What day is it????

Oh dear…..I’ve done it again….missed another birthday, what makes it doubly worse is that I had the card already to post in good time and I still forgot to post it on time!!! ……………and on Sunday while we were working at Katie's cottage we had a lovely visit from Steve’s sister Val and family and guess who’s birthday it was that day………yup! Val’s ….and guess who hadn’t even realised it was the first of July and didn’t even wish her HAPPY BIRTHDAY!…….and despite having the card in my car  waiting to be posted…..I…..STILL DIDN’T TO GIVE IT TO HER!!!!!

Valerie please accept this humble and heartfelt grovel…..I’m so sorry.

With this in mind I decided to use not only Less is Mores’ challenge (take inspiration from their blog header) but Allsorts flower challenge, as an opportunity to make another special card for Val.

Val this is for you…..

I took inspiration from the colours and the multi-layered effect of L.I.M’s banner….quite difficult (I struggled) while still keeping to the CAS ethos. I’m afraid I resorted to the image transfer technique again with another lovely image from the Graphics Fairy, but used the floral theme as my focal point
I have also made a flower tutorial as I tend to use these rather a lot at the mo, especially this Clematis shape I made to compliment Oak House Studio’s clematis stamp, which I used on my mirror project on Linda’s blog.
This time after cutting the shape, I ironed the off-cut flat to create a stencil, then transferred the image over the aperture


The edges also needed inking for extra definition.

The card was completed with the design reprinted and cut into a matching flower, and embellished with some sewing box bits, press studs, button and braid …..love that braid….found it in the charity shop…. 20p!! 

Initially I wasn’t happy with the card….the components appeared to be floating so I cut the card front off and re mounted it with lace (a scan) transferred along the bottom.
                …..now off to post this card before I forget!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

p.s. Big thank you to Karen (The Graphics Fairy) for featuring my Image Transfered Masculine Cards on her Crafting blog, I'm very honoured as I have seen such an amazing variety of projects featured, it is a great honour that my "budget" CAS cards have made it there!!

Paper flower tutorial

As I have been using paper flowers as embellishments for many of my projects I thought I would do a quick tutorial on how to make them without any cardmaking tools. I love the punched and die cut flowers I use which are cut with my cricut and punches but for the sake of this blog I wanted to be able to make usable flowers without any added expense. The great thing about these flowers is they can be made out of any paper, so can be made very cheaply from copier paper, recycled pages, tissue paper, scraps, wrapping paper…..etc!!!!

To create ……..

Use a square of paper…..(doesn’t matter if its not exact)…. fold into quarters….then  fold one third just over the centre line….then another third folds behind…you should have a three way zig zag.

Draw the shape of your petal, then cut the top portion off.

The shape can the be formed…petals edges can be curled…or the shape scrunched…spritzing with water or hair gel then left to dry gives the shape quite rigid and natural form

… the edges can be inked before

….all these flowers were test pieces made out of cheap scraps or copier paper, different shapes were cut to create different shape petals…..some were created by folding extra times to create longer zig zags….and some were made of multiple layers

The centres can be finished with buttons, beads, glitter, feathers or  miniture versions of the flower……

Try making flowers out of decorative papers, book papers. if you have rubber stamps the flowers can be over stamped before shaping……

…….possibilities of shape size and design is endless and be used as an accent or a focal point…….have fun!!!!