Crafty As L

Christmas in July has been all over social media and fits nicely with my ongoing project to make a few Christmas cards each month.   This week’s makes feature Woodware’s Peaceful Nights, which is a slimline size Bethlehem town stamp.   My first thoughts when I saw this was heat embossing on dark card stock so I used Versamark ink and embossed copper on navy.    I then made another, silver on white, and the last one was black Versafine Clair ink with clear embossing.   For the black and white one, I stamped onto some sticky notes to make masks so I could blend a little brown ink onto the hillsides.   I also blended a little yellow ink inside the stable and over the star before colouring the houses with Copics.     The silver and white panel was coloured with Copic markers in grey shades and I used my new set of metallic pens by Edding to colour in the navy panels.   Lastly, I used the Lacy Frames by Waffle Flowers to layer the cards.  

  The Colorado Craft Company Happily Ever After features a scene and critters created by Anita Jeram and is a lovely set but can’t really be used for anything else but weddings.   I bought it last year, as I was going to 2 weddings, so it was good to be able to use it again for this commission. To begin, I stamped the scene and the wedding couple and coloured with Copic markers and coloured pencils.   The bride and groom were die-cut, together with a small gift.  The main requirement I’d been asked to include was the bride and groom’s names.   I used My Favourite Things Stitched Alphabet Banner dies to cut out their names.   There isn’t an ampersand so I used a tiny heart die for between the names. I like the main scene in this set but when it’s all coloured in, I feel that the bride and groom get a bit lost so I played around to see if I could make that more of a background by creating a frame around it.   I don’t have any large frames that are a suitable shape so I used a die a

My card this week was inspired by a card made by Debs Valder using the Colorado Craft Company All Weather Friends stamps and die.   I needed a quick get-well card and I liked the idea of cutting out the sections of the umbrella rather than colouring them. I stamped the bunny and umbrella, coloured him with Copics before die-cutting, all cutting out another couple of white layers for dimension.   I also stamped the bunny and raindrops onto the front layer of the card. Next, I selected some patterned paper for the mat layer which would also form the pattern on the brolly, and used my craft knife to cut out the brolly area.  I used some clear Nuvo Drops on the puddles and raindrops to give the wet look and some silver Nuvo Drops on the ends of the umbrella spokes.   Finally, none of the sentiments in the set were appropriate for my card so I did a little hand lettering in the style of the stamp set.   In Britain, ‘under the weather’ is a phrase used when you’re sick or not feeling wel

This week’s card is a commission I received from my sister for a wedding card.   The only request was that it was personalised.   I’d been wondering how the 3D frame (Flower Shadow Box from 14 June 2020) I made for my in-laws’ 40 th wedding anniversary could be remodelled into a card, so that’s where I started. In Design Space, I rejigged the design to add a heart frame and changed the name and date.   I cut out a base layer from card and a vinyl layer for the lettering.    After gluing a piece of acetate on the back, I used the negative space cut out to position and adhere the lettering onto the acetate.   The plain white looked a little dull so I added a stencilled pattern.   The stencil wasn’t big enough to cover the whole panel so I did in in two halves, taping the edge of the stencil to avoid inadvertently inking vertical lines along the edge of the stencil.    I then repeated this for the other half for the front. Next, I added the viny lettering.   This is a lovely, pretty