Crafty As L

My energy levels have been seriously depleted since my surgery last October.  It’s been really difficult just getting through each day so the tank’s been empty when I’ve tried to get creating.   So, when I saw this stamp, I figured it just designs itself, all I’ve got to think of are the colours.  The stamp is from Concord and 9 th and they have a range of these turnabout stamps, designed to be used with a stamping platform. Starting with a 5¾” square piece of card, I stamped my first colour. The card was then rotated 90° and stamped 3 more times.  You can use whatever colours you fancy, maybe adding a layer of embossing powder for some extra bling. Since the stamped backgrounds were essentially the card, I wanted the sentiment to be the focal image so used Happy, Happy, Happy from Lawn Fawn, heat embossed in white onto black card. The sentiment was mounted onto a stitched circle die-cut and the card finished with a few sequins....

  Welcome to September - it’s time to get started on Christmas projects!  This is my first Christmas card this year.  For best results, a stamp positioning tool is needed – this allows the trees on the two layers to be perfectly aligned. First, I cut a ‘moon’ layer of Whisper White and a Misty Moonlight layer ¼” shorter in height.  I positioned both pieces of card in my Stamparatus, added the trees from Stampin’ Up! Winter Woods and stamped on the blue layer, removed it and stamped the white layer.  The white layer was removed and I repeat stamped the trees on the blue layer to cover the front. Next, I masked the trees and sponged a little black ink to ‘ground’ my trees. I sponged a little white and silver ink too. The moon was made by punching a circle from the blue layer and to add some more wintry feel, I ran the blue section through the Winter Snow embossing folder to cover with snowflakes.  As I’d used the stamp positioner, my trees matched throug...

  I loved making this week’s card for our friend that had her first baby recently.  I don’t have a lot of use for stamps aimed at making children’s cards but I bought the Baby Bear set as you’re never too old for a teddy bear!  This is a retired stamp set but I’ve kept mine as I really like that bear and how he comes to life with the three layers of ink.  I’ve also got a couple of handy tips on repeat stamping and extending the use of dies. This was a bigger card than usual as I wanted it to be a square Z-fold card.  I fancied a gingham style background but didn’t have anything in my stash that was pink so used the Buffalo Check background stamp and some Rococo Rose ink.  The stamp was a little small for my background so I used the Stamparatus to do some repeat stamping.  I first stamped the check background and marked an arrow on my grid paper where the edge of the stamp came to.  Next, I moved the card so that the left-hand edge of the stamped ...

I’m happy to report that I’m out of the sling this week although nowhere near back to normal yet 😞 The few days in the sling allowed my muscles to calm down enough so that the weight of my arm was bearable again.  This week I’ve had some physio and acupuncture and I’ve got this really jazzy strapping helping me out. However, I still can’t use my right hand for very long until my arm starts to hurt so I thought I’d challenge my left hand to some everyday tasks!  The first was writing.  Well, I struggled to even hold the pen to begin with! My pages of alphabet look like they were written by a 6-year old but at least they look like letters.  My blog posts and photo editing is also all being done left handed, albeit slowly, but I have learned some useful keyboard shortcuts. So, then I turned my attention to crafting and what I could make that would be simple, forgiving and hopefully not too frustrating.  I had some 2” strips of card left over from another projec...