The List

This has to be a quick post as it is not on my "to do list".....

I have a few days off work and I am the world's most disorganised, organised person.....so I made myself a list...and I was going to stick to it!!! The craft room called to me several times, I stuck my fingers in my ears and ploughed on regardless, but this one little card mainly created on the PC was the one exception but replying to an invitation was on the top of the list.

As an experiment I printed the wording in grey and I used a floral dingbat font for the decorative elements. I have been having a sneaky peek at the goings on at LIM Towers to see what everyone has been up to (naturally I have only done this whilst having my lunch....oh and breakfast ....oh and coffee breaks!) and inspired by Mandi I decided to bling my wording, but decided to try using a cocktail stick and pva instead of a glue pen....it was tedious...... but worked.

I ploughed on.....the biggest job of them all was to - sort - reorganise & deep clean our bedroom! Several sacks and two days later I am finished, I was feeling quite smug and dare I say it sanctimonious, inspired, I merrily hoovered the landing and horror of horrors, I decided to hoover my craft room. Now as Jenny at "crafting in the country" has agreed it is not a very wise thing to do...mainly as who know what treasures are lurking down there (and yes Jenny this week I am going for gold with "WOYCRF" what's on your craftroom floor),....... but in I bulldozed ..... time was ticking away and I got a little bit more frantic.... something precious rattled up the nozzle.....in horror I snatched the tube up AND........ promptly took out the entire contents of the shelves behind me.......I have shut the door on it...the floor is clean but unfortunately you cant see it, it's covered in peel-offs, stamped images di-cuts, stickers, rub-ons, paper, boxes, you name it, it's there!

This all gave more added poignancy to the little card I had started at the beginning of the week.

Another job on the list was to replace my printer ink cartridges, in the interest of economy I decided to use a refill kit....it went marvelously didn't even get any on my hands (miracle)....that was until I decided to use the little bit left in the refill tanks....I tapped it out, watered it and tinted a sheet of card... great I thought after I had to iron it (ironing was also on list!) I will make a note card. Found this quote a Gingers House loved it and decided to print it on my customised stock

Guess who forgot to replace the black ink .....DOH!

I give in.....!!!

No I don't need another scrolly font...No I don't need another scrolly font...I repeat no I don't need another scrolly font... O.K ...give in ....I do need another scrolly font...thank you Less is More Ladies you have convinced me .....Scriptina is a really lovely font and quite frankly it looked better than all my others and as this design relies heavily on the wording, the font was very important. This week at Less is More the challenge is "a touch of red" and I have an engagement card to make for one of our nephews (congrats Andrew and Eve). Engagement cards can sometimes be tricky, I'm not keen on too much wedding imagery for the event but I love the idea of celebrating being joined together, so a simple scrap of red ribbon joining the wording was all that was required. The wording was printed landscape on A4, trimmed, cut apart, scored and attached on the inside. To cover the fixings inside I added an insert ...just a touch more red! I was pleased with the card but began to think it was too minimalistic? So ..... I pushed the boat out and added a little red heart.....now not sure again....

What do you think ...with or without?????????????????

(don't worry the heart will easily detach, if the verdict is off,

it is attached with blue-tak at the mo)

Book Chrysanths

Working part-time in a Library has the great benefit of having access to damaged books, so when my friend and colleague had her birthday approaching and was kindly cooking us lunch to celebrate, I decide to go armed with flowers.....book flowers.

These are extremely simple to make and can be made on any scale, each flower used approx. 4 pages, but smaller versions use less. I took inspiration from DYSU's challenge of "clear, light pink and mauve" colour theme. Unfortunately I found these extremely difficult to photograph and the very pretty light purple piece of tissue that I had been saving for a project, looks very blue!

After slicing the pages into thin strips these were stuck in star pattern onto a circle of card (the circle wont show so they don't need to be precise, mine were just a bit larger than a 2p piece).

Each flower requires two layers, which once dry are curled (using your thumb, lightly pull fronds over closed scissors). The effect can be varied by alternating the direction of the curls, but for this project I had mine all curling backwards. I created stalks from rolled up paper. Slice an A4 piece of paper corner to corner, then roll up tightly, working diagonally to the smallest point. Using a glue gun, stick this between the two layers.

I created some buds from tissue twisted over some cotton wool, the stalks were created by staining kebab sticks (felt pens or paint works well), these were finished with some looped strips of the page strips and some slivers of green paper cut to form long leaves.

Each flower had centres of smaller petals formed from torn tissue.

I arranged the elements into a bouquet and added extra leaves attached to the stalks of the larger flowers and also onto strips of green card. these were then encased in matching tissue and some clear cellophane.

