Wednesday, 24 April 2024

A Horsey Happy Birthday

 


At Kate Hadfield Designs there are so many fabulous sets it is really easy to get inspired to use them. There are digital stamps which you can colour, coloured versions you can scrapbook or make into digital layouts. Papers, patterned overlays and doodles galore. No matter what your skill level there are so many goodies to play with.



One of the most fabulous things about being in this Creative Team is that we have free rein to make anything we want to using the sets in the shop. This is amazing for inspiring creativity as there are so many amazing packs to play with. I feel very, very lucky to be able to have this opportunity.



I have used the Chinese Zodiac kit to make a card for a young lady's 11th birthday. She has recently become the owner of a horse who looks very similar to the horse in this kit so it is the perfect horsey to use for this project.

You can purchase this kit as uncoloured stamps or pre-coloured images. I chose to use the pre-coloured as unfortunately I am still having issues with stiffness in my hand and colouring is an issue for me at present.


I used the current sketch from Cheerful Sketches for the layout and printed my image to suit a 6" card. I distressed the edges with an ink pad and popped it up on 3d foam pads.

The main background paper is a lovely glossy sparkly floral which has a large corner motif which I thought would suit the large amount of open space in the sketch. I chose some semi plain green papers to pick up colours from this and the darker floral paper picks up the brown and provides a contrast. I was VERY annoyed at myself when I realised I had stuck the paper on upside down. I don't think it is really noticeable but I know it is wrong :( 

The final thibg to add was the sentiment from my stash which I matted onto a scrap of brown card.

Over at Kate Hadfield Designs there is lots going on. Kate is really generous with her freebies which are readily available. If you sign up to the newsletter you get access to an extra subscriber area the Doodle Den where there are loads more freebies. There is a gallery full of projects by the Creative Team and customers and so much inspiration for crafters and teachers. I would highly recommend you pop over there and join in the fun.


Card Details -


Size - 6”x6”

Digital Image - Chinese Zodiac (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Designer Paper - Desert Blooms 6x6” & Love Letters (First Edition Paper) Green At Heart (Basic Grey)



I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)


at 25 comments:
Labels: , , ,

Monday, 22 April 2024

Anglesey Adventures 2022 Digital Page

 


Every month at Kate Hadfield Designs we have a completely free scrapbook template you can download. 



Pop over to Kate Hadfield Designs Blog and you will find Photo Bliss in the Free Templates section


At Kate Hadfield Designs there are so many fabulous sets it is really easy to get inspired to use them. There are digital stamps which you can colour, coloured versions you can scrapbook or make into digital layouts. Papers, patterned overlays and doodles galore. No matter what your skill level there are so many goodies to play with.



The first layer of the page is the background paper. I chose one from my fave paper pack Painted Pretties. I love the soft effect and it went particularly well with the image I chose for this page. 

The layout of this image didn't suit a square crop which was on the original template so I increased the text area. That is the beauty of digital pages, you can tweak them to suit your project quite easily.


The view from the caravan is breathtaking. The owners of Gwynfa lived in there whilst they were building their spectacular house and they now rent it out. I feel very lucky to have found this little slice of heaven. The view is to die for and it is so peaceful. If the weather is good you can see so much out of your window with loads of fields, lots of animals, Holyhead in one direction and a lighthouse in the other direction.

As we often saw the Irish ferries going into the harbour I wanted to include that on my page. The On Our Travels kit had the perfect ship and a great camera.


The On The Farm kit provided the moo cow and horse. It was lovely to see so many beautiful horses in the fields when we went on our walks.


The lambs and sheep are from the Nativity kit. I love baby sheepies and the one in this kit is so cute. I am hoping when we go back soon we will see lots of lambs frolicking in the fields.


Signs of Spring provided the grass. Sheepies of course need to eat lots of grass and in Wales there is so much rain that the grass is very green and lush.


The Great Outdoors kits provided the walking boots. 

When we went last time we actually climbed the mountain you can see in the distance. It is located in a country park and the flora as you get steeper and steeper with alpine flowers is gorgeous. 



There was a fabulous path to follow until you go towards the top and then that was a lot of scrambling over some pretty big rocks. This path looks easy enough but you went round the back and then it dipped down and back up again. You could see the top but it felt like you would never get there. I am not the fittest person and I was so proud of getting to the top and the view was amazing.... little did I know how hard it was going to be to get back down.

