Country Cottage

There is something about the chocolate box image of a country cottage and I loved stamping this image and playing with various elements to give an almost picture postcard effect to this card.

One main point to raise is that with such a large stamp that once you have stamped with the black ink leave it as long as possible before you start to add the colour. This will prevent any sluggish looking areas on key areas.

Once I had stamped and coloured in this image I stamped out the foxgloves and the swallow and careful cut round the edges before working out where I wanted to add them to the card.

I had a bit of a hiccup with the edges on this card so I found some printed antique strips that worked their wonders in hiding the odd wonky edge!

After adding the strips I then added the foxglove and swallow by using sticky foam pads. This meant they just stood apart slightly from the card itself.

My Dad has the typical country garden and I know he will love this card for Fathers Day later this year so I will be saving this one for him.

Enjoy your crafting today

N x

Easter Bunny

There is something very Easter like with this stamp and I decided that this bunny would be a great start to creating my Easter cards for family this year.

I first chose my colour palettes by rummaging through some of my odds and ends card stock and then pairing these papers with my pens. 

I decided I really wanted a violet purple and green card but used the fuschia pink to give it some highlights. I also used this pink colour on some of the flowers on the bunny, its nose and the patch.

I had a great time colouring the stamp in. I was toying with the idea of using a purple ink for the initial stamp but I decided to keep with the black ink. I used the same ink for stamping out the flowers.

I am not sure what the name of this stamp is (which is a shame as I love the set that it came with and wonder whether they created any additional elements). I will be adding some more cards using the stamps from the same pack over the week.

I hope if nothing else, this card gives you a smile and I hope your Easter projects are going well.

Happy Crafting

N x

Spring Bird House

With the clocks jumping forward an hour I am reminded that it won't be long now till summer (fingers crossed). Whilst I hate what feels like loosing an hour I am looking forward to the benefit of lighter evenings as this means more craft time!

I have been really bitten by the Spring/Summer bug and the following set of cards this week will bring a bit of light regardless of the weather.

I was treated to a full set of Spectrum Noir pens this weekend by my other half - I think he got fed up with me tutting about not having a full set of pens. So now I am playing with colour and neglecting all housework.

The above card was quite a simple make. The little bird house I stamped out in black ink - try to get an ink pad that you can use for fine detail. Once that was stamped I left it for a while to dry before colouring in with my new pens.

I then mounted the bird house stamp on some Mambi paper that I had. I chose spring green to compliment the colours I wanted to use.

The flowers I stamped out using the same black ink pad. Once they were dry I coloured them in using complimenting colours. Similarly I stamped out leaves but used Pearlescent Ivy - Dew Drop. 

Before I added all the elements to the card I used a little ivy stamp and stamped some really small leaves in the same Ivy ink. I coloured these in with the same green pens that I used for the larger leaves. Once all was dry I simply added the main central element and then placed around the edges the leaves and flowers.

Hope you like the finished effect and enjoy the extra daylight hours!

N x

Spring Floral Bouquet

This card used green accents and although the picture does not do it justice the backing paper included panels of bright sparkly squares. Unfortunately the light in my craft room didn't let me show off the full finished effect but I hope you get the idea!

The sprigs of foliage and flowers were created using the Clearly Besotted range die and stamp set. I chose colours that worked with the background and gave a spring effect.

The green polka dot strips were edged with a burnt copper ink (again this did not come out very clear on the picture above) and then a simple ribbon strip with buttons fixed with my glue gun.

This card really did not take much time to make at all and the fiddliest part was the cutting out and stamping of each of the foliage and flower elements.

Happy crafting

N x

Spring Green Birthday Card

I loved making this simple spring green inspired card. All it took was some embossed white card edged with green chalk, a few stamps which I coloured with my Spectrum Noir pents and a coupleof stamps of solid coloured flowers. The main stamped image was gently coloured in and backed on a contrast darker green squared and finished off with a polka dot strip of paper in greens, pastel yellows and blues. The flower centres of the larger flowers were just finished off with a glitter glue blob to add some sparkle.

I don't normally go for green but with Spring round the corner I decided to try out some green inspired cards to suit the season.

This is another really easy one to make but hope you like the effect.

Pastel Easter Card

I had a great time making this very pastel Easter card using some free papers that I got with one of the craft magazines I brought recently. I cut a centre panel using a buckle shaped die and then stamped the 'happy easter' sentiment in Pearlescent Ivy ink.

