Crafty As L

Earlier this month it was my birthday and like last year, I kept all the stamps from the envelopes which arrived from the UK and worldwide, cards courtesy of the lovely ladies in the group I run on Facebook.   I decided to repeat last year’s project and make another page in my art journal. To make it different from my last collage, I started by stamping the film strips from Arden’s Maker’s Marks randomly all over the page. Next, I glued the stamps in place, lining up some with the film reel sections and placing other over the top. There were a few bare spots so I used some of the other texture stamps in the set to fill these in. I then pasted Transparent Matte Texture Paste all over the top to ensure all the stamps were well attached.   Whilst the paste was still wet, I used it as glue to adhere the “birthday love” die-cut from Text{ures} Wildflowers Large Sentiments . After leaving the page to dry overnight, I applied gold metallic paste through Visible Image Star...

Beautiful, fun free-motion embroidery cards keep popping up on my Pinterest feed so I thought it was about time I had a go at some.   I started by just trying to cut shapes from fabric but soon realised that making templates would make the job loads easier. For the background, I cut a 5” square of light canvas and used that as my guide when sketching a slice of cake on a plate, with a candle on top.   I drew all the components out individually on cardboard and cut them out. The templates were drawn around onto Quiltlines Superweb and roughly cut out.   After selecting some complimentary fabrics, the shapes were glued onto the back of the fabric using a hot iron and carefully cut out. The shapes were arranged on the backing canvas and then pressed in place with the iron. Next, the fun bit!   This is like doodling with a fine liner pen but using thread and a sewing machine instead.   I dropped the feed dogs for free-motion sewing and started by attaching a...

Whilst having a tidy up of my craft room, I found some goodies that I’d bought ages ago but hadn’t yet gotten around to using.   So, I got busy with my Big Shot and a load of glitter card. The die set is Happy Birthday Celebration Frames by Tonic Studios and it comprises 2 dies; the image and the outer frame.   I used a selection of coloured glitter card so I could mix and match the designs. After sticking a sheet of double-sided adhesive to a piece of card, I die-cut the frame and then adhered the outline die-cut to that.   “ Happy Birthday”   was then popped into place. Next, I puzzle-pieced the balloons into their respective places.   The balloons were OK to do but the tiny ends were a bit of a faff! I die-cut the balloon panel from white card and used the background pieces to finish the inlaid die-cut panel. This process was repeated to create four cards, using up all the balloons I had cut.   To finish the cards, each panel was mounted on a si...

Today is my sister’s birthday and I’ve made a fun fold centre-stepper card for her.   Ange is a total inspiration, working hard in her job as an NHS perfusionist, together with being the head of the department.   Outside of work, her passions are her cats and harp playing and she’s fiercely loyal to family and friends.   She’s a great listener with a good sense of humour and is even more sarcastic than me!   Ange is the reason that I started to learn the harp at the beginning of this year.   She’s been playing for about 12 years and played at our wedding, even though she’d only been playing for about a year then.   Very brave!   My friend spotted this die when we went to the Creative Craft Show at Farnborough a couple of weeks ago so I had to have it for Ange’s card.   I opted for gold mirror card as one of Ange’s harps (she has three!) is a very grand gold one.   This die-cut was layered with a brown one.   I then decided to cut out t...

For this week’s post, I’m doing more stamping and stitching, trying out another of my stamps with free-motion embroidery.   I used the large sunflower from Visible Image Sunflower Grunge and stamped it onto a bit of old wash basket liner.   I used my large MISTI so that I could repeat stamp if needed. I put a couple of layers of gold organza over the sunflower and first stitched around the edge of the petals with a golden coloured thread.   Next, I filled in the petals with a lighter yellow. For the centre of the flower, I started with dark grey but with yellow in the bobbin.   I adjusted the tension so that some of the bobbin thread would pull up to the surface to give the effect of pollen. I continued the centre with a light brown and then a darker brown at the edge. After putting a layer of green organza over the leaves and stem, I stitched these in the same way with three shades of green.   I made some random long stitches for grasses at the bottom ...

I have a pile of Distress Spray Stained backgrounds on my desk ready for creating with.   Leafing through them, this one looked like a scrummy summer cocktail so it was the perfect base for this week’s Visible Image DT post. The Grunge Birthday Words stamp is in my Top 10 of VI stamps as it’s so versatile.   I stamped with Versamark and heat embossed in white to keep the summery feel.   I decided not to repeat the stamping across the whole panel – sometimes less is more! Next, I stamped and clear heat-embossed the cupcake from Birthday Glow and coloured with alcohol markers. After fussy cutting the focal image, I felt the cupcake needed more sparkle so added some Nuvo Drops and Stickles to the icing and flame. I always make my background bigger than the finished size so I used the offcuts to create the sentiment strip.   This and the cake were attached to the background with foam tape.   The background was mounted on black and then onto a square white ...

Continuing my recent theme using Anita Jeram’s illustrations, this week’s cards are made using Colorado Craft Company “Ice Cream Day” which feature two of my favourite things; cats and ice-cream.   To begin, I stamped and clear heat embossed the images so that I could colour with alcohol markers and not worry about the ink running. I used a selection of markers to colour the cats simply and added some Stickles to give the ice-cream some sparkle. One of the panels was quite small so I used the small ice-cream cone stamp to add some details to the card blank. Finally, I matted the card using Neapolitan ice cream colours.   I had to add a some rhinestones onto this one as I managed to get finger prints in a few places. This card is more CAS and the smaller images are perfect for making cute 5” square cards.