An itch to craft!

*blows dust off blog* Hello everyone! It's been such a long time since I last posted, but I've been really busy with university work :(. Now I'm in my final year the work is really building up so my focus is on that, but recently I've made a couple of cards and it's great because it helps me de-stress! And for my birthday I treated myself to some new paper and stamps!

Here's my first card I have to show you....

The Distress Inks I used were: Broken China for the background, and Brushed Corduroy and Tea Dye for the 'steam punk' stamps tucked under the frame. I also smudged Brushed Corduroy onto the white frame to highlight it.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Make It Monday - Anything Goes
Crafts and Me - Keep it Simple

My second card I have to show you is a Christmas card! Only the second I've made so far but I have plenty of time *hmm*

I made this card using an Enchanted Christmas (by papermania) decoupage Christmas fairy, matching backing paper, sentiment and sticker border. The border and blue backing paper is sparkly already, but I used my Icicle Stickles on the fairy's wings, around the sentiment and on the top of the Christmas tree because you can never have too much sparkle!

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Creatalicious Challenges - Christmas with Sparkles
Crimbo Crackers - Make it Sparkle
Sweet Stamps - Non Traditional Christmas Colours
Paper Pretties - Non Traditional Christmas Colours

Thank you for looking, and I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend! I need to catch up with replying to comments so I'll be doing that later while watching X Factor! I look forward to seeing everyone else's creations x

Clean and Simple Butterfly Card

I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted! I had a look around different challenge blogs this morning and picked out a couple I fancied making a card for. I wanted to use watercolour pencils because it's a technique I've never tried before, and this is the end result!

It took me ages to make sure the squares were all the right distance apart, but it was worth it. I used an Inkadinkadoo inchie stamp from a spring stamp set, and stamped the image out three times in tuxedo black Memento ink. Then I used watercolour pencils to colour the two halves of the inchie stamp, and then using water I blended the colours slightly. Here's a close up.

I thought that the card needed something else so used a sentiment stamp on the bottom left, but I'm not sure whether I should have left it blank!

I'm entering this card into the following competitions:

Less is More - Three Previous Challenges (week 4 - 3 squares, week 16 - butterfly/butterflies and week 3 - spring)

Flutter by Wednesdays - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking, and I hope you're enjoying your bank holiday weekend!

Masculine 'Playing Card' Card!

My boyfriend left a pack of playing cards round my house and challenged me to make him a card using them! He loves anything card/magic related so I knew that if I got it right he would love it! So here it is, it is possibly my favourite card I've ever made...

I glued gold card onto a white card blank, and used Walnut Stain Distress Ink on the edges of the brown paper before layering it on top. I distressed the edges of the playing cards with a pair of scissors (after debating whether or not to crumple them too), and used the same ink on the edges and over the surface.  I used 3d foam tape to raise the Ace of Hearts from the other cards and make it stand out. I then used Papermania Capsule alphabet stickers to spell out 'love' on purple paper, and then distressed the edges with scissors and used Walnut Stain ink again to give a more distressed look. Lastly I layered this on gold card and crumpled the edges of the purple paper (I didn't glue right to the edge to make this possible). Here are some close ups!

I'm going to enter this card into the following challenges:
Cards For Men - Anything goes
One Stitch at a Time - Anything goes
Sparkles Forum - One for the boys
Charisma Cardz - Distressing
Dream Valley Challenges - Distressing

Thanks for looking, have a nice day! :)

"Less is More" card

I've got serious post holiday blues but thankfully the sun was out today! I made this card for the "Less is More" challenge, which I've been wanting to do for a while but hadn't plucked up the courage! I'm not sure whether my card was a success or not, but I enjoyed making it which is the most important thing.

The requirements for the challenge were: one layer, and had to include ink. I decided to use a technique I'd never done before, which was to use a paintbrush to pick up lots of Distress Ink onto my work surface, then spritzed it twice with water mixed with some gold Perfect Pearls, and then used brush strokes to apply it to the card. The Distress Inks I used were Brushed Corduroy and Tattered Rose. Then I stamped a Laura Ashley flower stamp in chalk brown ink, and without re-inking it I stamped it again to create a 'ghost' of the image beside it. Lastly I used the same ink to stamp the Happy Birthday sentiment, and voila! A clean and simple card which I hope you like. Thanks for looking! Leave me a comment and I'll pop over to your blog and leave you a comment too :)

Holiday!

