Crafty As L

Our lovely Godson, Rowan, turned 2 a couple of weeks ago.   He’s into diggers at the mo so when I saw this set, it was a no brainer for a card for him. To begin, I used Pink Frog masking paper to create a large no.2 mask and used the negative part first.   I was aiming to get it to look like the diggers had excavated the ground to make the number 2. After blending various shades of brown and splattering some brown, white and black inks to the number for texture, I then masked the ‘2’ and preserved some of the space for other elements before blending the grass. After removing the masks, I stamped the cones and piles of dirt.   In hindsight, it would have been easier to stamp these first, then mask them!   It was at this point that I realised that the stencils were not designed to colour the stamps.  The stencils worked OK with the piles of dirt but the lorry and diggers didn’t line up at all so I used Sharpie markers to do some basic colouring.   I t...

This card was made for a friend who had recently had a heart attack.   I wanted to make something to make him smile as well as to let him know that we are thinking of him. This is Mama Elephant Fish Tank, a die-set that I’ve had for ages but this was its first outing. The set has 2 bowl dies, an inner and outer, but I only used the outer which has a nice stitching detail around the edge.   There is some foliage and then tiny star and fish shaped dies – it was the tiny fish that inspired a shaker card.   I die-cut lots of the fish and 4 of the plants and then ink blended some colour onto them. The My Favorite Things Gill Friends doesn’t have a “get well” sentiment but I have the Greetings Galore, which is also by Birdie Brown in the same font, so I was able to mix and match to make my sentiment. Next, the assembly was done in layers starting with a sheet of acetate for the glass bowl.   Next, I added a layer of ‘sand’ at the bottom and adhered a few of the p...

Having left my Easter makes until the last minute (i.e. yesterday!), I needed something quick to make.   After watching a few YouTube videos on this style of baskets, I realised that they would be quick to create and could be made in any size, subject to the available size of card to begin with. Start with a square of card, it can be in either cm or inches, it doesn’t matter.   Divide the measurement into 3 and score at 1/3 and 2/3 along one edge.   Next, turn the card 90˚, divide the measurement into 4, score at ¼ and ¾ and just make a little mark at the halfway point at the top and bottom.   Score from the mark to the intersection of the two score lines.   Here’s a template. This is what the card should look like when it’s scored.   Since I wanted to make my basket from a single sheet of A4 card, I began with a 21cm square, so scored at 7cm and 14 cm along the first edge, rotated the card, then scored at 5.25cm and 15.75cm, marking at 10.5cm. The b...