birthday cards

There is a downside to making cards so far in advance.. you have to schedule the post for months in advance otherwise risk your online buddies seeing them.

 Brushos with sheenas poppy stamps, technique tuesday flourishes, kaiser craft script stamp

It's hammering down & the wind is howling so I had to put the daylight lamp directly over this one.  Irl the colours are a lot more vivid.

Visible Images butterfly, sprinkled with purple & turquoise brushos, misted with perfect pearls then stamped onto white card.  Background made with the round TH applicator tool, seedless preserves & peacock feathers distress ink.

 Visible image head stamped in black archival.  Sprinkled with dark brown, orange, crimson brushos, misted then blown around with the marker spritzer tool. 

Designs by Ryn hibiscus stamp set, stamped & embossed with gold onto ice white stardream card.  Watercoloured using either brusho or reinker, havent a clue which is which in my palette now lol.  Memory box butterfly die to hide a drop of red ink ;o)

couple more made months ago

Nowt but white card & archival black ink. Technique tuesday flourishes, hotp bubbles and a panda stamp I can't remember, I want to say making memories but I don't think it is.

Circle nesties cut out of acetate & used as a stencil.  SU inks, unknown butterfly stamp.  First edition papers.

Adirondack inks applied with inkduster, lavinia stamps.

bday cards for playday ladies

 Another scheduled post, at the time of writing this I'm now 6 months ahead of myself for cards for my playday friends.  Woohoo, get me all organised for once lol.  Nb, this never posted and Idon't know why :(


This one is for Angie, she really likes purple. inkylicious face stamp, on brushoed & distressed, & mica misted background with butterfly punches using mop up pieces.

Very simple masked strip of colour, pine needles, peacock feathers & pistashio distress ink.  IndigoBlu stamp from wild meadows set.

Another brushoed background with distress inked edges.  Lavinia stamps which have either been painted with brusho or sponged with distress inks.  I didn't quite get the steps & door lined up perfectly but I wasn't too worried about it.

You can't get much more simple than this one.. a single stamp from Lavinia Stamps, on a white panel of card that's had lilac, pistachio & raspberry distress ink blended across.  Seed heads painted with blue & purple brusho.  Mounted onto layers of black & white card stock & a simple sentiment at the base.

Oyster came to playday

Oysterstamps came to playday in June and brought the wonderful Barbara Nicholson who ran a one day workshop for us.  Fab fab day & we can't wait to do it again.

This is my project from the day.  Lots of prima mediums on a canvas board, shells, sprays, micas & micro beads.  Pic is from about 6 years ago of me & hubby on holiday in Tunisia, one of the shells I used came from that holiday, the others are ones I've picked up on beaches in the uk.

Augusts playday project

This months project is inspired by a pin I found which led me to shabbychicinspired blog where she made a fab matchbox cabinet using a cigar box and blank matchboxes.  I had neither and didn't really want to spend the money on buying them so a fair bit of cutting then scoring with hougie, lots of dst, glue & gummed tape 12 sheets of card became a 6 * 6 column & row block of matchboxes. 1 sheet of a3 mountboard became the cigar box and 2 sheets of cream card got stamped on & cut out, 2 sheets of black card got diecut, trimmed & shaped and 43 beads got glued on.  The girls are quaking in their boots at the thought of this one and I've got a feeling only 1 or 2 are going to be brave enough to attempt it ;o)

scheduled cards

 I'm scheduling this post before I forget and share cards made for friends who's birthdays are in April & May.

This one is a brusho marbled background, jofy stamps.  The flowers are on it's a boy papers from first edition & are mounted on foam to give some height.

 This is the freebie rose stamp that came with one of the mags last month.  It's embossed in white ink & carefully coloured with copics.  More first edition papers & some lace, this is one of those cards that I was really pleased with.

Stampinup inks, bokah'd through my own stencil.  Rubbernecker 3 step stamp.

It's dads birthday in May and if I'm honest the card is more for mums benefit than his because he can't even be arsed to put his glasses on to see them.

