Tilda

One of the card club ladies really likes Tilda papers so I used them to make this card for her birthday.
I had attended to hand-stitch all the way round but on the day I burnt my thumb and couldn't do much at all!

My Birthday

My Birthday

My Birthday

My Birthday

My Birthday

I've had a birthday recently and was lucky to receive so many lovely handmade cards. I'll be showing them here for the next few days.

Circle Easel

I've wanted to try circular easel cards for a while and finally got around to it this week.
This card is nothing at all how I had planned it (plan was a scalloped circle with K& Co papers and some ribbon...)

Finished card is about 7 inches diameter, I've used a Stampin' Up! punch to make the flowers and the actual card was made using Spellbinders dies.

Flower Planter

I spotted this style of card on Pinterest and bought the tutorial from Bronwyn Eastley, it's similar to the pop-up box that was really popular a year or so ago.

Quite difficult to get a photograph without all the flowers looking like they are leaning over, in real life they are straight.

The hardwood stamp, sentiment, and leaf punch are Stampin' Up!
The flower stamp and matching die are Heartfelt Creations.

Stampbord

More playing with Stampbord and this card is very unusual for me because I never normally use orange (cards, clothes, home interior, anything really)

This time I tried two tiles and used washi tape to hold them together at the back while I inked and stamped.

I used a mix of four Distress Inks to colour the tiles before stamping (I think it's a Hero Arts stamp but could be wrong).
The Distress Inks gave a much more vivid, intense colour than the Colour Cloud Blending Inks but the Colour Cloud went on much smoother. The problem with the Distress Inks is that because the tile has depth to it you can't slide the applicator tool off a silicone sheet on to the tile like you would with a flat piece of card.

The Papillon sentiment is from a JustRite set. After stamping the tiles I took the washi tape off and separated them a little before mounting.

Stampbord

I mentioned last time that I wait quite a while before trying something out/ using new stash.
Well I bought some Stampbord ten years ago...

Actually I did take it straight out of the packet at the time and made a couple of tiles, thought it was fun, but didn't actually progress to making a card with the decorated tiles.

I'm always looking for new techniques for my card club so dusted off the bag of Stampbord again recently and had a play.
The tiles are quite thick but light-weight and you can basically apply inks, stamp them, punch holes in them etc. You can also use an etching tool to scratch off any ink you have applied so you get very fine detail white lines. The Range sell etching tools with the children's art/ toy section.

I used Colour Cloud ink on this one, then stamped a magazine freebie butterfly stamp. I scratched some small white pieces but it's not hugely noticeable - I think because the lilac ink is very pale anyway.

I then tried adding some silver Frantage embossing enamel but it was quite hard to heat as normally I hold the heat gun underneath the card to stop the enamel blowing away and with this being a thick tile you can't do that. I think it maybe would work better using normal embossing powder with a grunge-texture stamp or similar.

A little 'darker' than the kind of thing I normally make but it was fun having a play.

Butterfly

I've seen this style of folded card on Pinterest but never really took any notice on how to make them, I have the attention span of a goldfish and struggle to sit and read instructions. The other night I was watching Create and Craft and one of the guests showed how to make one, the way she explained it was quite simple so I made it pretty much straightaway  -  very unusual for me because normally I wait years weeks before trying something out (see my next blog post for proof of that)

I used two dark purple 6 x 6 card blanks
Butterfly and sentiments are SU
I've used Colour Cloud ink for a bit of blending, love these inks and find them so much smoother and easier to use than Distress Inks.

Woven Celebrate

Last year one of my ladies very kindly lent me her Sue Wilson weaving dies. I promptly cut four panels and put them in my 'to do' drawer where they have languished for months.
Every time I looked in the drawer I could see these things staring at me so a couple of weeks ago I finally managed to cobble a card together.

I enjoyed the weaving bit but to be honest I wouldn't personally buy these dies as I wouldn't know how to make any different styles using them. To get the effect here you need both weaving dies and together they are over £30. For that amount of money I would rather have dies that can be used in a larger variety of ways.

Most of the other dies here (flowers, flower outlines, frame and leaves) are also Sue Wilson, just the sentiment die that is Sizzix.

Sea Happy Birthday

This was my April fool card, albeit a day early.

 I keep all the project samples for card club in clear plastic sleeves to try and avoid accidents and smudges, my mum spotted this project and said "Oh that's nice and simple I'll get that done quickly".

Bless her she had no idea, until I took the card from the sleeve, that it might be a little more than just simple stamping and a single die-cut...

You should have seen her face drop!

Actually it was still a very straight-forward card because I bought the fancy-fold inners from Create and Craft so it's just a case of measuring/ cutting/ sticking the coloured panels on.

The sentiment stamps are by Hobby Art, Happy Birthday die is by Tonic
Card is 8 x 8 inches.

The sea themed stamps were from this magazine. You get a set of stamps, two dies, an embossing folder, some absolutely gorgeous papers, sequins and the magazine itself. It's £10 and I got mine in Tesco (because if it's in the shopping trolley at the supermarket it doesn't count as stash spends right? it's "groceries")