Crafty As L

This card was for a male friend’s birthday whose birthday is around pancake day.   This set is predominantly aimed at Father’s Day so it was good to use it for another occasion. To begin, I stamped the images from Colorado Craft Company Dad’s Cooking and clear heat-embossed them. The images were coloured using alcohol markers. Whilst there is a birthday sentiment on the set, I wanted something pancake related so decided on some hand lettering.   I sketched it out on my graph paper first and then traced it using my light box. The panel was matted on some corrugated blue card that matched the jacket and then mounted on a 5” x 7” card blank.   I stamped, coloured and die-cut another pancake which was attached using foam tape, adding some movement lines with a black fineliner.

It was Mr L’s birthday last month and rather than just buy him “stuff”, I bought him some things to do too – with me, of course! We’ve already enjoyed the Soulful Soundbath , which was a deeply relaxing experience accompanied by classical harp and Tibetan bowls and we’ve got to wait until December to see Kevin Bridges stand-up show.   The third activity that I bought was a pottery workshop to make a Green Man at Misty Ceramics studio.   If you don’t know what that is, the Green Man is an ancient figure, usually a face peering out of or composed of leaves, which symbolises nature, rebirth, and the cycle of seasons. On arrival, Karen gave us a quick briefing and showed us some examples that she’d made, then we were off.   We started by rolling out the clay and cutting out a circular base.   The wooden sticks were to ensure the base was a uniform thickness. The next stage was the most challenging for me – making a realistic face.   Fortunately, Karen offered b...

This is not just another Design Team post!   It’s my first using Visible Image’s brand-new Grunge Florals Collection.   This is another awesome release comprising six stamps sets and three stencils – I hope you’ve seen the gorgeous samples made by Mark and the DT - and you can see and shop the whole range here .   To begin, I used the Rotation stencil as a stamp to colour the background for the large rose stamp.   I sprayed Distress Spray Stains in Picked Raspberry and Dusty Concord onto the stencil… …and then pressed it onto the card.   To absorb any overspray, I placed some tissue over the stencil whilst I pressed it onto the card. After drying the printing thoroughly, I stamped and clear heat embossed the rose from Rose Moments .   I used my MISTI for this so that I could repeat stamp as necessary as this is a big stamp. I used a nesting set of octagonal dies to cut out the rose plus black and silver foil layers and glued them together.   (...

In the Veteran’s Group where I volunteer, we will be celebrating three 100 th birthdays this year; indeed, the event today was a joint do for Sybil’s 101 st and for Henry’s 100 th birthday. How amazing is that?!   Today’s post is the card I made for Henry who is a cheeky chap and I thought the sentiment (from Clearly Besotted   Laugh Out Loud Again)   suited him well. To begin, I stamped Mama Elephant’s Three Amigos , adding numbers from Lawn Fawn Claire’s Alphabet.   They were stamped in Versafine Onyx black and clear heat-embossed. Using a variety of alcohol markers, I coloured the critters and the grass.   I didn’t know what colour to do the background so opted for a pale-yellow glow. After assembling the card, I felt that more background was needed so stencilled some clouds and sky. I added the birthday sentiment at the bottom and matted the panel on gold foil card and onto a dark brown side-fold DL card blank.

I recently attended a workshop locally to try out something completely new to me.   We received tuition to create a wire and bead heart and was run by Helene at Craft Works @ The Yard . Helene had already made the heart bases for us from 2mm aluminium wire so the first step was to select some beads in our preferred colour scheme. We were issued with 0.4mm wire for the first stage, which was securing the beads onto the frame.   The aim was to avoid being too symmetrical!   The beads didn’t feel that secure at this stage but we were assured that they would be after the next step. The next stage was the decorative wire work, which was done using 1mm wire.   It was attached to the frame by wrapping and then it was just a case of winding and creating collars around the beads, which held them in place. This process was repeated until the entire heart was decorated and all the beads were collared. The tail on the heart was for making the heart into a plant stake but I...

Welcome to my DT post where my brief was “Spring Birthday” on a DL card.   I wanted to use the Golden Daffodils stamp set so having the DL card in landscape format suited my plan for a field of daffs.   When I started the card, it was sunshine and blue skies but as I’m writing it up, it’s torrential rain (again!) so the sentiment seems even more appropriate. After cutting a panel, I stamped and clear heat-embossing the flower bunch, varying the height for interest. The single daffodil head was stamped in the spaces, and I masked one so I could stamp the stems and leaves from the main bunch beneath it. As I’d clear heat-embossed the stamping, I was free to choose my colouring medium so I decided on selection of alcohol markers. I fancied the background being a bright blue to contrast with the daffs and was going to watercolour it but, as I’d chopped my panel to the required size, I couldn’t tape it down.   Instead, I found a couple of little used alcohol markers a...