Picnic basket

This is the finished project that we're going to be making for the September playday.

Made from 2 sheets of a4 card and a few sheets of Dream Catcher paper from First Edition.

The basket is my own design, handle and lid edges using a Martha Stewart punch, various leaf & flourish dies from Marianne Designs, Cheery Lynn & Memory Box. The flowers are all made from scratch using the bitty blossom spiral dies from Spellbinders. I have to admit to being chuffed with how the flowers came out even if they did take an age to ink edges then fiddle with each petal to try and get a realistic shape. I've learnt my lesson about hot glue guns so stuck (no pun intended lol) with my trusty tombow.

Not sure about my colouring on the Tilda, no matter how often it's explained I still don't get where to put the shadows and I have a habit of going too dark in places. Joanna Sheens Elegance paper, copic e00s, v00s, rv10s, rv42, c's, Cut with one of the spellbinder label dies.

Thought I'd enter this one into the current Just Magnolia challenge, Anything Goes with the optional handmade flowers.

and, Dutch Dare Card Challenge who's theme this week is Anything But A Card.

another box

Last box with the doily die for a while, I cant face cleaning the bits from the floor lol.

Hard to see from the photo but this box is 8" by 6" by 7" and was made with 5 sheets af a4 card. I made it to hold a large selection of bath & body gels for my sons girlfriends birthday pressie.

If I'd remembered it was her birthday earlier I'd have lined it with mount/chipboard so it's not exactly sturdy. 4 doily strips, 4 of the smaller lacy "sqrs" which where cut and turned into corner decorations, a spellbinder motif die designed by Sue Wilson (sorry it's name elludes me at present) finished with 3 kort & godt roses tied with ribbon and placed into a beadcap. You can't tell from the photo but I hotglued 4 large pink crystal beads under neath to create a pretty version of the TH decorative box feet.

Doesnt look that great in the photo but in real life it turned a relatively inexpensive gift look quite pricey ;o)

Get me, I made this one at playday on Sunday!! Ok, wee bit of exaggeration there.. I had the card & base tag made already so just coloured and cut the image there ;o)

Papers are from a pretty naff docrafts pack, Marianne Design scroll die for the tag with some bronzy buff cream to highlight the embossed area. Marianne Design stamp that I've had a couple of years without inking. Not keen on my colouring, I didnt have any Elegance with me so used Staples paper and it's not the best. I dont overly get on with red copics either lol.


Ovals are fancy oval dies from Spellbinders and I used an old SU sentiment. Not a brilliant card, but will do for the neighbours that pop a card through the door first ;o)

splodgaway update

Not much in the way of oohs and ahhs I've found a new technique, or even that I've put it through its' paces yet :o( Ade's driving license is back so as soon as I've got the house back to rights (I dont do a lot of housework but 7 weeks of doing not much more than just keeping the kitchen useable..) I'll be able to spend the day with ink, cad and mat and see what I come up with.

But,

thought I'd let you all know how a couple of my friends got on playing with mine.

One friend (I love her to bits but she's not a gadget or gizmo addict and up til now thought a toaster bag quite sufficient as an ink mat..), well she isnt the bestest at inking edges but she had a quick go and within seconds had that impressed look on her face and said "sold"! I know I said I didn't think the mat would make anyone go from zero to hero but I have to admit I was secretly eating my words there.

Another of my buddies had a go, I'd say she's pretty much intermediate with inking and I wasn't expecting her to find the mat much better than she's used to but she immediately saw the benefit of having a finer coverage and admitted to occasionally having to go in heavy as a way of hiding pad marks.

Thumbs up from both of them :o)

bits and bobs

Yesterday was a rather quiet playday, half the usual suspects were either, poorly, knackered, on hols or working :o(

The theme was xmas in July and I found a stunning project for them on amazingpapergrace.com a gorgeous paper wreath using spellbinder dies.

Much mutterings from Ade about the mess I created in cutting out 24 doilys & 15 doily borders, a lot of glue and a bit of ribbon & flowers later I made the sample wreath for them all to see.





Talk about a waste of time, while I think it was favourably received everyone ended up colouring in images all day lol.

