Time Flies

I can’t believe that Tuesday is here again and it’s time for another Mid Week Little Extra from the team over at Daring Cardmakers.

Another Midweek challenge based on the traditional and modern gift lists for Wedding AnniversariesThis time we've chosen the 3rd Anniversary, so you have the choice ofPaper or Clocks to inspire your card making this week - which is nice and easy don't you think?Remember, your card doesn't have to be an anniversary card, it can be for any occasion, we're just using the themes for inspiration purposes!
I though that just going with the paper might be the easy root to take so I decided to have a stab at the clock.
There’s paper in there too obviously so I think I have it well and truly covered!


I started out with a Caramel coloured card and stamped some clock faces all over it to create a subtle background. The centre panel started life as plain Cream which I’ve sponged with Distressing Ink in three colours, Tattered Rose, Dried Marigold and a touch of Faded Jeans and then spritzed so the colours run into each other. Over the top of this I stamped some fine text using Penny Black’s Letter Background stamp and then some various travel related stamps from Clear Choice Stamps Journey Collection.

The clock face is also a Clear Choice stamp. I stamped this onto a strip of Cream card, added some faux stitching along the edges and then mounted it onto a strip of torn patterned paper and then onto the card and added a ribbon.
Finally I printed ‘Time to Travel on to some Vellum, using my computer, tore the edges and attached it to the card with two little brass brads.

Now that the dare out of the way I can tell you about my day yesterday.
I went to see my pal Lythan and we had fun playing with our crafty toys, having a good old natter and we had lunch in the garden, it was really fab.

We did actually make a few cards too. Here's what I managed to make.

A Bit of a Magpie

I have to own up and face the fact that I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to card making. I see things and think to myself, “I could use that on one of my cards” and it duly goes in a box of bit and bobs awaiting the day that I recycle it. This is especially true when it comes to embellishments on shop brought cards and before I know where I am I’m cannibalizing them.

The challenge over at Daring Cardmakers this week gave me the perfect opportunity to rummage through my box because they want us to make a card recycling an embellishment or paper from a shop brought card, gift bag or wrapping paper.

I decided to go with one of my 50th birthday cards that’s been sitting in the box for 18 months and had a lovely little present on it that was just crying out to be re-used at some point.

This is what it looked like before

and here it is now


I cut a 14.5cm square card and added some panels of Basic Grey Colour Me Silly that have been inked on the edges and then doodled with Black pen. I stamped some swirls onto the largest of the panels with Technique Tuesday's Whispy Gigs stamps and a Orange Ink It Up pad.

I have to say, this is not my usual style but I was so inspired by the card that Lythan made for her AD-dicted dare that I had to give it a go.

The birthday present is the recycled element from the 50th card and I’ve added a stamped birthday greeting using Black Staz-On and my Blonde Moments Sweet Celebrations stamps and finished it off by adding some little buttons, brads and gems for my stash.

DCM - Little Extra - Wood or Silverware

I can’t believe that it’s been two week since I last posted.

I’ve been laid up with an acute case of very painful sinusitis which turned into a nasty chest infection and felt so rough that I’ve not been in the mood crafting in any shape of form, not even my cross stitch. I’m pleased to say that I’ve over it now though; well, apart from the cough which is still hanging around but I thought it was about time to get the ribbons and papers out again!

The Daring Cardmakers are doing another challenge in the series of Anniversary gifts that they started a couple of weeks ago and this weeks Little Extra is to make a card featuring either the traditional gift of wood or the modern gift of Silverware for the 5th Anniversary.

While I was wondering what on earth I was going to do I remembered that I had some lovely little shaped wooden buttons that I brought at Ally Pally last year and had never used so I pulled them out.

It turned out to be very simple. I covered the card blank with the patterned paper and cut the scalloped border by hand after using a stencil that came free with one of the card making magazines. I coloured the buttons with Gel pens

and also added a little bit of doodling to the borders and then finished the whole thing off with a little tag and some ribbon

Ingredients

Patterned papers – DCWV – All Dressed Up stack, K&Co – Hopscotch Designer Mat Pad.
Organza ribbon – from stash
Wooden buttons –from stash
Large brad – from stash
Sakura Gelly Roll pens
Tag Whale of a Punch
Blond Moments Sweet Celebrations unmounted stamps.

