Summer Pocket Card

 

It's been a while since I posted on my blog - a lot has been going on. Despite being very careful and still wearing a mask in shops etc I managed to get Covid last month. Fortunately I don't seem to have passed it onto family or friends and spent 10 days in my own little isolation unit of bedroom and bathroom with meals and snacks left at the door. Thank God for iPads and Netflix! After a few days of doing little else but sleeping and drinking lots of fluids I felt much better and caught up on a few series that I had wanted to see. I am fully recovered now and have my sense of smell back.

I thought I'd break myself back into crafting gently with a pocket card which I haven't made in a while. This came together very quickly. The background is a serviette from a pack I had bought a few months ago for all the BBQs we were going to have in the summer (ha, ha, thanks a lot summer!). I die cut the letters for summer, coloured them with worn lipstick DI and cut the word sweet out of a book of tags. That's about it sweet and simple!

Monthly Tag Challenge - August

This month's theme is Sugar & Spice with pastel pink and green as colours. I remembered I had an old paper pad called Kitschy Kitchen which had the quote 'Sugar and spice and everything nice' on it so that set me off on a culinary themed tag. The gingham background is from the same paper pad and I ran it through a falling flowers embossing folder (click on the pic for a better view) before edging the quote and the tag with bundled sage DI.

The cupcakes are from a very old (2006) set called Build-a-Cupcake by Banana Frog. I stamped the components with Brilliance coffee bean, heat embossed them and then water coloured them with DIs - spun sugar, scattered straw and tea dye. I added some pink heat embossed 'sprinkles' to the larger icing.The cherries were coloured with embossing pens and heat embossed. The icing on the large cupcake and the smaller cupcake were raised on foam pads. The original cherry on the larger cake had a much bigger stalk and after sticking it down I realised it didn't look quite right so I gave it a smaller stalk and repositioned it which left a bit of an 'oops' mark on the tag which I covered up with some strategically placed sequins coloured with an alcohol marker. Some organza ribbon finished the tag.

Charity Shop Finds

 With the easing of restrictions in the UK I have been out and about a little more and popped into some charity shops for a look around.One of my finds was a Hunkydory book called Floral Flourishes. This is a 6"x 6" book of die cut floral shapes for colouring. It's quite relaxing to sit with some alcohol markers and colour a few. The card above has 2 such die cuts layered with foam and some scraps of patterned paper left over from making a mini-book. Some of the die cuts are gold foiled , some silver and some outlined in black. As the ones I used are gold outlined I embossed the sentiment in gold.

The second card is a mini slimline and uses some more coloured die cuts matted onto red and gold card which was cut with another charity shop find - a Tonic Verso shadowbox insert die set.

The third card uses the die-cuts in one of my last aperture card blanks. Years ago when I did crossstitch cards I used to mount them in aperture card blanks and this is one of my last ones. The floral medallion was layered with foam pads, mounted onto a stitched circle die cut and then some red card was used to fill the aperture.

You will probably see some more cards made with these die-cuts soon.

A Birthday Booklet

 

I wanted to send something a little different from a card to someone when I saw this tutorial on the Twigs and Tomes Channel on You Tube. It uses 2 sheets of 6x6 paper and there is only a tiny amount of wastage. As it turned out I recently bought a 12 x 12 paper pad from The Works that I wanted to use so I cut a couple of sheets to size before I started.

I followed the very simple instructions - just a few cuts and folds - and then added some more tags/inserts to complete it. Here's a quick flip-through showing the completed project.

Everything was edged with Memento toffee crunch and the Versafine onyx black ink was clear heat     embossed.                                                                                                                                                     

Here's a shot of the tags and bits that are tucked away:

A Warm Card for a Wet Day

 As I type this there is a thunderstorm raging outside and it is pelting down with rain - so much for our glorious summer! This card will hopefully bring some warmth and sunshine if you are suffering similar weather.

The background was made with DOs - crackling campfire, wilted violet, fossilized amber and peeled paint. I sprinkled some water over it and when dry I overstamped with a TH background stamp in Stazon pigment white. The script stamp is by Paper Artsy as is the small circles stamp.

The yellow card was a small sample scrap that was sent with an order. I used a Sizzix staggered chevrons 3D embossing folder over it and added a TH wildflower die.

I mounted it all on a white card blank edged with a yellow alcohol marker.

Old School

Whilst trying to come up with a headline for this post the only thing I could think of was 'old school' because there's something about the layout of this card that feels very old school. I wanted to use this old Hero Arts stamp and cut flower which was one of the first stamp and die sets I ever bought. 

I stamped the image with Memento toffee crunch and  used a coral Triblend marker to colour the flowers. I diecut the coloured image and 4 others from plain card to stack. These were stuck onto a co-ordinating orange label die cut. Some orange dotted patterned paper was stuck onto half the front of a card blank and the label was added. The sentiment is from a Marianne die set, cut from white card and coloured with the darkest coral Triblend marker.

Monthly Tag Challenge - July

 

I'm quick off the mark this month because I knew what I wanted to do as soon as I saw the theme (which doesn't happen very often). The theme was 'Moon & Stars' and my first thought was a galaxy background. My second thought was to use a new die I bought recently - Birds and Stars by Pete Hughes for Sizzix.

I cut out my 8cm x 14cm tag and then used the star die. This die cuts the shapes into the card and gives you lots of small stars as well. I randomly applied mustard seed, picked raspberry, seedless preserves and cracked pistachio DIs with my blending brushes and then went over everything with Versafine onyx black. Some white acrylic paint was flicked over and then I backed the whole tag with silver card. I added a few of the white waste stars for a little contrast and used a scrap of silver card to cut out a crescent moon. The sentiment was a magazine freebie which I double heat embossed in silver. The tag was edged with black ink and a silver ribbon added.

It's been a long time since I've made any tags and I'm really enjoying it.