Friday 28 January 2011

Waltzing Mouse and Cricut Easter card




Hello everyone,

Happy Friday to you at the start of another weekend. Over at Waltzing Mouse Stamps they are having a challenge to CASE a card that was made by one of their Design Team for their Spellbinder Grand Calibur event. I decided to case this card by Lynn Mercurio:-


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As you know if you look in on my blog, I am resolved this year to use up more of my supplies before I buy any more and so I am trying to make much more use of my Cricut. I used to always think of using my Cricut cartridges for the focal point of my card, but lately I've become more interested in mixing things up a bit and using stamps alongside my Cricut cuts. I decided to try it out on this card, and I have to say I'm not very sure about it, but here goes:-


I turned the card on its side but otherwise kept to Lynn's design. I used a white base card and a mat of pearlised lilac card. Its a little hard to see in the photograph but I then added a layer of white card with patterned lilac leaves on it. Then out came my Cricut and I cut the flower borders from Paper Doll Dress up and used a hole punch to create the flower centres. The centre frame was cut with Accent Essentials and raised on foam pads. The stamps I used were all from WM and the frame came from Frame It, the basket, eggs and sentiment were from Spring Baskets and the little flourish was from Fancy Phrases. I stamped the eggs onto white card, coloured them with Copics and cut them out before placing them in the basket. Everything was stamped with Versamark and embossed with white embossing powder I finished it off with some shiny satin ribbon for the bow. Let me know what you think.

Hugs
Carol x

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Papertrey January Blog Hop



Hello everyone,



Its time for the Papertrey Blog Hop again and the challenge this time is to make something with a stamp set that either has not been inked, or has been gathering dust. I decided to use 'Its a Celebration' which I have only used the banners from before now. I decided to make a small decorative canvas for my dresser and chose a picture of my youngest son on his 21st birthday.


click to enlarge



I began by taking two 4 inch canvases and painting them with blue acrylic paint. When it dried, the colour was a little too bright, so I went over it with a thin wash of white paint to tone it down a little.
I was covering the canvas so didn't need to paint the middle.

I then took spring rain card stock and stamped a background with Versamark using the solid and outline tiny star stamps from the Celebrations set. I did some more background  (a little hard to see in the photo) using the bubbles stamp and Vintage Cream ink. I then layered up the backgrounds with some summer sunrise DP and inked the edges with creamy brown ink.

Before attaching the papers to  the canvas I sandwiched some ribbon between them and the canvas to join the two canvases together. I chose the photo of my son (looking very handsome don't you think?) and printed it out at 2.25 x 2.5 inches. Then came the fun bits of stamping and cutting out all the embellishments. I stamped three cupcakes, all with different toppings and added cherries, which I put glossy accents on to mimic real cherries. I stamped and embossed the gift parcel with summer sunrise ink and over stamped the bubbles with blue ink. I love how with PTI, you can over stamp and get the positioning right because you can see what you are doing. I finished the gift off with a button and twine.





I then stamped the sentiments, put them on strips and added a minute star stamp to highlight each word. The stamp for 'birthday' has a blank where the 'i' should be and there are little candle and flame stamps to fill the gap. I liked these so much that I kept stamping them and used them on the other side of the canvas:-


I added one of the party hats on top of the photo and tied some ribbon around to finish it off. I think it looks good on my dresser and I hope he likes it.

Thanks for stopping by and I'm off to get a cup of tea before browsing the other blogs for inspiration.

Hugs
Carol x

Friday 21 January 2011

Cricut New Home card

Hello everyone,

Welcome to my blog at the start of another weekend. I'm going out to eat with my husband and daughter tonight, and have the rest of the family coming round on Sunday, so I'm looking forward to a first catch up since Christmas. A friend of the family has just moved house so I created this card to send her using my Cricut:-


click to enlarge
I used Beyond Birthdays for the house and car, Plantin Schoolbook for the flowers and letters on the banner, and Wild Card for the 'for your new home', but I cut off the 'for your' part. I used  Papertrey Ink 'Its a Celebration' set for the banner and cut out a shadow by hand, and added some jewels give a little bling. I only attached the the flower border at the base, so it gives a feeling of the flowers moving and I  used an orange glaze pen for the centres of some of the flowers. I enjoy mixing up the cartridges and adding some stamping to cards for a mixed media effect.

I hope you have a great weekend, and I'd like to thank everyone who has left lovely messages on my blog recently. I really appreciate that you take the time to visit and leave comments - it makes my day!