Real heinz57 of stamps with this one.
Docraft golfer, had it years.
sentiment is a 99p hobbycraft one
Branch on the left is clarity
tree on the right is lavinia
bush below is a sheena daisy repeated over & over
and dimension fourth grass stamp.
All distress inks, the golfer is stamped onto watercolour paper, coloured with distress markers then cut out carefully.

2 quick & easys

One day I'll go on a photography course as the colours of these 2 is nothing like the real life colours.  The background on this one is a lot softer but brighter irl & you can see more depth to the petals.

This one is using a rubbernecker poppy stamp, stamped in abandoned coral distress ink onto a lemon & scarlet brusho background.  I then use copics in r24, 27, 29 & yr00 & 02 to add some depth.  Masked then splattered with persimmon, festive berries & more coral distress ink.

This one is deep purple & bright turquoise in real life.

Dusty Concord & mermaid lagoon distress ink applied with ink dusters over postit note masks.  Once ready I misted the dusters with water and dragged across to create some movement in the water.  I also dipped a clean inkduster into some white acrylic mixed with pearlescent tinting medium and flicked against the card to create white wave edges. 

Inkylicous boat & reed stamps, dimension fourth branch, chocolate baroque clouds.

this months craft stamper freebie

I really can't remember ever using the free cover stamp from Craft Stamper but this one from Visible Image was calling out to be turned into a frame.  Never a good idea to start crafting late at night when I had been on my way to bed and frames should really be mapped out first but.. it was late and I couldn't be bothered to mess about with rulers & pencils so just took a piece of 5 1/2" square white card, a hydrangea multi coloured ink pad and went by eye.  No measuring, no checking that it would fit just straight in plonk!  Thankfully my eye might have been tired but for once it had the spacing right as all I had to do was trim 1mm away from one edge.  The square isnt square, it's a bit on the squint but chances are even if I'd messed about with rulers & set square it still would have been lol.  Once finished I added the sentiment in the middle and went around adding teeny drops of liquid glass & glamour dust.   irl the light is catching the glamour dust and the whole card sparkles.  I am seriously considering redoing the sentiment on a plain white square of card, will see what it looks like when Grandson has been, destroyed and gone ;o)

Indigoblu challenge blog

The theme at Indigoblu this month is off the edge, I went with the Peony Corner stamp and stamped it over the edge of a rectangular panel with versamark & embossed with white stampinup powder.  A light wash of crimson & lemon brusho over the main panel before water colouring with barn door distress marker, and a peach stampinup one around the edges of the fronds. 

Sentiment in black, and a white spellbinder diecut with organza bow in the corner.

Lavinia monthly challenge

This month the theme at the Lavinia challenge blog is lemon & lime.  I stamped the pods & reeds in archival black, masked with a large circle of paper and used 2 green & 2 lemon stampinup inks with inkdusters to create a blended background.  When I removed the mask the white circle was a bit too stark so I added a small amount of saffron ink on a duster to just knock the brightness back.  A simple black layer & sentiment and one finished card.  In real life the colours are quite bright.

new visible image stamps

We had a bit of a disasterous ladies wot behaves disgracefully in craftshops then lunches day last week, lunches didn't happen and nor did the cream teas we'd planned :o(  we didnt even act that disgracefully at the 2 craft shops we visited.  I did manage to buy a few new stamps from Visible Images though and I had a bit of a playaround with them.

The butterfly was dusted with dry violet & turquoise brushos before misting with biscotti perfect pearls and stamped straight on to white card.  The background uses the same brushos & pearls but was done using clingfilm to create the pattern.  8*8 card blank from Joanna Sheen, Spellbinders border & circle die, memory box butterfly die.  A few gems & black stardream card.  Layout is from Sketch Saturday

new toy to play with

This purchase has been on the cards for ages... a bigshot plus, woohoo, I hope.  Sort of long winded review coming your way, going to start off with some background as to where I come from when it comes to diecutters.  Skip down to the photo if you can't be bothered to read some waffle lol..