I will be in Sharm el Sheikh from tomorrow morning until the 10th so I won't be able to write anything until I get back! I hope you're all enjoying your summer and the beautiful weather, and I just wanted to say thank you for following me and leaving me lovely comments! I really appreciate it. See you in a week! xxx

Masculine Summer Card

Hello! Today I'd like to show you a card I made for my boyfriend, and as he gave me a pack of Tim Holtz Adage Tickets I decided I'd use two of them on the card!

Apologies for the terrible picture! My desk was a mess and I took this picture in a hurry.

The blue stripey Dovecraft paper and the sandy paper make me think of a sunny beach! I started by layering the sandy paper and the stripey paper, and then passing ribbon around the front of the card and glueing it beneath the green corrugated card. I stamped the tree and bird stamp (from this stamp set) onto white card stock and coloured it in with Promarkers. Then I inked around the image with Old Paper Distress Ink and stuck it onto the green card at an angle. I smudged the same ink onto the adage tickets, and then layered them with double sided sellotape, and finished the card by sticking down some vintage buttons! I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Stamp Something - Summer fun
PaperPlay - In the garden
Divas By Design - Summer (second entry)
Polkadoodle - In an english country garden
Creative Inspirations - Summertime
Craft Your Days Away - Summer (second entry)
Come and Get It - Anything Goes

I hope you like this card, I really enjoyed making it!

Small Distressed Butterfly Card

Hello everyone! I've made a tiny (about 10cmx10cm) card with a vintage butterfly theme which I'd like to enter into the following challenges:

2 Sisters Challenge - Anything goes
Divas By Design Challenge - Summer theme
Crafty Cardmakers - Butterflies

OK so here's my tiny tiny card! (Which looks quite large in the picture!)

The backing paper is by K&Co (I love K&Co papers!), and after sticking this down I distressed the edges with Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink. I cut two elements from another paper in the same stack and distressed the edges with a pair of scissors. Then I crumpled them both and using Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink I inked the edges and over the creases. I layered them on the card and then realising I'd inked the butterfly a bit too heavily, I used blue and purple Promarkers to make the butterfly more noticeable! Then I used a gold wavy peel off and three gold peel off leaves to finish it off, and filled in the leaves with Black Diamond Stickles!

Now I'm off to make fairy cakes with my best friend! Have a nice day!

Fairy Doodles 'Just For You' Card

I haven't made anything for a while because my desk is really cluttered at the moment due to redecorating my bedroom and moving every piece of furniture around constantly! But I cleared everything off my desk today, blew the dust off my Distress Inks and made a card. I decided that I would enter it into a few challenges:

ABC Challenge - Y for Yesterday (I chose January 2011's challenge of M for Magical)
The Pink Elephant - Inspiration challenge (a picture of pink iced cupcakes in a blue case as inspiration)
Critter Challenge Blog - Happy b'day to me (I love the Fairydoodles stamp so I would love to receive this card!)
Craft Your Days Away - Summertime
and the challenges on both Bearly Mine and A Spoon Full of Sugar are to include a tag!

Phew that seems like a lot, I don't know how people enter their cards into 10 or more challenges! OK so here it is...

The card has lots of white because I wanted the card to be quite clean and the focus to be on the cute image! The stamp comes from the Buzzcrafts Fairy Doodle Stamps - Everyday 346 stamp set which is lovely, I really want to buy more of these stamps! I stamped the image on to white card stock, coloured it in with Promarkers and then cut the image out and distressed the edges with Tattered Rose Distress Ink. Then I cut a piece of 8x8 paper from a Papermania paperstack to be just larger than the cut out stamped image and distressed the edges with Broken China Distress Ink.

I used my Paula Pascual tag stamp set, stamping one of the tags on to white card stock (see Paula Pascual herself demonstrating how to use the tag stamps here). The stamps fit the EK Success large tag punch but I just cut around the edge, then hole punched the top and smudged Broken China Distress Ink over it. I stamped the sentiment onto glittery paper using a stamp from this set, then stuck it onto the tag using double sided sticky tape and snipped off the overlap. I found some pink sparkly ribbon and pulled that through the hole in the tag.

