Passion for Papertrey Challenge

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog on a gloomy, grey day here in Manchester. I'm not complaining though because we had a wonderful weekend of bright sunshine and the grey days make me realise how lucky we are when the blue skies come.

I've been thinking about the Passion for Papertrey,' hip to be square' challenge and have added my own challenge to try and do Christmas cards for challenges from now until Christmas in the hope that I will have a little stockpile when the time comes to send them out. I often make square cards so that wasn't much of a change for me so I tried to include more squares so I didn't feel I was cheating! I started with a square navy blue card and added a mat of pretty Sandilion 'Snowfall' paper. This gorgeous paper has lovely foiled bits but I'm not sure it has come across in the photo's. I then cut a square aperture in the card and stuck the card together on 2 sides to make a pocket card.

I then cut (12) 3/4 inch squares of the navy card and white mats for them. I stamped the snowflake from PTI Snowfall and embossed it in white. I offset the matts and stuck them around the aperture. I then stamped the smaller snowflake 12 times and cut them out with a small circle punch. I placed these on foam dots and put then in between the squares to hide the aperture line. I tried squares instead of circles to take the theme to the extreme, but the circles were much more pleasing to the eye.

I made a mat to slide into the pocket card and decorated the edges with more snowflakes. I then stamped the circle snowflake onto blue card and embossed it in white before over stamping the mitten stamps in Spring Rain ink. I cut these out and stuck them onto the mat, and finished it off with the sentiment and some ribbon.

I put a recipe for decadent hot chocolate on the back. After doing this, I thought it would be better to write out the recipe without the calorie count showing, but hey, if you're going to be decadent, what the hell?

The mat then slips into the pocket and the square add a nice frame to it.

Thanks for stopping by and have a good week.

 

Carol x

PS I'm going to enter this in the Moxie Fab World, Holly Jolly Christmas Callenge too!

Thank you card.

Hello everyone and I hope you are having a good weekend. We woke up to glorious sunshine in Manchester so we dropped everything and and decided to spend the morning having a stroll round Dunham Park. The deer are so colourful at this time of year and their antlers are so big as they get ready for the rutting season. The autumn colour is almost here and it was really good to get some fresh air.



The Orangery at Dunham Park

 After my lovely birthday weekend, I had some thank you cards to make and got out a cute Penny Black stamp from 2007 called Greetings, and coloured it with Copic markers. I used some Making Memories card from the Kids Collection and a thank you sentiment from the Penny Black Salutations set.



click to enlarge



I've decided to make some jam and chutneys this autumn as gifts for Christmas, so if any of you have recipes or tips, this novice would be very grateful.

Thanks for looking.
Carol x

Cricut new home card

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog on a glorious sunny day. As I had such a busy birthday weekend thanks to my lovely family and friends, I haven't had time to craft so I thought I'd share a card I made a while ago for a friend who was moving house.



click to enlarge

I used a textured blue card as a base and cut some marbled green paper to resemble a sort of hill. I freehand cut some clouds to dot around the sky and cut the letters and shadows from the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge. I drew stripes and doodles on the letters and glittered them to add interest. For the O, I cut a circle and drew cartoon images of windows and a door and freehand cut the roof and chimney and then chalked around the edges. I finished it off with some random tiny flower stamps.

Passion for Papertrey challenge

Hello everyone and happy weekend to you. I'm being spoiled rotten this weekend because its my birthday tomorrow. My lovely husband and I went out for dinner last night and he cooked lunch today. I've spent nearly all day getting inky, flowers have been delivered and we're going to some friends for dinner tonight. Tomorrow my family are coming to spoil me some more and then on Monday its out to lunch with a girlfriend and then to some other friends for dinner. Phew, I'm so lucky but it's a good job it only comes once a year because my waistline cannot take the pace!

I'd like to share a card I made for Anne's Pearl Wedding anniversary. I met Anne through the Passion for Papertrey blog when she contacted me to see if I'd like to share orders from Papertrey Ink. Would I???  I nearly snapped her hand off and we have now had three orders delivered and have to restrain ourselves from going over the top and ordering too much.

I used pearlised card and paper as it was a pearl anniversary, and dry embossed the pretty flower with a Cuttlebug flower embossing folder. I used the PTI ric rac die to cut the ric rac and the Fillable frames 4 die and stamps for the sentiment mat. I hand cut the shadow mat in brown pearl paper and finished the card off by inking a little heart button and threading a little bow onto it.

I tried the card in a different colourway

but made it into a birthday card this time. This photo makes the navy card look almost black but I couldn't seem to get it looking right. Margaret C kindly gave me some advice with photo editing and I'm getting better at it but I seem to have a long way to go. I'm going to enter one of these cards to the current Passion for Papertrey challenge. Hope you are having as nice a weekend as I am, and thanks for looking.

Carol x

First Christmas card

Hello everyone,

I'm feeling a little pleased with myself today because I have made my first Christmas card of the year. I have promised myself that I won't spend most of December making Christmas cards this year, but will be organised early so that I can have a serene run up to Christmas. Of course, in the interests of being honest, this is a promise I make to myself every year and I have yet to see it happen. Maybe this will be the year. I certainly hope so, and with all of the lovely Christmas stamps and papers around, I anticipate spending many happy hours getting inky.

.

