Crafty As L

Last week, during one of my trips to the hospital to visit my father, I saw a bunch of sycamore “helicopter” seeds laying in the road.   They were so pretty that it seemed a shame for them to rot in the road so I scooped them up and took them home, to have a think how I could use them in a craft project.   I gathered some maple leaves from my garden to go with them. It’s been a while since I used my Gelli plate so I thought I’d try to get a print from the foliage and seeds.   I used a brayer to apply a thin layer of acrylic paint to the plate and arranged the foliage over. I used a scrap of paper to cover the foliage and pressed firmly all over the plate.   After removing the paper, I then removed the foliage and brayered a layer of pale green paint over the plate. Whilst the paint was still wet, I placed a sheet of white card onto the plate and applied pressure all over with the brayer.   When I lifted the card, I had this lovely print. I chopped the shee...

For my Visible Image DT post this week, I’m making a sympathy card.   There are a wide variety of images you can use for a sympathy card.   Quite often we use flowers but whilst this card was for a lady, it was her father that had passed away, so I decided against flowers.   Looking through my stash for alternative images, I opted for the seahorse from Create Your Calm . I’d prepared an inky background and used the stamps from Dare To Swim to add fish and foliage to the panel. After colouring in the seaweed, I stamped some coral using pink dye ink.   The coral stamp is actually the large tree from Into The Woods . The seahorse was stamped using Versafine Clair Twilight ink and clear heat-embossed.   I used my MISTI as the stamp is quite large so I could restamp if required.   I added colour to the seahorse by painting with silver Distress Mica spray “Frozen”. To create a frame, I first die-cut the Torn Fishcut from navy card.   Using a Distr...

A few weeks ago, it was our wedding anniversary and I’d seen a card like this on Pinterest and used it for my inspiration.   It’s a very adaptable design and can be used for many celebrations by simply changing what is written. To begin, I used my MISTI so I could align ‘HUSBAND’ using MFT Well Connected.   After leaving a gap for the stars, I repeated the process for ‘EXCELLENT’ but I had to leave some gaps as there are a few duplicated letters. To fill in the gaps and for the additional lettering at the bottom, I just stamped the letters individually. Using my smallest star die, I die-cut five stars from yellow card.   To add a bit mor character to the stars, I used the little smiley faces stamp from Lawn Fawn Gleeful Gardens .   To assemble the card, I backed it with black card and mounted it onto a square kraft car blank.    The stars were attached using foam tape.   I stamped a few small hearts around to finish.    

I’m continuing with my Anita Jeram fix this week but stretching my stash and using a Valentine’s stamp for a birthday card. As I was going to use alcohol markers to colour the mouse, I stamped with Versafine Onyx Black and clear heat-embossed. The mouse was then coloured quite simply and then die-cut with the matching die. I die-cut a filigree edged circle and a plain circle to mount the mouse on.   The circle seemed too plain so I repeat stamped the birthday sentiment from one of the other Anita Jeram sets in Versafine Clair Sand Dune ink. To provide a little subtle interest to a 5” square white card blank, I repeat stamped the mouse in the Sand Dune ink. The mouse and the circle were both attached using foam tape.   This card seems quite simple but it took me a while to get the balance right.