Those who know me know I have a bit of a mania for testing new products and they also know how incredibly picky I am about tools (& food in restaurants).  I expect things to be perfect if I'm paying good money for them and there's nearly always something I wish was better/different.  One of my big "things" is diecutters, bit weird really seeing as I don't use a lot of diecuts in my crafting but since the very first day the sizzix pull down machine was launched I've followed machines & die talk almost to a point of mania.  Now I never bought the original lever sizzix or the hand held plier style Squeezethat came out soon after.  Not because I didn't rate the machines but because the dies out at the time were either seriously naff or just something that wouldn't fit in with my style of crafting.  Fast forward a couple of years, maybe even 5 or 6 and Spellbinders launched not just their Wizard machine but their dies.  Wafer thin & capable of embossing, starting to get a bit more "me" so I hmmed & hahhed about whether it was worth getting a machine or was I just going to have another cutting tool sat on the side not being used (remember coluzzle anyone?  Or the lighthouse cutting system.. or those 2 lads at the shows with the circle with hole thingy that used normal razor blades?  Yep, I bought em too & they live in my loft as well).  I'd kept up my investigation of dies always knowing really that one day I'd have a machine but it was more when it was right for me.  Forget all all about the little sizzix sidekick & dies sat in the cupboard.. it came free with a mag subscription so we wont really talk about that other than to say I didn't use it because the dies werent my style.

When I bought my first machine there were 3 or 4 out there, diecutting was really just starting to come into it's fore and the shops were all competing for our cash.  Out of the 4 only 3 were really a possible because the Revolution couldn't use the chunky sizzix dies, the dies at the time might not have been to my taste but I could see that changing as it became not just an add on for scrapbookers in the US so I wasn't going to limit myself straight off the bat.  From the other 3 machines, Wizard, Bigshot & the Cuttlebug I immediately discounted the bug... why.. within months there were reports of breakage at the slightest hint of mistreatment and I know how hard I am on machines.  With that one out & it left between the wizard & the bigshot I went for the wizard, why?  purely because it was all metal and it'd take a hell of a lot for me to break it.. near on impossible really.  I will say I got on straight away with the wizard, the rolling the bar over and ratchet handle suited me down to the ground.  Allegedly it also had more cutting force than the bigshot but I can't say as I've ever noticed. What I did notice though was a small strip down the middle that lost pressure.. sound familiar?  Yep every diecutter going has a loss of pressure in the middle.  It's one of those real irritants these days but back then it wasnt such a biggie because the dies weren't as detailed and it didn't really notice.  Fast forward a couple of years & Spellbinders have got rid of the wizard and I can no longer buy the spacer plate needed to cut wafer thin dies so time to look at machines.  This time I went for the bigshot, with the benefit of hindsight I should really have bought it from the start but at the time of getting the wizard there was no real indication that the bigshot was going to be so well made that 10 years or more later I'd still have only heard of a handful or 2 breaking, or that Sizzix would have such good customer service (they've sent out free parts to everyone who asked).  I have to say my bigshot has been my go to machine & a real work horse.  I've abused it in the most hideous ways, shimming with mountboard on more than a few occasions when I die has had me at screaming point and it's been the only one of my machines I've trusted enough to take to playdays for other ladies to use.