Hugs
Carol x

Monday 17 January 2011

Waltzing Mouse Blog Waltz


Good morning everyone,

I hope you have had a good weekend and are raring to start on another week. I have more or less completed the reorganisation of my craft room after my hero of a husband painted it for me (without complaint, I might add), following my youngest son's accident in there with a glass off red wine. The room looks much brighter and I have got rid of a lot of stash I no longer use, but best of all, I now know where everything is again. I'll try and post some photos of it all soon because I always enjoy looking at other peoples spaces. I am resolved to tidy everything away after each project, so it stays looking good, but I don't know how long I'll be able to keep that one up!

My first project on getting back into the room was to make a card for the Waltzing Mouse Blog Waltz, which has a Valentine theme this month. I decided to go for a pink and beige colourway rather than the traditional red and this is my offering:-


I used Bazzill cardstock and stamped on the untextured side. I used two tiny stamps from WM Fancy Phrases to create a background panel using Color Box Chalk ink in Creamy Brown and layered it up with beige and pale pink. I then wrapped some pink ribbon around the centre and made a loop to draw the eye in. Next came a pair of hearts cut from a Sizzix die and stamped with the dotty stamp from WM Off Beat Backgrounds which was a Christmas present from my son. The sentiment was also from Fancy Phrases but I only inked up the last two words, and I finished it off with a heart gem over the letter O. The sentiment and backing layer were punched out using Stampin Up oval punches. All edges were inked with Palette Fresh Snow ink.

Thanks for stopping by and I'm looking forward to seeing all the projects.

Hugs
Carol x

Sunday 9 January 2011

Cricut children's card for the Old Stash Challenge!

Hello everyone,

Its a lovely sunny day here in Manchester and its a wonderful change from the gray, damp days we've been having recently. I find January and February depressing months and long to jump straight to spring, but days like this are good and remind me that spring is not too far away.

The resolution I mentioned in my last post is still strong and I have created the first card for my 'Use Up Old Stash Challenge'



For this card I used bits of card from my remnants drawer and dug out one of my old favourite Cricut cartridges, Walk in My garden. I also used Plantin Schoolbook for the birthday letters and the grass border. I used white gel pen to faux stitch on 'happy' and black and white gel pen to create the eyes and facial features on the snail and caterpillar.

I feel quite pleased with the results of my first challenge, and hope my resolution lasts, so please let me know if you play along so I can visit your blog.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs
Carol x

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Happy New Year

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year to you and I hope the year brings you everything you could wish for, including good health, the comfort of family and friends, and enough money for all your needs and some of your wants.
Its hard to believe that the Christmas season has finished again for another year, but it has been good to spend time with my family and friends.

Over the last few days I have been thinking about making resolutions for the new year and have decided that I must have a big decluttering session. I always feel good when I have sorted through all our stuff and got rid of the things we no longer love or use. I feel lighter, somehow, when there is more space around me and the urge for a good purge is upon me!

I am also planning a new colour for my craft space. My youngest son dropped a glass of red wine in my craft room a few weeks ago, and although we managed to get the stain out of the carpet, the walls were beyond rescue and it looked like someone had been murdered in there. Its amazing how far one glass of wine can spread! Anyway, I now have an excuse to repaint the room and give it a bit of a facelift, and I have begun my decluttering in there so I can get at the walls to paint them. I feel a bit overwhelmed at the task and somewhat shocked by the amount of craft stuff I have accumulated. What a dilemma. I want space but I want all my lovely craft stuff too. I don't think I will ever need to buy another piece of patterned paper in my lifetime, and I'm sure I don't need so many rubber stamps. I spent a day taking the wooden blocks off my old stamps and putting them in cd cases, which has given me some space, but I wish someone would tell Papertrey Ink and Waltzing Mouse Stamps to cease new releases for a year so I won't be tempted to buy more. Well I have decided that if I want to keep the stuff, I must use it, so I am challenging myself to incorporate more of my old stuff when making cards and other creations. I am tempted to promise to post a card every week made from old materials but I will be more likely to stick with it if I resolve to do one a month. So watch this space and if you care to make the same resolution, perhaps we can visit each other to give encouragement.

My eldest son has a birthday just after Christmas, and I made this card from some new PTI  goodies that arrived just in time for Christmas:-


I used SU Mellow Moss and cream cardstock. I cut the stars out with PTI star dies and stamped a Waltzing Mouse Off Beat Background stamp on the cream ones. I made a star panel using all the PTI Star Prints stamps and used sentiments from that set and Signature Greetings. I used my new PTI Victorian Lace Border Die to create a border in both cardstocks and popped the cream inserts in the holes. I find it really hard to make masculine cards, but I think this one turned out ok.

I think that is more than enough for now, so thank you so much for visiting my blog and for all the encouraging comments you leave - I really do appreciate reading them.

Hugs
Carol

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