Crafty As L

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Floral Corner

- February 01, 2026

For today’s cards, I fancied doing some die-cutting so dug out a couple of Spellbinders sets to play with. For the base of the arrangement, I die-cut the one of the Essential Circles and the pierced circle. I appreciate that I’m using a circle and the post refers to corners but you get the idea! For the floral element, I used some left over die-cuts from Be Bold Blooms, adding to them as required. For this card, I decided to add a silver accent using silver foil card for the foliage. After silver heat-embossing the sentiment from MFT Greetings Galore I arranged the foliage and flowers and then glued them in place, attaching the final flower with thin foam tape. I was going to mount the circle on a 5” square black card blank but my first attempt at drawing a border with a white Posca pen was awful where the paint had run under the ruler. The silver Edding pen worked much better so I chopped the card blank in half and used the back as the mat layer. ...

Snowy Skies

- January 25, 2026

A couple of weeks ago, our cats were fascinated with watching the falling snow. From inside, that was - they weren’t that keen on it when they went out! That’s what inspired this week’s cards but I’ve also added a fox into the scene too. To begin, I taped down some watercolour card, wet it all over and then randomly daubed various shades of blue and grey paint onto the damp card. Whilst the paint was still damp, I sprinkled a few grains of salt on each panel and set aside to dry naturally. It’s a bit hit and miss as to how it turns out as if the paper’s too dry, nothing will happen. If it’s perfectly damp, lovely snowy effects will appear. If the paper’s too wet, the blooms will spread further so the snowy effect is lost. As I’d used watercolour paper, which is a bit textured, I used my MISTI so that I could repeat stamp the images to get good coverage. I used Lavinia stamps - Mooch and one of the foxes from Set 1. To ground the animals, I li...

A Pop of Colour

- January 19, 2026

It’s time again for my Visible Image DT post and my brief this week was “monochrome with a pop of colour”. With the card being predominantly black and white, I decided to add some extra interest and dimension with texture paste. I began with the background as it would need time to dry. After attaching the Ledger stencil to a piece of black card with some low tack tape, I applied Distress Grit paste through the stencil with a spatula. After removing the stencil and quickly washing immediately in hot, soapy water, I went back to the panel where the paste was still wet and applied silver white glitter, shaking off the excess, and set aside to dry. Once completely dry, I used a dry, flat paintbrush to remove any other excess glitter that had not stuck. Whilst the background was drying, I stamped and clear heat-embossed the small butterfly and sentiment from Counting Moments . The butterflies were quickly coloured with a pink/purple alcohol mark...

Fun Guy

- January 18, 2026

It was Mr L’s birthday a few weeks ago and I was struggling to think of what card to make him so scrolled through Pinterest for ideas. After seeing one that appealed, I thought how I could recreate it with supplies from my stash. First, I knew I had a fun toadstool in Lawn Fawn Gleeful Gardens so that’s where I began. I stamped and clear heat-embossed it so I could colour it with alcohol markers. I cut it out with the matching die. Next, I die-cut FUN GUY using Lawn Fawn Louie’s Alhpabet from some very old Stampin’ Up! paper which had toadstools on it. Perfect! I wanted the letters to be stacked so cut a few layers from red card and glued them all together. For the other lettering, I sketched it in pencil and then went over the large letters with a black Posca and used a 0.8 Micron pen for the smaller letters. It was only after I’d finished the card that I realised how ‘uphill’ the writing at the bottom was but it was too late by then. ...

The Lion Wall

- January 11, 2026

I borrowed the title of this post from Only Connect, a UK game show that in our house is addictive but largely impossible. We get very excited if we get one question right in the entire show! I bought the Heart of a Lion pattern for this quilt from Etsy and it was my first go at a Foundation Paper Piecing. It was a baptism of fire and I had a few moments when I thought I’d just chuck it into the UFO (unfinished objects) box, never again to see the light of day. However, I persisted, finding a way that worked for me, and I’m so glad I did. The pattern came with three size options so I chose the largest as I though that would be the easiest for a beginner. After printing out all the pages on thin paper (I found this paper on Amazon and the reviews said it was perfect for FPP), I then trimmed and assembled them. I used the guide sheet and coloured pencils to indicate which colours were applicable to each section. Each section is num...

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