I recently bought some Clearly Besotted In Stitches: Easter stamps along with matching dies. I found it a lot easier to actually stamp the flowers and chick before using the dies to cut them out. I have tried doing this process the other way round but have found that I ended up with some off centred embellishments so I tried today to stamp then cut. This seemed to work really well and I did not end up with any wonky finishes.

The main paper on the card I edged with some metallic purple ink before sticking this to the main body of the card. Then all I did from there was to play with the positions of the flowers and the Easter Chick. Once I was happy I used glue for the chick and foam pads to fix the flowers to give the card more 3D interest.

The strip on the side could be embellished further but because the polka dot pattern was quite busy I decided to keep this quite plain. Once I finished the card I used some Liquid Pearls to dot around the aperture.

I will enjoy this making some more Easter inspired cards so expect plenty of pastels, eggs and chicks!

Happy crafting

x 

Simple Birthday Card

I love simple designs on my cards as you probably have noticed already! So when I came up with this idea I wanted to just use a present stamp, Washi Tape, simple sentiment, sparkly embellishments and a small amount of ribbon.

I decided to go with a blue palette - mainly due to the fact that I love blue and secondly because I had some dark blue ribbon off cut that I had been meaning to use up for a while.

I added a washi tape strip to the bottom of the card and stamped three evenly spaced present stamps and added a pink gem between each parcel. This gave the card some sparkle!

The dark ribbon I added to the top of the card and then I stamped the 'eat cake' sentiment in a dark plum to pick up the pink embellishments. The sentiment was cut out using a buckle shaped die and then I dusted around the edges with the same light blue ink that I used for the presents.  I hope you enjoy the finished effect and agree that this simple design could work with a variety of palettes that can be mixed or kept plain.

Happy crafting 

Nicola x

Crafting Events in March & April

I have decided to venture out of my normal haunts to source some new products and to see what techniques and handy hints I can pick up along the way.
My other half might be a bit reluctant to come as he is a long suffering partner of a card making fiend already so dragging him around the show may be a bit too much so I decided to choose a show that's not too far away but full of some of the products I want to see.
I also needed to go to a show that coincided after pay day so that I could stock up whilst I was at the show so I am going to look at the Big Stamp & Scrapbooking Show - Alexandra Palace which takes part on the 11th & 12th April. 

I will write a round up after the show but I am actually quite looking forward to seeing all the exhibitors along with mixing with fellow paper craft fans.

Another show in the calendar is the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC Birmingham on 28th-29th March. I would have loved to have gone to this event but due to work and family commitments I won't be able to go to this one until later on in the year (I think there is one towards November time).

The more I get into creating cards the more I see the importance of going to events to see what are the latest trends, products and techniques that are available. It seems I will never get bored of this hobby!

Coral Flora - Simple Geometric Card

After a busy Mother's Day weekend I thought I would ease you in to a new crafting week with some simple geometric designs.

This coral card I gave to my Mum on her Mother's Day. She is not into lots of lacy flowers plus her favourite colour seems to be earthy tones such as this autumnal coral colour. The picture shows this a bit darker than real life but I hope you get the idea!

I started with a square card blank and then using my set of Square dies I cut several squares from Coral card for the background, normal kraft card then a brighter coral, print square and cut out the centre plaque from a scrap booking sheet.

On the background I added three strips of Washi Tape (yes I know - I use it all the time but I love the stuff!). Using two stamps - one of a blossom cluster and one of a leaf motif I stamped a background using burnt red ink. 

After this step it really was just a case of sticking the various layers on the card. 

I used brads on the plaque and also stamped the 'hugs & kisses' greeting.

My Mum loved the card and without being overly complicated I will enjoy using more geometric designs in future cards as they are very effective without being fussy - plus I have now got my square dies which makes it a lot easier to avoid wonky layers!

I hope you have a good week and please look out for some more designs that I am working on this week.

Green & Peach - Simple Floral Card

I received some new stamps with a craft magazine recently and decided to create a simple but bright floral card fit for spring time!

The hardest part was just measuring out the squares to cut out so that they were evenly placed. I have never been the best for maths but with some measuring out and gridlines I cut out three square apertures in the patterned paper then stamped the floral stamp on some green spotted paper. After cutting them out I used my glue gun to add a small apricot spotted button within the centre of each flower. Rather than having the flowers flush to the card I used some foam pads on the back of each flower and added a ribbon along the centre to add a bit of extra interest.