 


There was no proper path and we got quite lost. We followed what we thought was the right way to get down and came right up to a sheer drop. We went on a very clear day but if it was misty like it quite often was then we could easily have had a very nasty accident. I skidded on my bottom at one point right into a gorse bush. I had so many thorns in my bottom and thighs and ripped my favourite walking trousers. After a lot of false turns we finally got off the mountain at the wrong side of the Country Park and had a really long walk back to the car. I was shaking with adrenaline and in hindsight I know we were very, very lucky. Needless to say we will not be going up there again, lesson learned and all that.


Finally I added my favourite smiley sunshine to the page from the Springity Spring pack. We had quite a bit of rain whilst were there but that just provided the perfect opportunity to do my cross stitch and I started diamond painting for the first time.

I cannot tell you how much we were both looking forward to going back there and we have just come back from another lovely week. Again the weather was changeable but it was the perfect place to relax.

Over at Kate Hadfield Designs there is lots going on. Kate is really generous with her freebies which are readily available. If you sign up to the newsletter you get access to an extra subscriber area the Doodle Den where there are loads more freebies. There is a gallery full of projects by the Creative Team and customers and so much inspiration for crafters and teachers. I would highly recommend you pop over there and join in the fun.


Digital Page Details -


Digital Template - Photo Bliss (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Digital Paper - Painted Pretties (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Digital Images -  On Our Travels, On The Farm, Nativity, Signs of Spring, Great Outdoors, Springity Spring  (Kate Hadfield Designs)



I would like to enter this Digital Scrapbook Page  into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)


at 6 comments:
Labels: , ,

Saturday, 6 April 2024

Celebrate With Cake

 


This year I am trying to make a concerted effort to use my stash rather than collect it.

I have been making cards for at least 25 years now and in that time I have amassed a lot of supplies. Over the last few years I have tried not to buy too many new items, glue and consumables of course have been the exception from this.

So in an attempt to actually USE my dies and embossing folders especially I have pulled out not one, but 2 dies that I have not used before.... Go me!

When I saw the current sketch from Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge I had already decided to use the sentiment die to make a birthday card for a neighbour. I had the perfect piece of paper in my stash to suit the background so the sketch was a brilliant starting point for this card.


The image was cut from white card and coloured with a combination of Promarkers, fine liners and a Spectrum Noir glitter marker.

This was then mounted onto black card cut with the scalloped outline die and popped up on 3D foam for dimension.

A sheet of card was used for the base and I added some cardstock which was in my coloured scraps file. It came in a mixed bag of scraps from Craftwork Cards years ago and was 8' square so I was really pleased to use it after so many years. Each colour is embossed with different textures.

The small butterflies have been cut using a Martha Stewart punch. I love how detailed it is despite being small in size. I cut the bottom layer from scraps of a green paper. The top layers were cut from scraps of a striped paper from DCWV which I lined up so that it would be symmetrical on each wing. These butterflies are stuck down in the centre and the top layer wings folded up.


The large green butterfly was cut from a perfume box that I saved as it has a really sumptuous flocked texture and was far to nice to throw away. This particular die has an outline that is attached to the main butterfly and you can stick it down and leave the wings flapping.

I have found some amazing tools called Teeny Tiny Dauber Sticks which I bought from Hunky Dory Crafts. You get loads in a pack and you can wash them to re-use. They are perfect for gluing very fine detailed dies and I am really pleased I have tried them. (I am not affiliated in any way, just a very happy customer)


Finally I have added some small gems to the body of the butterflies and some star gems dotted around the card.

Card Details -


Size - A5

Dies - Celebrate With Cake (Crafter’s Companion), Kaleidoscope of Butterflies (Crafter’s Companion)

Punch - Butterfly Stamp & Punch Set (Martha Stewart)

Colouring Medium - Promarkers, Fine liners, Spectrum Noir glitter marker

Designer Paper - Embossed card from Craftwork Cards, Butterflies The Glitter Stack (DCWV)

Embellishments - Self adhesive Gems



I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)

at 32 comments:
Labels: , , ,

Tuesday, 2 April 2024

Peeking Gingerbread Cookies


As soon as I saw this sketch over at the Incy Wincy Designs challenge I was inspired to make a card with gingerbread men at a jaunty angle.


At Kate Hadfield Designs there are so many fabulous sets it is really easy to get inspired to use them. There are digital stamps which you can colour, coloured versions you can scrapbook or make into digital layouts. Papers, patterned overlays and doodles galore. No matter what your skill level there are so many goodies to play with.


One of the most fabulous things about being in this Creative Team is that we have free rein to make anything we want to using the sets in the shop. This is amazing for inspiring creativity as there are so many amazing packs to play with. I feel very, very lucky to be able to have this opportunity.



