Sketched Flowers

My old friend and longtime reader of this blog, Theresa, sent me a totally unexpected gift of some stamps (all the way from America). The card she sent said 'see what you can do with these!'

Well here is the first lot, made with the Simon Says Stamps Sketched Flowers set. This first one was heat embossed in white, then I just used distress inks over the top.....

This next one was done on watercolour paper, I heat embossed in white again, but this time used watercolour paints (the heat embossing kept the colour wash nicely within the lines.....)

and for the last one, I stamped onto white card, then did a lot of fussy cutting around the flower spray. The partially cut white panel was attached to a sand coloured base card with foam pads -  I also used Wink of Stella clear glitter on the flowers, but of course this never shows up in photos

So thank you so much Theresa, I hope you approve of what I have done so far....lots more to come. Which one do you all like best? I think the last one is my favourite.

I haven't blogged for a while - I scalded my fingers quite badly and it's difficult crafting when you have dressings that make your fingers the size of hot dogs! However, they have healed now, and I have two fingers with skin as smooth as  a baby's bottom 😄 but I do have a lot to share with you, so look out for more posts (hint: Christmas is coming.....) 

Made for Free!

As I have a commission in this month's edition of Making Cards magazine, I got a copy, and the free gift included these really cute girl images. Perfect for teenager Christmas cards I thought. So this is what I came up with. The images were great to fussy cut, and with the addition of a white pen, some glitter, I really liked the end results. Do you?

Here is my favourite teenage girl - Kiki was confirmed at church on Sunday......

and my two darling girls together, Kiki with Molly and Monty

Hobbycraft takeover for a day

Today saw me taking over the Hobbycraft Instagram page for the day - it was a bit of a big deal for me, especially as I am a bit of a newbie on that platform and don’t really know my way around! But thanks to lots of help from Aisha Green, the Papercraft design team leader, I made it! My story is a sort of ‘a day in the life of.......’ so, of course I had to include the children. See my Christmas makes @hobbycrafthq on Instagram 

When that was done and dusted, it was time to have a play with my new Foil Quill from WRMK, a really nifty little gadget that makes it easy to hot foil your Cricut design onto your cards. This is my first attempt - a thank you card for Aisha for all her help!

Rekindling a love affair!

 For quite a while, I have let my Cricut gather dust in my crafty den, but recently I have rediscovered the joy of using it - there is a certain satisfaction in sitting there, watching a machine chunter away, doing all the hard work!

This first card is actually a design I made for my son in law who works in IT (with a different sentiment obviously). I thought it worked well for those tech geek types who are difficult to make for......

Then I started thinking ahead to Christmas, and made a couple of framed pieces which celebrate hobbies. I take no credit for the design, they were already done and all I had to do was work out which colours worked best, and send the machine on it's happy way.....I love the way they worked out

Isn't the next one perfect for a golf fanatic?

It's getting quite autumnal here now after a bit of a washout summer. That means a carpet of crunchy acorns on our drive from the big oak tree, and squirrels scampering about busy filling up their pantry before winter. I rather like this season, and enjoy changing colours on my cards, moving on to rusty autumn leaves after the pinks and yellows of summer floral cards. Do you change colours when crafting according to the season?

Winner of the Hobbycraft Bundle..........

Firstly, a card made with my old but much loved 'Lovely as a Tree' stamp set from Stampin up - I wonder how many of us have this set? It's appeal is timeless. I masked off the sides of the card to ink the background, then simply overstamped the trees. 

Alex came up with Molly (aged two) for a flying visit. We were sitting in the conservatory, and a bee was buzzing around frantically trying to get out. It was hot, he was getting exhausted and kept resting on a ledge close to the roof.
So I got a broom to try and gently guide him out. 'why you hitting the bonbon bee Ma?' asked Molly. I explained that he was very tired and needed help to go home to the hive. Eventually, the broom did the trick and away the 'bonbon' bee flew...................oh WELL DONE Ma! said my little bumble bee lover 😀 

On to the winner of the Hobbycraft bundle - I used Random.org to pull out a number and the winner is:

AUNTY SUE

Congratulations Sue, email your address and they will be on their way

It's Christmas in August - a Giveaway

Here is a chance for one of you to win a large parcel of Christmas goodies from the latest Christmas range from Hobbycraft. There are all sorts of little delights in there - ribbons, dies, sparkly stars, snowflakes........loads of stuff from the very latest range, which is only just going on sale now in Hobbycraft stores  

All you have to do is leave a comment under this post, and I will pick a random winner on Sunday 11th August. I will mail anywhere in the world. Good luck! x

Rain rain go away......