DCM - Wool or Copper

It’s Tuesday, It’s 10am (well more like 6pm in my case) and it’s time for another mid week Little Extra from the Daring Cardmakers

In the coming weeks all the mid week dares are going to be based around the theme of traditional anniversary presents but don’t expect them to start at the 1st anniversary and run in sequence….oh no……the team are far more cunning than that!

We have decided that each mid week dare will be picked randomly and the first will be 'The 7th Anniversary'

We’d like you to make a card inspired by the Traditional or Modern gift themefor a 7th Anniversary, which is……'Wool or Copper'

My first instinct was to get the knitting needles out but I decided against that….I’ve not knitted for years. Then I had a vague recollection that I had some copper foil hidden away somewhere in my stash. I don’t think it’s seen the light of day since the Crafts By Carolyn meet up in Hitchin about three years ago so I guess it’s time I made use of some of it don’t you think?
It was at Hitchin that I gave a little demonstration to the girls on how to dry emboss on this thin metal foil using brass stencils but now it’s so much quicker with the help of my Cuttlebug and some embossing folders.

So, here’s what I came up with for the challenge.

I started off by covering an A5 card with two of the beautiful pearlized coordinating papers from the DCWV Luxury stack. Each corner was stamped with a flourish using my new set of Technique Tuesday, Whispy Gigs clear stamps..(Did I not tell you about these?) and a Brown Staz-On ink pad. I then made a smaller mat in the same papers but turned them around so that different papers would lie on top of one another.

Next the Copper Foil embellishments………I cut three squares of the foil and run them through one of my small embossing folders making sure that the pattern was centralized. Each of these was then mounted onto another piece of the patterned paper and embellished with layered flowers comprising of a selection of fabric blooms, Prima’s and some copper metal embossed flowers that have been cut with punches. They were all finally fastened together with brads, some of which I coloured with alcohol inks so they would match the colour scheme.

The card was finished off with Organza ribbons and a stamped greeting which was made using Blond Moments Sweet Celebrations unmounted stamps.

Hot 'n' Spicy

There’s a ‘Hot ‘n’ Spicy’ team challenge over at the Daring Cardmakers blog today and I had to make a card with that phrase in mind.

I thought the best starting point for this would be go through my ever growing stash of papers to find something that would fit with the theme.
Luckily I came across a sheet of stripy paper from Li’l Davis Designs that was a freebie at a crop I went to last summer and it fitted the ‘Hot ‘n’ Spicy’ theme to a tee.

My card is pretty basic…………..just layering the patterned paper and Burgundy card stock together and topped off with a stamped panel.

As I was putting my card together with the eyelets and ribbon it seemed to be lacking something, so I decided to run one of the panels through my Cuttlebug and emboss it with ‘Stylized Flowers’, which gave it the little lift it needed.

The rubber stamp is ‘Brush Tulips from Penny Black…..I love these water colour effect flower stamps and has a nice little collection of them now!

Lythan's Doodling!

There’s something a little different going on at the Daring Cardmakers for their mid week Little Extra this week. Lythan has written a great tutorial about doodling with patterned papers.

It's a technique that she uses a lot and her cards always look so fabby but I’m not sure that doodling is really my thing.

I'm not even sure that it would suite my card making style but I’ve given it a go.

Ummm……totally different from my usual creations but I’m quite pleased with the results.

I’m not sure who the papers were by because they were in a Self Addressed kit from many moons ago but I do know that the ‘Happy Birthday’ stamp is a Blonde Moments one from their Sweet Celebrations set.

Thanks for dropping by.

Sue
x x x

Butterfly, Flutterby

I was still playing with Parchment paper when I made my card for the Daring Cardmakers dare this week.

Butterfly, Flutterby

Hi everyone, Jo here with this week's dare....
I seem to like butterflies at the mo. This week therefore I would like you to put some butterflies on cards. Stitched, felt, shiny, bright, plain, paper pieced, stamped, drawn... you get the idea :) any theme of card but it must have a butterfly somewhere on the card!

