Special Thanks

I just want to say a big hello and thank you to all my new followers.  Special thanks to those who have taken the time to comment on my posts.  It is gratefully appreciated and keeps me going when the inspiration is severly lacking! 

This is one of my favourite photos, taken outside my Granny's house earlier this year.  Hope you all have a great week and happy crafting! x

Distressed Butterfly Tag

To be honest, this tag was a bit of a happy accident.  I was playing around with my new Cuttlebug embossing folders and found a scrap bit of Black Magic Coredinations cardstock.  Next thing I knew the sanding block was out and I was distressing away to my heart's content!  I managed to make the entire tag out of the waste card and funnily enough didn't use the embossing folders in the end.  The base for the tag is a cropped Spellbinders Labels die and I inked the edges in Tim Holtz distress ink - Fired Brick, which hasn't show up very well in the photo.  I ran the blade of my craft knife along the edge of the tag base. 

The black layer is a piece of the crumpled up Black Magic Coredinations cardstock which has been sanded.  I die cut the butterflies twice from the same coredinations cardstock using a Sizzix die (bought from the Stampin' Up catalogue).  It works like a dream through the cuttlebug and is my favourite butterfly die.  I sanded the butterflies to show up the embossing and then finished it off by gluing together with Pinflair Glue Gel.

Tatty Button Rescue

I just love the Tatty Button stamps from Creative Expressions.  Even better that they are already mounted.  This was a work in progress card as when I started I didn't really have a vision in mind.  I coloured in the stamp one night when I was feeling a bit fed up and needed something to cheer me up. 

When I looked through my Spellbinders I came across the Labels Twenty which was the perfect size.  Unfortunately I managed to slip one of my distress ink pads right on top of Tatty!  D'oh!  Luckily she managed to avoid the cheeky ink and I managed to save her by cutting around her and mounting her onto an orange and white tartan card.  This is the first time I used the button mask and was quite pleased with the result using Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Broken China.  I made the border using an EK Success punch and just alternated the colours.  The flowers were stamped and then cut out by hand.  I finished off the card with a small sentiment stamped onto another of the Spellbinders shapes.

Reflection

The image on this card comes from a selection of Hunkdory toppers in the His n Hers collection.  I love the colours and the peacefulness of it.

I covered my card blank with silver mirri-paper and then tied the bow, using the same metallic ribbon from previous cards, around the foiled and embossed Hunkydory cardstock before adding it to the base.  The topper was also mounted onto silver mirr-paper.  I used a pair of compasses to draw the circle and then cut it out by hand.  I think it might be time to invest in some circular Spellbinder dies!

Art Nouveau in the 21st Century

This is the one and only challenge card that I have made, so far.  It was for the weekly sketch challenge on the DoCrafts site that is set by Katy Goodbeer.  I took the topper and decopage from the Nouveau Style CD-ROM by Sharon Duncan and teamed it with Create and Craft textured card.  The black card was embossed with the same dotty folder from the previous post and then I added a strip of turquoise glitter card to bring out the colour in the wings of the butterfly.  The ribbon was from DoCrafts and was as cheap as chips for 68p for 5m!

The Look of Love

This card actually came about because I had been playing with my new Fiskars punch and didn't want to waste the pretty pattern I had done!  You know what they say - crafters never throw away anything that can be used in a project!


I covered the base card with silver mirri-paper and then added three layers of the punched paper, alternating between blue and silver.  The image is from Hunkydory.  I'm a huge Hunkydory fan and have just sorted all my toppers into a neat folder.  I love looking through it and just imagining all the creations that will follow!  I got the ribbon from DoCrafts and have used it on several cards. 

Flutterby Thanks

This was a quick thank you card for my jewellery making tutor, Anita.  I did a 10 week course in jewellery making earlier this year and Anita was so lovely that I thought it would be a nice thing to do for her to say thanks. 

I cut the butterflies out using Spellbinder dies and then inked through with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Broken China.  The purple dotty butterflies were a little trickier!  I had to draw round the die and then cut them out by hand as they only come in one size.  I embossed them with a dotty embossing folder run through the Cuttlebug and then added some more of the Distress Ink to make the dots stand out.  The sentiment was stamped using the peg alphabet letters from Stamping with Dimension. 

Love at Christmas

Confession time - my name is Rachel and I'm addicted to glitter!  The images on the Debbi Moore Art Deco Magical Christmas just call out for glitter and to make Debbi proud I added two different types to this card!  I put down ultra sticky tape (the red one) and then rubbed in ultra fine gold glitter.  I think I would probably use a narrower tape next time though.  The image was printed from the CD-ROM onto Super Smooth Decopage paper and then glittered using Diamond Sparkles and a quickie glue pen.  I mounted it onto a piece of gold paper to tie in the glittery frame.  Very simple card but with glittery impact!

First Christmas Card of 2011

As there seems to be a lot of Christmas crafting going on just now I thought I had better make a start on mine.  I'm hoping to have a stall at a small craft fair in November this year so there are plenty to make!  I matt and layered some teal holographic card with silver mirri-paper and a plain black card topper.  Then I added three Spellbinder Baubles, using my trusty foam pads and then some gems.  The sparkly dotty background was made using a Quickie Glue Pen and some Diamond Sparkles.

What's Behind the Wrapping?!

This is my first Tatty Teddy card and I made it for my friend's birthday.  I love all the TT background papers and that was what I used to start my inspiration.  I noticed that a few cardmaking bloggers had used this layout so I thought it would be a fun one to try for myself.  I think it might become a favourite!  The TT decopage was mounted onto silver mirri-board to make it stand out and I also mounted the sentiment tag onto foam pads for some dimension.

A Hint of the Orient

I'd had this idea with the trail of flowers along a shaped card for a while but hadn't really known what else to put with it.  As soon as I saw the Geisha stamps in my stash I knew it was the perfect match.  I covered the shaped card with red paper and purple textured card and then placed flowers from my 3 Birds set around the edge, alternating the colours. I stamped the figure and masked her and then stamped the trees around.  The image was coloured using Promarkers and then cut out using Spellbinders Labels 4.  Next I drew around the biggest die and cut that out to form the mount and then inked the edge of the stamped image with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Red Brick. Finally I stamped the sentiment onto another piece of the red paper and mounted both that and the image onto foam pads.