Saturday, 2 March 2019

Special Day


My daughter has a close friend who will be marrying very soon and this is the card which I made for her.
The heart die is by Simon Says Stamp and once cut, I embossed it with a delicate Nellie's Choice embossing folder. The entwined initials are from Cuttlebug (Olivia) and the wedding sentiment die is from Creative Expressions.
The challenge at Happy Little Stampers CAS this time is Anything Goes, with the optional twist  entitled Special Day. I must confess that a wedding is really up there in the special league!

I made another card with this die for another Special day simply using various shades of card in the red spectrum, paired with a bold sentiment from WOW.
Someone from my choir bought this Valentine card. I hope the recipient was pleased!


Faux Stained Glass

I haven't done this technique for quite some time... I'm not a great one for patiently waiting for projects to dry, but for the faux stained glass process where Glossy Accents or the equivalent is used, it's necessary to wait until the liquid has set before completing the element.
I cut several of the Heart from SSS and colouring the base layer with Promarkers, then filling in each section with Glossy Accents,  I added a few more outline heart layers in white card with the final layer from silver card after the Glossy Accents were dry.

The love sentiment is also from Simon Says Stamp.
I thought the front of the card looked a little sad, so I just embossed a stitched rectangle die onto the front to liven it up a little.
This is for the challenge at CAS Mix Up but I've just realised that I have omitted the stamping element of the challenge... oh well, I'll add it to the challenge anyway and get back to the drawing board!

Amended version to include stamping!


Archiscraps - Stained Glass

Sunday, 24 February 2019

Daisy


Yesterday the postman brought me three new sets of wildflower dies from Sizzix. I already had one set which I have used mainly as silhouettes, but these are larger stems and seemed to cry out for a little colouring. Here I obliged by sloshing around a little watercolour. The vellum behind the aperture was embossed with an old Cuttlebug folder which has been a favourite for a long time. The framed sentiment die was purchased from Amazon recently, I sloshed a little watercolour on that too!
The stitched dies are American and unfortunately the two countries don't share the same paper sizes, so although the larger of the two used here fits the width of a British card, it's too short for the height of the card.  I know that some Brit crafters just shorten their card bases, but I prefer to lengthen the die cut. I do this by starting with a piece of card the same size as the card front. I fit the die to one end of the card, partially cut from that end, turn the card around, move the die along to fit to the other end of the card matching the stitch notches,  and then do another partial cut from that end to make the two cuts meet. I make squares into rectangles, rectangles into squares, extend or shorten die cuts to fit around sentiments and all sorts of stuff like that.

Inkspirational - Use Your Stash

Simon Says Stamp - No Stamps Allowed

CAS on Friday - Vellum

Initial

It's sometimes quite difficult to come up with an idea for a commission card when you have no idea about the intended recipient, as in this case. All I knew was the lady's name... Marie.
I decided to go with what I thought was a safe option... an initial.
I cut out a large M on my Portrait from silver card, together with its offset image in plain white hammered card. The foliage is a pair of symmetrical garland diecuts which I simply snipped into two pieces to lay over the letter and added a few flat backed pearls randomly over the letter. The two mounts are cut with Framelits dies one using the right side and the other using the back of the hammered card. 
I hope that both the 'commissionee' and the recipient will be pleased.
Some time ago I made some of these cards for a friend to give to her Goddaughters, the Mum then commissioned one for herself and one for her husband and she had them all mounted into shadow boxes to display on her wall. I guess she was pleased!!