Honey Doo Crafts Birthday Cards.

Well, as there's been such a lot of Christmas Cards lately, I thought it was time for a break, and a change. Birthday Cards it is then.

The stamp used in these is from Honey Doo Crafts, and is called Flower Fountain.




















I stamped out a couple in each colour, using Archival ink in Plum, Cobalt and Jet Black.










I stamped two on each sheet of A4, then cut down roughly, so I could decide on the card size later.








Next step was to sort out some coloured vellum, and again stamped each image twice. As the Archival ink was on vellum, it stayed wet long enough for me to heat emboss with clear powder.
 I only want the flowers out of these images, to layer onto the original stamped piece.

Cue the fussy cutting. Not my favourite pastime, I admit, although these curved tweezer scissors I found in a drawer- yes, I was looking for something else entirely- did make it much easier.

Next step was embossing some lines on the reverse of the flowers, roughly following the stamped detail, to give some shape & texture to the petals.

First colour completed.

I used a white vellum with coloured dots in, and a vellum colour to match the flowers too. Love how the black vellum flowers came out, they look sort of pinstriped.








I did give them a blast of Crafters Companion Silver Glitter spray, and when dry, created centres with some Glossy Accents and matching seed bead mixes.
 The Black stamped piece was trimmed down o that it would fit a 5" x7" card base once it was matted onto black cardstock.
 I left the black matt longer than the image, and wrapped around it a ribbon & bow made with a Sue Wilson die, called Filigree Bow. Once it was stuck to the card front, I added the Vellum flowers, with small Pop Dots to give a little dimension.
This one I left without a greeting, which I tend to do with a % of the cards I make, so I can use it for whatever I need at the time.

 The process was similar with the Blue card, although this time I cut a narrow panel to attach another Ribbon bow to, this time using a Lattice Bow die, also by Sue Wilson.


 I also stamped a Birthday Greeting on this one, a Phill Martin Scribbled Corner Sentiments stamp.

This one is an A4 sheet folded sized card.










For the final in this set of three, I first matted the image onto a plum coloured card, trimmed to fit another A4 folded card.
This time I used another Phill Martin sentiment,  from a set called Decadent Damask Sentiment Borders. There is a damask accent in the top centre of the stamps, but I didn't want that, so I just masked it off while I inked the stamp, then removed the masking tape before stamping it in Plum Archival along the base of the card.

In each case I also added a few half pearls to some of the circles in the design.

Love with your Heart

Yesterday, Saturday, Visible Image stamps were at a craft shop local to me, Pink Tulip Crafts of Studley. So Beloved Hubby took me there in the afternoon. Mark and Helen (Visible Image) are both lovely people, I've met them before at the NEC Hobbycrafts show. Mark was running a workshop, and you can see some lovely cards created there on their Facebook page. Hazel Eaton was there creating samples, and proof of my visit is me in one of the photos, happily browsing, lol.
 Anyway, when I got home, I unpacked my purchases- some new VI stamps, a couple of Indigo Blu stamps that were a real bargain at 50% off, and a Sweet Poppy stencil. I clearly unpacked my mojo as well, as after I'd put my new stamps away, I got creative. The two Visible Image stamps I used here, Love with your heart and Grunge Flourish were two stamps I already had.
 I beagn by stamping the larger square of card with the Flourish all around the edge in Versamark, adding White embossing powder and heat setting. Then onto a smaller piece I stamp the word stamp the same way.

Next I added colour, using Distress Inks and a blending tool,using Broken China, Salty Ocean, Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves. I made the edges more prominent by going around them with more Seedless Preserves. Then a piece of kitchen roll took all the ink off the white embossing.

Broken China.

Dusty Concord next,followed by salty Ocean and Seedless Preserves.

With all the inks sponged on. Finally I trimmed the word sheet down to size, then stamped around the edges with the Flourish stamp again, this time in Chipped Sapphire.

The word section was matted onto blue card and fixed to the centre of the Flourish panel, and mounted onto a square white card blank.
 For the final embellishment, I die cut some flowers from purple and blue vellum, using the Spellbinders/Heartfelt creations die set called Delicate Aster. The centres were done with Glossy Accents and seed beads.
Supplies:
 DI in Salty Ocean, Broken China, Chipped Sapphire, Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves.
 Visible Image stamps Grunge Flourish and Love with your Heart
Versamark pad
White WOW embossing powder
Flower Die.