I decided to go with a card design that I’ve made several times before, mainly because I love this particular stencil. It’s by a lady called Erica Fortgens and combines embossing and stitchinG

I started by dry embossing the panel onto some thick, good quality parchment paper. You can emboss brass stencils perfectly well with a lot of the die cutting machines out there but it doesn’t work on this stencil because it has butterflies in two of the corners and birds in the other two. I wanted the butterflies in all four corners so it meant that the embossing had to be done the conventional way.
Once all the embossing was finished I took a needle, pierced all the holes and stitched the edging of the oval and the butterflies with fine gold thread and added small pearls for the butterflies bodies.
The three tags were printed onto Parchment paper on my computer and then embossed with gold embossing powder but you have to be really quick to do. If your not, the ink dries and the embossing powder won’t stick to it. The two name tags were cut using a ‘Whale of a Punch’ and the other was cut by hand and then all three were mounted on a slightly larger tag cut from pearlescent card, also by hand.

Finally, the whole thing was assembled onto an ivory pearlescent card using tiny gold brads and ivory ribbons.

DCM - We've Folded!

Once again the weekend has flown by and I’m pleased to say that I survived the family coming to dinner on Sunday. Not a big deal cooking for six you would think but when you’re only used to cooking for one it’s a bit different. I think it went well and everyone enjoyed the food…well all except the Pavlova that didn’t happen.
I followed Delia’s instructions to the letter, cooked it for 1 hour on gas mark one then turned it off and left it in the over overnight to cool but when I tried to put it on the serving plate the following morning the inside was just a gungy mess and not in the least edible. We ended up having just Strawberries and cream!


Anyway, with the cooking disaster out of the way it was time for me to make my card for this weeks Little Extra over at the Daring Cardmakers

This weeks mid week dare is inspired by Rachel and is called ‘Folded’!
This is not folds in the card blank itself, but rather folds ON the card- whether it be some kind of paper folding technique or folded embellishments or even just a folded over message of some type.

I decided on a square card covered with ‘dream’ paper and topped with a hand cut Lacé square which was folded back on it’s self to reveal the back of the double sided paper and the backing paper.
The next thing I needed to do was make the folded flower with the aid for my ‘Pretty Petals’ design template. I chose to make the Amaryllis from White parchment paper and to do that I needed to cut five of the petals and one centre.

I then decorated each petal with embossing and pricking, using Pergamano techniques and then folded and assembled the flower with a large Brown brad. I printed the two Happy Birthday tags, cut them with my Cuttlebug and attached them to the card with some Pink fibres.

The components were:-

Papers – My Mind’s Eye, Trés Jolie & HOTP Earth Tones Cardmakers Creative Pack
Parchment Paper - Canson
Cuttlebug Mini Tag Die
Dovecraft – Pretty Petals Design Template
Fibres and Brads from my stash

Shrink To Fit

Where on earth has the week gone again?
I can’t believe it’s Friday already and that means it’s time for another Daring Cardmakers challenge.

It was Kathy’s turn to set the dare this week and boy did she come up with one to stretch your imagination. She called it ‘Shrink to Fit’ and the idea is to have lots of unused space on your card and an embellishment that measures no more that 5 x 5 cm…have you any idea just how small that is!

This was real problem for me because most of the cards I make are A5 size and a 5 x 5 embellishment would look really silly on a card that size, so for this challenge I’ve scaled things down a bit and made my card 14.5cm square.

I started off by printing the computer generated greeting and then cut a 5cm square in the centre of the card. I edged around it with a silver metallic pen and then did a bit of weaving with some Lavender and Blue ‘Papillon’ Craft Yarn that I brought from Craft Creations.

So there you have it, a card with a small embellishment and lots of white space……just what Kathy ordered!

I've also been given an award this week.

The lovely Jackie has given me an Arte Y Pico award which is apparently given to people who share their creativity through their blogs. Other than the fact that it’s Spanish no one seems to know what Arte Yico actually means, so if anyone can shed any light I would be grateful. Anyway, I feel very honoured Jackie, so thank you so much for thinking of me. Now apparently I have to pass it on to five more people, so here goes…..

