We're on the move (again). Been so busy lately with packing and the 'C' word Christmas that I've not been able to do any blogging and not much crafting either for that matter! But the upside of this is I am moving to a house where we have bags more room and apart from one corner which is going to be occupied by my OH and his computer desk, I am going to have a nice big craft room all to myself.... *dances and goes woo! a lot* lol
So I'm not going to be around much for a couple of weeks but just as soon as we have been connected with our super zippy cable broadband connection, I will be back!! And probably with pics of my new craft room *dances again*
Best wishes to all for 2011
Sarah xxx
Wednesday 29 December 2010
Thursday 16 December 2010
Inside out upside down
Every so often, I find inspiration to make something and then struggle to pull the rest of the idea together... this was one such occasion! I found a template for making a pop up Christmas tree centre for a card and loved the idea so much I had to have a go. I cut it and folded it where it needed, then coloured it with forest green and the background with black promarkers and thought hmmm that worked, but it needs something else! I bought some tiny little beads from Hobbycraft in their January sales this year and they have just been sitting in the bag not doing anything since then, but I thought they would look good threaded onto the tree like lights so I punched a lot of holes with my pokey tool, and stitched with gold thread and added a bead in every other stitch and there it was, a nice little decorated tree to go inside a card, so I backed it onto some glimmer mist card and stitched it all together with gold thread and added a little punched star to top the tree... only problem was I hadn't got a clue what to do on the outside of the card!
I decided to have a backing paper making session the other night and made green papers. I don't usually work with green, red is my favourite colour, but I made some green card sparkly with some starburst stains and when it had dried, I stamped it up with my wordy stamp and embossed it with gold. I just love how the gold I have works, it really does look like it has been gold plated and it added just the right amount of bling. I then roughed up the edges with my deckle edged ruler and then back it onto some black paper, trimmed to size and then covered the card front with some red glimmer mist card I made a while ago and stuck the topper onto that. Used my sizzix corner accents with black paper and decorated 2 of the corners of the sentiment panel and then had brain freeze for a few hours as I couldn't decide what to do with it next! The more I looked at it, the less I could think what to do with it, so I just left it to go back to. Passing the pram in the hallway I suddenly remembered some black chiffon ribbon I had bought a few weeks ago which was still in the basket at the bottom of the pram - so THAT's where I had put it lol Fashioned a bow with it and placed it at the bottom of the card and still couldn't thing how to decorate the top. Then I thought hang about! I've got more beads so I threaded some more onto wire and looped them round a couple of black brads. I'm pretty into triple embossing at the moment and found I had a little cute tree chipboard shape so attacked it with the gold embossing powder and then stamped into it with a snowflake. It looks like a piece of jewellery now, perfect to finished off the top of the card as it now looks like a necklace.
The inside of the card needed a little extra, so I cut out some more accent corners using scraps of the glimmer mist card and was about to stick them on when I spotted the underside of the card was quite interesting as it was white with red splashes and stood out much better on the black and red lining so used it that way round instead and hence the upside down title lol
I would like to enter this for the following challenges:
OSAAT - Anything Goes
Allsorts - Last Minute Christmas
I decided to have a backing paper making session the other night and made green papers. I don't usually work with green, red is my favourite colour, but I made some green card sparkly with some starburst stains and when it had dried, I stamped it up with my wordy stamp and embossed it with gold. I just love how the gold I have works, it really does look like it has been gold plated and it added just the right amount of bling. I then roughed up the edges with my deckle edged ruler and then back it onto some black paper, trimmed to size and then covered the card front with some red glimmer mist card I made a while ago and stuck the topper onto that. Used my sizzix corner accents with black paper and decorated 2 of the corners of the sentiment panel and then had brain freeze for a few hours as I couldn't decide what to do with it next! The more I looked at it, the less I could think what to do with it, so I just left it to go back to. Passing the pram in the hallway I suddenly remembered some black chiffon ribbon I had bought a few weeks ago which was still in the basket at the bottom of the pram - so THAT's where I had put it lol Fashioned a bow with it and placed it at the bottom of the card and still couldn't thing how to decorate the top. Then I thought hang about! I've got more beads so I threaded some more onto wire and looped them round a couple of black brads. I'm pretty into triple embossing at the moment and found I had a little cute tree chipboard shape so attacked it with the gold embossing powder and then stamped into it with a snowflake. It looks like a piece of jewellery now, perfect to finished off the top of the card as it now looks like a necklace.
The inside of the card needed a little extra, so I cut out some more accent corners using scraps of the glimmer mist card and was about to stick them on when I spotted the underside of the card was quite interesting as it was white with red splashes and stood out much better on the black and red lining so used it that way round instead and hence the upside down title lol
I would like to enter this for the following challenges:
OSAAT - Anything Goes
Allsorts - Last Minute Christmas
Friday 3 December 2010
Doe a deer a golden deer
Anyone who knows me will know that I love red. The obsession started about 5 years ago when I split with my ex-husband and moved into my friend's spare room and suddenly, for the first time in many years I was able decorate exactly how I wanted (ex hated red!) so I went a bit mad! Painted a wall red, bought red bedding, red candles, red dreamcatcher... loved it! I've done quite a bit of crafty stuff in red too, but as it's not everyone's cup of tea, I have had to tone things down a little and not use it as much as I'd like. Then I found a challenge which was to use the opposite colour on the colour wheel from what you usually like, so for me it was green!