WOYWW #217

Another week, and month, been & gone.Time for this weeks Virtual World Tour, courtesy of our Amazing Hostess, Julia, at The Stamping Ground.So, whats to show this week? Firstly, my desk- I admit, slightly tidied, so I could take the pictures that follow it.

4.30 on Tuesday afternoon, and a bit of summer sun through the window- not as much as the last few weeks, but sun nevertheless. Top right, the remnants of the weekends play with acrylic block stamping,(posted lower down) lower left, assorted tags, both finished & blank, a watercolour pad I was using for the stamping, and an assortment of stamped images for cards- waiting for some inspiration on being put together.
 The Poe card for my son got finished, and is in the post below this one.

 Got some Happy Mail last week, first one from Deeyll,aka Queen Lightwell, a WOYWW ATC swap. It arrived too late for me to put it in last weeks, Love the colours & layout, but especially the sentiment: Be the Best You that You can be.Gorgeous little fabric flowers included too- saving those for something special. Thanks Deeyll, I really appreciate it.







 
 Second was a purchase. I had my eye on these as soon as I heard about them- Distress Markers in the 'limited edition' colours. As the first lot of markers took so long to get over here, I wasn't expecting to get them yet, so it was a nice surprise to get a promo e-mail from  Jennie, The Artistic Stamper, with them on. And a Summer Discount code too!


 A heads-up here to everyone who has the Distress Markers- I noticed this label stuck on the side of the new pack.

I distinctly remember watching Tim's CHA video at the first launch, when he said it didn't matter how they were stored, upright was fine, thats why they came in that container. It seems like that has changed, and it DOES matter! Haven't seen anyone commenting anywhere about problems, but I'm guessing that one end or other is drying out. So, if you've got the DI markers, best get them lay down comfy somewhere.
  Still loving my night shift, not having any problems sleeping during the day either. I think maybe the mornings have been the coolest part of the day recently. You can tell how well we sleep- yesterday(Monday) apparently we had thunderstorms all morning- never heard a sound, lol. Scheduling this for early morning, and I shall link up as soon as I get home. Have a great week everyone.

WOYWW #194

 First post since last week- the week sort of got away from me, lol. Valentines day,for one, and then helping youngest son find & fetch another car. He had someone hit the back of his car a couple of weeks ago while he was on his way to work .Spun his car round and into the barrier, he was on the M42. Fortunately, he works nights, and its not as busy as it would have been during the day. Apart from being shaken up, he was ok, but it turned out the car was a write -off.

  Just grateful that he was ok, it could have been a lot worse.The lady in the car closest to him saw what happened & stopped to help, and fortuitously  she was a nurse- unfortunately, the same spirit wasn't in the person who hit him, as they didn't stop.
 But he's got another one now, the same sort & colour too. So doing that took up Thursday & Friday, then Saturday we took my Mom to put flowers on my youngest brothers grave, as it would be his birthday this week, and finally an engagement party on Saturday evening- the work colleague I made the Engagement card for a few weeks ago. Sunday morning I had booked ( like Beloved Hubby), for a hangover, lol! Amazingly, I didn't wake up with one, which sort of confused me :).Anyway, this post is getting away from me too now, so why are we here? WOYWW, of course, hosted as ever by our marvellous Julia at The Stamping Ground.

My desk for this week, then. On the way back from my Moms, in Droitwich, we called in at Webbs Garden Centre in Wychbold, where they have a Hobbycrafts. The three wooden words are a very thin plywood as opposed to the usual MDF,- the DREAM word is 81/2" long, and they are very light, you would even be able to attch these to a canvas. Hmm, now theres a thought! They have a lot of other words too. Best part? £1 each!
 A little bag of  plywood alphabet tags fell in the basket too. The other bits are some black & white flowers I've just made, sitting for the glue to dry, and with the black & white card & paper are for a wedding card. I'm on afternoons this week, so I shall be able to join up earlier- have a great week.