Juliet
Judy
Vanessa
Kathy
Lythan



All of these girlies have more talent in their little fingers that I can ever hope to achieve. I love reading their blogs because they give me so much inspiration and in Lythan’s case she more often that not brings a smile to my face.

Needles & Pins

My card for the Daring Cardmakers challenge this week has a bit of a monotone thing going on. The brief was set by Jane and she wanted us to make a card using needles or pins of some description.

I scratched my head for some time over this, wondering what I had in the way of a nice pin and then I remembered that the ‘Form A Line’ stitching cards kits I brought some time ago contained a long pin with a pearl on the end. It was intended for piercing the holes in the card but I thought it would be perfect to use for Jane’s dare.

Here’s what I came up with.



I started out with a White Linen effect card and coloured it using the ‘Direct to Paper’ technique and Color Box Fluid Chalk ink and then used a speckled brayer roller over the top in a slightly darker Color Palette pigment ink. I then added some Silver embossed swirls down the right hand side using a set of clear tapestry stamps.
The next layer was the same speckled brayer roller and the darker ink onto White paper. The edges were torn and inked and then I’ve edged it with some mock stitching. I love doing this now and it looks so much better using Jo’s method of piecing the holes before drawing the lines.
The third layer of the card was done using a Hessian brayer roller with Encore Ultimate Metallic ink in Silver onto White paper. This time the torn edges have been embossed with Silver embossing powder.

Next comes the stamped image.
The stamp is called ‘My Mother’s Dress’ and is by Inkadinkado. I started by sponging some of the darker pigment ink onto White card and then stamped the image using the same colour. The edges were torn and inked before mounting it onto a piece of coordinating Blue card which was also torn and inked. The panel was then attached to the card with four tiny pearly Blue beads and the pin with a few more of the beads threaded on for good measure.



Finally I’ve attached a small Vellum tag that I brought from Crafts By Carolyn some time ago, added the bow and small Silver Birthday Wishes Peel-Off……….and there you have it!

The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring, Tra La……………..

………………..bring promise of merry sunshine.

Well, that’s what Gilbert and Sullivan would have us believe.

As I was making my card for the Daring Cardmakers
Little Extra this week I couldn't help but sing along to this well know song from the Mikado and reflect on the fact that the 21st of March was officially the first day of Spring and it’s snowing outside.
That’s the great British weather for you!
Anyway, this was the dare:-

We would like you to create a card with flowers.
Simple? Aww but hold on…there’s a little twist because we don’t want to make it too easy for you.
We want your cards to have flowers on but we don’t want to see any Prima’s or shop brought blooms. The idea of this dare is for you create your flowers yourself so lets see what you can come up with.

Here's my card.

The basis of my card is cream card stock that has been covered with distress ink and stamped over the top with my Penny Black Letter Background stamp.

The flower was cut using the Sizzix Flower Parts Set 2 and a Woodware Heart punch using three of the papers from the Cherryarte Classic Coffee collection. The petals were highlighted with a Gold marker pen and some Diamond Glaze and the card finished off with some ribbon and brads from my ever growing stash.

Maiden Dare

This week the girls over at Daring Cardmakers have decided it’s about time I earned my place on the design team so they have let me loose with my maiden dare. I had to think long and hard on this one but I hope I’ve come up with something you can all play along with.

It’s all in the Game

Tiddlywinks, playing cards, dominos, jig saw pieces…….the list goes on and I’m sure that most of us have a drawer somewhere that has the odd one or two of these lying around in.
Well now’s your chance to use them because I dare you to make a card using some of those pieces.

Oh and no, you don’t need to throw a double six to start to start the game.

My first card was something that I’ve always wanted to have a go at….Domino Art.

The first thing you need to do is create a rough surface so that the ink or paint will stick to the domino. I was impatient and did this by giving it a quick rub with some sandpaper but apparently you can achieve the same results by soaking them in bleach overnight.

Once this was done I gave the four domino’s a couple of coats of Cream Acrylic paint and once dry I stamped over the top using Blake StazOn and an Anita’s flower stamp. Finally the image was painted with Twinkling H2o’s before being giving three coats of UTEE and edged with a Gold metallic marker.
Tres Jolie papers enhanced it with a touch of Cuttlebug Script embossing and brads, ribbon and a glass bead complete the card.