My card idea started out by using the plain kraft paper from the Red, White 'N Blue kit. I thought it could work pretty well as a base layer with a Christmas motif overlay. 


I saw this Christmas Overlays kit on the store and as I love gingerbread men that was my first thought when the idea came into my head about this card. I set the opacity to 60% for the overlay so it was a bit more subtle in the background.


To fit the sketch layout the gingerbread needed to be inside a frame. I chose the cerise round circle from the Ornamental Frames kit. I added a plain brown circle behind each one. 


The bows in the Ornamental kit are on a ribbon and were not quite right for what I had in mind so I used the one from the December Doodads kit. It was a bit shorter snd more compact.


Finally the stars of this card are the cute gingerbread images from Cookies for Santa. It was perfect to showcase all 3, Mommy, Daddy and Baby gingerbread. 


I played around with the angles and sizing until I was satisfied. I sometimes do this when planning a layout of a card. In this case I made the whole card front in one, printed it out and adhered this to an A5 sized card base.

I added iridescent glitter to to the ornament frames so they are really sparkly in real life. Mommy is decorated with pink gems, Daddy has red and green gems, baby has small pearls. Finally a little bit of Stickles glitter glue was added to the eyes and mouth.

After being really poorly with a cold for 10 days it was nice to feel so inspired to make my first Christmas card of 2024

Over at Kate Hadfield Designs there is lots going on. Kate is really generous with her freebies which are readily available. If you sign up to the newsletter you get access to an extra subscriber area the Doodle Den where there are loads more freebies. There is a gallery full of projects by the Creative Team and customers and so much inspiration for crafters and teachers. I would highly recommend you pop over there and join in the fun.

Hybrid Card Details -


Size - A5

Digital Images - Cookies for Santa, Ornamental Frames, December Doodads (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Digital Paper - Red, White N’ Blue (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Digital Overlay - Christmas Overlays (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Embellishments - Gems, pearls, glitter, Stickles glitter glue


P.S. The cute felt gingerbread in the photo are from a banner I bought at The Works. They will be appearing on cards in the future.


I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)

at 30 comments:
Labels: ,

Monday, 1 April 2024

Birthday Bowling Digital Page

 


Every month at Kate Hadfield Designs we have a completely free scrapbook template you can download. I have used this page to celebrate my Hubby's birthday bowling outing last year.

Pop over to Kate Hadfield Designs Blog and you will find Photo Bliss in the Free Templates section



At Kate Hadfield Designs there are so many fabulous sets it is really easy to get inspired to use them. There are digital stamps which you can colour, coloured versions you can scrapbook or make into digital layouts. Papers, patterned overlays and doodles galore. No matter what your skill level there are so many goodies to play with.


I have an Apple computer and use a program called Affinity Designer 2 to create my digital projects. I consider myself to be a novice at scrapbooking but the templates really do make it very easy to create some very detailed pages. There are different formats included depending on how your program works. Im my case I use the PNG layer files. I start off by adding the number layers into a single file and then you start adding to or amending each layer one my one.

You start with the base layer and for this I used the painted kraft paper from Red, White 'N Blue. This was a little harsh at 100% and overpowered my image so I reduced the opacity to 80% and this was more subdued. You then add the layer which is the line border around the edge which I changed to be a blue colour.


This page allows you to add a big photo and I thought this one of my hubby playing ten pin bowling for his birthday would be perfect. I re-sized the photo to suit the template and added it to the page along with the shadow layer.

At this stage you simply work through the template layers, changing any colours as required to suit your image. Then the really fun bit starts where you add the elements to help decorate and theme your page.


Kate has designed this really cool kit perfect for this page. Ten Pin Party Doodles has so many elements that are in the photo like the skittles, stars and a red bowling ball. The trophy for the winner, bowl emblem were also added from this kit.

It has got to be about 20 years since we went bowling. We had 3 games and I have to say the first game was a complete washout for both of us.... We called that a practice game.

Paul got a strike, 2nd game we were both very close in scores but he won overall so I was very happy for him especially as it was his birthday.

Over at Kate Hadfield Designs there is lots going on. Kate is really generous with her freebies which are readily available. If you sign up to the newsletter you get access to an extra subscriber area the Doodle Den where there are loads more freebies. There is a gallery full of projects by the Creative Team and customers and so much inspiration for crafters and teachers. I would highly recommend you pop over there and join in the fun.


Digital Page Details -


Digital Template - Photo Bliss (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Digital Paper - Red, White ’N Blue (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Digital Images - Ten Pin Party Doodles (Kate Hadfield Designs)



I would like to enter this page into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)

at 12 comments:
Labels: , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)