Fast forward on a year or so from buying the bigshot and I decided I needed an a4 machine, at the time there wasn't an awful lot of choice, the Joy Trouvaille, The Happy Cut (which is virtually the joy under another name) and the grand calibur.  Now I knew there were quality issues with the machines when I bought but Spellbinders have a fantastic reputation so I decided to go with the Grand Calibur knowing that if it broke they'd replace the parts foc.  As it is the machine hasn't ever broken but in all fairness I was annoyed by it pretty much from the start so it got very little use.  Dies didn't cut any better than they did in the bigshot, the large suction base was bloody useless and I had to either chase it around the table or pin it down as I rolled the plates through.  I didn't like having to hold the plates to feed in either, I much prefer the bigshots feed tray which lets me make the sarnie in situ and nudge it in when I'm ready to roll.  One waste of money and it got next to no use, I couldn't trust it at playday so it sat at the back of the playroom and was only ever reached for when I needed to emboss an a4 folder.  Why oh why then did I decide to buy an ebosser??  Might have been because I know a couple of ladies who have and love theirs.  It arrived not long after the release & I have to admit the cutting side of it was good, it still didn't like all dies but it did cut better than the calibur.  On the downside and this was a huge one for me... it took 17 seconds for the plates to feed through.  That doesnt sound like a lot but I'm always eager to get on with the making of the card (which is why my stamps are left dirty & my dies nearly always have waste left in them) so it was a mild irritant to start with.  Now factor  the really evil dies that takes half a dozen plus roll throughs turning each time & resorting to mountboard.  With the bigshot I can whip it in, reverse it backwards & forwards half a dozen times before it would have gone through the ebosser once, fiddling about for what could have been four or five minutes would have had me seeing red, swearing profusely and possibly aiming the machine out of the window so it's hardly a surprise that it sat on the shelf pretty much untouched until a couple of weeks ago when I sold it.  It didn't help either that the plates for the machine were incredibly heavy and a long cutting session would have really hurt where I broke my scaphoid bone a few years back.  Dont get me wrong on this description of the ebosser, it didn't suit me but I know a lot of ladies now who love theirs.  As with a lot of gadgets & gizmos what suits one is the very thing that someone else hates about it.  Now I was sitting here with 2 a4 machines I didn't use and cursing myself for not getting a bigshot pro instead.  With the benefit of hindsight again that's probably what I should have done but getting back to reality I still didn't buy the pro, not because I didn't want one but because it's a huge beastie of a machine.  It takes 12" wide dies and it's so big and heavy it needs it's own permanent ready to use at home.  My playroom is reasonably well sized but it's packed with stash, if I did have one I'd have to sacrifice the top of the 2 paper cabinets & a butchers trolly which is where I've always stood to use the guillotine as well as a flat space where my tower of card to put away one day starts to develop.  Factor that in with a £200/300 bill for a machine that I don't really need and the justification for buying one gets outweighed.  Specially as I also have a cricut expressions (12" machine) which is used exclusively with SCAL and a craftrobo (a4) that lives in the junk cupboard where one day hopefully the dust bunnies will choke it to death.  I do have a couple of friends who at odd times try to egg me on into the purchase but I have sensible head on lately.

Sensible head got kicked to the kerb in January though.. Sizzix announced a new a4 bigshot, woohoo.  Half the price of the pro and it doesnt need quite as much room.. double woohoo.  and then I read it's got some fancy new metal roller system designed to eliminate pressure loss in the middle of the plate.  OMG, I have to get me one of those bad boys, one day.  Well one day arrived sooner than I thought.. as in a few weeks later.. can't wait, I know it's not released yet but sod it.. bye bye calibur & ebosser, time to get in the car, head off to Farnborough to the makeit show and hand over a few folded notes to Oysterstamps then wait til the slow boat from the US arrives and it gets sent out to me.  I did try to pull a fast one & nag Tracey into letting me have their demo machine but she wasnt having any of it lol.  Anyways have wrote this monologue before the machine gets here so hopefully the next sentence will read.. guess what arrived today lol

Well it did arrive today but the twerps at ukmail should have delivered it on Friday, lies & excuses when I rang them yesterday (monday) when it still wasnt here by 4.  Thanks to middle daughter dropping my grandson off at lunchtime I havent had more than a cursory play with it so this will be initial thoughts and I'll do a better review when Nate has gone home & I've had a full days play.

