Crafty As L

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.    

This card was for a male friend’s birthday whose birthday is around pancake day.   This set is predominantly aimed at Father’s Day so it was good to use it for another occasion. To begin, I stamped the images from Colorado Craft Company Dad’s Cooking and clear heat-embossed them. The images were coloured using alcohol markers. Whilst there is a birthday sentiment on the set, I wanted something pancake related so decided on some hand lettering.   I sketched it out on my graph paper first and then traced it using my light box. The panel was matted on some corrugated blue card that matched the jacket and then mounted on a 5” x 7” card blank.   I stamped, coloured and die-cut another pancake which was attached using foam tape, adding some movement lines with a black fineliner.

In the Veteran’s Group where I volunteer, we will be celebrating three 100 th birthdays this year; indeed, the event today was a joint do for Sybil’s 101 st and for Henry’s 100 th birthday. How amazing is that?!   Today’s post is the card I made for Henry who is a cheeky chap and I thought the sentiment (from Clearly Besotted   Laugh Out Loud Again)   suited him well. To begin, I stamped Mama Elephant’s Three Amigos , adding numbers from Lawn Fawn Claire’s Alphabet.   They were stamped in Versafine Onyx black and clear heat-embossed. Using a variety of alcohol markers, I coloured the critters and the grass.   I didn’t know what colour to do the background so opted for a pale-yellow glow. After assembling the card, I felt that more background was needed so stencilled some clouds and sky. I added the birthday sentiment at the bottom and matted the panel on gold foil card and onto a dark brown side-fold DL card blank.

It was Mr L’s birthday a few weeks ago and I was struggling to think of what card to make him so scrolled through Pinterest for ideas.   After seeing one that appealed, I thought how I could recreate it with supplies from my stash. First, I knew I had a fun toadstool in Lawn Fawn Gleeful Gardens so that’s where I began.   I stamped and clear heat-embossed it so I could colour it with alcohol markers.   I cut it out with the matching die. Next, I die-cut FUN GUY using Lawn Fawn Louie’s Alhpabet from some very old Stampin’ Up! paper which had toadstools on it.   Perfect!   I wanted the letters to be stacked so cut a few layers from red card and glued them all together. For the other lettering, I sketched it in pencil and then went over the large letters with a black Posca and used a 0.8 Micron pen for the smaller letters.   It was only after I’d finished the card that I realised how ‘uphill’ the writing at the bottom was but it was too late by then. ...

My Dad and I have been going to a beginner’s watercolour class in a local village hall for the past three weeks.   I’ve done a little watercolour using YouTube tutorials and Dad paints using acrylics so it’s a fun activity to do together.   So far, we’ve done seascape, landscape and abstract, which Dad wasn’t keen on, although I liked having a play without the expectation of having to produce something recognisable at the end!   Here are my efforts so far. It was my Dad’s birthday last week and I bought the course for him for his birthday.   It seemed appropriate to paint him a card so I used Recharge stamps by Colorado Craft Company as he also likes fishing. I painted the scene using watercolours and followed the guide colour scheme on the back of the packaging.   We’d just learnt to do a wash for the sky so I practiced that again. To frame the picture, I cut a rectangle of black card and die-cut a rectangle from the centre.   On the frame, I whi...