Long Time No See

Been quite a while since I last posted, but life kept getting in the way! I'll post some pictures another time of the stuff thats been going on in the house, which is gradually getting sorted. But I thought I'd post a few pictures of stuff I've been doing over the last few months, and apologies to everyone who has kept up visiting, only to find nothing new.

These two cards were for the same wedding- always a problem making cards to go to the same people! Both of the people who ordered them wanted Easel cards.
 The flowers on both are the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals- I got the large & small versions,( Alterations & Movers & Shapers) which gives me even more adaptability when building up flowers. In the Gold card, I used a Celtic Horseshoe stamp. I think this came from the Aspects Of Design range, quite a few years ago, and I am pretty sure it is discontinued, which is a shame. Also used Tims Flourish die, and Nesties Labels 7. The centres of the flowers were filled with Glossy Accents and seed beads. The large Congratulations was cut out with the Silhouette.

The Black & White card has flowers cut from vellums and black & white pearl paper, triple embossed hearts in black & silver and Nesties Labels 4. I used black & white seed beads for the centres of the flowers again.

I'm also discovering that Blogger has changed a little while I've been gone!  I am not having any trouble posting any more, which is good, but I really don't like the changes they have made to the 'Labels' section. Maximum number of labels, ok, I was getting my head around that, learning to be brief, then I discover its a maximum number of characters too. What on earth is that all about? Its our blog, why does it matter how many tags we put on a post, or how many characters it uses? Not a happy bunny. Going to try another post using Livewriter and see if it applies through that too. I suspect it will, as its a Blogger rule. Off over to Blogger to find out what they are playing at, lol.

Anniversary & New Baby

Two cards here, I pictured them side by side as its not easy to tell the size of the baby card without something to compare it to. The Anniversary card is a standard A4 sheet of card folded. The Anniversary & new baby were not for the same person, by the way!

    
The New Baby was for a work colleague leaving to have her first baby, so I made an A4 sized card, which gives plenty of room for everyone to sign. I buy a pack of A3 card from Staples for doing these. Its not particularly thick, so I add a sheet of A4 card to the back, and by the time it has papers etc on the front, it is perfectly sturdy. The punched panel uses vellum punched with two different X-cut border punches, Looped Fringe & Doily Dots.                           
 I'm actually very impressed with these border punches, they give a nice crisp cut and are really easy to line up, although I always do this by flipping it over to double check. I used a pale blue, a blue gingham and then a darker blue vellum, and added a knotted ribbon over the top. The decoupage teddy is matted onto Nesties Labels 8, and the sentiment was computer printed onto vellum and then heat embossed with silver powder. I matted that onto a piece of white card overstamped in Brilliance Pearlescent Blue with 'Precious Baby ' a u/m word collage stamp from Artifacts (The Stamp Bug). Finally added a few punched & layered flowers, with Stickles centres.


The Anniversary card also has a panel punched with the Doily Dots border punch, and is wrapped with black & red ribbon. The background paper is from a Dovecraft pad,called Charcoal Prints. The Rose Heart stamp is from Chocolate Baroque, stamped and embossed in Gold, and coloured with H2o's. I added a clump of paper roses and red and blck feathers, and secured it with silicone glue. The sentiment was stamped and embossed in gold again, onto a small tag and tied onto the ribbon with some red cord.

Craft A Scene, Spring Flowers Tags

I think this has been the hardest of the briefs for me- not really a flowery person, at least not in stamping! I love my garden, and having flowers in the house, just didn’t find it easy to create scenes with them. I think its hard to get the scale & perspective to look right-anyway, here’s my final effort.

   I ended up with a pair of tags from my original scene- the  second isn’t really a scenic image, it was actually what was left   over after I cut out the first tag, but I thought it was too pretty to discard. 
The grasses, Black Cat and birds are all from Inkylicious. The Hedgerows are by Hobby Art, a set called ‘In The Country’.







It has hedgerows, fences, a bridge, couple of buildings etc.







The tall red flower on the second tag is from set by Chocolate Baroque,( formerly Graphicus/Elusive Images).The DL sized sheet is called ‘Autumn Hedgerow’, and has both outline & silhouette versions of the stamps.


