Crafty As L

  Late September and early October is a busy few weeks for birthdays for me (my own included!) and this year there were two big birthdays thrown into the mix; my sister's 50th (last week's post) and my friend’s 60 th .   This card idea had popped up on my Facebook feed as an Etsy advert so I dug out my Cricut and attempted to make my own version. To begin, I got a free SVG download of a birthday candle and imported it into Cricut’s Design Space, where I manipulated it and created background layers to mount the candles on.   I then dug out some coordinating patterned papers and set the Cricut busy cutting. I had designed 6 strips of 10 candles and had decided to stick the candles onto both sides so there were a lot of cut outs!  The next step of gluing all the bits in place turned out to be quite arduous and I was starting to regret my decision to make this. However, once I stuck the sections together, I was glad that I’d persevered as I could see that it wa...

Yes, I know it's usually the dog house but these cards feature cats instead!   The set I used is Spellbinders 3D Vignette Pet House and it has both a dog and cat that can go in the house.   My cards were ‘Thank You’ cards for my sister and Dad for looking after our moggies whilst we had a lovely short trip to Rome. To start with, there’s a lot of die-cutting to make the 3D version.   I like to do this all in one go at the beginning, then start on the assembly. To colour my cats, I put the die-cut back into the negative space and use small blending brushes to add the colour.   Our old boy, Monty, is a long-haired tabby and Leia is a tortoiseshell, so I blended a mix of brown, black and orange for her. The finished house is lovely! So intricate but also sturdy. Plus, it folds completely flat to fit in a standard envelope.   This card features our youngest two cats, both tabbies but one has vertical stripes and the other horizontal.   They’re a bit...

    When possible, I like to create cards that have a personal connection to the recipient, so this one was designed with my friend’s love of gardening in mind.  To begin, I cut a piece to make the bench and two pieces that I embossed with a wood plank embossing folder, one to decorate the bench and one for the card front.  I stamped the window from 3C New Day Windowsill and cut out the window panes. Next, I glued the bench in place and decorated it with pieces of the embossed pieces.  I lightly sponged some brown ink to highlight some of the wood texture.  For the decorative elements, I cut lots of pieces from the MFT Spring Garden dies set.  I added a little shading on the watering can and pots and curved them to add some dimension. To enable the plant pots pop-up, I added some open square blocks on the back. The gardening elements were glued in place and I added a sentiment from another 3C stamp set, fussy cut with th...