The Charleston

Here is one of my new LOTV stamps purchased from the NEC last Thursday. It was a great day out but really tiring and my poor legs are still recovering! but it was worth the pain to see all those lovely crafty goodies under one roof!!



As this image had a vintage feel to it I tried to do it justice with just sepia tones which was a huge challenge for me. I`ve coloured with distress inks using a limited palette of just Antique Linen, Brushed Corduroy, Walnut Stain, Tea Dye and Vintage Photo. This was my first attempt at sepia and I`m kind of happy with it, but methinks I still need practice with this technique!!



The papers are also LOTV - NitWit Collections - Country Lady, and I am so glad you get four of each paper in this pad as I think they are my new favourites, they are so beautiful and lovely quality too.
I`ve also used A bit of vintage lace, flowers are from Hobby House and made using the Tim Holtz - Tattered Pinecone die, LOTV sentiment and a couple of white feathers from my stash which I ran through some coloured chalk dust to take some of the whiteness away.
I also added some Mei Flower pearls and liquid pearls in Platinum to her dress and a bit of glossy accents to the gramophone record.

It has actually been a lovely sunny day here today which is a change from all the snow we`ve had lately so I`m making the most of it and catching up with getting some cards photographed while the sun is still shining!
Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xxx

Birthday Bunny

Here is a card I`ve made for my friend Anne who has a birthday at the end of March.
I`d like to enter this into the Papertake weekly Challenge. This week it`s " 1 2 3" so I`ve used 1 bow, 2 patterned papers and three pearls.




I`ve used one of the new Wild Rose Studio images - Bunny with Cake - CL294 available at Sir Stampalot . Coloured with distress inks and markers, the background papers are Bo Bunny - A gift of love, flowers are WOC, ribbon is taffeta from SU and the sentiment comes with the stamp.



I`ve added a bit of stickles - diamond to the flowers and the bunny`s tale and glossy accents to the cherry on the cake top and the jam in the middle to give a bit of shine and dimension .... Yummmm, makes me want a piece of chocolate cake! I`m off to my craft group this morning so there maybe choccy cake in the offing! (here`s hoping!) what better way to spend a morning than cake and craft !!

Anyway, I still have a million things to do before leaving the house so I`ll sign off and get on with them.
Thanks for looking in, by for now and happy crafting xxx

Mother`s Day

I`m back with a card I made for my Mum for Mother`s Day. She loves flowers and isn`t really into cute images so this was ideal for her and she loved it.
I`d like to enter this into the latest Cupcake Craft Challenge, this time around they want to see the sentiment as the main focus on your card.



I used Martha Stewart Punch around the page eyelet lace (my favourite) for the border and the circle doily. K&Co Water Colour Bouquet paper and a Clarity Stamp sentiment.



The flowers are mainly WOC with a few from hobby house and the little butterflies I`ve had almost since I started crafting! LOL, I had a huge pack of them and they`ve lasted years! The large flower was made from Tim Holtz - Tattered Florals die with a DoCrafts V&A brad for the middle. I`ve added a bit of Stickles - Diamond to the sentiment edge and a few of the flowers too. The stick pin is from Sir Stampalot (sorry can`t remember the brand)....
I also made a little box to match as an extra present, filled with her favourite Lindor chocolates.



The box is from a tutorial here and was great fun to make.



I must admit, the box of Lindor sat on my craft desk for a full 24 hours before I gave them to my Mum and I showed great restraint in not eating them as they are my faves too, but she did let me have one after she received them! (She is the best Mum)



Well, I`m going to have another crafting day today, we woke up to a white world this morning which was a surprise, I thought we were done with the snow for this year. So what better weather to stay indoors and craft! (any excuse LOL).
Thanks for looking in, bye for now, stay warm and happy crafting xxx

Life happens, Love helps.

Here is a card I`ve made for some good friends of mine who have an Anniversary coming up, they`ve been through some trying times lately (hence the sentiment on the card) but are still going strong and very much in love.