I brayered a piece of card with a variety of blue & green Adirondack inks, and stamped the grasses along the bottom in Adirondack Meadow. The taller flowers and grasses were stamped as a second impression, just to make them a little lighter. I added colour to them with Tims new Distress markers. I also stamped a little flowers stamp, from Lavinia Stamps, in Fired Brick & Festive Berries Distress Inks,randomly in the grass.
The cat was stamped in Black Archival ink, and then I cut out the tag shape. I think he looks as though he is watching something crawling on or in the grass! The Hobby Art set is a clear polymer stamp, so I could bend the hedgerow stamp on my block to get a more natural shape, and I stamped it twice, to edge the field, then added a third one coming off that to create a second field. Looking at it, as the hedgerow is just lines & squiggles, you could adapt that by colouring in browns/greys and turn it into drystone walls, I think. Final touch was a couple of bird flock stamps from an Inkylicious birds set, called Take Flight. I punched a hole in the tag and added some green fibres, and used blue & red fibres in the second one.

WOYWW #152- Shapeabilities Spiral Blossoms

  This is whats on my desk today- actually for the last few days as I have tried to get to grips with the blasted things,lol. For the life of me I could not figure out HOW I was going to get something that looked like a flower out of this:

After much trial and error, mainly error, I might add, someone pointed me to a You Tube vid,which gave me the answer. I had already tried there, but didn’t get a lot from what I could find. I am really surprised that there is nothing on the Spellbinders site as to exactly how you do these. Maybe its just me being dumb? I could find plenty on the usual Die-cut flowers, but not these Spiral ones. Anyway, I found one showing these dies, and discovered that A) you start rolling from the thinnest end( I had tried both), and B) it won’t look anything like a flower till its completely finished!
The dies, by the way, are Spiral Blossom 1 on the right, and Spiral Blossom 3 on the left.


                                                                    So you start rolling them really tightly….   keep rolling….
                     I’m not left handed, by the way, I had the camera in my right hand     ……. 
keeping it tightly rolled till you get to the end…











Now you let the flower go…… and it unfolds a little….Add some glue( I used a hot glue gun) to the large end piece, which is actually the base the flower sits on……..and hold it together for a few seconds.

Your flowers can be adjusted for how tight they are before you press it into the glue.








This is Spiral Blossom 1,( on the left) which is quite Rose-like.I think  Number 3 (the black one) looks more like a Water lily.
You can ink the edges of the petals first, and fold them a little for a pretty effect.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I will say these are VERY dimensional,( about 1”, or 2.5cm high) so you would need to make a presentation box for a card. 
So thats it for me. Pop over to the Amazing Julia Dunnits, at The Stamping Ground, for this weeks Worldwide Workdesk Wander- let us all come see what you’ve been up to.
I don’t know how this post is going to look to everyone, so if its not appearing very well, please let me know in your comments. I’ve been having loads of trouble with Blogger- it just won’t let me add any images to my posts. I’m pretty sure its a Firefox update thats caused it, but for now I am trying Livewriter, from Microsofts Essentials, so it will be interesting to see if this works. I can post in Internet Explorer, but I don’t like having to use that!

WOYWW # 149, Paper Flowers

Back at the Weekly Workdesk Wander, courtesy of our most excellent hostess, Julia Dunnit at The Stamping Ground. 
   These were the Tim Dies I bought recently, having admired what people were doing with them. So I've spent a few days cutting out loads of flowers in different papers.

I've have been putting some together for a couple of Wedding cards in Black and White that I have to make.I used black and white pearlescent paper, along with some glittered vellum for a bit of sparkle.


Here I've layered them all up, and also added some seed beads in Black or White to the centres. So that's my desk this week.

                   Roof Update:
 We now have a roof over our bedroom, lol, just in time for the glorious (!) Bank Holiday weather we had,and we have someone coming into plaster the room next weekend. The kitchen roof is coming off now, as well as taking down the chimney stack at the end of the kitchen. We have an old Victorian house with the galley- style kitchen:

According to the guy you can see taking it down, the only thing keeping it there was gravity!!!
 Hope you all had a lovely Easter, and have a great Wednesday.