Inspired by . . . Natasha

 Although it's been pretty quiet on the blog I have been busy crafting but the cards are of a style I've shown before (several new baby cards). I've also been watching a lot of You Tube tutorials. Someone I watch often is Natasha Foote who posts a video almost every day. I like the fact that she's not always pushing the latest stamps etc but has a small edit of items that she uses in different ways and encourages us to use what we have. It was this video that prompted the card above. I decided to use one of the rotation stamp backgrounds I made here.

Natasha tends to use US card sizes whilst I prefer a standard UK A6 for my cards so I had to tweak the measurements a little but I followed the same principles. I matted the pieces on a sliver of black card and as the background was so busy I went for a black die cut - Frangia Bouquet by Memory Box. The sentiment is from a stamp and die set that cuts several small sentiment strips in one go.

Spots and Dots

 

I used one of the backgrounds I made here to make a couple of quick cards that I needed in a hurry. The first uses a layered sentiment die.

As the backgrounds are square, I was left with a spare strip that I made into another card with a sentiment from the caring thoughts set by Creative Crafts.

Monthly Tag Challenge - January

This month's challenge was to use a favourite poem and the colour yellow. I initially thought of 'Daffodils' by Wordsworth but don't have a daffodil stamp. I have a sunflower stamp but no favourite poem for it.

My choice was 'Still I Rise' by Maya Angelou. You can read the whole poem here and there are some very powerful YouTube clips of the author reciting the poem herself.

Having chosen the poem, I had an image in my head of how to depict it but getting it down on paper was difficult. I knew I wanted to use the hot air balloon which is an old wood-mounted rubber stamp with nothing on it to show who it was made by. Having stamped and coloured it with alcohol markers I put it on a sky with clouds background with tumbled glass and mowed lawn DI for the ground. I added some Crafty Individual birds and some hickory smoke DI to the background. The eyes by Hampton Arts are second generation stamping with hickory smoke.

In my head I had a picture of negative words floating in the background but I didn't want to use my horrible handwriting and none of my many alphas - stamps or dies - were small enough. I finally found some old peel-offs where the letters are @3mm tall. Only problem was trying to pick short words that I still had letters for which is why I used idle instead of lazy (no Ys left and I'd already used up the X's making Ys). The Y from 'ugly' is partly hidden behind the balloon because I had to use an upside down K. I coloured the letters with a grey marker to tone down the shininess. 

Before adding the balloon and verse I splattered some poppy red Twinkling H2Os over the tag and made a few cuts into the edges of the tag.

Not exactly my original image but I'm happy I made use of what I had.

New Year, New Stuff!

 This is a picture heavy post but doesn't show any cards, just backgrounds for potential cards. With Christmas out of the way it's a nice time to just relax and play and I have a few new things to play with. Towards the end of last year I bought some Crafter's Companion stamp and die sets. This of course led to browsing the CC website and receiving news of more offers leading up to Christmas. One offer that caught my eye was a bundle of 7 sets of rotation stamps for an extremely good price. Yes I bought them!

The stamps themselves don't look like anything much when you see them but the idea is you stamp them 4 times with the help of a stamping platform and turn the card stock 90° and change the ink colour each time to achieve a pattern. I haven't yet tried using just one colour but I guess that would work too.

Some of the sets create a wreath effect and have an additional sentiment stamp for the centre. Some create an allover pattern. I've played with some of the sets and these are my first results. The card stock is 14cm square in each example.

Please Note: Below are just examples of the backgrounds I have made using the Crafter's Companion rotation stamps. In line with Crafter's Companion's Angel Policy these cannot be mechanically reproduced.

First is Flutterby Wishes with Memento inks in bamboo, sweet plum, love letter and peanut brittle.

Next Rustic Botanicals in Impress inks spring green, cerulean blue, lemon yellow and peony purple.

Buds & Blooms in Brilliance inks orchid,sky blue, lime and lavender.

Meadow Wreath in Versafine inks crimson red, imperial purple, majestic blue, spanish moss.

The final example is the one I was attracted to in the first place Dots and Spots in Memento pear tart, paris dusk, love letter and sweet plum. This would make a fabulous background to a card with a bold sentiment and different colours would alter the look completely.

I am looking forward to turning all of these into cards soon.

Christmas Snow Globe

 I'm all for quick and simple card making so I don't know what I was thinking when I bought this Sizzix bell jar diorama die set in a sale in the summer (OK maybe I was thinking ooh bargain!). When I actually opened the packet up last month to make some cards I was met with an assortment of tiny dies and it took a while (and some online assistance) to figure out what went where.

After that it was a question of trying to figure out what card to use for which bit and cutting it all out. I found it easiest to batch cut in 4s or 6s and then store the bits carefully. Then I assembled parts like the trees, the houses etc before finally assembling each one. Along the way I found it easiest to cut some of the tiniest bits (windows, wreaths, bows, snow in white card and colour as necessary with alcohol markers. Similarly I used a single brown card and coloured some parts with a darker brown marker. 

I'm pleased with the final result but boy was it fiddly! I used grey card for the outline, some patterned blue paper for the sky, dark green for the trees, brown for the trunks, house, base and path and glitter silver card for the stars. The rest was all coloured with markers. The sentiment is an old stamp I had made many years ago. 

Nothing left but for me to wish you all a very happy Christmas. May you stay safe and well.

Christmas Pocket Card

 A spare scribble snowman was sitting on my desk and I realised it had been a while since I had made a pocket card.

The background is a leftover from another project and I tore some scrap white card for the 'hills'. The mountains and trees are from a Sizzix set called Arctic Bear and the sentiment is by Tattered Lace. 

A Wild Birthday

 

Taking a break from all things Christmas to post another of the Crafter's Companion Peek-a-Boo cards. This time it's the Giraffe and I used the semi-circle window arch again. The patterned paper is from an old Papermania 6x6 pad called Secret Garden and the bunting is by Crafty Individuals stamped with scattered straw DI.

Here's a view of the inside: