Floral Heart...

 

 And just like that, I'm back again! This time to share a pretty floral creation which was inspired by the cards I made case-ing Mindy Farmer's creations...

 I started by inking up this pretty Waffle Flower layered stencil using Tattered Rose, Abandoned Coral, Speckled Egg, Iced Spruce and Broken China Distress Oxides. I decided to go with a heart shaped aperture and cut this before attaching the panel using foam tape for dimension. I added a narrow strip of green pinstripe to ground the floral elements, then layered up my flowers and foliage dies in a corsage...

 

 I love the tulip style flowers that are from the Sizzix Tea Cups die set and think I will be turning to these quite a lot. The little flower sprays are a berry sprig with flowers cut from the hydrangea style flower of Tim Holtz Funky Florals #2. I finished with some small enamel dots (my latest obsession thanks to Marianne) and a few pearls...

Hope you like my floral creation and I may even be back with another masculine make tomorrow?!...

Crafty hugs,

 

 

Stencil cards....

 Hey there, crafty friends! I've been MIA as the weather here in North Wales has been too good to be sat inside at my crafty table, but we're back to the usual wet, Welsh weather, so I thought I would have a play...

I decided to get out some stencils from my stash and just colour them up to see what I liked. This pretty Lou Collins Art Style Flowers Stencil made the cut and I began with my favourite pastel colour palette - Tattered Rose, Abandoned Coral, Squeezed Lemonade, Wild Honey, Cracked Pistachio, Peeled Paint and a touch of Ripe Persimmon to create this simple panel card...

 I then tried to push myself out of my pastel comfort zone and used a bolder colour combination - Wilted Violet, Seedless Preserves, Chipped Sapphire, Abandoned Coral, Squeezed Lemonade, Wild Honey, Speckled Egg, Spruced Pine...

It doesn't seem to matter how hard I try, but I never manage to get a true bold colour scheme - I always seem to chicken out and end up with something a little darker than my usual...but I tried!

I added a torn, vellum strip with a polka dot band over the top and used my absolute favourite sentiment dies - Yana's Layered Script Sentiments with a combination of other sentiment stamps from my stash. I finished with some gem and enamel dot sprinkles...et voila!

Hope you like my floral stenciled creations and I'll be back with some more crafty inspiration over the weekend as I have been a busy bee at my crafty table!

Crafty hugs,

 

Simple floral cards...

Good morning, my crafty buddies! I'm back to share a couple of simple floral cards that I created for my sending box. I often dither over sending out cards that I have spent a long time creating, especially if I feel that the recipient 'isn't bothered about cards'...there are some people that appreciate and cherish a handmade card (be it for a week or years) and then there are others that you know will put it up for a day or two and then it's going in the bin! I know that we can't expect everyone to keep our creations forever, so decided to create some more simple cards that still have the same handmade feel but without the long creation time...

I stamped some of the flowers from Christina Griffiths Spring - Summer stamp and die set and coloured them with  Distress Inks and Oxides, using stencils that I cut by hand (as the dies cut out leaving a white border). I used Carved Pumpkin, Abandoned Coral and a hint of Festive Berries on the California poppy style flower and Tattered Rose, Abandoned Coral and Festive Berries on the gerbera style flower, colouring the stems with a couple of different green alcohol markers. For the leaf I used Peeled Paint and Forest Moss...

I lightly inked the card front in an area where the flower would sit, then randomly stamped portions of script and added a hand doodled border. I tore a strip of patterned paper and attached across the bottom third of the card, placing the flowers and attaching with glue/foam pads. I used my favourite Yana Smakula sentiment dies and added a second stamped part to the sentiment, mat onto black to tie everything together. I finished off with some gem/enamel dot sprinkles and a touch of gold glitter on the poppy...

I really liked the way they turned out and need to come up with some more simple designs to send - my first one has been sent out to it's recipient already! Hope you like them too...

Crafty hugs,

 

Passion for Markers - Use Red and/or Hearts...

 Good morning, crafty friends! So we're into February and the days are slowly starting to get longer (yay!) but Spring still seems a long way off....my crafty mojo is still nowhere to be seen, but I think that's because of the fact that the house is in complete disarray after having to empty Mum's and not being able to resist bringing a lot of stuff home! I need to be ruthless and then to get organised, but it's a slow process and one that requires motivation (something which I am very much lacking at the minute!)...

Anyway, it's Tuesday! So that means it's time for a brand new challenge over at Passion for Markers and I did force myself to sit at my crafty desk and create something?! We have the lovely Lorraine in the hostess chair this week and she has given us a topical but easy theme of 'Use Red and/or Hearts'...

We're being sponsored by Dies to Die For who are offering one lucky winner a £15.00 voucher to their online store...awesome right?!...

I decided to take the opportunity to make hubby's card for next week and was inspired by a card that the lovely Deborah Hellman created with a fabulous and relevant sentiment!...

With everything that has happened over the last few months, I can't imagine that I have been the best of company at times, so I thought that this sentiment was the perfect way to say thank you for being there...

I used a heart stencil which I dry embossed first and then used my Versamark pad to heat emboss with white embossing powder to create a resist. I inked with Festive Berries Distress Oxide and then added my fussy cut cactus image on foam pads -

Plant - Apple, Forest Green, Ivy (SN)

Pot - Soft Peach, Honeycomb, Spice

I added the sentiment which I created in PS and a couple of red, heart gems to follow on with the theme...

I hope you can find the time to play along with our fun challenge this week and look forward to seeing all of your wonderful makes...

Crafty hugs,

Ruth Hamilton - Pansies...

