Two Skaters

I was given a challenge by my special friend Mandy of http://sparklybits.com/ to see what I could create with a Tilda and Edwin stamp that I had bought from her webshop earlier in the week, so Im hoping that she will like the card that I have made.

I firstly stamped the image of the skaters onto white card, and coloured them with my aquarelle pencils, after which I then blended the colours together with my koi waterbrush. After this had dried I picked out some of the colours with my Artquest paints to highlight and give it a shine in certain areas.

To mount the cut out skaters, I firstly folded a piece of blue card in half and mounted a piece of dark blue pearlescent card on the front. Onto which I pasted a image from my Cute Companions CD, design set picture of the frozen pond and snowman, I did alter the size of it before printing to cut it down a bit. This was then overlayered with a piece of clear Acetate which I attached to the fold with a piece of spotty ribbon to stop it moving and coming away.

On the Acetate I mounted the skaters over the area of the frozen pond, to give the appearence of them skating, and then punched several sizes of snowflakes and scattered them around the page to give the appearance of it snowing. On the tree I stuck punched out holly, three leaf shapes that I cupped to give the appearance of them being living things, into which I put some red glitter glue which I hope look like berries.

To finish of the card I printed a greeting on my computer in portrait, and then cut it out and edged it with blue pen, this I then attached under the Acetate to the pearlescent card.

A message for my two grandchildren

Yesterday I went with my husband Ian, to visit my daughter Sarah and her four children, and I made a promise that I would leave a message for them on my blogspot, so here I go.

Gromps and I had a lovely time seeing you all yesterday, and to say thank you in a special way and to wish you all a very Special Happy Christmas, I am going to post a photo of the two youngest members, so they can be as thrilled to see themselves as they were when they saw my photo yesterday on their computer.

Daisies and Magnolia's

Todays card was designed around the Magnolia flowers. Im not sure if we have the same sort of magnolia's in the UK as this is a design from the American, Susan Tierney Cockburn's book, so it maybe a bit of poetic license, anyway I liked the design of the flowers and decided to try and make them.

Firstly I used a cream/pale butterscotch paper, you need to cut out 13 medium pear punch shapes, 1 dark green 12mm circle, 1 dark green large snowflake, and 1 dark green medium snowflake, and 3 bright yellow small sun's.

The next step is to trim of all the stems from the pear shapes, and then to use a butterscotch marker to make shade lines. You then using the shaping tool mould the pear by running the tool across the pear from the stem end causing it to curl, after which you pick up the pear, and pinch the stem end and the top you curl over both of the top sides with tweezers to make it look more natural.

You then cup the circle shape and the large snowflake which is then attached to the centre of the circle. On this snowflake you attach 7 of the petal/pear shapes, which you leave to dry after which you attach the medium snowflake to the centre, and attach the remaining 6 petals too.

While these are drying, with the two sun shapes snip around the edge and cup these, the last sun you cut 2 thirds of the way across, pick up with a pair of tweezers and roll into a cone shape and stick the end down. These sun/stamen shapes are then stuck into the centre of the flower by dropping a small amount of glue and then fixing the two sun shapes in layers, making sure you dont push to hard, and when dry the cone shape is fitted on top.

The Daisies were an after thought, as the Magnolia's looked rather lost on my mounting, these are very easy to make with two medium flower punched shapes, cupping them and pinching the petals, after which you layer them, off setting the layers, the centers are finished of with a small flower punch in bright yellow, which is also cupped and turned upside down, and stuck on a small amount of glue which has been dropped into the centre. The leaves for pot flowers are, The Oak and the Birch Leaf.

The card itself is made from pale green pearlescent card, which has been embossed down the edge with my scor-pal board, and a vellum is overlayed and punched along the edge with an EK corner punch. The flowers and the greeting which was printed from my computer, are layered on my the new Label Die Nestabilities set.

A Anniversary Card for Paul and Mandy

As this is a first anniversary of their renewal of their Wedding Vows, I thought it would be nice to make a special card for my special friends Paul and Mandy.

