Crafty As L

My card this week was inspired by a card made by Debs Valder using the Colorado Craft Company All Weather Friends stamps and die.   I needed a quick get-well card and I liked the idea of cutting out the sections of the umbrella rather than colouring them. I stamped the bunny and umbrella, coloured him with Copics before die-cutting, all cutting out another couple of white layers for dimension.   I also stamped the bunny and raindrops onto the front layer of the card. Next, I selected some patterned paper for the mat layer which would also form the pattern on the brolly, and used my craft knife to cut out the brolly area.  I used some clear Nuvo Drops on the puddles and raindrops to give the wet look and some silver Nuvo Drops on the ends of the umbrella spokes.   Finally, none of the sentiments in the set were appropriate for my card so I did a little hand lettering in the style of the stamp set.   In Britain, ‘under the weather’ is a phrase used when you’re...

It was Valentine’s Day on Friday and whilst we don’t buy big presents or go out and get fleeced for a distinctly average meal, I do enjoy making a card for Mr L.  He generally gets his crafting on and asks for access to my craft room to make me a card too – which I LOVE! I don’t get many handmade cards.  I’ve just got the This Little Piggy set and thought it would be perfect to use for my card using the mirror stamping technique.  I wrote this  post last March on how to do this technique, if you’d like a refresh. To begin, I mirror stamped my pigs. Next, I coloured them in using some alcohol markers and also drew in some more grass in the gap in the middle to unite the two images. I then stamped the pig on the front and back of a post-it note and cut around them to create two masks. Note: The ink stamped on the adhesive on the back of the note stayed wet for a long time so I repeatedly pressed the adhesive part on scrap paper. Using the bunch of hearts from F...

Aside from the actual enjoyment of doing hand lettering, part of my reason for attending the course on modern calligraphy earlier this year was to be able to create sentiments that aren’t available with stamp sets.  Never was this more applicable than when my friend asked me to create some simple but rude cards!  She didn’t want fancy writing as that was too nice(!) so I went for block lettering with a mix of lower case and capital letters. Another friend has just set up a cat rescue charity and is having a launch party and fund raiser at the end of the month so she asked me if I could create some cat-themed things for them to sell to raise money.  I started by sketching out the letters on graph paper and then traced over them onto tracing paper using a marker pen. The next stage was to put the card base and lettering template onto a light box and effectively trace the letters onto the card base.  I don’t concern myself if the letters aren’t perfectly traced – th...

  Last Sunday, I attended a taster workshop to learn about dip pen and brush pen styles of modern calligraphy.  The course was hosted by the The Modern Calligraphy Co. and is one of Kirsten Burke’s range of classes.  I chose it after being inspired by Kirsten’s YouTube videos and trying out one of her books.   The workshop itself is set in an idyllic location in the West Sussex countryside and, despite looking a little austere from the outside (it’s a converted Victorian sub-station), the interior is stunning; bright and airy and adorned with inspirational artwork. The welcome was warm and friendly and was accompanied with mugs of tea, coffee and biscuits. Each of the wannabe calligraphers had a work area complete with hand lettered name tag, tools and worksheets.  I was on a table with two lovely ladies, Hilary and Barbara, and we managed to do a lot of nattering in addition to our calligraphy! Our fab instructor was Maisie and she had a...