Ah well, I had fun making it ;O)






While the dies were out and I had Beccas page open I also cased a box she made and came up with this tissue box. Nowt more than a few sheets of card, bit of ink, cherry cobbler seam binding and a wooden snowflake. I have made another box using the dies as decoration but until the recipient receives it I cant show.

on my travels just to test the splodeaway mat

OK I sort of fibbed a bit.... but I do go out of my way to test things for my crafting buddies.

For Christmas I bought hubby a 2 day painting class with Charlie Evans and this weekend was finally time to drive all the way from Bristol to Morpeth (about 30 mins up past Newcastle Tracy).  I'll admit if I'd known Charlies studio was well over a 5hr drive away, Or, that I'd have to drive I think I'd have bought Ade something else and bought him a class when Charlie comes south to Cheddar.

Ah well, not to worry I had to drive it... bother, damnation and lots of rude words we had the journey from HELL!  Britain was under countless severe weather warning with risks of flooding in numerous places yesterday.  We set off at 11am and although it was raining it wasnt too bad until we got to Gloucester then the heavens opened and the water was just running over the road. Traffic was horrendous and the speed had to drop :o(  In many places I was lucky to see more than a few yards in front the car and had no hope of sitting in the outside lane driving at the speedlimit.   At times I was lucky to get up to 40mph.  Birmingham was worse than hell and I've lost count of how long we were stop start bumper to bumper never getting out of 1st gear.  We even had to pull in to a service station the other side as the engine was starting to overheat.  The weather didnt dry up until we were pretty much on the A1M and at the top end of Yorkshire.  Even then the mist and fog was horrible and we saw nothing of the scenery, I did get a quick peep at the Angel of the North tho :o)

Got up to Acklington, first Inn was fully booked (had had a disagreement with Ade on the way up as I wanted to book a premier inn... beds are comfy and they've generally got a decent wifi lol), decided to go with a nice looking hotel but the rooms were pretty pokey and the wifi didnt work! OMG I was literally on the point of tears, by now it's 9.30/10pm, we're in the middle of nowhere (I'm a townie) no way on this earth can I go 48 hours with out internet access.  Ok, it's mainly facebook games but I did need to check in with a few friends at Docrafts and get an address for a craft shop I only know is "about 40 mins from Newcastle and worth visiting"  I didnt even know it's name.  Major hissy fit, and we left the hotel and ended up at a much nicer one, Warkworth House Hotel.  I felt like I could have done with a step to get in the bed, and best of all I have wifi :o)

This morning I dropped Ade off at Charlies and plumbed in the postcode, eek, another 90 min or so journey.  So not what I needed after yesterdays nearly 10 hours at the wheel and all the time I'm thinking about my 3 selfish mates who were on their way to a class with Barbara Grey at Newbury (I could have been with them if it werent for this stupid painting class!!) Off I toddled to the craft shop I'd been told was good and just by coincidence is the home of a new craft gizmo that needs some testing...

Going to paste from my post on the docrafts forum, so apologies if you''ve already read it there.

Had a lovely few hours and several cups of tea at Suzicrafts, home to the splodgeaway mat, today.  Well worth a visit if you're Stockon on Tees way, took about 90 mins from just north of Morpeth.  Nice stock, very well priced and the staff are very friendly.  Nice big table that you can sit and craft away the hours which today had huge piles of mats being packaged by hand but I still got my rather large posterior on a chair and would have been happy to spend time getting inky.

Didnt get a lot of play with the mat so this is just initial thoughts and I need a lot of testing before I tell everyone to go out and buy/avoid.

The mat is weird, totally not what I was expecting.  Feels shiny to touch but the tool doesnt glide on it when  ink free.  Fairly sturdy so doesnt ruche at edges.     I'll admit to being dubious about the claims of it saving ink but in use it does seem to only need a small smear of ink.  I'll compare 2 new sponges with a dark ink when I get chance to see if the foam stays cleaner on one before saying for definite but leaning towards the claim being genuine. The mat isnt heatproof so no sticking a hot cuppa on it, or using it underneath a heat tool.  Wet wipes null the surface so it needs to be cleaned with a few drops of water and some loo/kitchen paper. 