Good afternoon, dear Blogger buddies, from a wet and windy North Wales! Crafty time has been rather scarce recently and any time I have had, has been putting together cards and kits for our next workshop...but I got an hour or so to play this afternoon and decided to play with another of Ruth Hamilton Design's pretty digistamps...

 This time I played with the pretty Pansies image and am still on my stencil addiction!...

I imported the digistamp to my graphics program and reduced the size down to 30%, before copying the image so that I had 7 copies. I grouped 5 of them quite close together at the top of the A4 page and spread the other two out for my stencils...

I cut out the centres of the two flower images using small nose scissors, as you can see in the photograph above and then stenciled the 5 images with Distress Inks and Oxides, using my blending brushes to get a nice colour blend...

I then coloured the leaves with my alcohol markers and cut out the flowers leaving a white border. I arranged the flowers in a circle on a piece of white paper 13.5cm square and attached using glue and foam tape to get differing heights...

 

I cut two 3cm squares of green polka dot paper, cut in half diagonally to create triangles and then inked the edges before attaching to the four corners. I mat the panel onto a cream 14cm square, rounding the two bottom corners, then adhered to a 6" square scalloped card base...

I created a banner using Apple Blossom Banners die, inked with Abandoned Coral Distress oxide, decoupaged for added dimension and stamped a sentiment from the Little Birds stamp and die set from June's Issue of Simply Cards and Papercrafts. I also drew around the outside of the die to create a grey shadow layer...

I thoroughly enjoyed crafting for pleasure and playing with these pretty Pansies and if you pop over to Ruth's shop, you'll see she has a number of floral images to choose from, including a Wild Rose image which would be great for this type of card too!...

Thanks for stopping by, crafty hugs...

Take one stencil...

 Good afternoon, crafty friends! So it seems my obsession with stencils is not waning yet?!...I needed to order some basic white card stock from Craft Stash and whilst there, I noticed that there was a BOGOF on selected stencils...well, it would have been rude not to put a couple in my basket?!

I decided to have a play with the Art Style Flowers Stencil from the TEXT-ures range by Lou Collins and wanted to try and make a card using this as both the background and focal point...

I began by inking the whole stencil background in Cracked Pistachio and Speckled Egg Distress Oxides, then removed the stencil and softened the image by blending over the top with the inks, using my blending brushes. I then inked some of the flowers using Cracked Pistachio, Peeled Paint, Tattered Rose, Abandoned Coral and a touch of Wild Honey in the centres, before fussy cutting leaving a white border...

I cut the panel down to 15.5 x 10.5cm and inked the edges with Cracked Pistachio before attaching to a 5 x 7 inch card blank. I cut a white panel 12.5 x 7.5cm and mat this onto cream. I stamped and gold embossed the word Birthday from Waffle Flower Crafts Birthday Sentiments stamp set onto pearl vellum and wrapped it around a piece of peach tone polka dot paper, cut to the card width by 3cm and mat onto cream. I also stamped the word wishes from Bright Rosa's free stamp set with SC&P, embossed with gold and fussy cut, again leaving a white border...

I attached the polka dot panel across the bottom third of the card and then slipped the white panel underneath the vellum strip. I then arranged the flowers before attaching with glue at the bottom and foam pads at the top for a bit of dimension. I added the wishes with foam pads and embellished with some glitter on the birthday sentiment and a few pearls in different sizes...

I just love the soft finish that stenciling and Distress Oxides give and hope I've inspired you to have a play with stencils too!...

Off to get ready for work...I need to win the lottery so I can just play at my crafty table - working is so overrated! 

Crafty hugs,

Orchid Notelets...

Good morning, dear crafty friends and a Happy Easter to you all! I have a set of notelet cards to share with you today that I made using a pretty layered flower stamp set from Papercraft Inspirations...

I picked these up from the lovely Marianne when she was having a crafty clear out and have to admit that I struggled with the layering stamps and my Distress Oxides, so I decided to make a stencil from Mylar sheet and then used the outline stamp...

For my first card I used patterned cardstock and the orchid flower head and sprig, fussy cut leaving a white border. I also created a stencil using the fern leaf die from Bright Rosa that was the freebie with SC&P #202 and inked this to create a background for my second card. I added the orchid flower head and sprig and a sentiment from Altenew Beautiful Day stamp set...

For my other two cards I switched and used the orchid head as the background image and the fern leaf as the embellishment and inked a white card blank with Broken China Distress Oxide, before adding the fussy cut elements...

I really like the way these pretty cards turned out and will definitely be making more of my own stencils from dies and stamps...it gives such a different, delicate feel to the images and is a great way to colour images too (as you can see in my Daffodils card HERE)...

Thanks for dropping by and don't forget that there's still chance to play along with my eye spy 'Something beginning with B' challenge over at Passion for Markers!... 

Crafty hugs,

More flowers and a new technique...

I had a go at making my own layering stencil...yeah, that's harder than I thought?!! My brain couldn't switch off to it needing to be a stencil and everything ended up too spaced apart...I will know for next time that the layers allow things to be closer together and even overlap. 

 

Food for thought and a work in progress, although I did like the individual elements when I cut them out and made this pretty, fresh card with them...

 

I've had this pretty acetate backed fishtail flag hanging around my desk for a while, actually from a festive project I was making and decided to put it to good use! I fussy cut the floral elements, leaving a white border and played around until I was happy with the arrangement. I cut the happy die in black and attached to white before fussy cutting and used the Many Happy Returns stamp that came in the Autumn stamp set of SC & P Issue 208 to create the rest of the sentiment. I also stamped Enjoy your day from the Waffle Flower Happy Birthday Sentiments stamp set...

I have to say, I do still LOVE pastel colour tones and think that this card turned out really fresh and Springlike...back in my comfort zone! 

Thanks for dropping by,