Crafty As L

Our Visible Image Design Team theme this week is Flora & Fauna so I’ve been inspired by my work in the garden.   It’s prime sowing season for vegetables and so begins the seemingly eternal war against the pests eating my seedlings.   To begin, I silver heat embossed the snail from  Don't Hurry Be Happy using Versamark ink pad. Next, I stamped the dots from Sunflower Grunge stamp set for the snail trail and the sentiment and heat-embossed using silver powder.   I made the seedling using the stem and leaves of the sunflower using Versafine Clair Avocado, added clear embossing powder and heat set. The reason for all this heat embossing is that I wanted to use metallic watercolour paints to colour the scene.   Heat embossing allows the lines to resist the paint, keeping them clear.   I’ve not seen a snail with a shell like this but I’m sure they would if they could!   The metallic paints will be coming to the store very soon and they are lush...

Today is Father’s Day in the UK so I’m sharing the cards I made for my Dad and Father-in-Law.   I was inspired by a floating die-cut card made by Jessica Rouke in Papercraft Essentials #225 and used the Potting Shed Luxury Paper Pad Kit to create gardening themed cards. To begin, I cut all my pieces for the cards and die-cut the inner pieces using Creative Crafts Products Rick-Rack Nesting Dies Hexagon & Squares.   You can make this card any size to suit the dies in your stash, just add 5” onto the width of whatever size card front you want and score at ½” and 2½” from each side.   Cut the inner layers a smidge under 1” wider than the card front size and score at ½” from each edge.   Cut another piece of card the size of the card front for the back piece. For the card fronts, I attached patterned paper using small dots of temporary adhesive and cut the aperture.   For all the following layers, I used the layer above to help line-up the die on the layer b...

This week’s card is another commission I received from a friend for a retirement card.  The intended recipient had been involved in organising air shows but also loves gardening, so that was my brief. To begin, I started with the air show element.  The background was made by blending some Distress Oxide Salty Ocean over my cloud stencils to create the sky.  The fly past, made with red jets to represent the Red Arrows display team, smoke trails and sentiment were cut from vinyl using my Cricut Maker. Now for the gardening element.  I cut a cardboard stencil using the Lawn Fawn Grassy Border die and blended some green ink over in layers to create the ground. Next, I die cut a fence using the WPlus9 Fence Border dies, running the parts through a wood grain embossing folder for some added texture.  I left the gate section unstuck so it looked like the gate was ajar. The plants and tools were die cut using the MFT Spring Garden set....

    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...