Crafty As L

Mr L gave me the idea for this week’s card where sometimes, a coffee just won't cut it! In the Nothing’s Better Than stamp set, there are lots of fun little phrases to pair with the main words but none that quite say this.  I first tried doing small lettering like the stamps but the big, bold lettering worked better for the feel of the card. I used the Love You More Than dies and wanted my focal words to stand out on a background.  For the words, I blended Misty Moonlight/Smoky Slate and So Saffron/Rococo Rose onto two pieces of white card. For the black backgrounds, I drew around the outside of the die and fussy cut. The black halo really helps the words have drama! Next, using my grid paper, I experimented with wording layouts and styles, eventually choosing a plain, bold style.  I transferred this onto vellum before transferring onto the card using my light box. To finish, I stamped the coffee cup and cocktail glass, colouring with the same inks and die cutting,...

  Sometimes you don’t need the whole picture presented to you, just snippets in spotlights.  That was my inspiration for my card this week anyway.  I like the Stampin’ Up! Field of Flowers for silhouette images but I’m not keen on the coloured version so I thought I’d play around with it to see how I could use the coloured stamps on a card using the spotlight technique. I began by stamping the leaves in Mint Macaron and the flowers in Rococo Rose, Highland Heather and So Saffron together with a few dragonflies in Smoky Slate.  Then I used various punches to cut circles to make my spotlights. Next, I made my background by stamping the sentiment and ink blending a few circles using my sponge daubers and my homemade circle mask. For the liner and envelope, I punched a circle from a post-it note and stamped the images into the hole so that the image would have a circular shape to mirror the spotlights on the fronts. Lastly, I assembled the card, gluing some spotli...

  This week’s card is inspired by a box frame I saw on Pinterest which had 3 pairs of shoes in a shop window using the Stampin’ Up! Dressed To Impress stamp set. To begin, I stamped 6 shoes on white card and 3 pairs onto patterned paper as I wanted to paper piece my shoes.  I cut the shoes out using the coordinating die and fussy cut the patterned shoes, sticking each patterned shoe onto a white background. Next, I made my shop front.  I cut a rectangle out of a piece of card and then ran it through the Brick & Mortar embossing folder.  I attached a piece of acetate to the back to create a window and added a scalloped edge canopy over the top of the window. Posh shoes need a shoe box and I created one using a couple of rectangles of Soft Suede card.  These were glued to a piece of white card and the shoes added on top. The final part of construction was to adhere the shoe layer onto a Soft Suede mat layer and then glue this to the card front.  Th...

  For my cards this week, I used the top half of the Stampin’ Up! Banner Blooms die to create a silhouette style card. Whilst it’s possible to make this card using plain card, I wanted to add some dimension to mine so blended some inks onto my Bermuda Bay panel and then spritzed with some Frost White Shimmer Paint for a bit of shine. Next, I die-cut the banner blooms from Whisper White card together with my sentiment from the Well Written dies set and glued them in place, cutting off any excess from the banner die. Since I had used Night of Navy ink, I used a navy mat layer and mounted on a white card base to tie all the elements together and finished with a few navy gemstones. For my second card, I wanted to try a warmer colour palette and used Crushed Curry as a base and used black card for my blooms and sentiment.  Again, I added a few rhinestones for a bit of bling.    

  This is a handy technique for using up those old bits of DSP you’ve got lying around after finishing other projects.  However, you can also just use coloured card or even a single colour card that’s been textured with embossing folders. To begin, I cut a bunch of wonky strips – ones where the edges aren’t parallel.   The strips need to be longer than the card panel you’re sticking them to.  As I was making a single colour, I added texture to my strips by using a variety of embossing folders. It’s not entirely necessary but makes life a lot easier to have a non-stick sheet to put the card layer on that the strips will be stuck to.  This is because the strip overhang will have glue on and will stick to anything underneath.  I roughly planned out my strip arrangement and began to glue them in place, leaving a small gap between each strip. After the glue dried, I turned my card over and trimmed the strips with scissors, using the edge of the card pan...