I've never been a great lover of green, unless it is lime green so I needed to try something new. I started making some papers using my trusty starburst stains (holiday wreath set) as I had some lovely greens in there. I added a few splashes of red and squished it around and dragged it about and left it to dry wrapped in clingfilm. When it was dry, I covered the front of the card with it and trimmed to size then made a piece of green card sparkly with gold starburst stain and whilst it was still wet sprinkled some gold embossing powder onto it and heated it up with my heatgun and it set really nicely. I love experimenting! When the card was dried I cut it with my deckle rectangle nestie.
For the stamp, I used a stamp which my Mum had given to me ages ago but I had never got round to using, it's from Anita's but I am not sure what it is called or even if it is a reindeer or a deer, but I think it will pass for either. I stamped it up with clear embossing ink and then embossed with gold embossing powder. I don't use gold very often and I have a huge tub of it but it's a shame I don't use it more as the effect is really nice and looks gold plated. When it had set, I coloured the body with cinnamon promarker, adding a bit of depth and shadow in places, then cut out again using my largest nestie. My local art shop had some bags of offcuts of nice Christmassy papers on sale for a quid, so I availed myself of those last week and have used the holly embossed shiny card from that pack to create the panel across the centre of the card. The green deckle rectangle I placed on top of that and the reindeer/deer panel offset on top of that.
It's a good job I have so much of the gold embossing powder really as the snowflake in the top right hand corner was done using the smallest nestie from the deckle set and a piece of cornflake packet then triple embossed and stamped with a snowflake. At the bottom I put some tartan red and green ribbon then to finish, I stitched a gold bow in the bottom right hand corner. I picked a bag of these up about a year ago and have never used them!
The more I look at this card, the more the red and green background looks like a forest when it's not quite light but with the gold there is a little sunshine coming through the trees as the sun rises or sets. I think it looks quite magical :-)
I would like to enter this for the following challenges:
The Stampman - Take Any Three Colours Christmas Theme
Ladybug Crafts - Caz's color wheel (my usual is red so I used green mainly)
Passion for Promarkers - Old and New (Stamp is old, triple embossing new technique)
The Corrosive Challenge Blog - Things That Move (The deer is running lol)
Rainbow Lady's Challenge - Christmas Animals
I've never been a great lover of green, unless it is lime green so I needed to try something new. I started making some papers using my trusty starburst stains (holiday wreath set) as I had some lovely greens in there. I added a few splashes of red and squished it around and dragged it about and left it to dry wrapped in clingfilm. When it was dry, I covered the front of the card with it and trimmed to size then made a piece of green card sparkly with gold starburst stain and whilst it was still wet sprinkled some gold embossing powder onto it and heated it up with my heatgun and it set really nicely. I love experimenting! When the card was dried I cut it with my deckle rectangle nestie.
For the stamp, I used a stamp which my Mum had given to me ages ago but I had never got round to using, it's from Anita's but I am not sure what it is called or even if it is a reindeer or a deer, but I think it will pass for either. I stamped it up with clear embossing ink and then embossed with gold embossing powder. I don't use gold very often and I have a huge tub of it but it's a shame I don't use it more as the effect is really nice and looks gold plated. When it had set, I coloured the body with cinnamon promarker, adding a bit of depth and shadow in places, then cut out again using my largest nestie. My local art shop had some bags of offcuts of nice Christmassy papers on sale for a quid, so I availed myself of those last week and have used the holly embossed shiny card from that pack to create the panel across the centre of the card. The green deckle rectangle I placed on top of that and the reindeer/deer panel offset on top of that.
It's a good job I have so much of the gold embossing powder really as the snowflake in the top right hand corner was done using the smallest nestie from the deckle set and a piece of cornflake packet then triple embossed and stamped with a snowflake. At the bottom I put some tartan red and green ribbon then to finish, I stitched a gold bow in the bottom right hand corner. I picked a bag of these up about a year ago and have never used them!
The more I look at this card, the more the red and green background looks like a forest when it's not quite light but with the gold there is a little sunshine coming through the trees as the sun rises or sets. I think it looks quite magical :-)
I would like to enter this for the following challenges:
The Stampman - Take Any Three Colours Christmas Theme
Ladybug Crafts - Caz's color wheel (my usual is red so I used green mainly)
Passion for Promarkers - Old and New (Stamp is old, triple embossing new technique)
The Corrosive Challenge Blog - Things That Move (The deer is running lol)
Rainbow Lady's Challenge - Christmas Animals
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