Christmas Party Invite...

 Here's a Christmas party invitation made for a commission for Papercraft Inspirations Magazine....

The gorgeous letterpressed snowflake is a Fiskars fuse die cut, and the kraft tag is liberally sprinkled with Frantage Shabby White embossing enamel to look like snow.... the music page was taken from a musical score book I picked up at a charity shop

What an exciting life I am leading at the moment - the highlight of my day yesterday was yet another eye test, this time to determine what lens I need in my 'other' eye on Monday, but I did take time to go for a pamper session at the hairdressers, so it's all still a bit self indulgent and slow going here. I keep wandering towards my craft table, and drifting away again to aimlessly do nothing very much - hopefully my missing mojo will return along with my new eyes!

Snowflakes in September...

 I know some of you may be groaning at the thought of another Christmas card this early, look away now....

Well after Simon Says Stamp sent me the Ornament and Presents stamp set, the least I could do was make a few cards. for this one I used the rather fabulous large Fiskars fuse snowflake, covered with my new favourite glitter called a hint of glitter from Katysue Designs. - it has a wonderful large 'grain' and really glitters, perfect for snow. The silver snowflake circles, little background snowflakes and the sentiment are from the stamp set, and I am loving using regular silver sewing thread.

A new trick of mine is to cut down my 6 x 6 base cards to 6 x 4 1/2", that way I can hang sentiments and elements off the side of the card and they still fit into the envelope, so after years of doing square cards I am enjoying this size at the moment

So I did another stint in the charity shop, apart from clucking at some of the rubbish people donate (why would they do that? Do they have a clear out of old underwear and socks and realize their dustbin is full, so have a lightbulb moment and think 'aha, charity shop.....), there was one amusing moment when a woman came up to me with a top in her hand and said 'have you got this in a size 16' I felt like saying, 'madam, this is not Harrods' but I was very nice and smiled and said nice things. Proud of my restraint...

Our little Max started his new junior school yesterday, growing up fast, and I think a quick lesson was given by Mum on how to tie a grown up tie...I bet he didn't look as tidy as this when she picked him up!

Almost the weekend again. Have a good one, I'll be back tomorrow x

Fiskars Fuse Retirement Card

 Here's one I made for this month's Papercraft Inspirations magazine - on sale now in the UK. I used the Fiskars fuse for a bit of letter press, which I coloured with ProMarkers

The background was done with a Tim Holtz stencil and some Wendy Vecchi white embossing paste, which I sponged lightly with squeezed lemonade and spiced marmalade distress inks. I covered the glass with glossy accents 

As you read this, I will probably be on the cross channel ferry making my way back to good old Blighty, so I'll see you tomorrow x

Happy B-day

As soon as I spotted this new hexagon die and letterpress plates for the Fiskars Fuse, I knew that I had to have it. I started off with a bit of stencilling with the Tim Holtz honeycomb and some Wendy Vecchi white embossing paste which was sponged with spiced marmalade and lemonade distress inks..... 

Would you believe that this bee stamp is the first one I ever bought. It cost me a dollar from Walmart and I have used it countless times. The hexagon was letterpressed with the honeycomb design. I deliberately stamped off the sentiment, inking it only once for all three stampings, I wanted a faded look.... 

and here, after my build up yesterday (hopefully) is Kiki's design which she has called Pimpernel (I must ask her why she chose to call it that). Not bad for a nine year old, I must ask her to design some digi stamps I can use!

Off to meet friends for lunch today, so a long chat by a cozy pub fire and good food will keep me away from my desk for a while, but I'll see you tomorrow x 

Fiskars Fuse Birds....

This was the die I couldn't wait to get when my Fuse arrived, I had fallen in love with this little bird. So, it's a bird die I hear you say......but look, see all the birds in the photo below? I cut them all with one pass of the machine, I think that's pretty remarkable - eight little birds cut out perfectly in a matter of seconds....

You get letterpress plates with the die, here's the letterpress birds.....

The first thing I did was a tag, I used some Tim Holtz papers....

I put the word MISS in tiny letter stickers and popped a film strip on top...

there was a bit of stenciling going on there as well.....

and a sprinkle of distress embossing powder 

Then I used some bright papers by The Paper Studio to make this card, I cut the branch by hand....

the stamp is also by Fiskars and followed the curve on the pattern paper ....

So I hope these posts have given you a bit of a glimpse of what this remarkable machine can do, watch out for a lot more in the near future, but for now, I need to get on with some magazine cards and catch up with my homework for the online stencil course. I am dashing around in ever decreasing circles here. What's on your desk?

See you tomorrow x  

More Fiskars Fuse.....and some winners....

