached to the card using Pinflair Gel.
I have a couple more crafty bits that I made for Katie's birthday so will be back very soon.....

teen card

Hello blogger peeps, can't believe where May has gone. No posts for nearly 3 weeks......oh dear standards have definitely crashed to the ground. Anyway the card I have today was made for a birthday at the beginning of May. The background was made with little individual stamps from Hero Arts. The flowers were cut using my fantastic Mother's day bouquet Cricut cartridge along with the number 14 and the birthday centrepiece was stamped using a Creative Expressions stamp set. Short and sweet, but hope to be back sooner rather than later..........

With Men in Mind......

Hello blogland people, I have something a bit different to show you today. It's a gift box that I made from the Slider Template which Creative Craft Cabin sell. It comes with full instructions on how to use it and basically you can use it as a slider on a card or make it into a stand alone box, or if you want your cake and eat it, mount the box on the card lol.

I used a background stamp from the Stamp Man for the grapevine and coloured it in using Promarkers and the glass and bottle is a stamp from Stamps Happen and again coloured with Promarkers. The sentiment inside the box is from Hobby Art.

I have titled this with men in mind as I think it would make a good Father's Day idea but of course most of us are partial to a drop of grape juice so would be suitable for anyone that likes a drink or three.....

Hello, hope you are all well. The card I have today is something for the fellas. My husband needed a card for a friend in his office and asked me to make something with cricket and rugby on it. After having a bit of a look in my crafty stash I found some suitable stamps. The background, rugby player and cricketer are all from the Stamp Man. They have been stamped with Memento ink and then coloured with Promarkers. I have also added some distress ink around the edges just to add interest. The rugby and football balls were just lurking in my cupboard and i have no idea where I got them from and the sentiment is from Hobby Art.

Thanks for looking and will be back soon............

Happy Anniversary

Afternoon all, I knew it wouldn't last very long with a post every day but I will do my best to post more often........
Anyway the card I have today was for a friend's 50th wedding anniversary. The stamps for this card are all from Chocolate Baroque. The frame was cut using a Sizzix oval and then embossed with a plaid Cuttlebug embossing folder. I then went over the embossing with gold rub on. The 50 was cut using the Cricut and finished off with organza ribbon.

Good evening reader, the card I have to show is made with all unmounted stamps from Stamp Addicts. The script stamp has to be one of my favourites as it is so versatile. I have gold embossed it onto black card, for the background to this card and the "tiles" have been created from grungeboard that has been painted with acrylic paint before being stamped with the 3 ladies. I have then overstamped the tiles with the background stamp that makes it looked like a piece of cracked crockery. I love this effect but it is so easy to do. I punched the holes before clear embossing. The butterflies have been gold embossed onto pale lilac card before being cut out and mounted using pinflair gel. The card was finished off with a few beads strung on gold cord and threaded through the tiles and wound around the flower brads that are at either side of the tiles.
There you have it, my fourth post in four days, not sure how long I can keep this up.....