The edges of the paper were brightened with some co-ordinating Washi Tape strips. 

Simple Bird Box Stamp

I love the stamp and wish I knew where it had come from but it came with a bunch of items that I brought off Ebay. Until I had brought my Spectrum Noir pens it had always looked a bit plain when I had stamped it but this was one of the first stamps I used to experiment with the pens. Not only did it give a good Spring feel to a card but I also decided that this would make a good New Home card that could be made very quickly - handy for crafters in a dash!

Hope you enjoy!

Flowers & Washi - Simple Floral Card

I hope your weekend went well and you managed to enjoy some of the glorious spring weather around. After a day of gardening I became all floral inspired so excuse me if the following few days are very flower orientated but I hope this gives you plenty of ideas!

I have always loved Washi tape and have collected many rolls of tape over the years and I really have not got round to really making the most of this crafting product - which I aim to rectify over the coming weeks. Washi tape gave me a great basis for this card.

This card was so simple but provided quite an eye-catching finish. The longest part was just cutting out the stamped flowers.

I started with the three Washi tape strips. If you are not going for pinks choose three complimenting colours - one bold colour, one mixed and one geometric seems to work pretty well. I wanted the Washi tape to look like flags but did not want them to be exactly the same length so I placed these first before stamping the flower motif and cutting the stamped images out.

Once I had the flowers cut out I coloured them using Spectrum Noir pens from the pastel collection. I added the flowers at differing points of the Washi tape strips and tried to match the colours of the flowers with a co-ordinating strip.

The adornments were a nice way of adding some sparkle to the card. I added three adhesive sentiment strips and several pink gems and butterflies.

Keeping it simple meant that it was quite a quick card to put together and made use of some of the Washi tape I have collected over the last couple of years.

Sunshine at last

The sun is out, there's a spring in my step and I am ready to get some crafty inspiration for the week to come. After my pastel inspired week I am planning a flight of floral fancy! Inspired by bold and natural colours alike I think I am going to experiment with some of my stamps and dies that I purchased recently.

Today I popped over to my local craft market in Battle to see whether I could possibly fit in with my cards at some point. After making so many it now seems a good idea to at least start selling some so it was quite handy to have a look round an established craft market to see if my cards would work there and most importantly, whether I would have the guts to take a stall on my own for the day!
I was inspired by the many people there, from cakes and exotic meat suppliers, jewellery and soaps. I brought a gorgeous spring scarf in blue, grey and white cotton and a cool new picture which I have not decided where to put it yet.
Local craft markets are a great source of unusual presents and gifts so I hope to look at doing a local craft market soon. The next one is in May so perhaps I would have plucked up enough courage by then and I am sure I would be so overwhelmed by cards that I will need to declutter pretty soon!

So enjoy your weekend and hope you get some of this gorgeous spring sunshine to enjoy!

Simple Floral Flourish

Lately I have been experimenting with how to start with creating a card and I have found that I like to choose the card, play with the paper choice, the sentiment and then embellishments. Its almost like getting together your pallet before you start a painting but instead of paint you are getting together the coordinating elements you want to use for your card before you start cutting out and sticking.

This has several benefits:-

a) You already get a feel for the card before you start designing which means you are less likely to suddenly realise some of the elements don't work as you had hoped or expected.

b) If you have a recipient in mind then you can play with the colours they prefer and think about the embellishments you want to use so that it all works well together.

c) I actually get a chance to go through my paper stock without relying on favourites that I use all the time. This is a great way of making the most of your stock and looking at it with almost a fresh pair of eyes. 

d) Planning ahead means you can use some of your scrap papers which means you get a great looking card whilst using up some of your otherwise unused paper scraps.

The finished card is quite simple but because I thought it out beforehand it didn't take long to put together and the end result was a good looking card that co-ordinates really well.

Pastel Puss Collection

In my collection of stamps I have a cat motif and a simple flower motif that I have been wanting to use for a while. I am not sure whether they were originally in the same pack and I wish I knew where the cat was from as I love the style of this stamp. If I find out I will come back and include a link to the maker/designer. Until then I thought I would use this stamp as part of a pastel puss collection. Hope you enjoy!

