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!!!!!!!!

Off to Peru…..

Not me, but someone we know is off to Peru to do some voluntary work, which means of course…another excuse to make a card…. I thought I would combine a good luck card with the LESS IS MORE CHALLENGE “Cut it out”

I hadn’t considered framing the map until I saw the challenge and I must say I think that the great benefit of challenges, is it makes you consider different possibilities.

Once again the challenge lent itself to proper cardmaking equipment to create an aperture (badly wanted my cricut for this one….or my punches at least)but for my self imposed blog rules…… that left me with my trusty scalpel or scissors …..trouble is…. I am truly scissorly (not a proper word!!) challenged….and a bit lethal with a knife to!!

After printing a map  the appropriate size, I placed a piece of copier paper  over the image and with a pencil, lightly traced where I wanted to cut (needed to make sure Peru was visible).

To create the base card I used a 13 x 29.5 off cut of white card

I put the paper template over the base card and cut over the lines with the knife.

After positioning the card pieces over the map I attached them in place with 3d foam pads, then scored the top fold and trimmed the excess from the back panel…..it all finished off with a greeting printed from the pc.

…….and you know what I said about me and knives…..well when I was putting the lid back on….. I managed to take a slice out of my finger!!

…at least I did less damage than poor Paul Daniels…..

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!?!

A5 x 2 = SQ

I am still endeavouring to use up scraps of card rather than use new card blanks and I use this style of card quite frequently it's a great way to use up lightweight pieces of card.
For this card I took two A5 pieces of card, the green card had a bad mark on it, so creating the base card this way conceals defects quite effectively.



Simply lay two pieces of card together, slide apart to the length required and attach together with glue. I used photo glue as it allows for a lot of manoeuvrability and any excess can be wiped away. Trim the width to half the length created, score and fold to create a square.

As my sewing machine was out (a rare event) I decided to add a stitched detail on the joints both on the front and on the inside.
For the focal point I wanted to use some old scrabble tiles (bought very cheaply from a charity shop as the set was damaged). That was the easy bit......the bit that I have spent the most time on is .........WHERE TO PLACE THE LETTERS!!!!!!??????

Less is More has a recipe of using 3 squares....which is great, as ultimately I want to recreate this card for a friend (3 letters in her name ....and a scrabble fanatic)

So where oh where looks best

No.1 (pic. at top of post) Sticking my neck out a bit.......but does it look unbalanced? (the card not my neck!!)

No. 2 is my standard format and where I always seem to settle for....bottom right.



N0. 3 Getting brave...very rarely place things centrally...so formal!



No. 4 I like ...but does it cram all the details together too much??



N0. 5 getting adventurous......



No. 6 Really getting quirky?????

Seriously need some advice.............I am truly rubbish a decision making., BIG thank you if you take the time to leave me a comment on this one
(and thanks for all the really lovely comments last time....I truly appreciate it).

Just realised haven't photographed the inside....just need to charge the camera then I will try and add pic as I love the reverse effect inside this style of card.

Happiness

Not a great photo...to be honest not a great card. I had in mind a design to use for the brand new challenge site Less is More, and as my resolution this year is to try and keep my cards simple I thought I would have a go... albeit with a budget make.

Possibly that is where the problem arose. I would have been happier stamping and using my punches for this. The theme of the challenge was black white and pink. The only heart sequins I had were quite a strong pink (yes I am one of those sad people at parties and weddings who gather up the table confetti at the end!) and the scrap ribbon I had, didn't really go...I should have stuck to all black.

To compensate for not being able to stamp the back detail I drew round a penny which did help create some uniformity...used an ordinary Berol handwriting pen but a smaller tipped graphic pen would have most probably worked better for such fine detail.

I am also trying to rein in on using to many new card blanks and use up some of the many off cuts that I have. I used two 10cm X 21cm pieces (I have many of these as I tend to make my own dl blanks from A4 so these are the left over pieces). I scored a 1cm hinge on the back black piece and attached the white front panel (this then had to be trimmed down slightly) I carried the faux stitching detail down the spine.

A simple sentiment printed in word finished the card....It was when I saw Creative Craft Challenge had a Hearts and flowers theme I decided to enter there as well but although my sequins formed stylised flowers I thought it should include another flower to qualify but bearing in mind Less is more it had to be subtle .... I found a little free clipart flower formed from heart shapes which I used as a watermark behind the word... and funnily enough, I really liked this one little element.

Finally I might enter this for PolkaDoodles With Heart challenge....I haven't used their products so it might not qualify but I have a big soft spot for Polka Doodle products (I once won a competition in Simply Cards Mag and I am sure using Nicky's great art work helped). It was lovely to visit their blog again. I could spend hours hopping around all the brilliant blogs out there...but if I did that I wouldn't have time to make cards or ....wash my mouth out ....do any housework!!!