When I saw the machine at the NEC show last Saturday my first thought was wow, that's a whopper and instantly sort of worried where I'd put it.. this is after buying a 42" trimmer last month not realising 42" is as large as it is lol.  Once out the box, handle screwed on and it was ready to play.  In the interest of fairness I went and got baby bs and lined them up side by side and actually it's not hugely larger.  What is massively larger is the cutting plate.  It's 9" wide and about 15" long!  No problems getting a full a4 on that one and there's room to spare.  Yes it's a heavier machine & I wouldnt want to take it out & about to crops but I can carry the machine in one hand without too much trouble, wouldnt want to walk a mile carrying it but I'd so all I could to avoid walking a mile anyway ;o)  It's definitely light enough to bring downstairs if I want to craft in the kitchen or move around the playroom.

Editing to add in: Footspace on the desk is 16" by 12", the handle does come out another 4".  The machine needs 7 1/2" of clearance space either end to allow the plates to be ran through at full extension. 

One thing to note about the bigshot plus is its new roller, it's not a single true cyclinder it's made up of several different thicknesses with the fattest in the middle, there's only a fraction of a mm between them and it's to cure the problem of a machine having more pressure on the sides.  In practise this does work, using an a4 swiss dots type embossing folder I had perfectly even embossing over the entire a4 page.  My calibur did lose pressure in the middle but it wasnt bad enough that I never used it but my ebosser had a huge stripe where there was next to no pressure in the middle and the embossing wasnt useable.  One thing to point out is the new crafts too a4 embossing folders are a lot thicker than normal embossing folders.  If I'd used the correct sarnie I'd be pretty sure the top plate would have snapped.  The one that worked for me was, platform, adapter A (not b) and ONE cutting plate not 2.

The thing a lot of people are asking about is its cutting ability.  I havent had chance to really get it working but I did try a few dies. The baby bigshot mpp & plates do work in the plus and it did cut better in it than it did in the baby. This was just one quick test, I'll try to do more to confirm it.  I will say it's harder to turn the handle on the plus than it is the baby, I also found it harder to feed the sarnie in the first couple of times.  Whether that's the plates being a smidge thicker or the plus having more pressure or just that I'd loosened the baby I don't know. 

My most evil die.. arianna lace.  Normally I'd use mountboard to shim it and struggle to get it through the baby bs, admittedly that is with thick card tho but even with 160gsm I usually have to put it through, rotate & add a couple of spot shims.  I didn't even attempt it in the calibur or ebosser.  In the bigshot plus, in the middle of the plate and with 220gsm pearl it took going forward & reversing back twice to get a totally clean cut.

2nd most evil die is my frosty memory box edge die, that's another than needs a lot of shimming.  On the same pearl card it cut through first time when placed down the edge of the plates and when placed at an angle in the middle.  When placed across the plate it was very patchy, hardly surprising as straight edged dies should never be placed parellel to rollers because when they roll over them they jump slightly, bit like bumping the car over a kerb instead of gliding over a dropped kerb.  Had to try it tho to see.

3rd most evil is a dangling from a bow snowflake from memory box, another I normally shim, cut through the 220gsm pearl with ease.


Overall I'm very pleased with my new toy, the question though is will I still be happy after giving it a good run through, I hope so.

more bleeding tissue

Had another play with bleeding tissue technique last night.  I used white tissue, diecut with a very old sizzlet die. 

Dampened onto white card and used a mixture or red, brown & green brushos to bleed the colour through.

Aged with some antique linen distress ink, sheena sentiment stamp in sepia archival.  All matted onto a deep burgundy pearl card.









The 3 leaves on the right were diecut from a sheet of paper I'd clingfilmed with brushos & perfect pearls before coating with glossy accents.

nec yesterday

Hubby had an appointment in Leicester yesterday so what's a girl supposed to do when it happens to be the same weekend as the nec craftshow and he's literally passing the door?  Yep, you cadge a lift and go say hello to a few friends.

Must say I was gobsmacked at how crap the show was, far far less than half the stands at the November shows but the robbing gits still charge the same price.  I'd have been seriously pissy if I'd had to shell out over £20 just to walk through the doors.