This letterpress is quite addictive - such a quick and easy way to make cards. Here are some made with the dies that Fiskars sent. I coloured this first one with ProMarkers......

and here is a peek at the back of the letterpressed card - it looks embossed, I suppose the ink goes in the de-bossed part of the image.....

it made a bright cheery card for a cold and rainy winters day.......

I applied stickles glitter glue to the umbrella (oops, it ran a little bit), and glossy accents to the glass

For this next card, I just applied one bright splash of colour....

and the same image, a simple card again, this time I coloured the image.....

Now to the winners, but first I have some special news for you. So many of you were crazy about the Alice stamps that Nikky Hall has given me a code which gives you a huge discount - they are usually £21 a set, but if you put      EN0010   into the box when you order, you will get both the stamps and the mini CD for only  £15. You need to hurry though, she has very limited stock available. Postage over £20 is free, but if your order is less, you will only pay 99p - that's about $1.55 - for worldwide shipping. The code will run until the end of February 

The winner of the stamps and Cd is:

Hall of Indulgence

who said

 Hall of Indulgence said...

Ohhh, how darling. I know Sophie would adore this set. It sure will travel a lot more miles if it ends uo coming all the way to us in Australia!

and the winner of the Letraset Wallet and pens is:

Carol

who said

Carol January 30, 2014 at 1:08 pm # 

Thanx for sharing this color blending pallet Enfys. This will be a very useful tool. I really like all the colors you’ve used … it makes a delightful rainbow of colors that can be used for a wide variety of colorizations.

So there we have it - until the next time I do my Letraset post, so stay tuned. Congrats to the winners, email me with your addresses and I will get them in the mail to you

I'll be back with my Craftwork Cards post tomorrow and another surprise for someone....see you then x 

Fiskars Fuse Letterpress......

Following on from yesterdays post, I was anxious to try using the letterpress feature of the fuse, and decided to make a set of notecards. I used distress inks in different colours to make a set of cards - I letterpressed directly onto the card fronts, so they are single layer, easy to mail and simple to make...

Then I made a box to put them in, the envelopes measured 5", so I cut a square of cardstock to 7" and scored at 1" down each side, and snipped a flap at each corner. Apply tape to these corners, then fold into a box. Repeat this for the top of the box......

They fitted perfectly.....

Then I had fun decorating the top of the box

I like giving these sets of cards to friends as hostess gifts - they seem to be appreciated as much as a box of after eight mints!

Then I made another set, this time using the letterpress and the die, then attached the scalloped ovals to plain white cards.  I used the same colours and this time I dug out some sentiment stamps and stamped a sentiment in the same colour as the letterpress on each card, so the recipient will have a nice little stash of cards for every occasion.......

No box for this one, but it made a nice little bundle when the cards and envelopes were ties together with ribbon, raffia and a little paper rose.....

What the photos don't show of course are the gorgeously embossed look of the inked cards, take it from me, it looks classy! The other thing that was noticeable after using the machine for a hour, was how effortless it is to crank the sandwich of plates and papers through the machine, much much less effort is needed than the cuttlebug and big shot (which are the only manual die cutters I have used on a regular basis)

I have run out of time to do the random generator thingy for the giveaways, I'll sort it out later and let you know tomorrow when I will have more inky letterpressing to share with you - see you then x

Fiskars Fuse Magic....

At last I have had a chance to get started with the Fuse that Fiskars kindly sent me. It's a large, heavy workhorse of a machine, the only place I have for it is in the garage, but after using it today I need to make room for it upstairs because this machine blows the other manual diecutters out of the water and I will be using it for all my dies.......

When open, it has a really large working platform, I don't have any of the really big dies or embossing folders, but it would certainly take them....

It has a useful little storage box built in which is handy for cutting mats and smaller dies......

I love the letterpress feature - more of that tomorrow, you get basic die shapes, this one is a scalloped oval, then you get thinner design plates which fit onto the die, you ink those to get the letterpress - it's a really unique feature that gives a very professional look to your projects....

You can buy extra letterpress/embossing plates to fit within your die.....

All I did today was mess around with different weight card and paper, and it didn't let me down once! This first one is a very delicate vellum....

next, I cut a thick, furry fabric.......

and a piece of thick black plastic.......

some very delicate embellished mulberry paper......

and some felt - I tried a letterpress plate on this as well.....

and a sheet of thin cork, also letterpressed....

So my first 'workout' was a great success - I'm impressed - the only thing I would like to change is the size of my craftroom! Hopefully I will be able to show you some actual projects over the next few days. If you want to try one of these machines, Hobbycraft in the UK do demo days, where you can try the machine yourself, go online to find details


See you tomorrow x