I used a background stamp from The Papertrey Ink Round and Round Anniversary set to stamp the background paper in Ripe Avocado ink, and matted it onto a piece of PTI Ripe Avocado card stock. I took a strip of the same card and put it through my Big Shot with a sizzix embossing plate that has stars and snowflakes on it.

I wrapped some white dotty ribbon round the strip and placed in on the card with pop dots to get some dimension. I then used the mat stack 1 die to cut a shape and stamped it with the corresponding stamp from For the Graduate. On top of that I used the mistletoe stamp from the 2009 Holiday Greeting set and punched it out with a circle punch. I stamped the pine branch from the same set in the top corner and finished it off with a sentiment.

As I used a punch and die cut on the card, it fits the current Passion for Papertrey challenge.

Thanks for looking and have a great day.

Carol x

Cricut cards

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a good weekend and are raring to go for the new week ahead. I promised to share some more of the cards I have made in the past with the help of my Cricut machine, so here are another couple:-

click to enlarge picture

This children's card is a case of the card in the Zooballoo handbook and was made with Coredinations card stock and Forever Friends Party paper.

This bright attempt at a card for boys (I find them so hard to cater for) was also made with Zooballoo and the stars came from the wonderful Wild Card cartridge.

I still haven't had time to play with my new goodies from Papertrey Ink and I'm already drooling over their countdown to the September release!

Thanks for looking.

Carol x

LOTV wedding card

Hello everyone,

Where has another week gone to? I can't believe that Saturday is here again, but they say time whizzes by as you get older and I'm certainly doing that. Another birthday is is coming round this month and while I'm thinking about it, I can't believe another year has passed so quickly!

The youngest daughter of a friend of mine is getting married this month so I wanted to make a card for her and would like to share it with you.

The lovely stamp is from Lily of the Valley and came on the same sheet as the previous baby card did. I think this is going to be a 'go to' set whenever births and weddings come up. It is simply coloured with Promarkers and Copics with a little sprinkling of glitter dots. I used Nestabilities Labels 4 set for the mat and layer.

My latest Papertrey Ink order has just come so I hope to have a play with some new goodies over the weekend.

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend.

Carol x

New baby card

Hello everyone,

I finally got around to making a card today as a late entry to the Passion for Papertrey polka dot challenge. I have a sewing machine that sits on a desk rebuking me for not using it after I had managed to convince myself that I would be able to do so many things with it once I had bought it. Truth be told, I have been terrified of it since I tried threading it up and got hopelessly tangled up in yards of tangled thread and knots. Well I decided to be brave today and try again. I can't believe I had so much trouble before, because it behaved beautifully today and I am pleased to present a card with machine sewing on it at last!

click on photo to enlarge

I made the polka dot paper with PTI Polka dot basics and matted it onto Spring Rain cardstock before stitching the edges (yay!). I stamped the baby image from Lily of the Valley stamps and coloured it with Copics and paper pieced the hat and babygrow with more polka dotted paper. This was then layered with Nestabilities labels dies. I knotted some ribbon for some added texture and placed the mat on top with pop dots to give some dimension. A couple of baby footprints finished it off.

I'm off to sing with my choir now, so thanks for looking.

Carol x

More Wild Cards

Hello everyone,

As promised, I'm just going to share a couple of more Cricut cards that were made a little while ago.

This new baby card was made once again with the Wild Card cartridge baby carriage card on page 76 of the handbook. I layered it with some pastel plaid paper that I ran through the Swiss dots Cuttlebug folder for some texture. I finished it off by adding some baby buttons and faux stitching and inking around the edge.

This Valentine card was made with a cute Penny Black stamp, coloured and matted onto red and silver card and then onto Die Cuts With a View text paper and silver card. The sentiment was cut from ( you guessed it! ) Wild Card page 67, and a little red ribbon and some heart gems finished it off.

 I also used some of the text paper to line the envelope and stamped

 a couple of hearts on it.

Thanks for looking and I'll post some more soon.

Carol x

Cricut birthday card

Hello everyone,

I'm still not crafting much because the weather is too nice, so I thought that over the next few days, I'd share some cards I made a while ago.

This wedding card was made with an Elzybel stamp, coloured in with Copic markers, matted onto black and gold card and then onto some pretty, abstract print paper by Kelly Harwood which was embellished with a gold flower border stamp. The sentiment was cut from the fabulous Cricut Wild Card cartridge. I love this cartridge because every time I use it, I find something I haven't noticed before.

For this birthday card I used the Inkadinkadoo Birthday Cupcake stamp set. I used the star and asterisk stamp to create a simple border along the top of the card. I then used the Cricut Wild Card cartridge again to cut out the cupcake bottoms in pink pearl card, and the toppings and candles from white card. I used clear glitter for some frosting and coloured and glittered the flames. I put some simple mats behind the completed cupcakes and finished off with the sentiment.

I hope to be back tomorrow with some more. Thanks for looking.

Carol x

More photographs

Hello everyone,

We've been enjoying some much needed sunshine in my corner of Manchester, so although I haven't been crafting so far this week, I thought I would share some more photos from our family competition. You can click on any of the photos to get a larger view.

This beautiful photo of raindrops on a web was taken by John (my lovely husband).

I took this photo at Hampton Court this summer. I just loved the rich patterns and fabric on the dress.

This close up photo of a dandelion seed head was taken by my son, Chris.

A bluebell wood, taken by John at Coughton Hall this summer.

And, finally, this amazing shot was taken by Laura in our garden. So we did have blue skies on at least one day!