Needs a tiny smear of ink, far less than the demos on tv, ink gets rubbed into the mat with the blending tool before you start inking the edges of the card.  Coverage was good and a young lady by the name of Hannah (who was visiting and having a play)was inking card like a pro, not bad for someone 7years old.  IMHO if you rival Sir Tim using a normal craftmat and a blending tool you arent going to see much a benefit for just inking the edges of a card.  If you're heavy handed or prone to stripes/corner marks it could very well help.  Not a miracle tool that gets you from zero to hero in a flash, but I can see it helping a lot of people.

Dont think it's just a tool for those who want to blend ink around the edges of card, there are other inky uses for it.  I need to have a good play with some of the splatter techniques but there's a large difference to the "ink on mat add a few spots of water" on a traditional craft mat.  With traditional the card will pick up all the ink and give a lighter spotty effect where the water has been dripped, with the splodeaway you only get ink where the water has dropped, not a full coverage.  I think there's going to be some new techniques found with the mat but I need a few days away from driving the pig around to have a good play.  Not going to swear to that but..

One technique that Tom did show me was using the mat as a brayering aid.  Add tiny amount of ink to the brayer then roll the brayer over the mat in a sort of random way.  Ink coverage on the brayer became super fine and there was no need to roll the brayer over scrap paper to get rid of excess ink.  Once inked there was less of a harsh edge/stripe on plain card (not so good with coated) and what there was was instantly blended away.  The brayer was being reloaded with ink straight from the mat.  I was horrified while Tom was brayering..  card straight on top of the inky mat and he looked like he was painting a garden  wall!!  Card stayed pretty clean underneath (that sold me pretty much on it's own!)  and with no delicate flicking of the brayer but he had a better coverage than I've seen from some of the quite experienced brayer users.   Again I dont think the tool is a miracle but it might help those that struggle to load a brayer properly or end up with stripes.

All in all I was quite impressed.  I'm not saying (yet) to replace the craft mats with it but if someone hasnt got a craftmat and doesnt want to use heat with it then good place to start.  

Will post a much more indepth review when I've had chance to test it thoroughly.  I had brought inks, stamps and card with me intending to do that this afternoon but they were too chatty and before I knew it the day was over Ooops lol

new stamp

I havent bought a new Tilda for a very long time but this one just jumped off the shelf screaming my name.  Many a time I've had to come home from the beach with sopping wet skirts because I couldnt resist paddling in the waves or reaching in for yet another shell.  Mum is exactly the same so as long as I remember where I put it that's who the card is for.

Papers are Authentique, "Gathering" and are a totally not me colour but they lent themselves to a seasidey theme.  Layout is from Sketch Saturday

Copics to colour Tilda were just various oranges and I scribbled the sky & sea with b0s & bg0s with no attempt to blend them "properly"  The hair is my favourite, E71, 74, 77 & 79 and the shell e20s.

Flowers are from Wild Orchid, frondy diecuts from Marianne Designs, sentiment is a mix of SU and a Whimsy ticket.  SU orange card, payper box burgundy card and the lace from Ribbon Box.  Thanks to Tracy for the pearl trim.. came in dead handy.


It wasnt until I had the card photoed and on the blog that I realised I havent got the oval placed quite straight, oops lol.

A few recent cards

This is a card I made for a good friends birthday.  I wanted to play around with dies rather than using a stamped image as the focus.

It looks quite simple but surprising amount of work,

base cream card embossed with swiss dots embossing folder.

Gold pearl card cut and embossed in a Sue Wilson design spellbinders die edged with black soot distress ink.  Stamped sentiment cut with labels 4.

Black flourish die from Cheery Lynn.

The poppys are my own design cut from red canson Mi'Tientes cherry red paper, inked with black soot before being sprayed with lava red cosmic shimmer mist and a hint of of mango blaze.  3 were layered with black cuttlebug snowflake dies scrunched up to form the centre.  The other three were wound around diamante pins before being shaped.  Leone Em fronds punched from gold card to hide the pins.  And finally in the corner 3 faux pearls using cosmic shimmer gold pearl pva glue.

 

I was so pleased with Jackies card I decided to make one similar for another friend from Playdays, Lorrs.

