Crafty As L

Last December turned out to be a bit frantic one way and another and the fact that I had to make most of my Christmas cards didn’t help.   I have therefore decided to take the pressure off and to do what I did a couple of years ago and that is make a few cards each month so my last post of the month will be a festive one.   You may remember the background of the wobbler cards I made at Christmas and I was so pleased with how they looked that I decided to make them the feature rather than the background.   The stamp set is 'Let It Snow' by Visible Image.  After stamping the snowflakes with Versamark, I added Cosmic Shimmer embossing glitter.   I wanted the sentiment to stand out more so stamped that in black Versafine Clair Nocturne but added the same embossing glitter so it had some sparkle. I mainly used the large snowflake but rather than cleaning it, I just use a piece of old packaging as a mask whilst I get the stamp in the right position in my MISTI. ...

This week’s Visible Image Design Team theme, 'Teenage Birthday', was a challenge for me.   I don’t have any children nor do I know any personally so I went with my friends' descriptions of life with their teenagers.   This largely translated to “it’s like living with another species” so the Alien Invader stamp seemed the perfect choice. My brief was to make a CAS card so I started with my background, as that forms a large part of a CAS design.   I knew that Distress Spritz sprays showed up on black so thought they’d make an excellent galaxy.   I sprayed Wilted Violet, Picked Raspberry and Peacock Feathers and then used a paintbrush to spatter Frozen Fog for the stars. After stamping and clear heat-embossing the images, for some simple colouring, I smooshed Distress Inks in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry and Mustard Seed onto my glass craft mat and sprayed with water for easy watercolour.   I also used a little gold and silver mica spray for glitter...

The Visible Image ATC swap theme this month was ‘January Blues’ which meant that the main colour to use was blue – rather than being a sad theme!   After spraying a few sheets of card with various blue Distress Stains, I selected one for my project. I didn’t really have an idea of what I was going to make so, as this piece of card reminded me of a dull January sky, I started with that.   To go with it, I dug out one of my favourite stamps, Into The Woods.   I stamped the background trees in Versafine Clair Paradise and then the foreground trees in Twilight. Next, I used the Curves stencil and blended Tumbles Glass Distress Ink through to create some texture (contrails?!) in the sky. It was whilst finding a sentiment that the idea for a New Year theme came to mind so I got the Birthday Balloons stamp set and stamped the year using second generation stamping with Versafine Clair Warm Breeze. The sentiments are from One Kind Word.   “Hello 2025” was what I named...

This week’s card is a sympathy card I made for some friends whose dog had passed away.   I like the idea of the rainbow bridge where pets wait for their humans so that was my theme. To make the rainbow, I used Newton’s Nook Pawprints stencil and blended though Distress Inks in Festive Berries, Mustard Seed, Faded Jeans and Seedless Preserves. For the sentiment, I used Waffle Flower’s Rainbow Bridge and stamped in Versafine Clair Nocturne ink, added clear embossing powder and heat set. The panel was mounted on a square of black card and adhered to a 5¾” square card blank.   The card was finished with a tiny purple enamel heart after the sentiment.