The bow was a very vibrant pink.....but this actually matches my friends hair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Knew I kept them for a reason!

Well it's sketch time at LESS IS MORE....mmmm.....I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with sketches.....but I like a challenge.... and FAB N FUNKY have "a do it more than once" challenge (multiple folds on a card), so I decided to flip Mandi and Chrissie's sketch and add in some extra folds for a little something extra (also wanted to use up more scraps!!) I took a couple of 10cm wide strips of card scored a couple of flaps either end of the longer white strip and created a hinge on the black strip, leaving it long enough to tuck under the white flap on the right.

I then attached these together with photo glue (nice and repositionable).

The wonderful little image was from Meljen's designs which I found through Free Digital stamps. The image is perfect for my husbands Anniversary card (he's and electrician so particularly apt!)

Again I was faced with colouring an inkjet image without promarkers!?! chalks were too dull.... it was then I decided to go in for the kill......lurking in my gel pen draw were some flourescent gel pens inherited from my girls......I actually thought they were disgusting but as I never throw anything away......I felt sure they would come in useful for something......

....FINALLY their moment to shine (literally) has come....and incredibly they still worked (they are years old!!!) I did find that the printer ink could still be picked up with these but as they were a fine rollerball I could manage to colour in carefully without to much disaster. In fact I was impressed how well they flowed and blended, but to give it a finishing shine I covered it in clear nail varnish....three coats...had to do a third as I managed to stick my thumb print on the second (ooops, wasn't dry!).

I created the message in Word and highlighted the "light" word with the gel pen, Mandi (Less is More)has done a clever little tutorial on matching font colour to computer generated images, I really must have a go at this. It's so nice to have such helpful tips, it's fun joining in challenges but learning something new is a great bonus.

Now for the big question. .....is there a crafting black hole/Bermuda triangle?

Last week I had to do a bit of batch card making, I am completely rubbish at tidying up as I go along, so gradually the desk disappears...and so does things that I need....as I worked I lost my lovely metal handle Swann Morton knife, my Fiskars double ended embossing tool, my medium embossing tool and the new disposable Swann Morton knife I got out to replace the missing metal one! Now my lovely little craft room (was Gina's bedroom, so it's a special place for me), is not very big, so they cant have gone far,....... I surrendered and tidied everything back in it's place......STILL MISSING...this is nuts they have to be here.

Every week as I am nosing round blogs I see WOYWW where lovely crafters take a snap shot of their desks etc and show whats there.....

......well I have decided to start WOYCSF (What's on your craft space floor!!!!!!) because this, during my search, is what I found hiding..... and I didn't know they were missing

and you guessed it.....no knives or embossing tools ????????????!!!!!!!!!!

They are officially .......Looooooost ........innnnnnnnn........Spaaaaaaaaaaaace!?!

CHEATING...but bargain cards

Apologies first, my blog is primarily about making cards without purchasing anything special just card and glue, but as I still make lots of cards for other reasons as well and as these cards were made as frugally as possible, I thought I would do a quick post about them.

I supply my niece with batches of cards which she sells in her Pub on the Norfolk Broads. She and her husband work very hard to raise a lot of money for the R.N.L.I, she keeps a basket of cards on the bar which she sells and keeps the profits for her charity. With this in mind I try and make the cards as economical as possible and I soon realised the best sellers were the CAS style (didn't know it was called that then).

I received an emergency text the other day that despite taking a fresh batch last weekend, they had all gone! so I have had to make a quick fresh batch. I make as many male cards for the pub as I do female, so thought I would enter this one into Less is More's Masculine challenge, the whole batch took me half the time that previous entry did, which did turn out to be of a fiasco!! (thank you to the lovely people who left me supportive comments!).

This little guy is from an Inkadinkadoo set and I have coloured him with promarkers, but I wanted a little bit more texture than flat shading so I dotted a couple of different shades over the base layer, then dotted the blender pen to create further detail. I actually think this style of colouring (bit "pointillism" effect) could be achieved with felt pens....will have to try this some other time. The stamping is far from perfect. I love the image but as they are clear stamps I find I don't always achieve the same crisp finish as with rubber. (my excuse and I'm sticking to it....."a bad workman always blames his tools" .....fair comment I think ...gloss over that!).

