Bluebells

A quick snap from the bank holiday.
For anyone local this was taken at Lady's Walk in Montacute near Yeovil.  The wood has a very impressive amount of bluebells.  This pic was taken in a section with slightly less of them but the sun out on them looked lovely.

Drums

Another commission from recently.

I was asked if I could rustle up a card with a set of drums on - including a name and age.

I found this great iris folding pattern on craftsuprint.

I already had some strips of wrapping paper cut up in blue and silver that I thought would work really well on this.  As on the pattern I then added some peel off borders to bring the design to life, cut a cymbal from gold paper and finished off with peel offs on punched shapes for name, age and sentiment.

What a lovely day it has been today - my face feels like it is on fire after all day outside at a bike race.
Apologies in advance for the slow down in posts over the next couple of weeks, trying to catch up with myself and dabble in some quilling that I can't preview yet!

Save the Date

So, the pile of hearts I punched the other day can now be revealed as a project!

A work friend has asked me to make her wedding stationery, starting with save the date cards.

She had seen a design on Etsy she liked, particularly the 3D hearts and string aspect of it.

I played with a few takes on it but we settled for a design very close to the internet one and so I have made 36 of them.

The base is an A6 piece of kraft card from Anna Marie Designs.  The text is printed on to some cream printer card (also AM) and stuck on the bottom.

The 12 hearts on each card are a combination of: Anna Marie pearl card, a foliage stamp in brown on cream card, a love sentiment stamp in brown on kraft and some lightly patterned pieces of card from Craftybitz I got at Shepton recently.

The hearts are punched using the small heart punch from Stampin' Up.  Before I added them to the card I cut out a template and carefully cut out 12 squares in it so that when placed on each invite the hearts are exactly in the same place!

They are stuck on with 2mm foam pads and finished with a 'tying the knot' round the centre with some string.  A close up of the top section is below:

Quilled veggies

After yesterday's card was delivered at speed this prompted another family member to put in a request!  (not done as rapidly this time!).

This chap is the 'Mr Rabbit' version of the Helz Cuppleditch stamp I used recently.  I stamped him on the left side of a piece of A5 card and coloured with copics.  I then used a copic multiliner and the same earth colours to extend the ground all the way across the card.

I had a run on quilled carrots last year but the mushrooms & cauliflower are taken from Angela Herring's Quilling Plus pattern book, available from Elderberry Crafts.  I think they are very effective.
The tomatoes are from Elizabeth Moad's book Thrilling Quilling.

I had a die cut wheelbarrow in my stash that I used as a template to make the one on this card and added a quilled tight coil for the wheel.

Chalks used for the sky and the sun is inked through a punched circle.

Little label from a new Papermania Home to Nest set with '80' added and layered peel-off sentiment to finish.

Cricket Birthday

This is a card that I actually made quite a few weeks ago even though the Birthday was not until this weekend.

It was a commission for someone I didn't think I would easily see for a bit so was also done rather speedily!

I was given a couple of subjects and chose the cricket option with this lovely Papermania nostalgia stamp designed by John Byars.

I stamped it in Memento rich cocoa which I also sponged round the edge of the cut out image.  I stamped the image a second time and cut the cricketer & ball out and mounted on 3D pads for some more dimension.  I then used some polychromos pencils in matching shades to define the stamp a little.

Finished off with some layering, card candi and peel off sentiment all mounted on an A5 kraft card.
(Only a couple of days until the heart project is completed!).

Hearts

Finally beginning to feel like actually wanting to craft rather than having to so I don't miss cards I need to send!  Thank goodness.

Started light today by doing a spot of prep for a commission I need to get sorted fairly soon.

You can see this didn't require much technical skill but did need a bit of patience.

Watch this space to see what I magic them in to!
(all 432 of them!).

Hedgie Anniversary

Today's share is the Wedding Anniversary I made for my husband - 17 years this week wherever those years have gone!!

You will know if you are a regular viewer that bicycles are rather a big thing in this house so I felt I needed to use this chap as I hadn't done before.

It's from a transparent Penny Black set called 'hedgie friends'.  I've coloured it in copics and added some glossy accents on the wheels before punching out and mounting on a die cut.