Anyway had a fab time seeing my friends from Oysterstamps, managed to buy a few goodies and got to "demonstrate" "my" new bigshot plus... mine should have been delivered Friday but some stupid idiots crashed their car, lorry & bike on a major road which backed up traffic so badly ukmail rescheduled til Monday.. gawd help them if they don't arrive!!  As soon as it arrives I will disappear into the playroom and test it on plenty of my evil dies & have some fun before giving a review.  Don't expect to see me around much once it's here lol.  We wont mention the horrendous accident on the m4 in the morning and how it was still causing problems on the way home.. an hour between junctions 7 to 8 then had to divert towards Malvern and either stay with the motorway traffic which was nose to bumper for miles or head towards Monmouth & come home via Cardiff & the severn bridge.. A 2hr journey took 4 1/2hrs!

Anyways one of the playday rules is if you attend a craftshow you have to make something with items bought from the show before the next playday.  Thanks to having some brusho backgrounds ready here's TWO I've made.

 Shamelessly cased from one of Andys dt cards for Oysterstamps.  Designs by Ryn fish stamp painted with brushos on Langton wc paper, MemoryBox splashes in puddles die with brusho & rock salt background.  Coloured card from stampinup.

Don't think I could have made this one any gloomier than I did lol but it will come in handy one day.

Banksy style girl & balloon stamp from inkylicious on coated semi gloss card dragged through black brusho. 

I forgot the card had a slippery surface and very quickly had to wipe the black archival skid across the page marks off before restamping using the fiskars stamp press.  Seriously glad I bought that bit of kit a few years back.

storage

One question often asked in papercrafts is how to store things.  I've tried all sorts over the years and this is what works for me.  All made from mountboard & gummed tape.

 I have about 8 of these, for 6*6 and 8*8 pads.  This is an 8*8 size.  Considering it's only held together with gummed tape it will hold it's own weight when filled full.

 Similar size to my 8*8 boxes, just made wider so I can fit 2 lots of a6 folders side by side.  Was no more difficult to make, just 2 extra pieces to tape into place.

 This took a lot of work, a large box bought at homesense, filled with folded & glued pigeon holes then painted.  The drawers hold a full set of distress markers and there's a row onto where I can fit stickles and reinkers.

  T

 My ribbon box from a few posts back.

Stamp storage. filled with not quite a5 pieces of single sided laminate inside cheap self grip poly bags.  If I'd used avery elle & muji boxes I'd have had to pay out several hundred quid.. this cost me less than a tenner and holds at present over 400 sheets (there are a few more boxes to the side) with room for at least another couple of hundred.  Where I have stamps with matching dies I've added a strip of magnet to the back and the dies are in the pocket with the stamps.

2 in 1 day

Well it's 3 in one day really as this is the 3rd card made today. 

Bleeding tissue technique with reinkers & white tissue.  Lavina flower stamp, su sentiment and a bit of su ribbon.  Flower petals were painted with the same inks before being coloured with glamour dust. 

 Dead simples to look at but a bugger to do thanks to bending the stamp down as much as I did.. took 3 times to stamp it properly and that's really not like me.










This is one done late on Monday night,  Inkylicious stamps, su inks & inkdusters.  irl the colours are very loveheart pastel & delicate.

jinxed or what

These are 2 cards made with the same cardstock, same colours & same layout from Sketch Saturday challenge blog but talk about jinxed.  These have been on & off of other layers more than a couple of times.  Still not happy with either but hey ho.

Next month at playday we're running through bleeding tissue technique so I came up with this one as a sample, will also do as daughters bday card in June.

Unlike other bleeding tissue techniques I use plain white wrapping tissue and add colour with brushos & reinkers.  It works for me and gives me more control over which shades & how much I let it bleed.  One thing I have found is be careful if diecutting fancy shapes, it's really difficult to seperate the layers and if you have more than 1 layer of tissue the colour wont bleed through.
Spellbinder dies, jofy stamp, cheapie font stamps from woodware & a sentiment that came free with something years ago.  Crystal glitter glue.

