Friday 31 May 2013

first 2 cards made from Hunkydory Flutterby Wishes (came free with Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine)

Its been another stressful week, nothing new there, and I'd not felt like crafting at all until yesterday. I pushed out all the die-cut decoupage from the Hunkydory Flutterby Wishes free cover gift with the latest issue of Cardmaking and Papercraft and layered it up with 3D foam. Its not my usual type of crafting as I love the challenge of cutting out my decoupage but I needed to make some female birthday cards for craft friends on DOCrafts forum and the colours are so pretty and fresh. they are both A5 cards and use toppers, sentiments and backing papers from the pack, I've just added mirror card and adhesive gems to finish the cards off.

                                                                     for Eileen D


                                                           for June (June'scraftybits)

Thursday 23 May 2013

Just one card this week

I've not done much crafting this week as my back has not been good, so had to rest a lot in bed. A friend told me about a waterbed massage at her gym so I gave it a go and it was fantastic, can't wait to go again.

On DO Crafts forum, Heather (Bubbles3) posted how she had broken her leg very badly so I decided to make her a get well card to cheer her up, it is a Craft Creations decoupage card with matting and layering on an embossed card base (card base didn't show up well on scan, its a hearts frame).

Friday 17 May 2013

My first scrapalbum, made from scratch

Last December I was browsing in The Range, and came across a pack of 8" x 8" Kraft card and decided to use it to make my first scrap album from scratch. I am part of the monthly scrapbook layout challenge on the scrapbooking forum on the DoCrafts website and we are making an album of one layout per month, with different members choosing the theme.

Firstly I wanted to find a theme for the cover and I found it in some beautiful paper, sorry can't remember who made it, but it inspired me. I covered the front and back cover in the same lilac papers, and on the front finished it with corner and numeral peel-offs, before punching the holes for the D-rings with my Bigbite.

                                 "Create, Dream, Imagine, Believe" album cover for 2013

 
January's theme was either celebrations or hopes for 2013. As there were lots of difficulties in our lives in January I didn't feel up to doing the celebrations theme but the hopes for 2013 was right up my street. I covered the page with pink and lilac Papermania starry paper, and embellished the page with donated die-cut corners, which I coloured with a metallic pen, a die-cut medallion which I coloured with Tim Holtz 'Fired Brick' distress ink and finished with lilac pearls and a doily.
 
JANUARY - HOPES FOR 2013 layout

February's challenge theme was love and I went very retro and romantic for this layout. I chose a photo of me and Andy taken in 1984, check out the fashions! My daughter thinks they are awful but they were bang on trend for the early 80s if any of you remember that great era. I covered the page in pink cloud paper, then matted and layered pearl and patterned card and embellished the page with metallic hearts, tags and a mini envelope, which had a hidden tag of journaling, shown on 2nd photo.

                                                        FEBRUARY - LOVE layout

March's challenge theme was vintage, and I decided to finally do a scrapbook layout of my beloved dad, something I'd not felt able to do in the 7 years since he died. I hunted for this favourite photo of the 2 of us, me aged 2, in India where I was born, its a a lovely black and white photo. I went for a muted colour scheme, for the vintage newspaper backing paper, the 3D tags  and chipboard alphas, the green backing papers and journal tags came from the Papermania Chronology goodybag ( a mothers day gift from my daughter), the large 'thankful for you' journaling tag is taken from the 6" x 6" Webster's Pages "Petite Papers" paper pack.

                                                      MARCH - VINTAGE layout


the April challenge theme was either Easter or Spring, I chose spring as I had a gorgeous photo of my grand-daughter on the first day at her new school, taken on my front doorstep, next to a bed of daffodils. I covered the page with a pearlised butterfly paper (12" x 12" Michelle Ackerman 'Green Buterflies'), and embellished the page with chipboard die-cut flourish corner and 'sweet', the 6" x 6" journaling paper is taken from a vintage floral paper pack.

