woo hoot

This was our project for my class on Sunday - fab little stocking fillers that are very cheep (Sorry - couldn't resist the pun LOL).

The paper-pieced owls are acrylic stamps from Woodware, it's such a fun set. There's a cute little bird house on the sheet too and speech bubbles with owlish sayings.
The papers are 'U Bug Me' by Bo-Bunny, double sided which I love. It just takes a bit of planning with your papers. The owls are shaded slightly and then highlighted with a white gel pen.

I experimented with pen/pencil loops to include a pen - I know that in my house, there's never a pen to be found (I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem!)

How great is this for a teacher's gift, too? Or to sell at a craft fair?

The next bit of waffle will only make sense if you're a Twilight series fan. Feel free to skip this if you're not obsessed with Edward/ Jacob/ Bella, LOL!

I'm only just recovering from seeing "New Moon' at the cinema on Friday. I was absolutely blown away with this film, it was a brill adaptation to the book, and Jacob Black - well, what can I say.... OMG, that body...

I'm even more into the books now I've seen NM, and I've put lots of scrummy wallpapers of the lead males onto my phone - I really think it's an illness. My chum Lisa (who I hold entirely responsible for the illness) says we are now 'Twi-hards'! It's been a while since I became obsessed with a series of books like this, it's just such a lovely story about first love.

I'm even going to go and see it again at the cinema and I've never paid to see a film twice. Definitely, definitely ill...

TTFN!

a jiggler

Ok, I have been dying to share this -a very jiggly card indeed! Remember my last easel card with the greeting on the acetate strip? Well, I thought the acetate would look cute with snowflakes that move at the slightest disturbance.I've used the Spellbinders 'Snowflake Wonder' die set and cut three sets of flakes from white glitter card. I just love snowflakes and this die set ticks all my boxes.

The white panel is embossed with a cuttlebug folder, but I swiped the embossing folder with Versamark before I put in the paper. Then I brushed over the panel of embossed paper with pale pink 'Perfect Pearls' and this stuck to the Versamark in the debossed areas. It's a shame the camera didn't pick this up too well, it's so pretty.

The greeting stamp is by Stampin' Up, stamped twice, punched out then layered with foam dots over another snowflake.And a side view. I had to weight the middle snowflake a bit to help drop it down away from the other two. I just added another layer of snowflake to give the extra weight.

Cute, huh. Even my Dad thinks this is nice!! How fab would this be with butterflies, birds, flowers or fairies? I could use my owl stamps for this, too.

Hi to anyone who came to my class yesterday morning! And a big thanks to Carole for being my right-hand-woman.

I'm off to bed now, I worked my first night duty of 4 last night. Bit hard to focus straight to type tbh, the spell check just worked overtime during this post, LOL.

TTFN!

caught in crystal

Hi everyone, this is a photo heavy post today!

I'm sharing the cards I made for a demonstration last night, using the 'caught in crystal' technique. The end result is almost like a huge epoxy accent, one of those 'how did you do that? techniques.

This one is my favourite.

Its easy, but not a card you can make fast as the drying time is several hours. You need Glossy

accents, acetate sheet(cut down into manageable pieces), white card, glitter, stamps, inkpads, alcohol ink (optional) and a Staz-on inkpad.

So here's how.

Stamp your focal image using Staz-On onto a piece of acetate and let it dry. While it's drying, stamp a background (for the card below, I stamped swirls and snowflakes using Brilliance inks). If you want to include text, stamp it on the background, bearing in mind that the main image is going to be reversed at the end, so plan where you'll stamp your text.

Back to your stamped acetate now, it should be dry. Drizzle a generous amount of Glossy Accents over your stamped image and slightly beyond. Drip a few drops of ink into this then swirl with a gloved finger (I use light-coloured alcohol inks) and spread the glossy accents evenly. Sprinkle a little glitter into this, then take your stamped background and place it on top (stamped side to the glossy accents). Flip it over and then gently squish the acetate with your fingers, trying to get rid of air bubbles. Make sure you get the glossy accents out far enough so that you can cut it down to size, but not so far out it goes all over you and the furniture..

Leave it somewhere safe to dry (several hours, maybe overnight), and away from curious cats and children, who can't resist giving it an extra squish...

It will curl, but this actually is a good thing as when you make it up into a card, the curve looks really nice. Once it's dry you can trim it down or die cut it - well, yes, I used my nesties, you know I'm addicted to them!

On this one, I just did acetate, glossy Accents and glitter, no stamping on the acetate and no alcohol ink swirled in. All the stamping is on the background using dye inks, which ran a little with the moisture from the Glossy Accents. A bit 'distress', Sir Tim Holtz would be proud...

This blue one was my first attempt, and I didn't use enough glitter. And you know what a glitter queen I am.

And this one is another fave.

Serendipity moment - I wiped off the Staz-On stamped seed head, thinking I'd do it again, and it left behind a sort of ghost image, which I liked. (If you've got a grey Staz-On pad, you could probably get the same effect using that).

I stamped the frame and text in dye ink, knowing that would run a little, then stamped the seed heads in green chalk ink, which doesn't run.

Of course they are much more twinkly when you see them in real life. I had the devil of a job trying to photograph these, what with all the relections on the acetate!