I used a couple more of the "Humorous Birthday!" set, another Inkadinkadoo Camping set (there are also lots of campers and caravaners on their site) and an image from Earnies 99p stamps (fab little, usable clear stamps, great value)



I also did some other stamping techniques, I stamped the bikes on a scrap of fantasy acetate film, this gives a great 3d effect, again very popular with the lads of all ages, also did some waterclour effects, with the Sheena Douglas Creative Expressions pub (needless to say popular), and some lovely unmounted rubber stamps from Xelacrafts. I have had these for ages and have used them countless times....for some reason the lady is VERY popular. Joking aside I actually think she is gorgeous.... "a bottom to aspire to", good job mine is behind me and I don't have to look at it!! lol....... I know it isn't that shapely!!!!!

Despite typing fast (miracle) my time is running out and I must go to work. If I don't get to visit you and comment I apologise, I wont be back till later and know I wont get much time but I always keep an eye on the wonderful inspiration everyone provides....

HAVE A GOOD DAY ALL!

NOT....to plan!!

SOMETIMES I have a lovely clear idea in my head for a design.....SOMETIMES no matter my good intentions it just doesn't go to plan.

LESS IS MORE has a "masculine" theme this week.....great..sometime ago I scanned some denim fabric and it prints brilliantly and I have made quite a few successful cards (the blokes/teens seem to have liked them) with it.

With the CAS style in mind I thought my "white" space would be denim this week.....with a simple focal point of a circular sentiment with a couple of small mock rivets...........

First the printer ran out of ink.....ended up with some very pink hued denim (not great for blokes). Plus I couldn't find the sentiment I wanted...so had to quickly make a text box message....made that too big!


Cut and scored the card, hoping to lose the worst area of pink....was so busy thinking of a redesign I scored it completely in the wrong place and ended up with uneven sides .....ok.....best of bad job decided to attach a nice navy textured scrap of card that I had found to extend the front panel.

Decided to ink the message (disguise the pink) went too mad with the ink (getting flustered now ....should really leave it alone).....ok..... will distress and sand it to lighten...although not sure that these are great techniques for CAS, IN FACT....I can decidedly feel the CAS slipping away, really should leave it alone now and come back. No. I carried on and inked and distressed the base card.....getting carried away now!


Panel needed more detail so rounded up a couple of old drawing pins...they didn't match (distressed these with a file), bent the pins over (hammer...that actually felt good!!) and attached them through the card.


Design was still lacking...OK...... will do some jeans style stitching on the join....great... test piece went well....

The card........didn't!

......will now have to use an insert (will draught print the denim and make a matching insert later.....need ink first!)
The stitching was so wonky (hadn't been drinking honestly), I had no choice but to stick the message over the mess.

PLEASE tell me I'm not the only one who can so completely get things wrong....my advice to myself, if I'm doing any of my cards is "when it's not working.....LEAVE IT ALONE!!! come back later"

Why did I not take my own advice?????

Scrap box birthday.

This is a really economical card to make as it uses just a few scraps and a free digi image from CRAFT CREATIONS. The base cards was also created from a sheet of their new value pack of POPSET CARD, which I have to say is amazing quality for such good value, (I tried it with promarkers and it works well those too). At 10p a sheet it really is worth cutting and scoring your own blanks.

I created an embossed panel on the front with my new and improved embossing tool!!!

My original tool was only 6" long and the embossing ridge was made of card. I felt this didn't create a totally crisp edge. This time I used an old 12" ruler and attached it to a piece of a plastic chopping board/dinner mat. It is important to make sure that the ruler is attached in line (allowing a 5mm ridge) with the embossing edge or you will end up with a uneven panel when scoring. This time I didn't bother attaching the embossing tool to a bottom mat, it seemed unnecessary. Further details of my original design is here. I will now make a proper version as I think this works quite well... will post more detailed instructions later. It really can turn any scrap into an embossed mat that looks just like an embossed nestabilitie shape. As the picture above show you can also emboss directly on the base card quite easily, the worst bit that took a bit more care was down the spine.

Once the base card was created it was simply a case of draught printing the image, attaching coloured card over the image then reprinting. This was repeated on all the coloured pieces.
Each element was cut out of the required colours.
The chocolate cake was highlighted with a white gel pen (a correction fluid pen also works well for this).
The card was assembled and a present cut from the scrap card, decorated with a silver gel-pen and finished with a mock bow. A few salvaged confetti sequins created some movement over the design.

This card is created for a 5oth birthday, don't worry the recipient will not escape a reminder....it will have a lovely great big 50 inside........she's not getting away that lightly!!

And as it is with a CRAFT CREATIONS IMAGE I will enter it for their march challenge.
PAPERTAKE "Triple Tastic" challenge (my card has three balloons!)
SIMON SAYS has a birthday card challenge
DYSU wants a bow added.
and PAPERPLAY wants embossing.