Primrose Puss:   Puss cat Primrose was made using one of the yellow designed sheets from the Mambi Sheets pack by 'me and my BIG ideas'. I picked up this paper pad from a local discount store and I have been itching to use this paper as it really is good thick stock with lots of gorgeous designs. Using three shades of yellow from my Spectrum Noir Pastels pack I coloured in the cat and flowers to reinforce the yellow theme. With this card I added a small strip of ribbon before adding my 'Best Wishes' tag which I stamped with Starlite Black Ink and gave the tag a distressed look with dabbing small amounts of 'Platinum Planet' ink - both from the Dew Drop range.

Pot Pourri Pink Puss:

I used some of my scrap papers (you might recognise this from one of my other projects) and I had just a small section left that luckily would fit in with this theme. Again, the cat and flowers were coloured in with three shades of pink from my Spectrum Noir set and a simple ribbon strip was added to tidy up the join between the patterned paper and the cat strip.

Good Luck Green Puss: This patterned paper was also from the Mambi Sheets collection. It wasn't a deep green pattern but just enough to keep the pastel feel for this card. Keeping the strip with the cat and flowers the same made it a lot easier just to place this strip but just to give it an extra finish I added the simple green ribbon strip along between the patterned and cat section.

Periwinkle Puss: I love blues in fact these are probably my favourite colours of all. Its a shame I did not have some lavendar blue pens as this would really have helped with the flowers but instead I used a greyish blue on the large petals. To make sure that the blue was a bit more pronounced I used the violet blue polka dot paper for the patterned side. If I was making this card again I probably would have used a ribbon or different Washi Tape for the strip although I do like the effect of this card I think there would be a few tweaks next time.

Handy Hint - Tidy Desk

I am trying very hard this year to not leave a trail of destruction every time I make a card. I don't know about anyone else, but I find that I get so side tracked with creating my cards that I fail to notice the various off cuts, ribbon, left over paper, card and glue strip backings until I finish and look around my craft room in complete disbelief that I could create such a mess.

Lately I have been trying to keep a 'bits and offcuts' box to hand so whilst I am putting cards together I can automatically chuck various unused items and offcuts into it. This has meant that when I have finished with my card making I can double check whether any of the left over bits and pieces can be salvaged for future projects. After all, saving a few pennies and getting the most out of craft stock can be even more rewarding. Previously I tried to sift through the various elements left on my craft desk or worse still, I would chuck in my bin as I went - which whilst tidy wasn't a great way of recycling.

I am not sure how long I will keep up the mess box but so far it is working out quite well so I may actually end up with a vaguely tidy craft desk in the long run!

Another item I have invested in lately is a desk tidy. I managed to get this at a discount store and it is one of those desk tidies used for keeping stationary and post. Instead of mail I have taken my pens, scissors and glues out of their packs and placed them in this desk tidy which means I have not got to rummage around in drawers to find an essential item half way through a project.

With so many tiny elements such as miniature dies and letters from stamps it is easy to throw something essential away so whilst it may be a bit of a bind it certainly is worth keeping your work space tidy. I have some more Spring cleaning to do yet so if I discover any new handy hints I will make sure I keep you updated.

Love

a reluctantly tidy Nicola x

Spring Card - blending chalk technique

I recently brought a box from Ebay of craft room clearout items and in the box was a brand new unwrapped Blending Chalks pack. At first I was going to discard it as I have never thought of using chalks with my card making as I have vivid memories of using chalks at school and mainly getting them over clothes and only creating a chalky mess! Anyway, after my first reservations I decided that it would be worth trying them out to see if I can make a fresh looking card using some very simple techniques.

To start with I wanted to create a simple centre rectangle that I could use as both a frame and the focal part of the card. Using the Fiskars rectangle template a found the centre of my card and then using a light blue chalk to start I dabbed from the edges working into the middle. This turned out very light so then I went round the edges with the darker blue chalk.

Once I removed the stencil I had this effect:

Using the Fiskars rectangle stencil I traced the same sized rectangle onto some scrap white paper. This then became a mask to prevent ink going over the chalk area. Using my chosen stamps I then went round the outside of the frame with two different coloured inks. You will probably notice that on one side the ink wasn't quite pressed enough but this turned out to be quite a good look. Just goes to show that sometimes mistakes can work out okay!