Same inks (stampinup) as before but from pads rather than reinkers.  Blended over a strip of white using ink dusters.  The stamp is from one of IndigoBlus meadow sets.  Mounted onto black which has been punched with scalloped scallop.

I had meant to stick the panel slightly higher but too late so the sentiment is now a bit too high.  What you can't see in the pic is that this panel is now mounted on soo many layers it feels more like mountboard, see I said it was jinxed lol.

Same crystal stickles glitter glue over coloured black circles, irl crystal goes a deep bottle green when over black and is quite irridescent.

Ade's birthday today

It's Ade's birthday today & Tyria & I bought him a selection of pan pastels.  He's looked at them before but they were a tad too expensive for his taste.. well a local craft shop is closing & they were all half price so we grabbed some quickly.

They didn't look much so I made a box to put them in.  Nowt but grey board & gummed tape.  The lid lifts off and the front drops down to allow easy access to 6 trays I made to hold the pastels.


In real life this looks like antique burgundy leather.  Lots of diecuts & texture paste, painted many colours then covered with brown paint & inka golds.  The whole thing is sealed with some of Primas new Art Basics gel medium which has given it a soft subtle shine.

new lavinia stamps

I popped up to Farnborough for the MakeIt show last Sunday and picked up this stamp from Lavinia.  I must have liked it so much I accidentally bought a second when we went back just before leaving.  Typical as I'd just been crowing to Tracy that I never duplicated stamps lol.  She's as big a fan as me so she gracefully took it off my hands.

This is the card I came up with from it's first outing.

Ultra marine blue & lemon brushos, sprinkled & sprayed onto white card.  Stamped with black archival when dry then I used a paint brush & some domestos to bleach out the leaf tips.  They do say to use el cheapo thin bleach but the card isnt suitable for water really and it would have pilled if I'd had to do more than one coat, not only that domestos takes the colour out pretty much instantly ;o)

Once the bleach was totally dry I went in with some glamour dust and added just a hint to the very tips of the leaves and used a cluster of star stamps from lavinia randomly around the page and added a very small gem to the centre of the larger stars.

The theme on the Lavinia Challenge blog is to add some gems so I shall enter this one.

couple of cards

 It's hubbys birthday in a couple of days time & he loves tone on tone so with that in mind & a new stamp set, Mr Darcy from Indigoblu I came up with this for his birthday card.

A few green brushos blown around the page with my spritzer thingy.  Dried then I stamped the main image with green versafine, spritzed where the face is with water and used kitchen towel to lift the colour.  Mr Darcy is also with green versafine but it's 2nd gen, as are the birds from the same stamp set & the dots from one of IndigoBlu meadow sets.  Once all was totally dry I took the white away using bundled sage distress ink & went around the edges with moss distress ink.

The theme on the indigoblu challenge this month is spring greens so I'm going to enter it into the challenge.

Talk about chalk & cheese.. this one is again using brushos but this time violet & purple.  I sprayed the cardstock very heavily with water & blotted it by whacking another piece of card on top.  This keeps some of the striation in colour but allows for a more washed out fluid impression.  Clearly Besotted stamp set that was free with a magazine last month.  Nowt but paper piecing & heat embossing.  Dead simples to do and hopefully June will be feeling well enough to come to playday this week.

march playday project

Shamelessly cased from http://wenchespapirverden.blogspot.sg/2013/05/tutorial.html here the basket we'll be making at playday next weekend.

Paper, ribbons & card from stampinup (retired paper), spellbinders die, bit of lace and some flowers from wild orchid. 

Was surprisingly quick to make, less than 2 hours, and that was with making a scalloped border in scal the exact size needed!





And seeing as how I had the flowers out, here's how I finished the card organiser box.  Colours havent photoed properly, irl the bright blue is a deep navy, and the turquoise is nearer to a soft mid blue.

birthday box for 6*6 cards

This isnt finished yet, I've got to add a few embellies to the front and I don't know quite what I want yet.  My printer is refusing to print straight vertical lines so the divider is just a temporary thing just to photo the box.  When I've sorted the printer I'm not going to make file tabs with the envie board, I think I'm going to sandwich diecuts and just overlap the card.  I'm not going to stamp around the edges either.