I also tried this using cheap acetate, but that was not successful as it went very wrinkly. But then, I peeled away the acetate and was left with the hardened glossy accents trapping all the glitter, which was a bit unexpected. It'll go in the 'interesting things' box and I might find a use for it one day.

Hi to everyone who came last night btw, it was a great evening, and I know you'll all enjoy your bargains!

TTFN!

lovely lizzie

Very quick share tonight.

I made this card as a quick sample to help showcase the lovely Whiff of Joy stamps available at the Windmill Craft Centre - but they sold out so fast, Barbara gave the samples virtually straight back!

But the good news is, she's re-ordered and hopefully they won't take too long to arrive.

Now Lizzie here is definitely amongst my favourites - I absolutely love her outfit and especially the boots with the pom-poms - gorgeous!
I definitely have an addiction to nestabilites, I seriously find it difficult to make a card without them these days, LOL.
The copic colours I used -

hair - Y21,Y28 E33, skin - E00 E02 R20, Clothing - R20 R22 R29 R59, Boots - E43 E47 E29, Muff , Cuffs and collar -C1, Pompoms and earmuffs - R20.

Paper is by Bo-Bunny and I used the Martha Stewart Embossing Zig-Zag punch along the opening edge.

TTFN!

Mono and minimal

This is the card I made for Diane to give to her hubby for their special anniversary.

Diane requested modern and minimal with a colour scheme of black, white, silver and a touch of red. You may have noticed that the 'Clean and Simple' style isn't my norm, but it does a body good to move out of it's comfort zone sometimes.

Its A5 in size, when closed. The sentiment is computer-generated with 'Glitterations' stickers for the numbers and it lies underneath the champagne glass focal point when the card is closed.

I found this lovely silver anniversary paper online at The Craftz Boutique and of course a few other things kinda jumped into my basket, too!

And the focal point - well, I just had to use some glossy accents on those glasses! The gems are heart shaped, with a few tiny round ones on the smaller bubbles.

And the trusty Swiss Dots cuttlebug embossing folder. I turned the embossing folder to emboss the other end of the cardstock, lining it up very carefully. I re-embossed any dots that were squashed with the second embossing, using an embossing tool. It's one of the few folders that you can do this with, I've tried with others but the embossing done by hand just isn't as deep and obviously, some of the patterns are impossible to line up. Of course, it depends on how much of your embossing is going to be on show.

And their wedding date, as requested, in the corner. I love the black glitterations on the black card.
I made a matching box, but for some reason I forgot to photograph that!

And I can let you know Diane was dee-lighted with the card and that they had a lovely anniversary!

TTFN!

snowystacks class

I thought I'd quickly share the project I did in my class recently. This has been enormously popular - one class has turned into three sessions, everyone wanted to play! I'm sure it's because Barbara put together the class and supplies at such a fab price!

The three hour class is priced at £25 and you receive 6 Copic Ciao pens, a set of Woodware Stamps (Snowy Stacks) an acrylic block, all the card supplies and little ole me teaching! All in the quaint setting of the first floor of the Windmill, too! And I thought I'd show you my table samples all in a group, 'coz they look cute!

I can't take all the credit of course, the basic intructions for this card are out there on the web, but I did design this to fit nicely ino a 5" envelope and to be something you can duplicate very easily. You could have a little production line going in fact, just like Santa's workshop!

Well I've faffed around all morning as usual and I had all these great intentions to craft. A quick lunch and then I'm definitely going to get creating.

TTFN!

easely peasy

Hi, I'm back with a post. I've had a couple of very busy weeks and , of course, the first thing to not get done is blogging.

I made three love themed cards and sent them off to a mag and hopefully (fingers crossed) I'll be published in February! This is the first time I've ever submitted anything to a magazine, and I had to do instructions an' everyfink! Unfortunately, I can't share those but I'll let you know if I'm 'in' nearer the time. I also made a silver anniversary card for a customer - the big event is tomorrow - Congrats to you both, Diane!

My Step card workshops are going well - although there was a strange episode this week when a woman had some kind of panic attack about using the guillotine :/ ...and before I knew it, Elvis had her coat on and left the building...I'm saying no more than that. I'll share the card we made in class soon.

As a bit of shameless showing off, I also showed this week's class this card. I'm entering this to the Secret Crafter Saturday challenge where the challenge is - yep, easel cards! And I did actually make it on Saturday!

The stamped greeting is punched out with the corresponding punch (both by Stampin' Up!, only available in the USA), and then a strip of acetate 'sandwiched' between it and another punched shape. The other end is stuck down behind the stamped panel.

This idea has been rolling aound in the mojo cauldron in my brain and I finally did it. It's a little b***er to photograph though - it kept bobbing around while I tried to get the photos!

Look at it - all blurred - it really is nice crisp stamping, honest! I decoupaged Tilda, the log and the tree at the left and used the dreaded smelly silicone to raise them up - I'm really not safe with this stuff, I get it everywhere, LOL. My friend, Carole, has suggested I try Pinflair glue gel so I'll give that a go. The only prob is, you cant let the acetate crease, so it would have to be in a pretty deep box. I think this will be have to be hand-delivered - I'm quite sure it'll be squished if posted. I think I'll do another of these cards and try a small charm dangling from the strip of acetate.


Oh, that mojo cauldron is bubbling now - can you hear it? I'm thinking several strips of acetate with snowflakes or baubles or elves jiggling about......


TTFN!