This time I went with a patchwork embossing folder from docrafts on pearl card which has been distressed with frayed burlap ink.

I used a spellbinders pendant die, scalloped circle nesties, circle nesties and a sentiment from SU.

Again the cheery lyn flourish die.
The flowers are my own pinwheel design cut in various sizes and inked with several yellow & red distress inks.  Sadly I was in a rush so photoed the card while flat and in the box.

A bit of a break from flower cards, this is one I made for my friend Sandra.  I often use Anya stamps for my playday friends and decided I wanted blues & greens so went with my faber & Castell watercolour pencils.  Sandra's very much into distress so I went with papers from either Bo Bunny or paper cellar.  Wild wasabi & baja breeze cardstock all distressed with frayed burlap ink.  Sentiment from SU, cut with labels 4.  Black taffeta ribbon and a few gems.  With hindsight I'd have used copics to colour in the Anya image but by the time I'd decided that the card was already finished and the image stuck.

Huge apologies for yet another bloomin variation on the poppy card, if you think you're bored with them I'm even more bored lol.  Hubby loved the poppys so much I've had to make an identical one for his dads 80th birthday and today I've had to make one for our friend Daves birthday.

Dave is hugely patriotic and has many many England flags around his house.  For those overseas the English flag is white with a red cross and our national flower is a tudor rose.  So for Daves card I had to go with red and white and I drew a tudor rose for scal.  You can't see if from the picture but I went with a SU lattice folder which looks like basket weave from one side but the side I have facing is lots of tiny crosses.  Real red SU ink & card and white card from Annamarie.

May playday projects

The next playday is May 13th and we're making postit note/memo holders which are based on a project in the last Magnolia Tilda magazine.

The first is my take on a remembered view of Sandras mag, without the sizes used I went with 12" * 8.5" so that I could use 5" strips to fit the martha stewart patp on the inner box as well as the outer frame.  Once I saw the mag again I realised I should have gone down a size on each dimension and made the inner box smaller.  Not to worry I enjoyed making the first so much I made a 2nd while at the Yeovil playday.

Concord crush ink, pebbles papers (I think), tilda stamps and wild wasabi and concord crush cardstock.  Marianne flourish die, martha stewart punch around the page, eyelets and flowers from Wild Orchid.

This time papers are from BoBunny, early espresso & very vanilla cardstock, frayed burlap distress ink, memory box flourish die, flowers again from Wild Orchid and an Anya image.  Both images were coloured with copics.

Bday card for Dad

Not sure if anyone can rember the saga of Dad looking and reading last years birthday card around the wrong way or not... but I haven't ;o)

So this year I wasn't going to spend the same amount of time stamping and colouring images so I thought I'd go for something a bit less me.

Voila, nowt but some inked edged card, my new spellbinder die, martha stewart punch, SU embossing folder & cstock, ribbon, cosmic shimmer pearly glue to make some faux pearls (loving this glue and need more colours) and a stamped sentiment. 

I have used the sketch from Sketch & Stash blog for inspiration.

Fleeting visit from my mojo.

My mojo has paid me a very brief visit no doubt encouraged by the whip master known as last minute desperation lol.

Not amused to find my first visit back to blogger in nearly 5months and the settings are all new... eeek not even sure if this is going to post.

This project was made for one of my facebook friends to give to her best friend since childhood.  Now I couldn't make anything less than I'd like to give to a friend I've grown up with since playschool. (Cass, you still aren't forgiven for sneaking off to the registry office and telling no one) Voila one bookcard, always impressive to look at but not so challenging that the returning mojo is going to take one look at and upsticks ;o)

Sadly it arrived in Sweden a couple of days too late for the wedding but Sara seemed happy enough with it.

Martha Stewart patp, retired SU papers, SU card pretty in pink & concord crush. SU taffeta ribbon in pretty in pink. Wild Orchid flowers, Cheery Lyn die (it hates my bigshot and cuttlebugs) Tilda and Edwin coloured with copics.

I made a small vellum envie to hold a money gift but it's only loosely held in place with the flowers so that the Bride & Groom can place a photo if they'd like to.