                                                         APRIL - SPRING layout

the May challenge theme was black and white photographs, i decided to think outside the box slightly for this challenge as I didn't use a B & W photo, but I did use black and white buttons, but my photo is almost all black, a silhouette photo of my brothers, taken by my mum, I love this stunning photo and had wanted to scrap it for ages and this seemed the perfect opportunity. I covered the page in cogs paper taken from the 8" x 8" Papermania Chrononolgy paper pack, along with co-ordinating tag and journaling tag from the same chronology goodybag. Also on the DO Crafts forum Emma (Trenouth) set us a challenge on the cardmaking forum to use stash we hadn't used to its full potential and just looked at in our craftrooms, my underused item was buttons. I have a large eclectic button collection, my mum started it for me when she gave me my granny's button box as part of my bottom drawer when I got engaged in 1983. I've added to my collection over the years by buying vintage buttons in charity shops and boutiques as well as removing buttons from worn out clothes and some of them have come to me via craft stash swaps on DO Crafts cardmaking forum. Its so easy to love our stash so much that it doesn't get used and I just enjoy looking at it, but I decided to use buttons not as an embellishment but as the main feature of the scrap page, so I emptied out my white and black button jars onto my craft desk and the design grew organically. I used them to show light and shade to reflect the photo and am very pleased with the result, I used Pritt power gel as its clear and strong and doesn't make as much mess as silicone glue. In all I used 50 of my vintage buttons.

                                   MAY - BLACK & WHITE PHOTO layout

I am really enjoying this monthly challenge along with scrapping in a style that's new to me, I will add the later months pages to my blog as I make them, thanks for any comments you may leave, happy crafting, Fi xx


 
 

Saturday 11 May 2013

Made another 8 cards this week

I am really enjoying crafting at the moment, especially Christmas cards, as I enjoy the weekly challenge to make at least 1 Christmas card a week for Snoflake's Christmas card challenge on Docrafts, here are the 7 cards I made along with my father in law's father's day card.

I coloured a donated stamped image with promarkers, mounted it onto foiled patterned card, then onto an Anna Griffin shaped Christmas card, and added ribbon and a sentiment.

Hunkydory die-cut decoupage mounted onto foiled patterned A5 card

Traditional Christmas decoupage layered onto glittered card, holographic card, patterned paper and A5 card, finished with peel-off sentiment.


Donated stamped image, coloured with promarkers, layered onto foiled and glittered card, satin card and square card base, sentiment added.


Donated stamped image, coloured with promarkers, layered on foiled patterned card and onto DL card base, finished with sentiments and glittered brad.

decoupage layered onto holographic card, patterned paper and 6" x 6" square scalloped edge card, finished with matching sentiment.


donated stamped image, coloured with promarkers, layered on foiled patterned card, satin card, patterned paper and onto pearl card base, finished with sentiment and brad.

 Die-cut forever friends decoupage, layered on holographic and satin card and onto square card base, finished off with buttons from my stash.





Wednesday 1 May 2013

8 Christmas cards finished in one day!

Two weeks ago, when I wasn't feeling well, I sat in my orthopaedic recliner and cut out decoupage to my hearts content, find it very relaxing, especially when life is stressful, which is often! Then I layered it all up and coloured lots of digi stamp images but that was a s far as my crafting went, they just sat next to my chair until yesterday morning. I had a restless night and woke at 3am, tried to get back to sleep but gave up at 5am and felt like crafting, so I got out all the toppers I'd made and sat and crafted in the early hours when there was no sound except the birds singing their little hearts out, they had started at 4am, wasn't so thrilled to hear them at that time though.

I used different sizes and styles of card blanks, glitter card, mirror card, embossed card, patterned papers, sentiments, DST and 3D foam and here they are:

having major problems with my pictures and edit in windows 8, asked for one image it put all images I'd uploaded, and many in their wrong orientation, so sorry.

the first 8 are the Christmas cards that I made yesterday. then ladybug card sent to a DC forum member to help raise funds for a zoo that had a bad fire, the last 4 Christmas cards were made last week, again when I couldn't sleep in the early hours.