Xmas 2015

Copyright

I hope you enjoy reading this blog and find inspiration and ideas from what you have seen here but I would ask you to please respect my copyright and not use my pictures for publishing as your own work, or for entry into challenges.

Monday 19 October 2015

Challenge 150 at Crafty Cardmakers & More - Autumn colours

This week it is my challenge at Crafty Cardmakers and more, and I would like to see those glorious autumn colours - oranges, browns, russets, green and dark yellow...

You will see that my wonderful teamies have produced a fantastic array of cards to inspire you - don't forget to visit their blogs to see how they did them!

I decided to make a man's card this time - I KNOW!  I find men's cards really hard, but I'm still chipping away at my crafty stash, and this time I found a sheet of Hunkydory toppers that were perfect for this challenge colours, and bonus, suitable male subject matter.

My base card was plain cream cardstock cut to be a 6 x 6 card (my favourite size).  Onto this, I layered a piece of brown card.  As I don't have much of this card (and can't remember where I got it from) I took the centre out with a layer die to use on another card.  Because I didn't want to have a dip, I cut another piece out  of scrap card the same thickness to put in its place. 

Onto the brown card, I put a piece of decorative paper that I had put through the cut n boss in a Sheena Douglass leaf embossing folder.  Before sticking it down, I coloured it with distress inks and edged it with gold pebeo gilding wax.

I then cut out the orange swirls from some scrap card, and then stuck them to the backing paper.  Using foam pads, I attached my Hunkydory toppers, and the card was done.

This was a comparatively simple card to make and didn't take very long - one of the benefits of using the toppers.  I'm not much of a "pick and stick" crafter by choice, but there are times when having the work done for you is beneficial, and there is a place for all this in the crafty world!


Monday 5 October 2015

Challenge 149 at Crafty Cardmakers & More - Circular Card

Kim is hosting today and would love to see your Circular Cards.
 
I finally used my Tattered Lace circle stepper card die to make my card!  I have this very bad habit of spending lots of money on dies and then leaving them pristine in the folder for A Very Long Time... and along with my resolution to use more of my stash, I have resolved to stop doing that!
 
Anyway, this card was the perfect opportunity to use not only the Tatty Lace die, but also a variety of others that I have available. 
 
It's very straightforward to make up once the card base is cut, as the score lines are very clearly defined.  I used a pearlescent card for mine.  The "tartan" layer paper came from an 8 inch pad that I had in my stash, and I used some of the off cuts to make flowers.  I then rummaged through my stash for matching tone papers  and luckily found a couple of pieces of lavendar/mauve paper that was suitable.  I used the smallest die in the grand circles spellbinder set of dies to make my base circle, and then cut a circle using a tonic circle die for the topper base.  Offcuts of these papers were again used for flowers. The topper was on a sheet I had printed off (possibly a Crafters Companion Mulberry Wood CD) at some point and only used one image.  It fit the circle perfectly - how cool was that?

I used some scrap pearlescent card to cut out the sentiment and the swirls and then arranged and stuck everything on the card.  The last thing I did was to stick on some creative expressions pearl corners and some diamante stones in the centre of my flowers.

I had to custom make and envelope to fit it, but fortunately, I recently discovered an app from WRMK for their envelope board that I downloaded to my phone which works out the paper size for any size envelope.  Well worth looking out for if you have one of those boards!