The second was using some chipboard jig-saw pieces, which were inked with Dried Marigold and Antique Linen Distress Ink from Ranger.

I then stamped the Sunflower with Black StazOn and painted with Twinkling H2o’s. I love this Rubber Stampede stamp, not only because of the lovely the image but because it was such a bargain. I snapped it up of £1 at a fund raising event for the Canal Boat Project

The Jig-saw pieces were layered onto a card with papers from My Mind’s Eye, Tres Jolie collection and finished off with a stamped greeting and some eyelets and ribbons from my stash.

Blogg Award & DCM Little Extra

While I was away in Norway Judy over at Monts Mama Mia very kindly gave me a ‘You Make My Day’ award, how nice is that?


Thanks so much Judy, you've made my day too!

Now I’m supposed to pass it on to my 10 favourite bloggers which is no easy feat especially with so many talented people out there. Not only that, most of the people who really inspire me have already been given the award so I’ve decided to take the easy way out. If I have ever left a message on you blog it’s because I love what you’re doing and your work inspires me, so if you fall into that category then consider yourself given the ‘You Make My Day’ award from me.

And now on to this weeks Little Extra over at the Daring Cardmakers and it’s a very simple one……make an Easter card.

Nothing very taxing for this card, just some layering using one of my favourite Crate paper collections, ‘Birdie’ along with some brads, Prima’s, ribbons and Stickles glitter glue.

Hi Honey……..I’m Home & DCM's Teen Spirit

Did you miss me?

I went off last Thursday for a few days fun in the snow to Norway and what a fabby time I had. Only trouble was I came home with more than I bargained for…..a bad attack of sinusitis and a mild chest infection. It didn’t stop me enjoying my break though and I’ve now been to the doctors and the antibiotics are beginning to kick in so I’m feeling a bit better now.

We landed in Torp (southern Norway) and made a little detour up to Oslo so we could see the Viking Ships that had been excavated and rebuilt over 900 years later.

It was absolutely amazing to see all that wood carving so well preserved and so worth the extra hour and a half on our original three hour journey to Gol where we were staying.
This was our Hotel and the view from our room.

Saturday was spent at a wild life park up in the mountains somewhere. I totally forgot to make a note of the names of the places we went to but will find out from John who is the guy who invited us out there.

I came nose to none with my first Moose which made my weekend especially as this was one I the animals we failed to see while visiting Canada a few years ago.

We also saw some Lynx and Wolves among other things but no Bears….they were all sleeping…..wise decision when you see how much snow there was up there!

Sunday was another exciting day because we visited the highest inhabited village in Norway to do a bit of Skidooing……Ooooo this was fun……and cold…….but fun!

Then there was just time for a quick look around Gol itself and a spot of shopping before facing the long journey back to the airport on Monday. All in all it was a great weekend only slightly spoiled but the flight being delayed due to the storms over here.

Anyway, after all the excitement of the weekend and being ill for a few days after I finally managed to make my card for our Daring Cardmakers
Friday Challenge.

Now, this week it's Rachel's first time to set the dare;"Well I thought we have had plenty of flowers and hearts and girly things so I would like some cards with some teen spirit please."

My card was a very quick one I’m afraid.
It’s using papers from the DCWV ‘All dressed Up’ stack.

The handbag, shoes and coat hanger are QuickKutz dies. The Alphabet is Sizzix ‘Hunky Dory’ and the dress was cut from a template that was in a magazine a little while ago and layered with 3d foam (sorry, can’t remember which mag.)

I've got a stitch

I was a little late with my card for our launch today of the Daring Cardmakers mid week Little Extra so I’ve just put it straight on my blog.

The wonderful Mel has done a fabby little tutorial about adding some stitching to our cards and the dare today is to do just that….make a card with some stitching on.

I didn’t think I was going to get time to do a card this week because I’ve been rushing around finishing orders and trying to get straight and tidy before flying out to Norway on Friday for a short break, but as luck would have it, one of the cards I had made was just crying out for a spot of stitching so I’ve just sneaked in under the fence!

You see that I’ve just added some simple running stitch around the edge of the 70 and I think it definitely helps it to stand out from the card.

Thanks for the tutorial Mel……what a star!

