Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Hi!

Oooh its getting really exciting now!

Only four more sleeps to go............

Here is Angela Radford to wish you

all Merry Christmas and share some

last minute cards with you:

About now you will be wondering where the time went 

and if you are like me you will be needing 

some last minute cards and I am here 

to show you how I do it.

All you need are one set of stamps, 

several card blanks, one A3 sheet of card or two A4, 

Distress Inks, embossing ink and powder

Stamp and emboss your chosen stamps onto the A3 card 

using clear or white embossing powder

Next we need to colour the card and you can do this in a number of ways 

and I chose to use a roller for this project as it's easy to add colour quickly

 by this method. Just roll over the ink pad and then over the card 

and off you go. 

I used the following four colours for this project

Just keep going until you are happy

 with the coverage and then buff the embossing with a dry cloth

 which will remove the ink so that the snowflakes stand out again

Now you can stamp again over this with your chosen colours

to build up the design. 

Now it's time to cut the sheet into useable pieces. 

You need to turn the card over before starting this stage. 

A pencil is good for this as you can rub it out easily 

if you're not happy with your first plan. 

This is the layout that I used but you can choose any shapes you like

All cut up and ready to go!

Next I stamped onto the card blanks to create a background for the mats. 

This is an example of one of them:

Now you can start to mat and layer you design and attach it to the card blanks

 You will need to add a sentiment and an embellishment.

 You will notice that my cards are quite flat as I have to post most of them 

so I have deliberately made them fairly thin

And so the samples:

When finishing these off I thought about the front 

and couldn't resist adding some crazy birds to some of them 

but also used the stamps again and embossed the images

this time with silver embossing powder to make them stand out.

I still have all this left so plenty to make several more cards. 

 This is not just a quick way to make your own cards 

but also quite economical too

You could easily make ten 6x6 square cards 

and probably more if they were smaller

Hope you've enjoyed watching me make these cards 

and I'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Angela xXx

Materials used:

Eclectica Stamps by Paper Artsy - Emma Godfrey 19 

Tim Holtz Crazy Birds.

Tim Holtz Scibbles and Splat Thinlits

Distress Inks

Card:  white

Card Blanks

Coloured card

Embossing Powders:

SILVER

CLEAR

Embossing ink

Merry Christmas wishes to you too Angela

and thank you for giving us this oh so lovely and useful project

Well, that's definitely me off to make the last minute cards

Wherever did I put that stamp set...........................?

See you all tomorrow

Mickie xx

Collage

Collage

Hi Everyone

We are starting this week with a

 lovely project from 

Angela Radford

who is allowing us to escape

for a little while from all

those red, gold and greens

By definition, a collage should be made up of several different pieces. 

Those pieces can be made of all sorts of items, such as paper, 

yarn, fabric, stamps, magazine cut-outs, plastic, 

raffia, foil, labels, lids, matchsticks, corks, 

natural items (bark, leaves, seeds, eggshells, seashells, twigs, etc.), 

buttons, and so forth. 

You can either choose one medium such as paper or fabric, 

or you can make an eclectic mix, such as paper, buttons and foil.

 Today I decided to use left-over mop up cloths for my background collage 

and a collage stamp for the focal image.

Tear up the cloths and separate the layers which will 

give you even more to play with.

Arrange the cloths on a sheet of thin card or cartridge paper 

and glue down. I used Tim Holtz Collage Medium for this 

as it dries clear and you can stamp over it

When this is dry use Gesso lightly with a dry brush to paint 

over the cloths to blend everything together without 

covering completely which will 

also make the texture stand out.

 Tip: If this starts to buckle when wet, leave it to dry 

and then sandwich it together with two sheets of card 

and place it under your glass mat or anything 

with weight which will help it to flatten out.

Then stamp 'Splatters' onto the background and heat emboss.

Next I started the focal image using the Woodware Art stamp. 

               I stamped this onto several pieces of left-over Masterboard 

                and then cut out the sections ready to build up the collage.

Choose one of the stamped jars as the background 

and then attach the sections to build up the collage. 

I chose to use Vellum as it seemed appropriate for a glass jar. 

I started by cutting out sections from the brushes and pens 

and then built up the collage

Now it's time to make the card itself

Cut the card mats to the required size

for the background

Layer these and attach to the card blank.

I distressed the background collage pieces around

the edges before proceeding with this stage.

I also decided to add three further mats to add extra 

depth to the design to which I added Tim Holtz

Scribbles and Splats die cuts

The "Follow Your Art" stamp set has some great

sentiments but you may wish to add something 

different.

