Crafty As L

I’m mildly addicted to Mooch! He’s my new stamp and keeps finding his way onto my makes.  I was just going for a straight forward design with this card, envisaging a cat sat in the garden amongst the plants watching the world go by.  To begin, I cut a piece of scrap paper with a wavy edge and blended some ink to give the ground for the cat sit on. Next, I stamped Mooch and the greeting.  As Mooch looks up and to the left, it made sense to put the sentiment there, as though he is looking at it. To add a little colour, I blended some Distress Oxides in Speckled Egg and Picked Raspberry around the edges, spritzed with a little water to lift some colour and added some splats in Speckled Egg. To make the garden, I stamped the dandelions and thistles silhouettes. Finally, I added a light pattern using the Feather Leaf stencil and shaded around the edges in black. I finished with some black Nuvo Drops on the silhouettes and clear ones in the...

  As I mentioned earlier in the year, I have several ‘big’ birthdays this year, one of which was my father-in-law’s 70 th .  If you ask most card makers, the consensus will be that cards for blokes are difficult – I am no different!  My F-I-L is a very practical man and builds models (designed by him and printed on his 3D printer) so I figured he’d appreciate an interactive card.  I saw this video by Sam Calcott on YouTube and thought it’d be perfect for him. You can find the dimensions on Sam's website here . My card was to be a 5” x 7” so I trimmed 2 pieces of A4 card to 7” deep and scored them at 5” and then at ¾” intervals, trimming the last section off one panel.  These were then glued together using the small section as the glue tab. The number of folds can be adjusted depending on the number of spaces required for the sentiment, for example ‘CHRISTMAS’ would need an insert to give 9 mountain folds. Next, I cut my mats and layers for the flip...

    As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been suffering from a loss of mojo recently.  This is due to being ill and I am now awaiting surgery.  Now that I’ve got my head around what’s wrong and how it’s going to be fixed, I actually feel like creating something again.  I’ve read that making backgrounds can prompt some creative inspiration so I got out my gel press and got inky! The gel press is new to me so I’m still learning what to do with it.  I began by applying some Oxide ink onto the gel plate with my brayer and then splattered on some Brusho (mixed with water).  After this, it’s simply a case of laying the card onto the press and rubbing over it to transfer the ink and paint.  Before printing, patterns can be added by using stencils, stamping onto the plate or even pressing a leaf from the garden onto the plate.  Every press is a surprise – you never know what you’re going to get! I cut the pieces down to 9cm x 20cm ...

  Like me, my sister is a big fan of cats so, when it came to making a card for her birthday, it called for another outing for Mooch (Lavinia stamps). I’d recently bought a gel press plate for making backgrounds using mixed media so this was a first outing for that – and for me using it! To begin, I brayered some Distress Oxide inks in Weathered Wood and Duck Egg onto the gel plate, spritzed with a little water, then pressed my card onto the plate.  This would colour the moon.  Next, I applied a selection of pink and purple Oxides onto the gel plate, added an acetate circle to mask the area for the moon, spritzed with water again and then pressed the card onto the plate. I wanted the cat to be highlighted by the moon so decided to have him sitting on a wall, made using a brickwork stencil, and then stamped Mooch on top.   The final stage was framing the scene which I did with Dandelion and Thistle silhouette stamps, also from Lavinia.  I the...

It’s funny isn’t it? We haven’t been to a wedding for years and then get two within a few months.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t well enough to attend this one but I did get to try out a new card idea. This Happily Ever After stamp by Anita Jeram is very detailed.  It’s great if you love colouring however, I wanted to try it out using minimal colouring.  First, I heat embossed the stamp using white powder onto vellum. I coloured the back of the bunting with my Copic markers and also stamped and coloured the bride and groom mice onto Neenah Solar White card (my favourite for Copic colouring), cutting them out with the coordinating die. After adding some decorative die cutting on top and bottom, the panel was glued to the card base.  The difficulty with vellum is that glue shows through.  I added plenty of glue under the bride and groom and a tiny dot into all four corners that could be covered with an embellishment. As I hadn’t added a senti...