I Am Woman

There’s another great dare over at the Daring Cardmakers blog and it’s the lovely Lythan’s turn to challenge us this week.

As its coming up to Mothers day in the UK here’s a chance to make a card that celebrates women and girls. So I’d like to see a card with at least one feminine image on it. And that's it for rules really.

Apart from this one.

And it is sneaky.

No Tildas, Sugar Nellies or Bellas please. I love them all. But there are loads of great challenges out there using them so for this challenge you can give them a well earned rest!

The No Tilda’s rule wasn’t such a problem for me because apart from the few images that I stamped when Lythan came over to play a few weeks ago, I don’t have any. What I did have though is a lovely set of clear stamps that I brought at Ally Pally last year. Unfortunately I’ve lost the packaging and now have no idea who they are made by but the set consisted of a ladies head and shoulders, a bag, a shoe, some scroll things and a couple of greetings.

My card was inspired by a project in this months Craft Stamper magazine where they used Alcohol Inks to make a background on glossy card and then stamp the image onto it and cut parts of it out and stick them over the top of another image.

The components used were:-

Cream Card Blank – Craft Creations
Patterned Papers – Sarabook’s Emerald Pad – Hot Off The Press
Green Textured Card – DCWV Neutrals
Letter Background Rubber Stamp – Penny Black
Lady Rubber Stamp and Greeting - Unknown
Inks – Black StazOn
Alcohol Inks – Oregano & Stream – Adirondack
Textile Texture Embossing Folder - Cuttlebug
Ribbon and Brads – My Stash

When is a milk bottle not a milk bottle?

When it’s a birthday card, of course!

Now I know that doesn’t make any sense at all but all will become clear, I promise.
It’s all to do with Today’s dare set by the Daring Cardmakers

This week it's Rhi here to dare you and I'm on a recycling mission. I dare you to look again at the plastic packaging around you and transform it into a brand new card. It could be food packaging, craft packaging or just something plastic that's destined for the bin or recycling. Trim it, die cut it, alcohol ink it, crop-o-dile it, give it a new lease of life then share it via your blog for us all to see. Happy Recycling!

I actually ended up making two cards for this, purely because I didn’t read the dare properly and the first card I made doesn’t clearly show the plastic, which was the whole point of the dare.

So this is in fact my second card. The recycled plastic started out its life as........ yes you've guessed it.........a milk bottle but you would be hard pushed to see that now thanks to a nice covering of alcohol inks and a quick wizz through my Cuttlebug in an embossing folder.

I started off with a plain White card blank which was stamped with VersaMark ink and given a quick dusting of pearl pigments. It doesn’t show up very well in the photo but it’s a pretty Lavender and Blue. The rest of the card is my usual layering with inked edges using K & Co papers and the focal point is the recycled plastic which has been dabbed with alcohol inks and then the moth has been over stamped with Staz-On. The two tags were also cut from the inked plastic using a Whale Of A Punch and then embossed and peel-off butterflies added.

The components were:-

White Card Blank – Craft Creations
Patterned Papers – Wedding Designed Mat Pad – K & Co
Wings Rubber Stamp – Penny Black
Inks – VersaMark, Blue Staz-On & Lavender Color box fluid Chalk
Alcohol Inks --Stream, Wild Plum, Blending Solution & Silver Mixative - Adirondack
Pearl Pigments -Sugar Cool Lustre –Blonde Moments
Ribbon and Peel-Offs - My Stash

This was the original card I made.

I was given a lovely Sanctuary gift set for Christmas and the box had doors on it that had an acetate panel covered in a sheer fabric.

I’ve stamped onto the acetate using a Black Staz-On inkpad and then I turned the panel over and painted directly onto the fabric with Twinkling H2o’s. I stamped a second image onto some of the patterned paper and cut out the individual flower heads, which I stuck over the top. The greeting on the tag was printed on the computer.

The components were:-

White Card Blank – Craft Creations
Patterned Papers – Hopscotch Designed Mat Pad – K & Co
Hydrangea Rubber Stamp – Rubber Stampede
Inks – Black Staz-On
Twinkling H2o’s
Brads & Ribbon - My Stash
Gold metallic pen