 I found the sentiment that I used 

on an Emma Godfrey set............perfect!

And there you have it.  

A few Dew Drops from my stash

completed the card

Materials used:

 Tim Holtz Collage Medium.

Tim Holtz Thinlits die: Scribbles and Splat.

Gesso

Woodware Stamps

'Splatters'

Emma Godfrey for PapePaperAr Artsy

Black Ink

Embossing Powder

Card

Card Blanks

Modelling Tool

Glass Mat

A lovely card Angela, thank you,

Think I shall have to get that arty stamp set

and make a couple of non festive cards

Should keep me quiet for a moment or three!

See you all again tomorrow

Mickie xx

Red and Gold

Red and Gold

Morning!!

At least I hope it is wherever

you are

Continuing our opulent theme

what is it about these colours?

Fabulous, rich, warm......

What was I saying?  Oh yes

Continuing our opulent theme

is Hazel Harler with another

beautiful card

I used a white 8" x 6" card blank

The first thing to do is spray some red card with gold foil Color Bloom

Then cover it with cling film - 

scrunch up the film and let it dry.

Remove the cling film and your card should look something like this

 I used red card, gold miri card and the red and gold card for my layers.

I stamped the Woodware festive background onto white card 

with black archival ink and I edged the card with a black pen

I die cut two Memory Box baubles with the red and gold card and gold miri card.

I glued the two baubles together back to back as it's going to dangle on the card.

I matted all the layers together and attached the bauble with some gold cord. 

The red roses were made using a Tim Holtz tiny tattered flowers Thinlits die

A close up of the flowers.

Items used.

8"x6" white card blank.
Red card, White card, Gold miri card.
Color Bloom - gold foil.
Woodware stamp - festive background.
Black Archival ink.
Memory Box bauble die.
Thinlits die - Tim Holtz tiny tattered flowers.

Beautiful Hazel

Thank you very much

Of course, without the Christmas layer

this card would be fabulous for anyone

celebrating a Ruby Wedding

See you all tomorrow

Mickie xx

Red & Gold

Red & Gold

Hi there!

It's the last day of November

Such a quick month 

Our theme this week is Red and Gold

and Jane Castle is here today 

with a beautiful card:

I started this card with a piece of 300gsm white card which was coloured with Fresco Chalk paints in Plum, Very Berry and Claret. Once these were completely dry I added some Distress Inks in Aged Mahogany and Fired Brick with a blending tool.

Next I stamped the leaves from PaperArtsy EDY12 

and the trellis from Jofy 12 in Fired Brick and whilst wet 

lightly brushed over some Cosmic Shimmer Mica Powder in Antique Red.

Once trimmed to size the centre was then die cut 

with a Spellbinders die and embossed.

The top was stamped with ‘How Does Your Garden Grow’ 

from ELB03 and heat embossed using gold embossing powder.

The bottom section was then stamped with the flowers from Jofy 12

 in versaMark ink and heat embossed using clear embossing powder.

Next I made the centre piece for the aperture, 

for this I used some Core’dinations sand it, tear it in dark burgundy

 and lightly sanded before stamping with a text stamp 

in Brilliance Crimson Copper ink and also 

brushing with the mica powder.

The honeycomb was cut from gold card 

using a Tim Holtz Thinlits die.

The lace was coloured with Distress Stain in Antique Bronze 

and attached to the back of the aperture with double sided tape, 

adding the pleats in as it was secured.

The flower came from a Tando Grab Bag

This was coloured with the Antique Bronze Distress Stain 

and the texture on the petals came from liberally applying

 Distress Stain through the sponge top.

The centre was decorated by applying Grunge Paste 

through the stencil, then when dry 

adding some Treasure Gold in Ruby.

The edges of the petals were hi-lighted with Aged Mahogany ink

The swirl was cut from some darker gold card 

using a Crafty Individuals die.

This was then cut into 2 and stuck behind

 the aperture to secure

The dragonfly brad was coloured with Renaissance Treasure Gold.

Materials Used

PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk Acrylic Paints

Distress Inks

Distress Stains

PaperArtsy Rubber Stamps

Cosmic Shimmers Mica Powder

Treasure Gold

VersaMark Ink

Tando Creative Grab Bag

Tim Holtz Thinlits Die

Grunge Paste

PaperArtsy Stencil

Decorative Brad

A lovely card with lots of texture

and techniques

Thank you Jane

Well I'm off to make some cards

see you all again tomorrow

Mickie xx