I'm not going to do a step by step photo guide but here goes with written instructions.  This is bodge job rigid box making at it's easiest, accurate cutting does make life easier but using gummed tape makes it easy to hide a millimeter or 2 ;o)

takes approx 2 a3 sheet of mountboard but you get less waste from using a2

1 base,  7 * 7"
1 front,  6.5" * 4"
3 sides & back,  6.5" * 6.5"  the 2 sides need to be trimmed so the front is only 4" high.

Cheats tip for cutting the sides... Use the 4" strip & use as a drawing line on 2 of the 6.5" squares and mark a border on the bottom & left.

Use a ruler and draw 1/4" around the edges of the 7*7 piece.  This is going to be a guide line of where to tape the pieces.

Break off a length of gummed tape roughly 7" along and fold in half length ways so that the glue side is on the outside (this makes it easier to place & keep the box rigid).  Unfold & wet with a damp sponge, not too wet that water drips off but you need enough to activate the glue.  Fold back again & place on the inside bottom of the back with the fold at the bottom so you can open it back out.  Move the back into position so that the outer edge of the mountboard is running flush to your drawn line and that there is equal distance either end.  Smooth the tape down to the base, trim any excess, I usually cut where it needs to fold & tuck the excess around to the other side.  Repeat this with a side making sure it lines up to the inner part of the lines AND one edge meets the inside edge of the back.  Use the same fold & line up the fold and join the back & side together.  Repeat for the other side.  Now line up the front and tape into place, if you have measured & cut correctly the front will sit flush to the line and the sides will fit snugly to the back edges of the front.  Once you have taped all of the inner joins you need to cover the outer seams.  For around the bottom you will need to fit the fold downwards to the lip and tuck & smooth the excess over to the bottom of the base.  The seams between the sides & the back & front will need to have the tape folded inwards so it's glue against glue before being wet.  If you work with a light behind your box you will be able to see when the fold line is in place and you can smooth around and keep a nice sharp edge.  If you have any slightly jagged cut edges along the top of the box you can hide this by sticking the tape along & over the edge in the same way you've just done for the outer edges.  Allow to dry for at least a couple of hours before painting your box.  Allow the paint to dry properly before adding any paper decoration.


Cut 12 pieces of heavy weight card to 6.25" 6.25" for the dividers.  If you want to add file tabs you might need to cut the cards longer, test on scrap card to check before using best card.  Glue the calendar into place & decorate as required.

Ribbon Reel Storage Box

Those who know me know I love making storage for my craft stash but I hate spending big money on it when I can have more fun making it and spend the savings on more ink, rubber & paint.  Thanks to a new a2 rotatrim I decided to make some boxes to hold my reels of ribbon.

 Starting off with strips of mountboard and adding the gummed tape.

 This is a full a2 width so I've added stabilisers to the lid to stop it sagging.  Once the gummed tape dries the top strip on the front will pull back in instead of being bowed as it looks in the pic.

 With a couple of ribbons poking out.

(this is actually a smaller one than the first few pics as I've made 3 sizes to suit different ribbon rolls, this one is made from a3 grey board) You can't see it in this pic but I painted it white with gesso then added texture medium through a couple of stencils and stuck on some diecuts.
Painted in bright colours of acrylic paint.



You should be able to see the diecuts & texture now I've dry brushed white acrylic paint over them.




The box is now covered with black (it's actually paynes grey which looks black when wet) paint and allowed to dry slightly before rubbing a lot of the paint off.



Now I went in with several inkagold beeswax paints(lilacs, blues, pinks, greens & pale gold) and used them as you would gilding waxes.  You cant see the colours properly in a pic, irl they're very metalic with a subtle shine and the colours all blend into each other so you cant see where one stops & the other starts.  I need to leave this now for 24 hours to dry fully before adding a matt varnish then I can fill with ribbon reels.