Hello

I saw this sketch from MFTWSC on Bloglovin and thought I would love to have a go!

Here I used a bunch of MFT dies and a sentiment from Clearly Besotted. I keep my dies in themes on magnetic sheets, in A4 plastic files. One of these is the stitched and pierced  die box. Because our card sizes in the UK are different from the USA, I need to adapt lots of these stitched and pierced dies to fit my cards. I used a square stitched die from one of the Blueprint sketch sets to make the front panel, elongating it slightly by partially cutting from each direction to make it fit. I had stamped the IO plank background with SU Smoky SLate ink before cutting.  I got the two fishtail dies out of their box, but by the time I came to use them, the small one had disappeared. (It's the story of my life  in my craft room.) I searched all over the place to no avail and then had the bright idea of looking to see if it had been attracted to the outside of one of my die boxes... in fact it had stuck to the underside of my magnetic stamping platform. Quelle relief! I hate losing dies, and have lost a few over the years. I think some tiny ones have gone out with the trash after falling into the bin with scraps of card!

We have had some lovely weather recently which makes sitting in the garden more of a pleasure, especially as the chap who comes to do our garden hasn't been affected by the stay at home policy as he is working alone in the open air!

I don't often cover the whole of the front of a card, in fact I don't remember the last time that I did it, but here is a second with quite a bit of coverage and is using the same Impression Obsession plank background as the previous card. Makes me realise how much I like it!

This card was inspired by the challenge at The Card Concept

I thought that the wood of the console table was rather like this stamp so I added tulips and a cross and an Easter sentiment. I thought that the tan base of the card was rather like the frame in the photo too!

I hope everyone manages to have a peaceful Easter.

Do stay well everyone and take care!

Boots

I have a set of three rather old Hero Arts Santa stamps... his hat, his jacket (on a hanger) and his boots. I think they are great fun!  I had to mask the stamp before inking to print the boots and the Ho Ho Ho separately as they were very close together on the same stamp.

I did the hand drawn frames, cut out the images and distressed the edges,, before mounting onto the black background. I seem to have been using a lot of black recently!

Very simple, but it pleases me... not a lot of my work has done that of late.

ABC Christmas...H - Hand Drawn

I hope everyone is keeping well!

Take care!

Gilding Flakes

It's a while since I used gilding Flakes and I don't believe that I have ever used them with a stencil before, I think that I have mainly used them with stamps. So to begin this project I cut a stencil from vellum using a Sizzix die. This is actually a die which normally leaves an aperture so it is perfect for using to make a stencil.

I inked through the stencil with Versamark, sprinkled on some Stamp 'N' Bond and heated it. I tipped on some Gilding Flakes and pressed them down firmly, before brushing away and then burnishing with a scoochie thingy. I was really pleased with how it turned out. I wanted to do a sentiment in embossing powder rather than flakes but neither the gold nor the copper were a good match for the flakes so I mixed some of each together. It's not a bad match IRL.

CAS Stencil Challenge

I really love how the girls at CAS Stencil make me think outside the box.

Thank you SO much!

AAA Cards

Jingle Bells

I came across this stamp (from Stampendous) amongst my Christmas collection and thought it would be a good idea to use  it for the challenge at CAS Christmas

I have lots of dies which cut wavy lines so I thought I would use one of those to use for the mount. Nearly ALL of them swirl in the opposite direction to the wave of the music stave! Finally I found one which almost echoes it... if you don't scrutinise it too closely.

 The MFT Santa looks as though he's pointing to it so I thought I would add a sentiment to put into  words what I think he could be saying! I tried to use a font for this which was in keeping with that on that on the music stamp. 

I hope you're all staying safe!

Take Care!