I am trying this year to be more adventurous with colours, using different layers and generally playing a bit more with cards - this is one result of that!

Hedgie has been layered on a die cut fence which was mounted on a piece of blue that had been treated to some Martha Stewart punch-around-the page 'Cherish' action.

The next 2 layers are very much stolen as a format from a card I did on a recent workshop.  The bottom layer has had it's corners invert punched and some little gems added.

Main image finished with a button, punched hearts and a stamped sentiment which was punched out with the trusty SU label punches.

Butterflies

Needing a couple more cards for my stash, this is another card I cased, this time from Natalie O'Shea & her team on the Stampin' Up stand at Farnborough.

I was trying to resist this embossing folder (petals-a-plenty from SU) but have seen so many lovely examples of its use that it seems to have turned up!

I've layered a piece of the embossed white card on to an A6 card (in my defence this has multi-purpose use as looks lovely in red card for xmas!).

I have then stamped a sentiment from the SU 'Made for you' set, punched it out and layered that on to an SU scallop oval in the same colour as the base card.

The butterflies are from the lovely SU set Papillon Potpourri.  I've stamped 3 different butterflies in differing shades of the card base colour & punched out with the matching punch of course.  These are mounted on a layer of plain card to match (the picture below shows this slightly better).

The butterfly bodies are then finished off with some gems.

Bloom & Grow

This is another Crafty Bunch birthday card, again I had slightly grander plans for it but there we go!

As soon as I saw Sue's name added to the birthday list I thought of this stamp.  Sue opens her lovely garden for the National Garden Scheme and I am hoping to visit again next month (the tea & cake were also pretty good last time).

This is a trimcraft stamp designed by Helz Cuppleditch called Bloom & Grow.  I've stamped it and coloured it in copics.  The sun was 'made' by using a piece of card with a circle punched out of it and daubing ink through the hole.  I had a couple of little birds to add to the sky I remembered after posting the card!

Image double layered on matching card, as is the stamped sentiment.

A5 card base has been covered with a sheet of paper from the new DOCrafts Home to Nest range and a couple of punched pots added at the bottom.

We have actually had a few days of sun now - hope everyone is enjoying it!

I am a rubber stamper ...

Yesterday was Karen from Crafty Bunch's birthday - as mentioned previously anyone in our birthday club sends a card to everyone else on the list so you receive a nice little pile of specially made cards.

I started off with a slightly grander plan in mind for this but, in my defence, still not feeling too good and the size of the stamp sort of dictated how this ended up.

From the top I've used some cream card & SU punched down one side.  I've then distressed with antique linen & tea dye inks and overstamped the edges with an image from the SU Just Believe set.  Some of these I've added glamour dust too for a touch of bling.

The stamp is from a great Jane Gill Woodware set called 'Hand crafted by' which has many great expressions for us crafters on.

This is layered on a piece of burgundy card and then added to a kraft layer (also lightly distressed) which I have used the Martha Stewart punch around the page 'Cherish' set on.  I added thread to the inner layer of dots on this which Clare Rowlands does on her cards so not an original idea from me!

A fab matching button I found in the stash with some thread added to it and card candy finish this layer before it was mounted on another burgundy layer with the leaves overstamped in matching ink.

More cycling

Another last minute request from recently.

A friend asked if I could make a card for her husband.
I never like to say no and these are the friends I made the wedding stationery for at the end of last year and they had also just had their album delivered.

As they live in Burnham I had a quick turnaround on this one so I could drop it in when I visited Weston on my workshop the other week (also had tea, cake & a look at the lovely pics).

This image from justinklined was chosen and coloured in copics. Some of the colours are relevant to the recipients bike, shoes etc and the card became red, white and blue to tie it all in.

Peel off sentiments and a splash of card candi to finish.

Badminton

My next few posts are cards that I have made recently and didn't want to showcase until the birthdays had passed!

This was a very last minute request for a badminton friend for his daughters birthday.

The image is from craftsuprint and is a A5 pyramid card.

I have just cut out all the layers, stacked them with some foam pads and layered on white, then pink card to make it stand out.

Shuttlecock and sentiment also from the print out and finished with some matching card candi.