My jar ‘runneth’ over…..

The sun is shining and I have managed to squeeze in a little “Less is More” crafting…. although my eyebrows shot up to my “very grey” hairline when I read the challenge was to create a card other than square or rectangle…..oh heck… I thought it was tricky last week creating a child's card and keeping it clean and simple ….but without stamping or using my cardmaking stuff…. I could only think of novelty style cards which were definitely not CAS…. so not sure if this totally qualifies….

but it was a great excuse to use the adorable free print sheet from The Graphic Fairy  that I recently found.

Luckily I also had some printable projector acetate from a computer course I did many years ago……never have needed to create a presentation….so I still have more or less a full packet…and I thought the acetate would be perfect to print the jar on.

After printing the jar I created a text box to position in the jar…..then deleted the image before printing the text on card……then before I attached the acetate and card together (attached along the top with double side tape) I highlighted the text with a couple of stencilled hearts (chalked with eyeshadows!!)

To attach a back panel I scored the top of the acetate section to create a hinge which fixed onto another piece of card

Once the three panels were joined I cut out the shape of the jar.

To finish I tied on a couple of scraps of ribbon from my salvaged stash.

I photographed the card with some confetti sequins as I am going to pop a few  a handful in the envelope…..

       ……dont you just love it when people do this!?!?

Now must go and have a play with the clematis stamp from Lynnda at Oak House studio.…..Lynnda is planning an ambitious 24 hour craft with “One Stamp” and I am supporting her by having a go at creating some revamped home decor projects…… one of my projects is hopefully going to be immensely useful but has to be one of the oddest and possibly the most unappealing projects  I have ever created in my papercrafting!!!!!!!!

1,2…….…..3!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully nice and early for Less is More this week (Theme Baby or Child). Nice wide scope but I found it quite difficult to do CAS for a child…to make an attractive card for a child tends to lend itself to bolder style designs so this week my card has a bit more layering than I would normally do for this challenge, hopefully there’s enough white space and simplicity (oops a few little details did creep in) to qualify.

In honour and might I add extremely early I created a card for my youngest goddaughter who is three this year…

A while ago I bought some lovely embroidered tape from the chartity shop (20P!!) and I knew it would be useful so quite simply a strip attached on a layer and a message embellished with three buttons created a simple design but hopefully bright and appealing to a child.

and just in case the message hadn’t been twigged

a nice big three inside !

As I said…. I have made this card early……birthday in August…now all I have to do is remember I made it…… and where I put it!!!

Nappy crafting definitely not happy crafting….

Should have called this post “warts and all” as this week my idea didn’t quite work but if I’m honest it was more the execution of the projects that failed…..

A couple of weeks ago Katie and I made her friend a Nappy bouquet (congrats on the safe arrival of beautiful Betty Rose!!)…

….and much to Katie’s frustration she caught me “salvaging” the one nappy that got trashed in the making “Honestly mum…cant you throw anything away!!!!!”

“er ……..no!” and boy I’m glad I didn’t as Less is More really made my brain hurt with their one layer challenge of three stamps….its bad enough not using bought cardmaking things but to come up with three stamps that was going to be a challenge… so this week I had to do a bit of a cheat….I used some free stamps from Quick Cards Magazine.  I could have stamped with some household things in fact my third stamp was actually a bit of card but I really  wanted to have a go at making my own ink pads to use with stamps….HENCE THE NAPPY….see Katie told you I would use it!!!.

I have made impro ink pads before but finding a medium to successfully contain the ink (food colouring in this case) without clogging or oversaturating is not easy…..and actually its a big thumbs up for disposable nappies as they retain plenty of moisture but still allow some through when pressed…pity my stamping skills didn’t live up to expectation

First attempt …….started reasonably well, thought I would use the back of the stamp to create a shadow (used some double sided tape to attach the stamp onto the base of a flat bottomed glass)…but the colours were disappointing particularly the purple I mixed…dull…dull… dull ….and to top it all I mis-stamped one of the jars…all in all …insipid!

 

 

Second attempt…….

decided to customise the pads with different colours, again shadow stamped but this time used some black ink for the outline… 

didn’t think this one through and ended up with a silly gap at the end, so doodled a lollypop at the end to compensate…but as I dislike the the dark colour scheme for the theme…its more bin fodder…..

one  final attempt…added a little pen ink to the pads and a really quick design just to test the pads and…..

really…really… earth shatteringly….poor layout but the colours were improved…oh well back to the drawing board…

Heart “felt” sorry

Please don’t groan …I know its a rubbish pun…at least I didn’t actually make a felt heart for my belated birthday card (for a cardmaker I am actually dreadful at remembering birthdays…on time!)…it was thanks to Less is More for actually steering me away from such a visual pun, this weeks challenge is Yellow  and I have to say a yellow felt heart just didn't look quite right…believe me I considered it…. but a lovely bright yellow flower will hopefully “re”gain me some brownie points with my Goddaughter ……particularly bad as her birthday is two days before mine.

The flower was so simple to make….
six little petals cut from small squares of felt roughly stitched and gathered together, finished with a button (great for hiding very bad stitching!!). I only wish I had thought to attach it to a brooch back so it could be removed and attached onto a bag or something.
I have to say a big thank you for all the lovely good wishes we received for our Anniversary a couple of weeks ago, I showed my hubbie when I showed him the dedicated You tube clip!!  and he was astounded by such warm wishes….he didn't realise how friendly bloggie people are.
I have to share a pic of two cards I received…. the Anniversary card is from my hubbie it made me smile as I was tempted to sneakily submit it for L.I.M’s sketch last week, and Steve actually said not only does he now look for lovely words (he always chooses great words and often writes little poems….occasionally they are of the “girl stood on the burning deck” variety but at least they’re unique?!?) he now feels under pressure to choose something that looks handmade and naturally he went for CAS!!!!!!!!

The birthday card is from my friend at work who is not an “official” cardmaker but she knows how passionate I am about creating cards from anything and she wanted to pay homage to the bunting workshop we are having at our Library (recycling book pages for the Jubilee!)…the card is excellent and she said she had such fun making it…truly superb Eugenie….thank you so much!
Sorry I didn’t get to join in with L.I.M last week, things stacked up against me…mainly the fact my dishwasher and my washing machine ganged up on me and both went on strike… aaaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhh…so it was back to basics and doing things by hand…..ridiculously time consuming………………
but normal service has now been resumed…god bless the repair man and his trusty van of spare parts!