I`ve used one of my favourite LOTV images, coloured with distress inks and markers and done a bit of distressing round the edges of the papers here and there. I`ve cut the image out and cut off the swing ropes and replaced them with bakers twine so they swing in the aperture.



The papers are from MME lost and found 6"x 6" pad, flowers are a mixture of WOC and hobby house, vintage lace and seam binding and loopy ribbon are from the Ribbon Girl.



The sentiment is SU from the Vintage Vogue set, the little crochet flower is from Sir Stampalot and the flower brad is from an old Do Craft Victoria and Albert set, charms are from hobby house.



I just realized looking back at the pictures that I have a little pearl missing from the top left of the ring round the card, better replace that before I give the card to my friends. It`s probable stuck on to me somewhere, no doubt I`ll come accross it later LOL! these things get everywhere, I was walking about the house the other day thinking my foot hurts underneath and when I looked there was a large flat backed pearl stuck to me! God knows were that one came from ! LOL! it`s either pearls or foam pads that get stuck to me somewhere !
Anyway, on that note I`ll sign off. Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xxx

Tilda Gift Card

Hi, I`m back with another Tilda card, this image is Tilda with Balloon from the You are so Special collection.
I`d like to enter this into the new Inky Chicks Challenge, this time around it is Mothers Day or Birthday.




I`m trying to get ahead with my Birthday cards for the year ahead and this one will be for my friend Sally who reads as much as I do and she`s always asking for people to give her book vouchers for Birthdays and Christmas. She`s not a crafter so she won`t see this on my blog!



I`ve coloured Tilda with distress inks and markers and added a bit of glossy accents to the balloon. The backing paper is K&Co water colour bouquet.



I found the sentiment on a website that has free verses for card makers and I just used my home computer to alter the layout of the verse and add a different font.



The front flap under the Tilda image lifts up and I`ve created a space you can slide in a gift card, this one fits any of the credit card size gift cards that are popular nowadays. I just punched two holes with a crop-a-dile and used a craft knife to slit in between them to create the slot for the card.



I also decorated the inside of the flap using an SU sentiment, nesties labels four and Cheery Lynn small fanciful flourish dies.
This isn`t the gift card I bought her, this is one I was given at Christmas and haven`t spent yet! how restrained am I? LOL!! I just used it for the photo.

Products also used are WOC flowers, hobby house flowers SU taffeta ribbon and dotty scallop border punch.

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Distress Reinker Unit

After the success of the Distress Ink Pad shelf unit I made, I fancied having a go at making another unit to house my reinkers. I`ve only got 8 at the moment but they were precariously balance on the edge of a slim shelf on my desk and were forever falling over. It is my wish to collect all 48 eventually so I decided to make a unit that would house all 48 once I have them.... and this is what I came up with....

I hadn`t originally planned to put another unit on top for my distress markers but as I was building the unit I came up with more ideas so the unit evolved LOL!
I started by cutting 12 pieces of chipboard 11cm x 11cm

I then cut 24 top and bottom pieces measuring 4cm x 10.8cm and 24 side pieces measuring 4cm x 11cm - my poor fingers were sore after this as I could only cut them using scalpel and metal ruler!

Using the "Jim the Gentleman Crafter`s" Construction strip method I used for the ink pad shelf unit, I glued the top, bottom, side and back pieces together to create 12 open fronted boxes.

I used a scrap piece of cardstock to make a template for the holes I wanted to thread the dowels through to make sure I got each one in the right place and level on both sides, I did this with a crop-a-dile.

Then I glued 4 of the boxes together in a square making sure they were lined up as neatly as I could get them.

I repeated this three more times to make 3 shelves, each that would hold 4 sections to house 4 reinker bottles creating 48 spaces in total. Then covered the insides with Bazzil Basics Paper - Antique Script and coating them with a couple of layers of Claudine Helmuth Studios Multi Medium - Matte. Then stuck the three layers together one on top of the other.