Sharing a couple of recent makes for the Facebook Fiskarettes page today, both quite clean and simple which seems to be my default option for cards these days......

And a recent photo of Max and Milo taken when they came for Sunday lunch last week, they are growing so quickly, and are very entertaining company.

In the meantime the monsoon continues, the weeds in the garden flourish and it is too soggy to do anything but sit back and dream of sunny days. Plus, I have a painful frozen shoulder again, so until I get a steroid injection next week, gardening and crafting are distant memories, thank heavens for Netflix 😂

Adding some colour....

I have done very little stamping and colouring recently, somehow I have had deadlines to meet, things to do......but when I do settle down with my Promarkers for an hour or two, I always find it so relaxing - I should probably make more time for it

A bit of paper piecing on this one, using a really old, but still a favourite Penny Black stamp.....

The next one uses the MFT Splashing Puddles die as a background, and MFT images from the Showers of Love set

A couple of updated 'grandma' photos - here is Molly with her mummy, she is
 2 1/2 now, a very lively little chatterbox with mad curly hair!

We recently looked after Molly for four days while her parents went to a wedding in Portugal. I took her to a local petting farm, she fed some lambs, reluctantly stroked a guinea pig ('big mouse Ma!'), and I discovered that an ice cream works just as well as a bribe as it used to when my own kids were small!

Still punching........

Sharing some of my recent makes for Fiskars today - I still love the ease of using punches, it is so much less of a faff than getting out a die cutting machine. This first one was made with circle and heart punches, the LOVE sentiment is a punch as well

This next one used the cloud punch to make a canopy for a stamped tree......

and here we have squeeze punched butterflies - this was a bit of an experiment, the black panels were punched with the butterflies, and attached to the card with foam tape, then the coloured butterflies were slotted into the spaces. I added the trails with white pen

Considering the fact that it's June, we should have all sorts of bees and butterflies busy in the garden, but I think they are probably huddled up somewhere dry, trying to keep out of the rain. It has rained enough this week for me to consider taking up woodwork as a hobby, and start building an ark! To add insult to injury, it's cold as well. I thought I may be tempting fate when, on a rare warmish day, I put away the winter woolies and got out all the summer gear..... 

I'm Back........

Back from where I hear you say.......actually just back to blogging. I have been very lax about blogging just lately, but after blogging daily for so many years, I was running out of steam, and I often felt as if I was putting in the effort, but was just talking to myself. However, when I go AWOL, all the lovely blog followers start getting in touch and asking if everything is okay, so I am rested, revitalized and ready to go.....

So I am sharing a few scrapbook makes with you today, made for the Hobbycraft papercraft design team. First up is a 12 x 12 layout of Max and Milo, boating on a holiday to Cape Cod last summer 

 The following pages were made for a bullet journal (By Heidi Swapp) sent to me by Hobbycraft, with a free rein on what I did with it. I decided to turn it into a 'snippets of Molly' journal, I used various photos of her that I loved, and used them in a random rather than chronological way, leaving the left hand page blank for her parents to add their memories - I think she will love it as she gets older.........

 The first pages are fairly conventional opening pages - I was surprised how much I enjoyed making this 8 x 4 size, and of course, I had to be careful to add as little bulk as possible, otherwise the journal wouldn't close....

 I had to use these photos,
they make me smile.....the sentiment was done on my Cricut

This photo doesn't make me smile, it makes me laugh out loud....Molly and her daddy, both glaring at the camera. Hilarious.....

This was her first visit to one of those soft play places

 With Mummy.................

And finally, here is a 12 x 12 page, also of Molly, made for Hobbycraft using American Craft papers

Unusual for me to be sharing scrapbook pages - I have loads of card designs to share with you as well now that I am back in the blogging saddle!
I promise to be back in a couple of days......x

Hobbycraft Card - and Stitches...

Here is a card I made for Hobbycraft - you can find details on how to make it

HERE - and if you scroll down you can leave me some 'love' over there with just a click as well (thank you 😊)

Here are a couple of links to the Stitches trade show that I attended last week

https://www.facebook.com/fiskarettes.uk/videos/399971110780034/

https://www.facebook.com/fiskarettes.uk/videos/370889163494774/

It's a stunning day here - I am off into the garden for a couple of weed pulling hours, my green garden bin (trash can) is full to the brim, and the first collection isn't until April, I may be pulling hair instead of weeds by then!......