I stamped the butterflies using an element from another image in the Fairy Doodles set and coloured them in with Promarkers, then I layered the blue paper and the fairy image, and lastly glued the tag in the top right. I then used Icicle Stickles on the fairy wings to finish her off!

I hope you like this card, and my explanation wasn't too long and boring! Hopefully I'll be posting another card soon :)

Craft workshop

I held my first ever craft workshop today and it went really well! I was so pleased, everyone seemed to enjoy it and they want it to become a regular thing! I volunteered with a charity called Widows Care Worldwide which organises a day every two weeks in which people in the community meet, chat and play games. It was a really fun day and everyone made lovely cards to keep or to give to someone they care about. A 96 year old lady called Rose wrote hers out to her nan, which was really touching. Maybe next time I'll take photos of the cards which are made and post them here!

Cross stitch

So I haven't picked up anything to do with cross stitch since stitching Christmas cards last year, so I decided to start a new project which I had all the colours and fabric for! It is such a cute design which I started over the weekend, of two little mice and some beautiful blackberries which require Mill Hill seed beads to make them look really juicy! The chart is from Cross Stitcher magazine September 2008 (when I find the issue number I'll let you know!). This is what the finished design will look like.

These are the colours. They're such gorgeous colours!

And here is my feeble start! (sideways)

Fingers crossed I'll finish it in good time and it won't become one of those projects which I put aside and forget all about. But the mice are just so cute I don't think I could bring myself to put this to one side! I'll try to post regular updates :)

First ATC attempt!

I thought I'd share an ATC I made, because it's in a completely different style to the card I posted on Sunday. No Distress Inks, just bright zesty colours, Promarkers and a cute stamp set! ATCs are traditionally 2 and a half by 3 and a half inches, and ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards.

The little man and the sentiment are both from this stamp set. I love the oriental theme of the set! And the oriental garden scene is so fun to bring to life with Promarkers. For this ATC I stuck a border strip onto 2 and a half by 3 and a half inch white card stock. I stamped the man onto a different piece of white card stock and then coloured him with Promarkers. I cut around him and using double sided sellotape I glued him onto the ATC. I also glued a die cut heart onto the top so it just peeks over the edge. I used Dovecraft adhesive gemstones which can be found here, which I love because they come in strips of the same colour but you can cut them to use the gems individually. Here I used the green strip and in the space between the green gems I glued other gems. Finally I stamped the sentiment and used sticky foam squares to stick it so it overlapped the gemstones. I hope you like this ATC! They're really fun to make when you feel like crafting but you want to make something quick :)

First post ever!

I don't really know where to start! I won't bore you too much (whoever you are...) because I've made a thank you card which I'd love to share! Anyway, I'm a 20 year old girl called Rebecca who studies English Language and Literature at Birmingham University. I live in London with my family during the uni holidays, and I love making cards for my family, friends, and especially for my boyfriend (he's probably sick of all the cards I make for him!). I also enjoy cross stitching, but I don't cross stitch as much as I'd like to... maybe that can be a mid-year's resolution. Anyway, on to the first card of the first post of my blog!

This card is a Thank You card to my boyfriend which I made yesterday, because he buys me lots of lovely things and always surprises me! It is a C6 white card blank, which I stuck white spotted Dovecraft paper on to (which was a 12"x12" sheet), and used Walnut Stain Distress Ink on the edges using my blender tool which I think makes the paper look more grungey! I glued a dark blue embossed frame in the middle and using sticky foam squares I glued the chipboard sentiment in the middle of the frame to give the card more dimension. The chipboard was a brighter green so I used the Walnut Stain Distress Ink again on my blender tool and just smudged the ink on the surface to make it darker so it matches the paper better. Then finally I used small domes of Black Diamond Stickles on each corner of the frame to just finish the card off. And voila! It's a very simple card, but the colours make it quite masculine. The paper and the chipboard are also kind of circus themed!

Well I hope I didn't waffle on too much, and I hope you liked the card! Please leave me a comment if you have any suggestions :).