I have created 3 Pompom Dahlia's, these were mainly punched from the small teardrop punch, and the small heart punch, altogether you will need 48 teardrops and 8 hearts which are cut in half to make 16 pieces. The punched out shapes are cupped and shaped with a large ball stylus, and stuck to 2 large Snowflakes, 3 medium flower, and 2 small daisies. The centre's are created from 3 small cosmos punches which are then cupped and layered inside each other, and on the very top a small mini star is the crowing glory.

The snowflakes, daisies and flowers are layered up in different combinations to give the pom pom effect.

The base card is a white/cream pearlised card that I have embossed along the edge with my scor-pal board, and layered a white patterned (spotted) vellum wrap with an edge which has been punched with the threading water punch. I have used a small piece of glue to keep the vellum attached to the card and over the folded edge I have attached a pink organiza ribbon and tied a small bow. Down the edge of the card I have used my stamp tapestry stamps to create a flowered border.

I have mounted the Dahlia's onto a White Oval and then on a Pink Scalloped Oval, cut from my Nestabilities dies, for the leaves I have used the large Oak leaf, and in the very middle of the flowers I have put a small dot of glitter glue.

To finish the card of I have printed a greeting from my computer which was also mounted on White Card and then on Pink.

The process of creating the Rose

I thought today you might like to see a couple of photos showing the process of creating the Roses, the first one will show you how I attached the half heart shapes to the large shaped balloons to create the centre two rows of petals, and the other photo will show you the finished flowers with a couple of shaped petals that were left after making the roses. It also shows the two punches that I used to make the shapes.

Sweetpea's for Someone Special

Todays card was made for a special friend, she will know who it is if she looks at my blog.

I had just bought the Sweetpea Floral Punch from http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Sherry-Rodehavers-Quilling-Corner, and wasnt quite sure how I would cope with creating the flower, luckily with the help of my book Paper Bouquet by Susan Tierney Cockburn, I eventually managed it.

Although a rather fiddley thing to hold and fold, I did manage to create something that looked like a sweetpea, hopefully you will thing so as well. I punched out three sweetpea shapes from two shades of mauve with the punch, and shaped them as the instructions say in the book, after which with a bit of luck I managed to mould and stick the front petals into shape.

Once I had made three flowers, I created my card with cream pearlised card, firstly embossing the lines with my scoreboard, and cutting the last section of the card away, under which I layed a piece of gold vellum and stamped with a leaf stamp, I believe it was one of the Judi kins bolio stamps.

I then wrapped another piece of gold vellum around the outside of the card, and embossed the edge with the same design as the card, which I cut to fit inside the cards embossed edge. I fitted this to the card with a little bit of glue to stop it moving around and then over the top put the organza ribbon which I tied in a knot.

The three sweetpeas I mounted on a piece of mauve pearlised card which I had put through my cuttlebug machine and cut it with the oval nestability die. The leaves I used were the oak leaf punch and the tendrels were created by a thin piece of paper rolled up tight and then gently pulled out again. The finishing touches were the little butterfly and the peel off greeting.

A Card for my Daughter

This is the other card I was talking about, its very similar to the yellow rose one, but Ive layered it differently.

The base card is pink pearlised card with a very pretty pink printed vellum overlay, this has a wide pink organiza ribbon layered by the centre fold, and a computer printed greeting at the bottom.

Both the Rose and the greeting have been mounted on silver embossed card, the larger one being cut with one of the Scalloped Nestability dies.

A Birthday Card for Mum

Todays card is one of two that I made for not only my mother-in-law's birthday, but also my daughter's, I will post hers next time.

The card was created around a Floral Punch Craft Rose. I originally made 3 roses, one red which was my first attempt at making them, the second was a pink one and this yellow rose. I wasnt sure what to do with them so I decided as the red one was my original one I would mount it and then I hang it in a frame on the wall in my craft room, maybe one day I will post that as well.

Anyway the rose was created by using a medium balloon craft punch shapes, a medium heart shapes and a small circle shape about 1/2" in size and instructions from the Floral Punch Craft Book by Leone Em.

You need to punch out at least 20 balloon shapes, these will need to be shaped into a cup shape with a tool called a Deet, you can also by turning the shapes over curl the edges like a real rose petal.