Family, Stencils and Shows......

I seem to have had a hectic time over the past few weeks, not helped by catching a particularly violent sort of tummy bug from two year old Molly - she bounced back from the bug within hours. Me? It took days!

But I did find time to play with my new Jane Davenport Flower Girl stencil from Spellbinders. you get three stencils in the pack........

I decided to just stencil the face in black ink onto plain white card, and added the flowers to make a flamboyant hat. I just used various distress inks to stencil these

I used chalks to add a bit of colour to her face, and added some texture paste to the stencilled background

 I had to show you this, a pensive photo of 14 year old Kiki at Christmas, she is growing up so fast, and I think she is just beautiful (slight bias here of course!)

A large chunk of last week was taken up with the Stitches UK trade show at the NEC, I will show photos of that this week, although the main body of the show was very much centered around sewing and knitting, not much papercrafting at all. Of course, seeing all the beautiful sewing and knitting I was all fired up to dig out the sewing machine or buy some wool, until I remembered that the only dress I ever made started to come apart after one wash, and the only thing I ever knitted was a scarf for my teddy bear......best stick to paper then!

Playing Around with Foil.......

I am so bad - I haven't even been here to wish you all a very happy new year. Put it down to the usual seasonal ailments and a hectic couple of weeks. Anyway, here I am.......and of course I wish you all a happy, healthy and peaceful new year

I thought I would share my thoughts on a new 'toy' - the

 Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil System, this post is the result of my very first efforts, literally snapping away as I went, so it's a honest commentary on my first impression. I didn't do a video, as there are so many professional ones out there that do a much better job than I could. There is a good one that explains the process HERE

The box contains everything you need to get started....the machine itself, a spacer plate and shim, some foil, and some accessories.....There is a rubber mat for your hot plates to cool down, and some nifty little magnetic tweezers to lift the hot plates off the machine. You get a couple of rolls of foil, and two foiling plates, a pretty floral wreath, and a Best Wishes sentiment

 To get started, simply switch on your machine,
wait for the platform light to glow green. Place
Your foiling plate onto the rubber platform face
up, switch on the timer and wait for it to stop 
flashing.........

 Now cut foil to size and place it (coloured side down) onto the hot plate. Cover with your card, the grid markings on the rubber surface make it easy to align your card. Place the shim and spacer plate on top. Now the whole of the heated platform can be pulled out of the docking station and taken over to your die cutting machine (I keep mine next to each other so the whole process is seamless)

 Run the heated sandwich slowly 
through your die cutter. I understand
that most die cutting machines are
compatible with the system (apart from the Cuttlebug) 

 When you take away the shims, this is what your cardstock will look like.....

 Now simply peel away the foil, and you are left with this gorgeous foiled and impressed image. It actually has the appearance of foiled letterpress, just beautiful

 Don't waste the left over foil - put a piece of waste card over the rubber surface, then the cardstock you want to foil. Place the waste foil (you can see where the LOVE word in the photo above has left a negative in the foil.) Cover this with a couple of sheets of card, then the normal shims, and run through your machine as before........

 This time, you will get a gorgeous foiled background, with the negative showing in the background colour. Because I was just experimenting, I didn't cut my foil straight, or placed the foil plate centrally, but if I had done this, I reckon this would look fabulous on black cardstock 

 Lastly, I tried foiling using just a regular wafer thin die, I need to play around a lot more with this, but it opens up a whole new world of foiling. The little band on the left is a Spellbinders die called Romantic Agenda. I found that sentiment dies worked well, but forgot to take a photo. I think, with time, I will be able to look at a die and assess pretty accurately how it will look when foiled

So there you have it....lots of brownie points from me for this system. Most importantly, it is well designed, lightweight, only has a small footprint so isn't going to take precious space on my desk, and it works! Just like it should, straight out of the box.......

The foils are inexpensive as well, and each roll has 15 feet of foil. You can use tiny scraps for small sentiments as well. 

I suppose the only downside as far as I can see is the cost of building up a library of foiling plates, but they don't cost any more than regular dies. I think that this initial cost is offset by the fact that you can foil using regular dies, and, let's face it, that cost comes with any new bit of kit we get......I think I bought every embossing folder on the market when I got my first little Cuttlebug! I'm sure, like everything else, as more and more foiling plates are released, there will be sales, and special deals appearing

So I hope this has given you an insight - I just wish you could come round for a coffee and we could explore the Glimmer a bit more together....xx