few more

Here are the final 3 samples for Art Of Craft

This is the Merys stencil again, I couldnt resist playing with it.

Normally I dont like stencil embossed parchment as it often looks clunky but there was enough detail to this stencil to tempt me into getting the parch tools out. I've done nothing more than embossed the stencil then used a PCA bold flexi grid to make the grid. Instead of embossing dots on the grid I used the star tool, not one of my favourite embossing tools but I didnt want to over power it the image. Finally a PCA fine flexi grid to perferate the centre of 2 flowers. In my rush to play I forgot to rest my hand on some paper towel so the parch is a bit curvy at tho mo, but a couple of days between 2 books will allow it to lie flat.


This was the last of the new stencils, another of the Merys ones and again using papers from the Springtime book. Left blank for a 3d.







For this one I've used the same Pink stencil that I used for the shaker card but repeated the pattern to make a 5*7 card. I used pastel glimmer chalks to add a small touch of colour, papers from the spring book and distressed some Core'dinations paper after running it through a cuttlebug folder.

The 3d is from Marianne Design.

New toys

I was asked to make some samples for Art Of Craft in Farnborough using some new stencils from my favourite brand, Marianne Design. The only brief was to use papers from Springtime blocks from Crafts Too and to not worry about 3ds as they'll be added later.

Ooh, now this was a challenge, normally I look at the stencil, chose a 3d then work with the colours and shapes to decide on the finished card. I suppose in my imagination I was picturing where the 3d would be and what it would be like. It's going to be interesting to see if the cards end up how I pictured them or not.


This is a Merys stencil and I could have gone on making loads & loads of samples. I can just see the flowers being cut, 3d'd then used like Primas. Sorry Jane, I might "lose" this stencil and send you a cheque for it ;o)

I've left the side bare ready for a 3d but I visualise it more stamped with a phrase/poem of some sort.

This is another Merys stencil. I've made a 5cm square gatefold then cut away along the edges of the stencil and embroidered with pale pink & blue gutterman threads and edged everything with a silver peeloff tinted with pastel pink. I'm not sure what I envisaged for the 3d but I just loved the colours in the papers and felt the stencil was so nice it deserved to be used twice. Another one that is going to be lost lol.

This is a Pink stencil, the cat & mouse should be attached but they're so sweet I wanted them separate. I have used a couple of prima flowers but I'd be more inclined to use the merys flowers so I could match colours better.

This is another Pink stencil, very very simple to sew & cut but I think with a rub on poem it's going to look great.

Another Pink stencil but this time I've used it to create a frame, cut away the inner area and turned it into a shaker card. It doesnt really look that great as it stands but I can see a floral spray 3d in the bottom corner.

This is the last of the Pink stencils, I made a gatefold, folded the fronts back and embossed the outer edges before adding some chalk. I know the 3ds are being added later but I had a beautiful Mattie clematis 3d that I couldnt resist.

This is a Merys stencil but unlike the first 2 stencils it comes as a set of 3 graduated stencils. After being embossed & cut they fit inside each other to create a flower/frame.

To me this said waterlily and I couldnt resist 3d'ing the dragonfly from the backing paper.

Another Merys, this time tho I went for an all white look. I've used the same white pearly card for everything but have used a cuttlebug folder for the central image and a flourish stamp with silver Brilliance ink & holographic ep to create some texture. Add in a small doily & a ribbon bow and I've over the moon with this card.

I've still got another Merys stencil to use and I'm itching to have another play with one of the Pink stencils....

Making a mesh/trellis in paintshop pro.

I started off by opening a new image 8cm * 8cm with a transparent background. Then I set the grid at .5cm and the foreground colour as white with a black background.

Select the pen tool and change the line width to at least 6 (the higher the number the thicker the trellis will be and dont forget if it's too thin the card may not hold the cut), use the grid lines as a guide and draw a diamond. I chose to make a diamond 1cm wide and 2cm long. The size at this point doesnt really matter as long as you have the ratio (how long to how thin) as you want it.

Select the flood fill tool, then right click inside the diamond and outside. You'll now have a black image with the outline of the white diamond.

Zoom right in so you can see all 4 points clearly then select the crop tool. Very carefully crop the image so that you have no black areas showing at the very tips of the points. Because I wasn't to the nth precise when I drew the diamond I had to crop a smidge of white away.

Save this image as a jpg, I called mine single diamond.

Minimise this image and open a new image but this time make it 12*12 inch. (or 6*12 if you have the baby cricut)

Select the flood fill tool again then click the white foreground colour in your materials swatch. The materials properties box will open now click the pattern tab. The first 2 of the thumbnails should be your saved diamond and the image you are working on. Choose the single diamond and click ok.

Now left click anywhere on your new image and it will fill up with a trellis pattern.

If your trellis looks as though the holes will be too big undo the flood fill by going to edit then undo. Click back on the material swatch and change the scale. You can also play with the rotation if you want something a bit whacky. Once you're happy that the trellis is the right size save the image, I called mine trellis master. On it's own it isnt really any good for anything but it will make making trellis images a lot quicker in the future. I'll add another tutorial tomorrow on how to turn this into shaped trellis.

Belated happy new year.

A belated happy New Year to all. Thanks to the normal chaos of Xmas I havent posted in a while. If truth be told my mojo generally does a runner once I've finished the xmas cards and doesnt come back until all the xmas choccies & nuts are eaten. Sadly my mojo didnt get back in time to rescue the sample cards I had to make for my local craft shop :( These are using the new dcwv & papermania papers & Merys stencils from Marianne Design. My local shop hasnt a web site but I know http://www.art-of-craft.co.uk/ have them for sale.

It's my sons girlfriends birthday next week and she's totally nuts about Pandas so I went on a hunt for a sweet panda stamp and one of my mates on docrafts found this gorgeous Prima stamp for me. I used an old sketch from sketch saturday, my marth stewart doily punch, prima panda stamp, tapestry clear flourish stamp, cuttlebug swirl folder, small round nestie & 3 brads.