The shaped pieces are then attached around the small circle and then left to dry, when dried you start the second layer, and on till you reach the last couple of layers, these are created by cutting the 5 heart shapes into half and these also are shaped to fit inside the last 10 balloon shapes which make the petals look even more tightly shut. To finish of the rose, I cut a piece of yellow paper into a strip and made small cuts along the lenth, then rolled it up, feathered them out to make stamens for the centre, which also cover any of the circle that may still be showing.

The leaves which surround it are punched from the medium oak shape leaf.

The card itself is made up from white pearlised card which has been overlayed with a vellum wrap on which I have printed a rose design. The Rose itself was mounted on a silver nestability scalloped circle and then again onto a gold one. The card was then finished with the brown ribbon down the centre fold, and the greeting was printed from one I typed into my computer, which also was mounted onto gold card which had been scalloped around the edge.

A Very Big Thank You

Before posting anymore cards there are two thank you's that I want to give to two very special friends.
The first is to Liz Hobden, of http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Make-A-Lasting-Impression_W0QQssPageNameZstrkQ3amefsQ3amesstQQtZkm Who has been encouraging me to start my own blogsite for quite awhile, shes been my mainstay and my supplier of a lot of my craft goodies. Unfortunately shes not always in the best of health, but she still there at the end of an email to give me the help and encouragement that I have needed. Thank You so much Liz, for always listening to me and being a very special friend when Ive needed it.
My second thank you is to Mandy Marriott, of http://sparklybits.com/store/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=195 and http://sparkltbitsblog.blogspot.com/ who without her starting her own blogsite and giving me the push I would'nt have delved into creating my own. She has also been a great friend, supplying me with craft goodies from her webshop, but the most important thing is she's been there when I have needed her, thank you so much Mandy.

A Winters Day

Todays card is more Floral Punch craft, this time its pine cones and this has been achieved with the small pear punch, you need about 20 to 25 punched out pieces, which are cup shaped and then mounted onto the prepared card.

The base layer is again some paper that has been embossed in the cuttlebug folder Snowflakes, and then mounted onto a red base card. The main stamped picture is stamped with a blue versafine inkpad and then mounted with foam tape on silver/grey mira card, this was then mounted on top of some red wired Christmas ribbon, which I had layered at the bottom of my card.

The Fir cones are created by first putting some silicone decoupage glue in a cone shape, the leaves are fern punch outs which I have arranged around the bottom of the glue shape, I then pick up the punched out pear shapes and arrange in a circle at the bottom of the cone shape, using the stalk end, this is repeated again and again in layers, but alternatively between the lower shapes/tier, to make it look more natural, at the top you will need to squeeze the shapes together more to curl them and hide the glue.

The card has then been finished of with a pre stamped greeting.

December Blessings

Todays card was created from a photo of a real Hellebore that I was studying, as there are no instructions as to how to punch it out, I used the large Begonia petals from my Punch Bunch punch, I cut 6 petals to each flower shaping them with my special tool, glueing them to a medium 6 arm snowflake punch out.

The centre's were created from 4 small stacking crystal punch outs. I cut each of the arms in half to make them look more natural, and painted the end with yellow glitter glue, which I then left to dry.

These were then shaped into a cup and stuck together, one on top of the other, after which it was glued to the centre of the Hellebore, once it was dry I fanned it out to look more like stamens.

The Stamped image was one of the Sereditpitystamps which I aquired from Joanna Sheens webshop. I mounted this onto Red Mira Card, which was then mounted onto embossed Gold Card, then again onto Red Mira Card, with a small green ribbon to finish it off.

I sincerely hope that you like the card, I feel that its not a bad resemblence of a Hellebore. I should also have said that I used the Artquest Interference Paints on the centre's of the flower just to give it some shading.

My very first blg

Hi this is my first attemp at writing a blog, so keep your fingers crossed that it turns out ok.

The card Im hoping to show you is a Pointsetta that I have created with my Floral Punch craft punches.

I have used red paper and the large petal shape from my punch bunch Dahlia punch, then shaped and layered it, the middle is of the stamen punch coloured with gold glitter glue.

Then I have put a piece of white paper through the snowflake cuttlebug folder for the bottom piece on which I have mounted a previously stamped church picture using the Nestabilities new label dies. The pointsetta is mounted by the church and at the bottom Ive put a ribbon with a slider greeting on.