A busy, productive crafting weekend.

Well this weekend was a bit busy.  My sister and I joined a class with Fiona at Oakfield Crafts.  We just made a few different cards!:

The class was all day, and my sister and I stayed late as well.  The cards are based around the Petite Petals stamps and punch from Stampin Up, and four of their colour suites.   We made fourteen cards, an exploding flower box, a box for mini Easter eggs,  an acetate card storage box and a decorated pencil.  (Sorry for the rubbish photo's but photography is not my strong point.)

Some of the cards were very simple and quick to made, ideal when you need a quick make.

Others took a lot longer.  The first attempt at the exploding flower box was educational, reminding me to measure properly!

I love the papers that we used.  What I like about the Stampin Up range is that they produce card and ink to match with the papers so there is much less searching through your stash for something that goes.

The other aspect that I really like is that there are so many punches or dies that match the stamps.  There are a lot of flowers on the projects but they were so quick to make, just stamp with dye based ink (for a quick dry) then punch out.  No fiddly cutting, hooray.

I love the exploding box.  I think that this will be for my mum for Mothers Day.  (She doesn't have a computer so won't see this).

The card on my tiny easel is a new design that I've not seen before.   It appears like a file folder with tabs, and you make it with the Envelope Punch Board.  Which is also used to make the little red Easter box.

I hope that if you liked these cards you will visit Fiona's website that I have linked to at the top.  She runs shorter classes most months, either Friday evening or Saturday morning and all the card and elements are provided (just take your basic sticking preferences and tools).  The class that we went to we had a huge stack of card, loads of the papers, rhinestones, mini eggs, pencil,  acetate box AND the petite petals stamp and punch set, all to keep.  So I have lots leftover to make more cards.

Hope you like them.

LouP

Three tiered birthday card for my sister

This was a complicated and time consuming card to make.  Especially as I had to work out how to do it from some pics that I had taken of a similar card at a demo.  The Do-Craft demo lady didn't make it that day but had just brought it along as one of her examples, and it was in heart shapes.

I used my scalloped triangle die to cut three decreasing sized single triangles.  Then the same three sized dies to cut folded cards, with the bottom just over the folded edge to make 3 white triangular base cards.
I scored the front of each base card halfway along.

I decorated each of the single card triangles with Lucy Cromwell papers and topper from the mega pack.  I inked round the edge of each with a co-ordinating colour.  They are then attached to the pointed end of the base card only with some strong double sided tape.

The last piece was attaching a tricky little bow to the front to act as the first "stopper".

The card folds flat for posting if required.  To display simply tuck the point of each triangle behind the fold of the base card in front of it.

It was a slow process working out what to do, but now that I have it will be much quicker in future.  And of course I can use my other die shapes as well.  The possibilities are endless!

A Tic-Tac challenge issued

 Back in May we had another one of our crafting get togethers and Helen J asked us if we needed a challenge to prompt some inspiration.  Could we dress up some boxes of Tic-Tacs suitable for use as favours at a wedding.  Well I always need a starting point for crafting so jumped at the chance.  Here is what our little group came up with:

 From the left, here is Ann's creation:

It is in an exploding box format so that when the lid is removed the four sides fall out flat.  The decoration is made by using a die that cuts slits in the box and another that cuts the little petal tabs that are then pushed into the slits.  The whole box sits on a decorative mat in the same design.

The next one up belongs to Helen:

The box was covered in an embossed green card and decorated with a white flower embossed with the same folder.

Here is Ellie's fabulous idea (which has more pictures because she was the teen camera operator):

Ellie had the idea from a small die that Helen had with her, but actually used a template that she got with me at Make-it for a stuffed felt owl.

Another Helen made this leafy box:

And the final box is the one that I made:

Mine was made with some bubble paper, lightly inked with pink.  The top strip is glitter card from a pad from Hobbycraft.  The flower is made from the same pink, inked bubble paper and my Cart-us die.

 I hope that you like our creations, we had a really fun day crafting together, both for this challenge and for our individual projects that we made.  I hope that we will meet up again in the near future.

See you soon

LouP

Hi all,

Just a quick extra post.  Yesterday I spend a really enjoyable day at Oakfield Crafts Christmas Stamp a Stack workshop.  I made 15 cards, (three each of five different designs) and a decorated box.   Such good value for money (check our Fiona's website for details).

I have brought home my beautiful cards and lots of inspiration.  I also have some papers and card stock leftover to make use of at home.

Everyone was really friendly and helpful and I can't wait to go to another class soon.

If you get a chance to go it is well worth it.

Bye for now

LouP

Pretty girls card from a freebie

 Hello

A very girly card today.

I used a decoupage pack that came free with a Do-crafts magazine a year ago for the topper and the sentiment.  The blue paper is from the pack and actually has a very faint pattern to it which the pictures don't really show.  I layered these onto plain pink card.

For the sentiment I used my new toy, a paper trimmer with interchangeable blades from Woodware to make a more interesting edge.

I wrapped an organza ribbon around the whole lot before fixing to the base white card.  As usual it took me a few goes to get the bow to behave I as wanted it to!

A teenage girls birthday card

Hello again.

I made this birthday card for my niece a couple of months ago and am only just getting around to blogging about it now.

I bought a selection of pearlescent cards in a bargain deal when I went to Make-it at FIVE in Farnborough back in March this year and decided that I wanted to use one of the purple ones as my starting point.  With the colour scheme of lilacs and purples set I did some rummaging in my stash to find some other cards and papers.

The striped paper is also from a bargain pack that I got at Make-it, about 100 A5 cards and papers for £1.  The sparkle strip is again from the pack that I bought at The Range.  The stamps have been coloured using a technique that I picked up at a free Do-Craft demo where you ink onto an acrylic block and then pick the colour up with a damp paint brush..

And because the card is for a girl I was able to indulge my inner bling with some gems.

Thanks for looking,  please do feel free to comment if you want to.

Birthday boy

So, I haven't posted anything in a while.  But here is a card that I am really happy with.  I made it for number two child's birthday back in April.

I used the Portabello Road stamps, in a blue ink onto white card stock, then layered onto two shades of blue card and some silver mirri card to keep the colour scheme consistent.

As I didn't have to worry about posting the card I was able to use several layers of 3D pads to make some parts more of a focal point that others.

Proud of this one.