Once I had finished stamping I just removed the scrap paper mask and the effect produced was a simple but clean looking card which just needed finishing with an embellishment.

For the embellishment I decided that I wanted to have a gift tag effect on the centre panel. All I did to create the tag was to cut a small rectangle and snip the top corners at an angle and hole punch the top for my ribbon. I stamped on a quick greeting onto the gift tag using co-ordinating ink. Rather than tying a bow I decided to keep the ribbon quite plain and just applied some glue using my glue gun to keep the ribbons in place.

Once the tag was finished it was simply a case of fixing the tag into the centre panel. I used some Liquid Pearls in White Opal to dot on each flower centre to add a bit of added interest to the card. And there you have it - my first chalk blending attempt.

I will definitely use these again but want to experiment with them a bit more to see how they can be used to create various effects. Watch this space!

Pastel Easter Card

This Easter Card has been created using the following:

Square Aperture Card - mine was created using square dies and then I cut a smaller square aperture in black to line around the square card aperture.

Happy Easter Stamp - stamped with Pearlescent Poppy
4 sweet pink gems
Pastel ribbon
Card button - mine was cut using a button punch
Pastel Butchers string
Pale yellow striped paper
Pale Blue square of paper

I started with the aperture of the card and then measured a smaller black border to edge the aperture. This made the pastel colours appear with more contrast. 

On the inside of the card I used the pale yellow card to line the inner right hand side of the card. I just used glue strips to do this rather than liquid glue to prevent any warping or softening of the paper.

Using the aperture as a guide I added the small pale blue square which I had stamped with the Happy Easter wording. Once that was centre I fixed that in place before dotting each corner with glue and adding a pink gem to each corner.

You can buy gems with ready added glue backs if you prefer to use these.

On the front of the card I added a strip of glue and adhered my pastel ribbon. Once this was fixed down I strung my card button with a small amount of butchers string. You could either tie this in a bow or like mine, just string over the card. To keep it in place I used my glue gun to adhere the finished button to the card.

This is another simple but eye-catching pastel make - hope you enjoy!

Pastel Birthday Card

I loved making this card and one of the points I wanted to make with this design is that you shouldn't be afraid of using a bold black colour with pastels. It may be just my taste but I like the way that the black greeting on this card helps the pastels become more prominent.

To start with I just used a natural looking card and cut three small square apertures along the right hand of the card. If you start with the centre one you will find it easier to space the other two squares without it becoming too wonky.

Once the apertures were cut I chose 3 pastel patterned papers and added them behind each of the three squares.
On the front of the card I used pale yellow paper in a strip on the left hand side and added a ribbon strip to tidy up the edges.

The Happy Birthday sentiment was embossed onto some simple black paper. Using one of my inks I just dabbed around the raised area so that it had a slightly metallic finish and chalk board effect.

The buttons were a mixture of hand made card buttons and shop brought pastel buttons. Using pastel blue butchers string I threaded the patterned button to the card button. Using the pastel green string I tied a bow on the card button using the button holes. Using my glue gun I fixed each of the buttons to the card and then just trimmed up and tightened the strings once the buttons were secure.

Hope you are enjoying my pastel inspired crafts!

Clearly Besotted

I love clean looking stamps and discovered Clearly Besotted a couple of months ago so today I have ordered some Easter stamps and matching dies plus some nature inspired stamps and dies. Really looking forward to them arriving and I expect there will be some cards coming up using them.....watch this space!

Spring Bouquet - Floral Pastels

This trio of Spring Bouquet flowers has been created using some double sided paper stock that came free with a craft magazine that I brought quite a while ago. Using my Pastel theme I decided that I would use my Tonic Studios Window Basket Die and cut out the same shape from all three double sided sheets. This would give me plenty of pattern combinations when I put the cards together. The only additional paper I used was the plain green sprigs which I used to break up the pattern overload a bit!

After I had cut out the Window Basket shapes I then used the remaining paper to create the rectangle window for the front of the card using my square die. I kept hold of the scrap square from the middle and used my button punch to create the button embellishment for the front of the window basket.

Whilst lots of patterns aren't my favourite choice I rather liked the pastel chintz effect for a Spring/Easter card.  I did think about adding a greeting tag onto the front but had a real problem trying to choose where to place this so I ended up leaving the cards blank and will stamp a sentiment inside when I am ready to use them.