I used wooden barbeque skewers for the little dowels, you can get them in a large pack from most garden centres and they are dirt cheap, I think this whole pack only cost me 99p!

Can you believe I didn`t have a lick of black paint anywhere in my house! so I resorted to squeezing a little StazOn reinker into a saucer and using a paintbrush to apply it to the skewers! my fingers were totally black at the end of it and the ink took a fair while to dry but the end result was great and as the ink is permanent they didn`t need varnishing afterwards and they dried to a nice matte finish. As luck would have it, the smallest hole punch in the crop-a-dile was exactly the same width as the skewers too!

I used the top notes die from Sizzix (available through Stampin` Up) to cut out 12 pelmet pieces for the top of each box, this looks decorative but also hides a multitude of sins as the areas where the shelves are glued together don`t look perfectly neat and I`m a neat freak so I had to hide that area! I just covered them in matching paper and inked the edges with black soot distress inks.
I also cut 4 long strips of chipboard and covered them in matching paper to hide the sides of the joined boxes and glued those in place. I used a combination of strong double sided sticky tape and glossy accents for the whole project. I know it`s an expensive way of using glossy accents as a glue but it is a very strong and permanent adhesive so it was worth the added cost.

The top section was made using the same construction strip method of combining 4 pieces of chipboard and then I put in the shelves using the same method I used for the shelves in the ink pad unit I made a few weeks back.
I made a collar underneath it so it slides into the top and can be removed. I hadn`t planned this in the original construction like I said, but when I glued the four pieces of each shelf together it left a handy storage void in the top which seemed a waste not to take advantage of, so this is what I did with it ...the top lifts out....

....And reveals the space underneath which I have stored the offending water colour jar in that caused me so much strife when it fell of my shelf a while back (read previous post to find out the ensuing destruction!) so it won`t fall off my desk and cause me such a headache in the future!

I just covered the inside in the same paper (I had a few scraps left from the rest of the unit) and varnished it with more of the multi matte.

The top part then can be turned upside down and I can put the jar inside it while I am water colouring and I can`t knock it over my desk (which I have done before now also!)

The final piece was to add a spinner to the bottom and I found a great company through ebay that provides swivel bearings all different sizes, no postage cost and it arrived the next day! how`s that for service so thank you to Engineers Mate Ltd.
This one is a 4" swivel bearing. I used brads and hot glue to fix it to another piece of chipboard and then I hot glued that to the bottom of the unit. The whole unit then got covered in a second layer of the Mulit Medium Matte just to seal it and ensure the covering paper wouldn`t lift and it would be hard wearing.

And that was the unit finished. I am very please with the outcome, as I said I haven`t got all the reinkers and markers yet so it can store my stickles and other little bottles of products for now but as and when I get more reinkers I can just slot them into place.

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Cheeky!

Here is another sample I did for Sir Stampalot with Bonny Tilda, coloured with distress inks and markers.
Other products used are Go Kreate die 6" pointy frame, Nesties hearts and scallop hearts, Cheery Lynn - Fanciful Flourish, Magnolia Papers - peaches and something old, Bo Bunny double dot ribbon, Hobby House flowers, stickles - icicle for the wings.

The arrow was created using one of the hands of the Marianne Clock die, I just snipped a bit off the ends and out of the middle which kind of works? not sure, but I didn`t have an arrow die or punch and all my attempts to hand cut one just looked awful so this was the next best thing (although I think Tilda`s aim is off a bit LOL).

......And after I handed it over to Janice at Sir Stampalot I realized that I haven`t grounded Tilda in this image so she`s kind of floating in mid air LOL ! but as Louise pointed out to me she does have wings so maybe she`s hovering! thanks Louise LOL !

I`d like to enter this into the Inky Chicks Challenge, this time around it`s Valentine or Anniversary card.

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx